Category: Uncategorized

For all of you that won’t read the whole blog and just this part, I’ll put the important info first. PSA: if you aren’t handicapped or have a baby to change, go in a normal. freaking. bathroom. stall! I know that you won’t have as much room to play candy crush in there and all, but those of us that actually need that stall would appreciate it.

Rant over. 

Happy Eclipse Day! I don’t have a photo of it to share like the rest of the world, so I’ll share my favorite meme from today instead. 

I did look for a a second but I’m self-employed so I had to look away before any damage was done. 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

Okay, now the reason you’re all here. 

Kensie Brooke was a ham and a half all day. As I was getting ready to leave this morning it was rather quiet and I heard a clicking noise coming from the playroom. I caught K hard at work on a jail break. 

​

​
We finally made it over to see Kensie’s chiro this morning after having to reschedule 3 times. 🤦🏼‍♀️

She was pretty pumped to see Dr. Christina! She showed her all her new tricks and gave her an applause with a “yay” when she was all done. 

We stopped by the Hospital on the way home to hang out with Baby Henley and bring the new mom and dad some much needed coffee! 

She had a blast playing with Uncle Will and talking non-stop to everyone that walked in the room.

We made a pit stop at the grocery store since we were slackers this weekend and didn’t quite make it there. I think it’s Kensie’s favorite place because she can talk to everyone that walks by. 🙄 

KB had lunch a little late today but she crushed some turkey!!! She was shoving it in by the fistful. 

Since we were on the go a lot today K took her naps in her car and her afternoon nap was much earlier than usual. When we got home from the gym KB was OUT. 

I made her wake up once we got inside so she’d go to bed on time and then was trying to be nice and share my post workout snack with her but she got a little greedy. I didn’t even know she liked bananas. 

​

​
When I got Kensie out of her bath tonight and we looked in the mirror she looked like such a little girl in her towel that I literally did a double take. I think she grew up more overnight. Where did my baby go?! 

What a weekend! There were lots of highlights but the best of them all is that  HENLEY IS HERE!!!!

We were so excited to meet the newest addition to the tribe and Kensie’s future BFF! K seemed to be pretty excited to meet her, too!

Or she was just excited to see her Uncle Will and Aunt Ashley…but we will pretend like she knew who Henley was. She did say something that sounded like her name when we told her to say “Bye Henley”! 

 

Okay, on to the rest of our weekend I suppose. If I haven’t already just with Henley photos, this post will definitely set the record for “most photos”. 

Saturday morning was our gym’s 3 year anniversary party!!! K had a special CFEO sparkly Baby Goat shirt to rock in celebration. Here’s a real life evolution of the attempt to get her to take a photo with me in it…

 

K, being the natural party animal she is, was a trooper as usual! I took her down the waterslide in hopes she’d love it. “Indifferent” is probably the most accurate way to describe her reaction; but, she didn’t cry and it was 2 hours past nap time so safe to say she didn’t hate it. 

​

​
K fell asleep in my arms for her nap for the first time in a long time! Miss FOMO finally lost the battle. 

Saturday evening we went to a fun dinner at Kobe’s with a group of friends to celebrate before one of our awesome coaches and her husband move away. 😢 Kensie threw her zuchinni on the ground instead of eating it, but she did have some tuna and loved it! She had a blast!

After dinner we all headed to the bar. It was still early so we were those people. With a baby. At a bar. 

She loved playing Connect 4…and by playing I mean shaking the tray and throwing the chips everywhere. 

K also enjoyed teething on a beer bottle. 🤦🏼‍♀️😂​

​Still waiting on the Parents of the Year trophy to be delivered. 

Sunday we headed out to Lakeridge Winery for their Annual Grape Stomping Festival! 

Of COURSE we had to make the babes special outfits for the event. 

After the winery we headed to grab food somewhere that the guys could watch the Steelers game. I promise we don’t always bring Kensie to bars. There just happened to be a bar at the restaurant…🤷🏼‍♀️😂

We opened Kensie a savings account right after she was born. Today she finally picked up a tab. About time. 

​

​

Phew! I’m exhausted from recapping all of that! This weekend was extra fun because Chris has been super busy with long hours at work, and this weekend he got to spend all of his time with us! 

We’re going a little out of order and posting her 10 month update and then her weekend recap because it’s way too much to fit into one! I know I probably say this every month but where does the time go and please slow down!! Ahhh I love this little 10 month old booger. This has been such fun month of new things!! 

KB can speed crawl (it’s a thing), stand on her own, give high fives and wave hi and bye! She likes to climb up anything and everything (including the person holding her) and is starting to gain some depth perception thankfully. 

All her moving around made for some interesting 10 month photos…

Kensie’s got the belly laugh down and if you give her a blanket she’s going to play peek-a-boo with it. She is SUCH a happy babe and does an adorable little shoulder bounce when she laughs really hard and it melts my heart. 

She’s tried lots of food including tuna and as long as it’s what mom and dad are eating, she wants it! K has a special talent of storing food in her chipmunk cheeks and once you think she’s done she’ll start chewing again. 🤦🏼‍♀️ She still loves mama’s milk and shows no signs of wanting to wean herself anytime soon.
Kensie is definitely in the “mimic” stage and will move her hand back in forth on her lips to make funny sounds. She says hi, bye, yay, Dada, Ama and Babababaaaa.  KB sticks her tongue in and out like a lizard and loves when it makes people laugh. 

She’s got her 2 bottom teeth and gives the sweetest kisses that involve grabbing the sides of your face to plant one on. She does a super sweet eyelash bat when she gets kisses and and leans back when she wants one while I’m holding her. 

We’ve gotten a lot of “she looks like a little girl now!” comments and while I agree; I’m still in denial. 

Her favorite book this month is Chika chika boom boom and she likes to have me read it about 12 times a day. 

Kensie LOVES to crawl (as you can see), throw things, yell/talk nonstop, grab other babies, take baths, splash in any and all water and get any attention in general. She’s a momma’s girl when she’s tired or hungry but other than that she’s full on party mode. 

Part time daycare plans are being pushed until AT LEAST January because 2 more months is way too soon I am a stage 5 clinger. At least we know where Kensie gets it from. 

We are officially in party planning mode for Kensie’s first birthday and I’m not even ashamed of the over-the-top ridiculousness that it will be. 💁🏼 Happy 10 months, baby girl!!!

Kensie wins today. I am all mommed out. She’s officially earned it, Captain of Team No Sleep. Holy smokes I don’t know how that kid does it. I could have gone for 4 naps today and she took ONE that was barely an hour. Maybe that’s why I needed 4. That’s what I get for hoping for a sleep in on last nights post! She was up by 6:30a ready to roll. 

Despite the lack of sleep, she was actually pretty good and happy most of the day…as long as I was within 2 feet from her at all times. 🤦🏼‍♀️

We had to get errands done for our gym’s 3 year party tomorrow and K toughed it out. She finally fell asleep for the first time on the way to the gym this afternoon and took about an hour nap. She woke up on the wrong side of the car seat and was a fuss butt while I coached. K got in a lot of practice “fake crying” and even had some real tears. 😪

We rushed home for a bath and back up to the gym for the Barbell Club Meet! Kensie clapped for all of them and while she made many attempts at getting down to crawl around she sucked it up and let me hold her. 

Kens had been doing so great with putting herself to bed all week. Tonight was a huge fail since it was late and miss thing was way over tired. 😣 

I’d love to think after a day like today she will sleep through the night but I know better than to get my hopes up like that! 😂 

I say all the time that we have the best friends and usually it’s about how much they love and help with K…but they’re pretty freaking great to us, too.  As I was running around exhausted and annoyed today because nothing was going right, I got this sweet gift and message from Emily and it was just what I needed! 

Not sure that I actually keep my shit together most of the time but I’m glad someone thinks I do! 😂 Thanks for making my day, Em! Me and K love you! 

Other than a 5:30am wake up, today was a good day in the life of KB! (Well, I guess I was the only one not a fan of the early wake up call). 

Kens got to hang with 2 of her friends today and I think she had her first stroke of jealousy. 

This is Mr. Levi Lacich!! I wasn’t allowed to just hold Levi. When K woke up from her nap she was not impressed that I was holding another baby. When I let her down to crawl she stopped, looked up at me, and fake cried until I picked her back up. 

She warmed up to him after a few minutes and then wouldn’t leave him alone. 

We had a special girls lunch today with Aunt Ashley before Henley makes her debut any day now! Kensie ate the turkey off my sandwich which made me one happy mama. She looked like such a “big girl” at lunch but she’s so much fun at this stage! (Especially when she makes my life easy and actually eats ;))

We stopped by Doug and Ashley’s on the way home tonight to see the new parents and meet the newest addition to the tribe!

Baby Addison is beautiful and we’re so excited to watch her grow! K was a great shopping buddy as always as I ran errands today and helped pick out a gift for Addison. 

Seeing a 4 day old and 3 month old today made me miss how much K used to sleep. We’ve got a big weekend ahead so I’m hoping she listened when I told her she’s not allowed to wake up before 8am tomorrow. 😝

So for today’s post I figured I’d change it up a bit. I have a friend that just took her baby home from the hospital the other week and 2 that took theirs home today! It got me thinking back to when we took Kensie home and how differently you view visiting a new mom when you’re a mom yourself. 

With all the pregnant ladies at the gym and friends I have expecting – I thought I’d do you all a favor and make a “DOs and DONTs” (in my opinion, anyway) of visiting a mom that just brought home a new baby. Especially a first time mom…

 1. For the love of God, BE ON TIME. Nothing gave me more anxiety than someone “running late”. We are exhausted and stressed enough trying to make sure the baby is fed often enough for our milk to come in. When a mom is breastfeeding, I PROMISE she plans for visitors around a feeding schedule. The first few weeks of that babies life all we do is stare at a clock. If you say you’ll be there at a certain time – BE THERE. 

2. Ask what time works – and if they want you to knock, text or just walk in. Back to point #1; we go through a lot of damn effort to be ready for you, so be on time. 

3. Wash your hands as soon as you walk in. It’s just the courteous thing to do. 

4. Don’t ask to hold the baby. We want to hold our baby too. Unless we offer for you to hold them, don’t ask. We know why you’re there. We know you want to hold the baby (well, most of you). But, maybe we JUST got the baby to sleep and moving them will wake them. Maybe you’re the 3rd person in a row to visit and we haven’t gotten much time to hold our own baby. Or maybe it’s just been a long day and we want those cuddles. If we are okay giving up some holding time, we will offer it. 

5. If you plan to bring food, either eat with us or drop it off and go. Nothing like starving at 7p, someone showing up with dinner, then talking to you for 60-90 minutes before you’re able to get up and go eat it. 

6. If the mom hints that the baby is hungry, that’s your cue to leave or at the very least, offer privacy. 

7. If the baby starts crying while you’re holding them, don’t say “oh, it’s fine” and continue holding them when we come in for the save. We don’t care if you’re fine. While we know the baby is probably fine as well, our hormones are whack and all we are wired to do is grab that sweet baby when it cries. So please, let us! 

8. Note your time. Sometimes we want to chat, sometimes we want to sleep. If there’s anything that makes you think it might be a great window for us to sleep, say hi, bye, and come back another time. 

9. Don’t bring your kids – or if you have to, ask first. And be ready for a potential “no” and don’t take offense. We’re new at this. We’re over protective. Kids are walking germ blobs. It’s just one more thing for us to worry about! 

Seeing as it was almost 10 months ago for me, that’s all I’ve got from memory. I did write 2 more but I deleted them because I realized only someone as OCD as me would actually think about it. 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

On to K…

I’m sure none of you knew because I haven’t talked about it at all or anything 😝, but MY LITTLE FLOATER GRADUATED FROM SWIM SPROUTS TODAY!!!

Kensie floated better than ever in her PJs! She did fall ins, floating and floating with a current and “rougher” water!

Swim didn’t wear her out quite enough today because little miss would NOT SIT STILL! I managed to get a half decent photo with the help of another mom distracting her, but don’t be fooled. 

We ran some errands so K went down for a later afternoon nap which was interrupted by going to the gym. Today,  that was a great thing. 

The short nap meant Kens was extra tired at bedtime. I got her down 20 minutes early and daddy was home…so I went and got my nails done BABY FREE!!! Yewww!!! (You know you’re officially a mom when that excites the hell out of you…)

HOW ARE WE ON DAY 300?! 

Kensie celebrated the milestone by fighting both of her naps today. 🙄 I’m working on getting her back to the 2-3-4 nap schedule she was doing so well on before our lives got crazy these last few weeks. Yesterday was solid. Today? Not so much. She has been going to bed all on her own the last few nights though so I’ll chalk that up to a win! 

Only 1 more day of more floating videos of K! 😝 She did amazing on test day 2 in her “summer clothes”. At the end she had to pull the shirt off her face and she did it immediately!

​

​

I’m so proud of this little girl and so thankful for Mrs. Heidi. A lot of you guys have commented about it worrying me or making me anxious. Honestly? It doesn’t. Sure there have been a few moments where my momma instinct would be to grab her, but that’s why I’m not the instructor. Lol 

Heidi has been doing this for YEARS and I trust her with Kensie completely. It’s actually a very comforting thing to me. We have a pool less than 6 feet from our back door. Knowing that if an accident happened (God forbid) that KB could at least hold her own for a couple minutes until someone grabbed her makes me feel a million times better! 

There’s a little girl that swims before Kensie named Charlee. She’s 3 (I believe) and she LOVES Kens. Her mom said she asks about her all the time, talks about how much she “just loves her” and calls her “my baby”. 😂 She also drew this picture of her…bow and all! 

Since Kens pushed her afternoon nap off for an entire hour before giving in, I had to wake her up to take her to the gym. Luckily she fell right back asleep once we got in the car and I was able to (almost) finish my workout before she woke up!

Her favorite afternoon activity is speed crawling around the gym and I swear no matter where she starts, she finds her way to the ONE spot with cables. 

Well I didn’t bring Kensie’s dinner to the bathtub tonight, but apparently nothing within reach is safe anymore. 

Lesson learned. 🤦🏼‍♀️

At least for today…we have an EATER! Kensie ate food for all 3 meals today and skipped 2 of her normal “milk” feeds! AH! There’s hope yet! 

To be clear, I don’t plan to wean K off breastfeeding until after she’s 1, but I was starting to think this girl would never replace her milk with real food! 

We kicked the morning off with oatmeal for breakfast and after less than half of it, Kensie signed  “all done” and started shoving it away. I had some zuchinni in a pouch that was about to go bad so I figured I’d give it a shot. She chowed 3oz of it under 2 minutes! BOOM!!

Lunch was a little unintentional. We went to brunch after church and the seating arrangement was less than ideal; so, K was in my lap the whole time. She decided she’d like to eat my breakfast. I was more than okay with that! She ate some eggs and grits. Homegirl apparently LOVES grits. Kens found the eggs were more fun to play with than eat. 🤦🏼‍♀️ 

This afternoon K got a special package at the door! 

How fitting that it’s a donut while today’s entire post is apparently about nothing but eating. 

Kensie LOVES it. I can see why it won an award! She chomped on this baby (almost) the entire time we were at the grocery store!

​

​
K took some breaks to talk to people aka squeal, and we discovered a new game. Apparently “shhh” is serious belly laugh material for KB. 

​

​
During her bath tonight Kensie used the side of the tub to stand up as usual. But then she let go, squatted, and stood back up without help! I have a feeling K’s walking will be similar to her crawling where she doesn’t do it at all and then takes 10 steps her first try. This little diva seems to do things 110% or not at all. Commitment is a great quality you seem to have, KB! 

This weekend has gone by all too quickly.  It’s Kensie’s test out week for swim and last week as a 9 month old! Time. Slow. Down!!! 

K had an eventful day and I had a moms ideal Saturday morning…a blowout before 9am! 

Since Kens is Captain Wiggle Worm lately, I think her diaper mayyyy have been a little off to the side on this one. Hahaha! I was at the gym and one of the girls came over with “the news”. She damaged the blanket but somehow avoided her outfit. Nothing a little washing machine can’t fix! (The blanket. Not the baby.)

Kensie was a great assistant coach this morning and shook the bell as she cheered everyone on. 

Daddy had to work today so we had the ultimate girls day complete with a baby shower and birthday party! 

First stop was a baby shower for our sweet friend Robin and Baby Charlotte aka Charlie! 

Considering Kensie never napped, she did exceptionally well! 

K finally got a nap in on the car ride from the baby shower to Harper’s first birthday party. 

Good thing she rested up because once we got there it was full on party mode for KB!!

​​

I had to multitask and give Kensie lunch as I got ready for the day. I brought her chair into the room and looked over to find this madness. 

I thought that didn’t start until they were like…5?! 

Anyways, while we are on the topic of eating…KENSIE ATE ALL 4oz OF HER DINNER!!!! Pineapple+banana+navy bean+yellow bell pepper+pats FOR THE WIN!!! She must have worked up a serious appetitite today. Let’s hope she was worn out enough for a long stretch of sleep tonight because this mama is exhausted!