10 month old baby

I am such a slacker!

I really can't believe I haven't written a post in about 6 months!  Yowza

Well, I will try to squish a whole bunch in here without being too much of a bore to you...

Since my last post (ages ago), Kensington has been growing like a weed.  At her 9 month check up she was 28 inches long (somewhere around 92% percentile) and weighing in at 19lbs 9ozs.

Staring back at pictures of her when she was younger, I can't believe it, but it seems she has lost some of that cute chubbiness in her cheeks and body...and I have always thought she was such a skinny lil thing with big ole chubby cheeks ;)

She has been crawling around like crazy.  

 We even say she puts on her "after burner" when she puts her head down and attempts to go at lightening speed to her destination.

She is a little hard to keep up with at times, so the whole thought that she may be walking before too long is really scary!

She pulls herself up regularly and will teeter around furniture or anything she can grab onto for support to walk-with-help around.

Her walker is interesting, to say the least, in that she doesn't balance out the whole "go forward slowly and balanced" thing and tends to over do it going forward and races along or leans back and ends up back on her tush.

She even lets go and stands on her own for a bit

This one is the scary part

I know she is feeling out her independence and gaining confidence in herself to stand and soon enough walk

She speaks a few things:

Dada

Mama

Shoe

Cracker

Duck/Dog? (we have a dog, but at daycare they swear she says Duck)

and my fav...Uh-Oh!

She eats solid foods like a champ and it's been kinda nice preparing dinner for a family of 3 instead of something special for her along with dinner for 2

The thing that makes my hear soar is that she really loves my homemade applesauce :)

and my famous grilled cheese sandwiches!

She is such a sweetie and I honestly can't believe how much time has flown by...mostly been preoccupied with her at nights and on weekends with little time to spare for the blogging world...I mean I am lucky enough to get the house cleaned!

She had a wonderful 1st Thanksgiving and Christmas and slept through the New Year celebrations.

I can't believe in 2 short months our little baby girl with be 1 year old!

So in the meantime, here are a few pictures to update on how she has changed!

Family Beach Vacation 

Sitting with her monkey

At a wedding with her daddy

The beginning of crawling

Super Smiley

Happy girl headed to daycare

Pretty girl owl hat

Strolling girl cuteness

Ready to crawl and take over the world

9 month old sweetheart

pizza face!

Looking at books

Doggie smooches

Smiley girl

Pulling up on everything

Christmas outfit

And at 10 months today, she is ready to cheer on her Redskins with friends!

Through the eyes of a 3 1/2 month old

Sometimes I wish I could be a little baby again, 

everything is SO new and fresh

You have adoring parents to take care of you

and grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc to spoil you.

The smallest thing that you do is considered the cutest thing EVER

from a smile,

a laugh, 

a giggle,

holding a toy close,

cooing,

rolling around on the ground or in your crib,

playing with anything...including your hands and feet.

This morning as I peeked in Kensington's room, she had somehow managed to squirm her way to laying in her bed perpendicular to how we had put her in there for bed...

look out, she's slowly on the move now!

The other day at daycare, she was placed on the mat on the floor with the other infants and allowed to play, and apparently bottom scooted over to the carpet...

she most likely got this from me, since I never could sit still as a child!

She seems to grow up so fast right before my eyes and I can hardly believe she is 3 1/2 months old...15 weeks officially tomorrow!  She has gotten cuter by the second and is the MOST curious baby I have ever encountered...if she is not able to see her surroundings and look at everything, she gets cranky...she's just taking it all in, and loving it!  She most always has a smile on her face (a big grin like her daddy) and can be heard throughout the house now that she has found her voice...

my personal favorites might be her high pitched squeal that we hear on the monitor as she is amusing herself in her crib in the early morning hours.

Kensington came home from daycare Friday with a card for her daddy, his first Father's Day :)  He loved it and we spent most of the weekend playing with her and spoiling her a bit ourselves...we bought her an activity center that has wheels so she can stroll around and it also turns into a walk behind apparatus, so she can learn to walk...but for now she sits in there and stares at the lights and owls on there and tries to smack the buttons...cute ;)

Here are more updated pictures since the Mother's day stuff (I can't believe I posted almost a month ago!)

Oh how I love my sweet baby girl!

Mini-skirt giggles

Bath time cuteness

Precious Kensie

Love her!

Teddy Bear CHEEKS!

Wee lil girl!

Hungry lady!

Preoccupied!

Man, I have really meant to keep up with this blog, but I have been a little preoccupied with one really cute baby girl of mine :)

I can't believe she will be 11 weeks old this coming Tuesday...time has FLOWN by so quickly.

She has changed so much from birth that I can't even believe it...

• she now smiles AT me, not just because she has pooped and feels better
• she recognizes mommy and daddy
• she is probably 13 pounds by now (her last check up had her at 12lbs 11oz)
• she has rolled from her tummy to her back (at daycare and at home)
• she's in big girl size 2 diapers while at daycare, but cloth diapers still at home
• she slept for over 8 hours last night (so mommy and daddy actually got some legit sleep too)
• she is grasping at my hands and any toys in front of her
• she is cooing
• she cooed a lot (like multiple coos one after another) for the first time on Mother's day (super special 1st mommy's day for me!)
• she's not screaming her head off anymore for hours on end
• mommy and daddy can actually tell what her cries mean now (I'm wet, hungry, tired, etc.)

I feel like she is growing more every day and changing right before my eyes...my parents saw her the past two weekends in a row and already thought she had changed so much in 1 week...I think they're right!

Here are some photos of my little love bug, Kensington

5 weeks passed SO fast!

Sometimes I have NO idea where the time goes...

For instance, I now have a 5 week old child...seriously!

The past 5 weeks seem a blur of days/nights, 

company coming to visit, 

attempts at getting out of the house with a crying baby,

TRYING to get anything done around the house

and naps here and there

Not to mention a bajillion pictures and videos of my sweet baby girl Kensington!

In the near future I hope to document some of this better for her to see later on in life, but for now, here are some cute photos to pass the time :)

3 weeks old

couldn't resist buying her sweet bows

Visit by Auntie M and cousin Lillie

Love!

Glamour shot

Lifting that lil noggin

Let me introduce our bundle of joy...

First off, sorry for taking so long to post about the birth of my sweet baby girl!

Kensington Capri with Mommy (pardon my exhausted look) and Daddy

I have been a little preoccupied with loving on her non-stop!

Our sweet girl, Kensington Capri, was born on March 6th, 2012 at 2:04pm.  She weighed in at 9 lbs 10.1 ozs and was 21.5" long.  She couldn't have been any more perfect from the start!

As far as my labor story goes, I was induced Monday March 5th in the evening since my doctor suspected a large baby (and boy was she right!)

I was put on pitocin to get things going around 7:30 am March 6th and progressed through labor until having her in the early afternoon hours.  I feel very fortunate that I was not in active labor for very long or pushing for very long either.  I did my best at sticking to my birth plan and received a half dose of meds in order to relax me a bit, but nothing else.  I wanted to use the tools I was taught in my Lamaze class in order to give birth, and I think the process was amazing.  Naturally, I would not have been able to get through it all without the amazing help and support of my loving husband as well as my nurse and doctor.

Now that baby girl is almost 2 weeks old (tomorrow!!), we are finally getting into more of a schedule and I swear she was on a 4 hour feeding schedule last night compared to a 3 hour schedule the night before...she amazes her momma every day in some way!

enough of the talking, let me show you why I have not been posting/reading any blogs for a while!

Daddy and baby girl

Sweet hair bow!

Mommy and baby girl

Swaddled in zebra stripes

Auntie M and baby girl

Adorableness!

Super sleepy

Smiling angel

Bright eyed girl

No Leap Day baby here

So I seriously was convinced that I was going to have my little girl on Leap Day yesterday.  Ever since I found out that 2012 was a leap year and that I was due with her March 6th...it just seemed that she would be destined to truly celebrate her birthday once every 4 years (on the actual day)...not saying there would be no birthday celebration, cuz I don't roll that way, no sir!

But, alas, she did not come yesterday.

I think she was being stubborn and just KNEW that her real birthday would only happen once every 4 years, and she was NOT about to have that.  I mean, I thought for SURE she was coming to meet us yesterday.

I woke at 2 am and started timing contractions

Naturally, these were sporadic and lasting different amounts of time and weren't the "true labor contractions"...but I was having them nonetheless...and they continued to go on from 2 am til almost 10 am, without really stopping...which in my head meant something was destined to happen yesterday and that oh.my.goodness. we are about to finally meet our sweet girl

But, she is stubborn...

We have been trying our best to "help her along the way..." with spicy food at every meal since Tuesday night (except for breakfasts...) and we took a REALLY looooooong walk today since it almost got to 80 degrees outside.  But, she remains in there for now, milking the whole cuddly/cozy effect being inside my belly has on her.  

I guess I can't blame her...

Apparently my poor mother carried me an extra week past her due date (I apparently did not want to be born on Halloween!) 

So, we shall continue to play the waiting game with this girl...but she better know that come Monday evening when mommy starts to be induced, she better start making her way into this world, cuz I don't think I am going to wanna wait much past then!

In other news, miraculously the swelling that has been plaguing my poor feet has completely disappeared...not sure why or how this happened, but mommy is VERY thankful!

7 days to go (or less!)...39 weeks!

Pics taken at 39 weeks

1. How far along? 39 wks
2. Maternity clothes? maternity clothing
3. Stretch marks? none :)
4. Sleep? making waking appearances at sometimes 3:30 and 5ish
5. Best moment last week? getting out to the movies with hubby and a good friend...really enjoyed myself
6. Movement?yesterday she was going nuts and thrashing around...I thought she wasn't supposed to have anymore room!
7. Symptoms? linea negra,swelling in ankles although not as bad this week, Braxton Hicks contractions
8. Gender? Baby girl...Kensington!!
9. Labor signs? other than my Braxton Hicks...no real labor signs
10. Belly button in/out? outtie!
11. What I miss? 
12. Looking forward to? being able to hold Kensington in my arms...by this time next week, she should be here since we are scheduled to go into the hospital the night of March 5th...so in 1 week, she should be making her appearance :)
13. What's going on with Baby A? (from www.thebump.com)

Are we there yet? You’re probably feeling like you want to get this baby the heck out of you. We’re not sure, but the impatience and discomfort many moms feel around 39 weeks (and beyond!) might be nature’s way of getting you mentally prepared for delivery. Remember how freaked out you used to be about it? Now, at week 39 you probably don’t care what you have to do, you just don’t want to be pregnant anymore!

Your baby's the size of a wintermelon!

Baby keeps growing, despite being so crowded in there. He probably weighs around 6.2 to 9.2 pounds and measures about 18.9 to 20.9 inches.

your baby at 39 weeks

• He's probably able to flex his limbs now.
• His brain is still rapidly developing -- he's getting smarter by the week!
• His nails may extend past his fingertips.