Look Who's Crawling

It turns out that our kid can actually crawl, she just has to have the proper motivation. We were sheepishly using toys and other items to try to entice her to crawl, but all she actually wanted was the remote, our phones, or the camera.....

Enjoy....

The Great Wall of Kenna

When we went looking for a house we found this one and loved the open loft feeling of the living room. Kenzie thought "Hey that is a good place for the baby." Acoustics thought otherwise. Any time that we put the bambino up in the loft any noise we made downstairs would flow right up the vaulted ceiling into her room. We had a problem. Kenzie was on the brink. The kid needed to get out of our room and somewhere else. We thought about moving the whole family downstairs so that we both had rooms on the same level, building a fold-out barrier to put around the crib, or selling our child on ebay. We bounced the idea off master carpenter Brigham Young (Kenzie's dad) and it was actually Dawnene (Kenzie's mom) who came up with the answer.

And thus began the great wall of Kenna. Had Kenzie ever framed a wall? Nope. Had Nate? Nope. Had Kenzie ever put up drywall? Nope. Had Nate? Nope. But Youtube had tons of people who looked like they knew what they were doing so we figured we could do it too. I took Friday off work and went to Home Depot to get everything I needed. I even rented the 20 dollars for an hour truck to get all the supplies home.



We Came, We Framed, We Conquered. Most everything went just fine, kind of. I was resting one of the sheets of drywall against the frame and went to grab my drill when a big gust of air (that is my story anyway) came and blew it from its resting position. I couldn't get to it in time so it fell all the way backwards, hit the railing, and then split in two and fell down into the living room. Kenzie actually didn't yell at me or anything and only said, "Maybe I should help you." Most...Patient....Wife....Ever.....

Kenna took full advantage of her parents being preoccupied and started playing with Kenzie's makeup.

We finished up and it looks ok. Certainly not bad for a first framing project. We still have to tape and mud and all that jazz, but for now Kenna has a room of her own. And she "slept" in it last night for the first time, but that is another story.

Other than the great wall of Kenna, our recent activities include hanging out with Jarom and Alixa, watching Kenna crawl backwards, watching Youtube videos of people framing walls, and working.

George Costanza and Other Pictures

Six Month Check-up

Kenna had her six month check-up on Wednesday -

weight: 16 lbs 4 oz (50 percentile)
length: 26.5 in (50 percentile)
head circumference: 42 cm (25 percentile)

The poor baby had to get 5 shots. I think she was just as upset that the nurse was in the room as she was with the shots because as soon as the nurse left she heaved a sigh and stopped crying. Also, the doctor told me that I had to let her cry herself back to sleep when she wakes up in the middle of the night. I wasn't too committed to it, but when I woke up, wide awake, at 4 am on Thursday morning (before she even woke up), I decided it was ridiculous that I should be wide awake so early. So, when she woke up I changed her diaper and put her back in her bed. She cried for about an hour and a half before she finally fell back asleep. I felt horrible, but I just kept thinking that if I'd let her cry for as long as she had I might as well let her keep going. It was tragic. In good new, she slept straight through the night last night. I'm trying not to get my hopes up and I figure she'll probably not do that again tonight, but we'll see.

She is learning to crawl although she isn't quite there yet. We'll put some videos up soon.

She loves to hold things with her feet. Maybe there is something to evolution...

The doctor said she will be getting teeth anytime now. She has toys to chew on, but prefers her finger.

Still loves her toes

She doesn't bathe, she lounges. I can't use the toddler side of the tub meant for sitting because she tries to lounge and almost drowns.

She really, really loves tags.

Stuck

Kenna is getting pretty good at scooting around. There is only one problem - no matter how hard she tries she can only seem to go in one direction...backwards. She ends up in some pretty funny places, nowhere near the toy she was aiming for.

Stuck...

Just for fun...

Cyle Adair

My roomate and friend Cyle Adair recently returned from Iraq. Kenzie and I were very glad that we could get him off our prayer list and even more glad that he got home safely. The "war" is a bit different with Brad Holland and Cyle (2 of my college roomates) serving over there and it is very interesting to hear their takes on the whole thing. I am very proud that Cyle went over and served the people over in Kirkurk Iraq. They are lucky they got him for 18 months. I feel a bit of patriotism stir within me whenever I think of his service there and I hope that he knows how much Kenzie and I appreciate his willingness to serve our country in whatever capacity the army sees fit. I am glad that you are home Cyle and I am really proud of the work you did over there. And just let the record show that even though you can shoot me with an m16, I can still whip your butt at 007 on a nintendo 64.

On Friday Cyle sent us this. It is a flag that was flown over his base on one of the days of his tour. It was very thoughtful and I really like it. It will always be in my home as a rememberence of the service that Cyle and others like him gave and give for this country.

Too Big...

This afternoon I went in to get Kenna out of the pack'n'play from her nap and found this...




We swaddle her so she will sleep, but apparently this didn't stop her from sitting up and reaching for the pacifiers at the end of her bed! I started laughing and so did she. It was pretty funny!

Happy New Year!

Indeed. We arrived back in Philadelphia on the 30th and decided to head for home that night. Kenna started getting a little cough when we were in Utah and by the time we landed in Philly it had turned into full on wheezing. The poor baby hadn't slept in a couple days and could hardly breathe. She was completely miserable. We had to stop twice on the way home. Once when we had been on the road for only about 20 minutes. I wasn't sure we were going to make it, but we did. I took her to the doctor the next morning where they told us she had bronchiolitis and a double ear infections...yikes! The sent us home with a nebulizer and some Augmentin and that is how we spent our New Year's Eve. She hasn't been too bad considering how sick she is. She gags and chokes on the Augmentin which we have to squirt down her throat and hits the nebulizer like a bong (we take the mask of and just let her suck on the tube). Pretty funny. In good news, she is on the mend.



She is also getting very close to crawling. Sometimes she puts her face in the ground and her butt in the air and tries to scoot along. It is pretty cute. She is pretty much able to get anywhere she wants between her scooting and rolling. She has also taken to grabbing things with her feet, like a little monkey. Her favorite thing is to lay on her back, and balance a toy between her feet and hands while trying to put it in her mouth. She still loves book and is able to open them and turn their pages when they're on the ground in front of her. She is so much fun! We had a great holiday with her!