Weird

Most babies like to have their bottle before they go to sleep, but Kenna has to have her bottle to go to bed. And I’m not talking about a nice warm bottle of whole milk. I’m talking about an emptied out bottle of baby oil with the labels peeled off that she has become obsessed with. She carries it everywhere and calls it her “baba.” I tried to put her down for a nap and took it away from her. At first she didn’t seem to care but once she realized it was gone she sat in her crib and screamed, not cried (there were not tears), screamed until I finally went in and gave it back to her. Then she went right to sleep. Weird.

Chairs and Dancing

On one of Nancy’s visits, she bought some princess chairs and tables to go in the tree house in our backyard. We forgot about them until yesterday when we realized that Kenna, who sits on pillows to read books to herself because she doesn’t have a chair, would love to have one in our house. We cleaned it off and brought it in and she did in fact LOVE it. She kept getting books to read in it and then she’d pull it over so she could sit by where we were sitting. It was SOOO cute! The only problem was that it kept tipping over on her. So, we either need to find a solution to the tipping or a different chair.

Kenna still loves to dance, too. She has all these toys that make noise which works out well for her because she pushes the button to get the music going then spins in circles until she falls over. Then she starts all over again.

Did they go to the zoo?...Suposably

On Thursday Nate was nice enough to take the day off to go with us to the zoo. The weather was also comparatively nice, as the temperature was below 100 and it wasn’t stiflingly humid. That being said it was still hot but the trip was defiantly worth it. Kenna loves every minute of it and was so excited to see real monkeys for the first time in her life. She spent an hour at the zoo with her mouth wide open and pointing to everything going, “Oooh! Ooooh!” After that she got a little tired and wanted to sit in the stroller.

Her favorite thing there was definitely the monkeys. There were on these little islands surrounded by water so we couldn’t get too close, but she spent a long time staring and pointing and yelling. The monkeys would get excited and go “ah ah ah ah” and Kenna would get excited and go “ah ah ah ah.” It was pretty cute.

This picture I happened to snap the first time the monkeys talked back to her. She thought it was awesome!

The zoo also had a myriad of giraffes and a bridge you could walk over to feed them. We had a cup of giraffe food and they weren’t shy at all about being fed. Kenna was a little freaked out by them. We were holding her and feeding them, trying to get her to touch them. She kept getting close with her finger, but then would turn her head and burry it in one of our shoulders. She couldn’t decide whether she liked them or not. Eventually she started telling us, “All done! All done!” Also, in case anyone was wonder, giraffes smell like cows.

This guy was not shy at all. He kept putting his tongue (which was like a foot long) right into the cup and he wouldn't go away. Half a bottle of hand sanitizer later and my hand still stunk.

There were other barnyard-type animals to feed and they were smaller and much less scary, so she liked them better, although she still didn't want to touch them. We even taught her what a donkey says, “ee ah.” She still didn’t want to get too close, but she thought they were cool.

There was also this caged in parakeet exhibit which gave me flash backs to when we first got married. She really liked the birds, but freaked out when they flew too close to her. She would close her eyes and flap her arms. It was really funny.

We were all exhausted by the time we left, but it was so much fun. I love taking Kenna to see things for the first time. It makes me happy to see how excited she gets when she tries something new.

If you like it then....

Ode to Kenzie

I don't know that a blog is the most appropriate forum for a post like this, but it is going to go here anyway. My wife is the bomb.com. Kenna the Kiddo has been sick starting last night and only slept for about 5 or 6 hours. The rest of the time was spent whining and jumping around on our bed. The alarm clock seemed to go off very early this morning for me and the baby woke up with it. I cannot really express what a relief it is to be able to go to work (I just realized how funny it would be if I ended the sentence right there) and know that my baby girl is taken care of by the best mom in the world (sorry Nancy and Dawnene). I would not be able to focus on work or anything if I had Kenna in daycare or anything like that. Kenzie takes great care of her and does things that I am just not good at. I might be able to twirl her around and play with her more than Kenzie does, but Kenzie reads with her, plays little people with her, and teaches her animal noises that I just wouldn't think of. I think Kenzie is an incredible mom and I hope that she realizes just how much I appreciate it.

Kenna will likely not appreciate it until she is at least 37, but she might appreciate it someday.

And since I don't believe in posts without pictures, here is a quick post of the two single ladies jamming out to Beyonce in my car....

Lately

Today I got Kenna up from a really long nap and her hair was out of control. I combed it down and put this really cute, new headband that she hasn't worn yet. It was so cute that I couldn't help but say "Oh, you look so pretty!" Her response was to grab my hand (I thought we were going downstairs) and lead me into my room where she could look at herself in the full length mirror. Sometimes we look in the mirror after we have finished fixing her hair and now I'm thinking I've created a monster.



Lately, Kenna has had a hard time going to bed at night. She will scream in bed for a while before we finally get her up. The other night while I was out in a desperate attempt to pacify her, Nate got out the i-pod and turned the volume down low to let her watch Enchanted. I came home to the two of them on the rocking chair, Nate, looking a little exasperated and Kenna looking perfectly content with Nate's over-sized headphones on and clutching the i-pod. Last night we let her watch it again before bed and to avoid screaming we took the head phones out and let her keep it when we put her down (so the movie was still playing without sound). I went to check on her and she was laying on her side with her back to me, holding the i-pod in both hands watching the movie. It was so adorable! She looked like a little person. I kept watching for a few minutes and she started waving and saying "Hi! Hi!" to the people on the screen. This little baby never ceases to make me smile.

On Sunday we were sitting in front of a woman using an oxygen tank at church. Kenna kept hearing the sound of the oxygen releasing and couldn't figure out what it was or where it was coming from. Finally, in response to the sounds he started making the "ffffff" sound. So every time she heard the noise for the rest of the hour (which had to have been five hundred times), she said "ffff."

She still sticks olives on her fingers

She really likes to be "up." As in on our bed. She thinks it is the coolest place to play.

Funniest....Video.....Ever

This is why Jarom and I don't get asked to babysit very often without another adult around.

Yellow is the New Pink

I think Kenzie is sick of being a single parent. If she isn’t, she should be. I left her for two whole weeks last month to go to Wisconsin for training and then I left her this past weekend to go down to the Outer Banks with the Scouts. So before I drag her blessed name through the mud, all readers need to realize that she is indeed Supermom and she has proven this past month that she doesn’t really need me at all in this marriage.

Kenzie spent the first week that I was gone to Wisconsin mudding and sanding the babies room. It is quite a project and she repeatedly says that if she waited for me to do it then she would be waiting for years. True story. I don’t know how to mud (at least that is my current excuse) so I left it for the real handyman in our relationship to take care of it. She took care of it without any problems and then she went to the store and came home with some HOT pink paint for the babies room. After a few hours of priming, painting and taping we finished the room and it was very, very pink.

Now fast forward 2 weeks. I take a little trip to the OBX with the scouts, get home at 4 on Saturday afternoon, and a fresh gallon of yellow paint is waiting for me on the kitchen floor. That’s right. Kenzie had decided that she didn’t like the pink and that she wanted to paint it yellow. So being the wonderful dude that I am, I went to work on it as soon as the kiddo was asleep and we got it taken care of that night. The room looks really good yellow and Kenzie is finally getting around to hanging up all the cool little decorations that make Kenna’s room look great. She really has quite a knack for crafty stuff and the new room looks at least 500 times better than raw drywall.

I guess I really don’t have much to complain about, even though I have to repaint something from time to time. I don’t think that there are many other wives out there that have no qualms about mudding and sanding drywall for an entire week. I consider myself lucky. Now we move on to painting the outside of the house. Hooray.

More Videos

Grandma Nancy got us a video camera so she could see Kenna while she is away on her mission. I finally had time to get a bunch of videos uploaded, so here they are.



Kenna Dancing -






Kenna Watching TV and dancing

Videos

These are from the beginning of July that I forgot to upload

Nate is Old

Nate just spent another week in Wisconsin. Alixa was also out of town, so Kenna and I were pretty bored. We survived by spending a lot of time at the children's museum. Kenna never seems to get tired of going there. But when she is there she sees no reason why she can't play with the big kids. She runs around after them and tried to do everything they do. The result is a lot of nervous parents yelling "Look out for the baby!"

During the week he was gone, I relocated Kenna to my room so that I could finish mudding and sanding the inside of her room (which has been drywall and screws since January). I figured if I left the job to Nate it would never get done.

Nate got home just in time for his birthday. Jarom, Lixi and Jenna stayed the night at our house on Thursday because a storm had knocked their power out and being without air conditioning in Richmond during the summer time is not an option. Friday morning we all had donuts and Kenna and Jenna finally got to see each other after almost a month of being apart. They were pretty excited. We all thought they might play together now that they are a little bit older, but the only game they play is follow the leader. One walks around and the other follows. It is pretty cute, though.

The rest of Nate's birthday was spend painting Kenna's room bubblegum pink. I'm still not sure about the color an am considering repainting it. Then we had Jarom and Lixi over again for some dinner a la grill. Not a very exciting way to spend your birthday, but I think Nate was just happy to spend some time with Kenna. He missed her very much while he was gone and said that she had grown since he left.
She is still growing like a weed. She is working on popping two more teeth through on the top. I feel like babies should just get all their teeth at once. That way they can just have two really miserable weeks and then be fine.

Kenna has started waving to us when we put her down for a nap. She has her binky in her mouth, her silky tucked under one arm and her singing sea horse under the other. She rubs her eyes and waves to you as you walk out of the room. It is adorable!

Also, the other day I went to get her from her nap and she was leaned against the corner of her crib with her shirt tucked under her chin poking at her belly button. It is her newest fascination. She'll be playing and suddenly remember about her belly button and check to see if it is still there.
Her other new thing to do lately happens at night when she gets really tired. She finds something to cover up her head and face (a blanket, jammies, etc) and then runs around the house tripping over things, laughing hysterically. What makes it even better is that she snorts!

Finally, we are entering the toddler phase. I recently asked her if she wanted to take a nap. She shook her head and said "No." It's really interesting how much she understands. She knows there are certain things she isn't supposed to touch, so she will go over to them, lightly touch them and shake her head and say "no, no, no." If we have to sternly tell her no, which isn't very often, she runs away from whatever she was touching while fake crying and saying "no, no, no." She is constant entertainment.