making up for lost time.

When Kenley was sick and in and out of the ER, I started to wonder if she would have a setback with some of her milestones. In one week, she has proved me SOOOOOO wrong. She now has her two bottom teeth coming in, they have both broken through and you can see the bumpy top parts of each one. She has finally mastered the art of pulling herself up on anything and everything, which she is VERY proud of. She always loved to stand up but now that she can stand up when she wants to, she is very pleased. We spend a lot of time at the coffee table right now. She has also learned to clap -- it's kind of a one sided clap but it's still clapping to me!!

More time at the coffee table... but more importantly, I took this picture to document her awesome Puma jogging suit. It is so freakin' cute!

She also has become an efficient crawler. She isn't very quick yet but she can definitely get where she wants to go. Now that she is comfortable crawling, she figured out how to sit herself up from laying down.

Yesterday, we had a snowstorm in Virginia Beach. I love snow, growing up in Northern Virginia there was usually one good snow each winter. Since I have lived here (January 2006) I have never seen snow like this, most of the time they call for snow and it never happens. Not even one single flurry. It was a once-in-8-year snow storm.

We woke up on Saturday morning with a couple of inches already on the ground. I made carrot cake pancakes, which we all shared --- and then Kenley threw up (milk allergy, probably). We played, had a fire, napped, watched movies, ate soup and stayed in our pajamas all day... it was one of the best days I have had in a long time.

Kenley and her big cloth diaper tush playing with her toy baskets.

See that face? This is one of her new favorite noises to make, I think you can imagine what it sounds like.

Cute p.j.'s, KenKen.

Oh, she is now saying dadada too! This just started over the weekend and it is so cute. She loves to babble, dada, bahhh, lady Gaga. Ok, not really but there was this one time over Christmas that Aunt Lauren and I swear she said it.

Somehow, she managed to show off almost all of her new skills in this video. She wanted to play with Gibbs who had just gotten a new mallard toy. That honking toy had her very interested. The video is kinda long, sorry but I just couldn't bear to trim it at all.

someone please make me this.

Oh, I wish I had never stumbled upon this. I now feel obligated to have one.


One of the many reasons ohdeedoh and I are in love.

Hospital adventures.

Twice, last week, we had to take Kenley to the Emergency Room. It started out with a slight fever at daycare. When I went to go pick her up to take her home, she had really rosey cheeks and was sporting a wet washcloth on her head. She was still in relatively good spirits so we went home and had some tylenol and play time.

She went to bed that night, crying a bit and wanting some extra hiney pats. About 10pm she woke up and we had our first-of-the-night nursing session. I noticed she was breathing very fast and was still slightly warm. After about 10 minutes, she typically is back to sleep but I noticed her eyes were wide open and she was still breathing fast. I brought her into our bed and Andrew and I discussed what to do... I wanted to bring her to the ER but Andrew just wasn't sure yet. I thought she was wheezing so my mind was made up.

We arrived at Portsmouth ER around 11:15pm and when we went back to the initial screening the nurse scared the bahjeezus out of Andrew and me. She explained that Kenley was retracting and while babies are very strong, they can get tired very quickly from all of the effort and tire out and just stop breathing. Even though she scared us, she quickly got us a bed in the ER and had the nurses set up a nebulizer treatment. Kenley took the breathing treatment like a champ, even though she was super tired.

We also participated in some baby torture. It was the worst. Andrew, unfortunately, had to endure the brunt of it. An infant chest x-ray is terrifying, strapped into a seat with their arms pinned over their heads. I hope that no baby has to endure this. The doctor's also wanted to check her urine so Kenley had to be brave and have a catheter. She was not brave. Neither was I. I stood outside the curtain (and looked frantic I am sure) waiting for it to be over. They gave us a diagnosis of "could be swine flu" and sent us home with a Rx for tamiflu and tylenol.

We started the next day as we normally would... getting dressed, off to baby school and work. I went to see Kenley at lunch time, for our lunch date and the ladies in the room said they were going to call me because she was breathing fast again. I decided we needed to take Kenley back to the ER because her breathing was no better than it was the previous night. I got Kenley in the car, we picked Andrew up and made our way back to the ER.

This time, we did not have as much baby torture. Kenley had two breathing treatments over the course of 6 hours, the second helped more than the first.

Andrew and I were tortured by this weird Corpsman who was our attending nurse. I can't even describe how weird he was. At one point, he asked Andrew 'Do you like the way I am providing you service?' We both rolled our eyes a lot that afternoon. The pediatrician who came down to review Kenley's case was great. He knew exactly what was going on and we appreciated his knowledge. Kenley was tested for RSV as a precaution, he gave her a steroid shot and we waited around for the test results. Kenley and I were resting on the bed so Andrew decided to go get a bite to eat. While he was gone, of course, Kenley woke up. We were playing with some of the toys that we brought when Kenley started coughing, which turned into choking which of course turned into gagging and then up came a huge vomit. Awesome. Now she was sitting in her own vomit and no one was around to help me. Eventually, a nurse walked by and he helped me clean off the bed while I got Kenley back in order. At the end of this trip, we left with a diagnosis of bronchiolitis and were prescribed prednisone, an inhaler and more tylenol.

She did ok during the morning on Saturday and Sunday, helping fold the laundry and playing like usual -- it was just obvious that she was not 100% yet.

We finished our meds this morning, after a rough weekend with little sleep by all. Andrew is working nights right now so thank goodness my mom (Grammy Hawk) is here to help me.

Today, Andrew and Grammy took Kenley back to the doctor for a follow up. We had a suspicion something was not right still because she wasn't sleeping at all (like 4 hours TOTAL Saturday night) and she wasn't eating well. The doctor said that she had a double ear infection now. Looks like the ear infection from two weeks ago lingered and was not affected by the amoxicyllin she was taking. Tonight, she went down a bit easier -- she is exhausted from the weekend and is feeling a bit of relief with her z-pack antibiotics and some ear drops that are,according to Andrew, like orajel for the ears.

I really hope that she gets better soon... I hate seeing her so cranky! I need more wrinkle nosed smiles in my life.

Presenting.....

Kenley's 1st musical montage!

Ohh I want a hippopotamus for Christmas...

...only a hippopotamus will do!

I am having a hard time accepting that the holidays are over. It seems that it went by faster than any year before. Kenley and I listened to Christmas music on the radio each morning as we drove to baby school. We would light up our Christmas tree, mantel and banister each night... I was so excited to celebrate Kenley's first Christmas (even though I knew she wouldn't remember any of it.) Oh! Thanks to Erika we made Kenley's hand and foot print ornaments. They are so cute, I can't wait until next year when we pull them out and see how big she has gotten. We had a little extra of the clay so we decided to do Gibbs' paw print. Needless to say he hated every second of it. Can you see the terror in his eyes?

I think that a few of us (myself included) got a bit carried away with buying things for Kenley this year. She even got two stockings.

It was truly a Kenley Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, my parents and sister came in to town early in the morning. I was still at work and Andrew had just gotten home from his night shift and was in bed. When Kenley and I got home, we played with her new blocks and she investigated all the gifts under (more like around) the tree.

We spent the day reading books, playing with Kenley's blocks, watching movies like White Christmas, Elf and of course A Christmas Story. We woke Andrew up in the late afternoon and had our traditional german dinner, brats, potato latkes (which aren't really that german) and homemade applesauce. It was so delicious. That Wegman's, they sure do sell a good brat. Everyone then opened up one gift, we all got new slippers! Yay!

Christmas morning was very leisurely. We all woke early thanks to Kenley and enjoyed coffee while we waited for Andrew to get home from his night shift. Mom had made cinnamon rolls, we made this strata dish the night before and popped it in the oven and we had a fruit salad. It was so delicious. So much bread it put us in a food coma before we even opened any gifts.

See all those gifts behind her and the cow? Majority of them are for Kenley. I know. Overboard, indeed. But we loved every single one of them.

Howdy the bouncy cow -- so cool!

Ice skate booties!

Since Andrew was working nights over Christmas and slept during the day, Gibbs was all about my dad. He loves Dad since he always gets pieces of whatever Dad eats but he took it to a new level a couple times.

Dad and his bff Gibbs. He would not let him nap.

Gibbs wanted to check his facebook while Dad was on the computer.

Christmas night, we had braciole, homemade fettucini alfredo and salad. It was, once again, delicious. Kenley got her very first popper, which is a tradition for the Paradise family during Christmas.

Kenley did not win the contest of "who would sweat through their crown first."

Saturday, I had a great birthday-- full of shopping, Five Guys and a movie. It was a really nice holiday weekend and I was sad when Sunday came. I enjoyed Kenley's first Christmas so much, I cannot wait for next year and the years that follow, when she will understand more.

Hope everyone had great holiday season! Happy new year!