Happy 8 Months Kiera!

Yesterday, Kiera hit the 8-month mark. She continues to learn new things, so let's take a look at this past month's achievements.
Learning to read upside down (apparently reading right side up is too easy for her)























Blowing bubbles out of her nose...even I can't do that!


















Doing laundry...I agree, Kiera, it's not fun (this is what happens when Jared says he's going to do his laundry)


















Pulling the kitty's fur out Petting Spongebob is fun!























Kiera is such a sweetheart. (sigh) I love being a mom! :)

Kiera Talks With Aunty NeeNee

I'm not quite sure what they were talking about, but Kiera totally cracks me up! If anyone has any insights or interpretation, please let me know. :)

Life Update

On Saturday, I agreed to baby-sit for a little girl who's 2 months older than Kiera. I am regretting that now only because she came with a cold and now me, Jared, and Kiera, who has been the picture of perfect health since the day she was born, all have colds. I am by far the worst and Kiera's nose is just a bit runny. I just had a cold about a month ago, so this is discouraging, but I am trusting God that He is my healer. I'm a total fighter when it comes to colds: I'm popping 3 vitamin C every 3 hours and praying up a storm. Kiera is her usual happy self today which is totally the grace of God. I was up at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 6 a.m., 8 a.m., and finally up for the day at 9:15 (2, 6, and 9:15 were Kiera's feedings; the others were due to my cold), so I don't have an overabundance of energy today. So, this little girl we babysat is crawling and pulling herself up to stand, which I am NOT used to. I was changing her diaper and she flipped over and started crawling away! I was like, "Where in the world do you think you're going?" I got a glimpse of things to come and I see that I'm going to be MUCH busier once Kiera is mobile.

Yesterday, we threw my sister a surprise lingerie shower, which was fun. Once again, she had no clue it was coming, so that was great. She said she hated us all after we yelled, "Surprise!" when she walked in the door, but I kind of don't think she meant it, especially after seeing the pretty things she got. She tried them on over her clothes, which was much less revealing than when I had my lingerie shower...they made me try them on over my underwear. Good thing I don't have any issues with my body! Kiera really enjoyed the balloons.


















Thankfully she didn't pop any of them. I found out on Saturday that she's not scared of the vacuum cleaner anymore (she used to cry every time I turned it on), so I was like, "Shoot! Now I don't have an excuse not to vacuum any more." You're probably all thinking my house is a disgusting pig sty or something, but almost our whole main floor is laminate and I sweep it almost every day. The upstairs was a bit more neglected since we pretty much only use one room out of 2, but I did vacuum it from time to time. I gotta go blow my nose and wipe Kiera's now, so I ask that you would pray for our healing. Thanks!

LOVE That Smile!

Happy


















Happier


















Happiest

Play Date

A couple of weeks ago, I went with Kiera to visit a friend. She has a 2-year-old daughter and her son is 5 1/2 months old, so 2 months younger than Kiera. Here's how the play date went:

Kiera put her arm around him...I told her I was going to have to teach her that boys are supposed to make the first move


















She's pooping and he's thinking, "Oh, what's that smell?"


















He's falling for her, but just got a whiff of her diaper and now she's trying to play innocent



















Diaper changing time: He is being a "homie g" and Kiera is doing the "loser" sign, even though she secretly thinks he's pretty cool




















He thinks she's pretty cute but now she's playing hard to get by pretending she doesn't notice him...that's right, Kiera, you let him pursue you

A Happy Father's Day

On Saturday, I went to a store and bought Jared some drill bits that he wanted for Father's Day. I walked to the tool section, which may as well have been a foreign country, and found someone to help me find them since I didn't know what drill bits looked like or which aisle they would be in. I also bought him a nice card which was MUCH easier to find! Yesterday, we went to my parents' for lunch and had pizza and then went to Jared's stepmom's parents' place for a bbq. It was a fun Father's Day and I'm so thankful for the dads and husband in my life!

My Dad


















Jared's Dad


















Kiera's Dad
















Thanks for being such awesome dads! Love you all very much!!

The States

Yesterday, me, Kiera, my mom, my sister, Jared, and his friend, Nyk went to the States for the night. It was a great little getaway and I always love going there. We managed to get lost on the way there (Jared wanted to take a shortcut and that really didn't work), so what was supposed to be a 2 hour and 15 min. drive took 3 hours. While we were there, we did quite a bit of shopping and Kiera did EXTREMELY well with only one proper nap yesterday and only one on the way home today. She was quiet and happy almost the whole trip! TOTALLY an answer to prayer! She basically slept through the night, too, until 8:30 a.m. except for one short feeding during the night.

Jenene trying on the ugliest clothes she could find























I bought 2 t-shirts for $5 each and a tank top for $6...I just can't find those kinds of deals north of the border. We went to the Golden Corral for supper, which is a HUMONGOUS buffet restaurant. I had 3 plates full of food and I wasn't overly full by the end. Yes, I have a super huge appetite all the time. At the hotel, we gave Kiera things to play with to keep her entertained.

Kiera, that's not where a tampon is supposed to go...


















We stayed at a great hotel which has 3 hot tubs, a warm heated pool, a kiddie pool, nice rooms, a free continental breakfast, it's right next to the mall, and it's only $60 a night ($70 on the week-end)! I highly recommend it! Jared and I went to Target and bought Mexican Train Dominoes and Sequence, so we're going to play games together tonight! On the way home, we drove through 2 storms and it was raining so hard that it was difficult to see while driving. The rain pounding on the roof was deafening and Kiera slept through it all! We normally have a c.d. playing with a track called "Rain On The Roof" when Kiera is sleeping (we use it for white noise), so I guess she's used to that, just not nearly so loud. It was a fun little trip, but it's always nice to come home, except for the one time when we forgot to take out our garbage and we came home after 5 days and the whole house smelled like trash...oops! Have a great week-end everybody!

Hawaiian Shower

Yesterday, we had a surprise bridal shower for my sister who's getting married in 5 1/2 weeks (July 19). She is the best person in the world to surprise because she NEVER suspects a thing. It was held at my cousin's house and Jenene was told she was going over there to see the flower girl dress, since my cousin's daughter is a flower girl. So, we (my mom, Kiera, Jenene, and I) get there and my aunt, who's the seamstress and my cousin meet her at the door. We walk in and there are some pink balloons up in the living room, but Jenene thought that maybe they were up for my cousin's girls or something. We see there are some people on the deck and my aunt said to Jenene, "Come here." So, we walk out onto the deck and there are a bunch of our aunts, our grandmas, and a couple of our cousins all sitting there looking at her. Jenene said, "Oh, a family gathering!" Then she gets this strange look on her face as she realizes there's family there from both sides. I turned to her and said, "Surprise?" Her jaw dropped and she was like, "Oh my goodness!" and everyone started laughing. TOTALLY clueless 'til the last possible second...it was awesome! My aunt had a beautiful outfit for Jenene to wear during the shower


















Kiera was feeling a bit snackish


















She wanted to be a Hawaiian princess just like Aunty NeeNee and enjoyed sucking on the plastic ring which lit up


















It was lots of fun and Jenene got gift certificates for Target (that's where her and Art are registered) and some gift certificates to get her hair and nails done for her wedding! She doesn't want actual presents because she's moving to Washington and doesn't have room to take 42 suitcases full of stuff on the plane. Oh, have I mentioned I'm in a bridal party for the first time in my life, besides being a bride? I'm the matron of honor. I think "matron" makes me sound like I'm 80 years old, but that's my title because I'm married. I just learned that recently from my sister. I didn't actually know the difference between "maid of honor" and "matron of honor" because most of the weddings I've been to there was a maid of honor, not a matron. I guess all those years of reading the dictionary and encyclopedias really paid off for her! :)

Toys

I was thinking about some of my favorite toys as a kid and these were a couple of my favorites:

PJ Sparkles...I thought she was the coolest and most beautiful doll EVER! Mattel came out with this in 1988 (I feel old) and she lit up when you pressed her back. I brought her for "show and tell" in grade 1 or 2.























Skip It...I spent many hours in front of our house with this thing

















What were some of your favorite childhood toys?

Feeding and Cleaning Musings

As you saw from Saturday's post, feeding Kiera is messy. She is kind of like a pendulum: she moves her head from side to side and once in a while opens her mouth for about half a second and then I have to quickly try to shove the spoon in her mouth while she's still moving it from side to side and half the time I miss and it goes everywhere. Then she sneezes with a mouth full of food and then I too, am covered in squash or pea soup. We both need to wear bibs during her feedings! Then, she usually ends up wiping her eye with a hand covered in food...ya, it's a long and dirty process. She really doesn't like it when I wipe her hands and face clean afterwards. I obviously won't take her out of her high chair until she's clean, or she would wipe the food everywhere. She usually fusses while I'm doing that until I take her out of the chair. I think we're like that with God sometimes. We feel stuck in one place spiritually and wonder why we're not going places, but maybe God wants to remove some sin from our lives before we can move forward. Obviously we'll never be perfect, but I think at times He wants to wipe our hearts clean of the filth that accumulates before He takes us to a new place. It's not comfortable to deal with those issues and we may fuss, but we'll be so much better off afterward. That's what He spoke to me this morning during Kiera's breakfast.