Happy 10 Months Kiera!

Today my little girl is 10 months old...only 2 more months 'til her 1st birthday! Crazy! This past month, Kiera learned...

That peek-a-boo is a fun game


And how to clap

She tried some new "foods" like grass


















Crayons
















And a lemon, her personal favorite (can't you tell?)























And she now has 6 teeth (here are the 4 top ones)


















Here is her 10-month photo, with only a tiny bit of drool on her chin as she has been a snotty, drooling mess these days due to the fact that she's teething yet again!


















She seems to be learning at more rapid pace now and often smiles or laughs when you smile or laugh at her. I'm having more and more fun with her all the time! She's been sleeping 13 -14 hours a night and still usually takes two 2-hour naps every day. Most of the time, she's my "angel baby!" I love you, Kiera!

A Day of Strange Sights

Yesterday morning and this morning, I woke up to this:














In this picture there are 32 black birds in our backyard and there were more that I didn't get in the picture, so I think there were close to 50. Apparently our house is the new hot spot for black birds or maybe they were having a schnetje conference, I don't know. I probably totally spelled that wrong, but it's a low german word that I think means a gab fest or a gossip fest. Something along those lines. Maybe our yard is packed full of juicy worms, which I would rather not think about.

2nd strange sight of the day which I didn't get a picture of and you will all thank me: my friend and I were walking through the mall right before we were going to see a movie and a group of people walked by us. My jaw dropped and I turned to my friend and asked, "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" and she was like, "Ummm...ya!" There was a lady holding her baby while walking and breastfeeding the baby at the same time with everything hanging out for the world to see! I was totally shocked! I have no problem with breastfeeding a baby in public as long as everything is COVERED! If she didn't have anything along to cover herself, she could have at least gone to the family bathrooms and fed her baby there instead of walking around the whole mall like that. I understand as a mom who breastfed my daughter for 8 months how you get really comfortable and used to having them out quite often, but people in public just shouldn't be seeing that. On a more pleasant note, my friend and I went to see Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 which I really enjoyed! I had a huge smile on my face at the end and I love when movies make me smile like that, especially at the end. So, it was a happy ending to an otherwise unusual day.

Wonderful World of Teddy Bears

She found someone her own size!


















Getting ready to eat the bear


















Mission accomplished

Holidays

I'm back! We just got back from our vacation last night after being gone for 6 days. I didn't announce that we were going anywhere because we didn't want everyone to know that there would be nobody at home since I don't know who all reads this (and on facebook). We went to a cabin resort 4 hours south-east of here with my parents and we had a great time just relaxing and sitting out by the pool (with lots of sunscreen)! I've gone there almost every summer with my family since I was 9 years old. The weather was gorgeous and Kiera loved spending time with her grandparents. It was really great to have the extra help, too. Here are a few pictures of our time away.

Kiera and the resort owners' dog, Schatz


















The view from our cabin...they have some of the most beautiful sunsets on the lake that I've ever seen in my life


















Kiera in her little pool in the big pool


















Grandpa G rocked her to sleep...he's pretty much the only person on this planet who can get Kiera to fall asleep like that


















I like how the flag looks against the sparkling lake




















The cabin we stay in every year


















LOVE this one!


















The cabin has 2 bedrooms, so Kiera had to sleep in our room in a crib and my parents were in the other room. I am NOT used to having her in our room (we've only done that once since she was born), but it went alright. 2 out of 5 nights she slept through the night, 2 nights she was up once for a bottle-feeding, and the first night she was up 2 or 3 times. It was great to be away but also very good to come home! :)

The Little Munchkin Munches

Shopping and Construction

Last night, I went shopping for a certain article of clothing and came back with NOTHING! I was looking for something wire-free but not a sports one and something not paper thin and something comfortable. Apparently that's an impossible combination to find. I tried on almost every one I could find in the mall in the city. I may have to look in the States. It's frustrating, but that's life.

In other news, we are finishing our basement! When we moved in, it was just a concrete basement with one wall (just the studs) put up dividing a potential bedroom and bathroom and there's an old toilet in the potential bathroom, not hooked up or anything. I thought that was strange...anyway, so last November we got the basement insulated and the outside wall studs put in. My uncle has been here all week working and he's now putting up drywall and will hopefully almost finish it today! There's going to be a bedroom, bathroom, utility room, closet underneath the stairs, plus a 6-foot closet (YAY) down there and then the rest of the space will be a rec room/living room. We have a serious lack of closets in this house, so I'm very excited about the extra storage space! So, once it's all done we'll have a 4-bedroom 2-bathroom house. :) I feel so blessed as we are able to do this all with cash (so far) and I'm SO looking forward to all the extra living space we'll have. God continues to provide abundantly. We don't need the extra space right now, but it will sure be nice if we're still living here in a few years with 2 or 3 kids. I will be posting before and after pictures, but it could be a while before it's all done (due to my uncle's busy schedule with other work he has). That's all my news for now. Have a great week-end everybody!

Meet My Family

This is the last time my family was all together before Jenene and Art left for Washington. We were at the Olive Garden and Kiera was doing what she loves to do with toys or anything in her hands: flipping them over and over.

Chicken and the Donut Man

I got up and shared this story in church yesterday, even though I really didn't want to, but God told me to (we have a sharing time every Sunday where you can share Scripture or say what the Lord has laid on your heart or done in your life). I was arguing with God and then I said, "Ok, I'll share it if someone else goes up and shares something first," and then of course, another girl got up to share something, so then I had to. We are on a very tight grocery budget right now because we're trying to live as much as we can on Jared's income in preparation for my maternity leave ending this fall and the fact that I'm not going back to work if possible. We were almost out of chicken breast and I like to buy the big 4kg boxes when they're on sale, but they don't go on sale extremely often. I refuse to pay full price, so I prayed that God would make them go on sale somewhere soon. A day or 2 later, I was checking through the grocery flyers I get in the mail, and wouldn't you know, chicken is 25% off this week at Sobeys. I was blown away how God cares about the little things and that He provides what we need.

On another note, we have no children's music for Kiera, so I decided to see if I could find some Donut Man c.d.'s for her. Did anyone else listen to the donut man when they were young? They put Bible verses to songs, so it's a GREAT way for kids (and adults) to memorize Scripture and there's usually a little story to go along with the song. I found 2 c.d.'s (volumes 1 + 2) for $7.49 each plus $3.00 shipping for each on Amazon. I wanted to see which songs were on there, so I googled it and another website came up and they had both those c.d.'s brand new for $5.77 each plus $3.98 shipping altogether! I found them on http://bookschristian.com I'm excited about that!












I feel very blessed by God's faithfulness! He is our ultimate provider. :)

Excitement Overload!

At 8 months old, Kiera started doing this thing when she gets excited. At first, I was wondering if something was wrong with her, but then I looked it up on the internet and found out it's normal for them to do this at this age. She makes us laugh SO much!

Birthday Fun

Last week Wednesday, my friend Jacki and I showed up at our friend Allison's house and surprised her by taking her out for her birthday. She was a bit confused when we showed up as she thought her and her husband were dropping off the kids with their parents and going out the 2 of them. SURPRISE! Instead, he stayed home with their girls while the 3 of us we went out for dessert at a local restaurant. We then decided to have a photo shoot which had us in a fit of giggles by the end and as you can see, I could not center us in the pictures for the life of me!

Jacki and Allison (I know them from church, in case you're wondering)





































































There was one other table full of people where we were sitting and they were all staring at us by the end, probably because we're so hot. It was wonderful to get out sans children. They each have 2 and I have 1, so the conversation centered around kids for most of the time, until the end when we decided to try and not talk about them. We did very well for probably 15-20 minutes, so I was proud of us! Thank you to our husbands who stayed at home with our babies/toddlers...we had a really fun time. :) Can't wait for the next girls night out!