Steps In The Right Direction

This past week-end, Kiera started doing two new things!  On Saturday morning, I went to get her from her crib and I found her like this:

She pulled herself up to a standing position in her crib, which she had never done before that!  Now whenever I go get her, she's always standing in her crib.  Good thing we lowered her mattress in anticipation that hopefully someday she would learn how to do that!

The 2nd thing she started doing was walking along furniture!  I know, most kids are already doing that before or around the 12-month mark, but I'm happy for every little milestone that Kiera hits, especially anything that has to do with walking!

Walking, Piano + The Answer

I found most of your guesses to be quite hilarious as almost all of them were WAY off base! I actually thought that nobody would guess it correctly this time, but my father-in-law was the first person to guess it right...it is the inside of a ferrero rocher with the nut + chocolate taken out of it! He does win a prize (Jacki) as it's his birthday this week-end and he will be getting a present. :) My cousin, Beth, also guessed it correctly after my dad-in-law, so way to go! Thanks for playing along, it makes it fun!

It's been a fairly normal week with not much new going on, except for Kiera pooping in our bathtub for the first time, which most of you read my status already on facebook. My new piano student started lessons this week and that went quite well. I love that I have almost all adult students this year. They're fun and they learn quite quickly most of the time! They don't hop off the piano bench or stop playing in the middle of a song and start talking about what happened in school that day (like one of my previous 5-year-old students). The adult students also don't take 2 years to learn their notes. Actually, by the end of 2 years, this little girl still didn't know her notes. She quit lessons after that, which was probably best for her at that time. I think she started lessons a bit too young. She sure was a cutie, though!

I've been praying A LOT for Kiera to learn how to walk. On Wednesday, God said, "Why don't you start thanking me that Kiera is going to walk and learn to balance instead of just asking?" I said, "Ok, I can do that." So as I walked Kiera around, I would say out loud, "Thank you Jesus that Kiera is going to walk. Thank you Jesus that Kiera is learning to balance." Then yesterday, I decided to let go of Kiera and she stood for 3 or 4 seconds without holding on to anything and she took a couple of steps before falling into my arms. She has never done that before, so praise the Lord! He is increasing my faith and I do believe that Kiera will walk, even though she's still very wobbly right now. Oh, and her right leg doesn't point out to the side anymore (most of the time) when we walk with her, so that has very much improved as well! God is definitely working in her life!

Name That Thing

Can you tell me what you think this is?

The Pup

Here's a recent video of Kiera doing her 2 favorite pastimes: reading + kissing. She loves giving us lots of wonderful wet kisses on the mouth lately. :) She also learned to say a few new words on the week-end: yes (she nods her head while saying it), mo (more), and pless (please). There are about 20 words in her vocabulary now...makes me proud! :)

More Blessings

Today, Jared got a bonus at work and it was bigger than last year's, so that's a blessing! Also, he got a raise today and it was MUCH bigger than we expected, so that's a double blessing! Why did I worry about our finances? God is obviously so much bigger than that!

Kiera is learning new words left, right, and center these days. Maybe she's trying to make up for the lack of walking! :) Yesterday she learned how to say "touch" and "up." She points up when she says it which is so cute. The day before yesterday she learned to say "toes." When we ask her where her nose and mouth are, she touches them. When we ask her where her belly button is, she lifts up her shirt and puts her finger in it! (ha ha)


















I'm going to try to get a video of that. I did get a video of her singing her own little song last week, so here it is:

Answered Prayers

Last week, we ran out of chicken breasts. I always buy the big case when it's on sale. I looked through all the grocery flyers and there weren't any on sale. I prayed that they would soon go on sale and in the meantime I figured I would just buy a small package, which I was going to do on Monday. We went to Jared's dad + step mom's house on Sunday for waffles with white sauce + strawberry sauce (mmmmmm)! We hadn't told anybody about our chicken situation. As we were leaving, my mom-in-law handed us a bag of frozen chicken breasts and said, "Here's a gift." She said that she had been planning to give us chicken since the previous week-end. I just about burst into tears because she had NO clue that we had just run out of chicken! I asked for it to go on sale and instead God gave me some chicken for free!

I was thinking about getting a part-time job to help us out financially, but I wasn't feeling peace about it and also there aren't a lot of good part-time jobs out there right now. Our evenings during the week are also quite busy with Jared being in school, having to do homework, and going to cell group. It seemed as if we were stuck. I had placed a couple of piano teaching ads online and I got a couple of phone calls, but nothing panned out. Jared's dad suggested I advertise online on Kijiji. There were quite a few other piano teaching ads on there, plus I was thinking, "It's March. Nobody starts piano lessons in March. They all wait until September," so I really didn't think anything would come of it (oh me of little faith), but I thought, "Sure, why not?" This week I got an e-mail from a lady who's eager to learn piano and she commutes in from a nearby city to where we live every day for work and she asked if she could come for lessons after work!! She's now signed up to start next week + is very excited about it! HALLELUJAH!!!! I am blown away by how God provides for us and He makes a way when there seems to be no way! Ephesians 3:20-21 " Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

Kiera Talks But Doesn't Walk

Kiera is over 16 months old now and still not walking. She is getting steadier, though, and enjoys walking holding on to one of our fingers in each hand. I'm starting to feel like a hunchback and I'm more than ready for her to walk on her own for that reason, so I pray that God gives me the patience I need and that He will strengthen my back! She is learning more and more new words now. Her most recent ones are "hat" and "hot." I didn't purposely teach her to say hot...that one she just picked up on her own! She says "bap" for bath. She does say, "Hi Mom," to me but still prefers to say "Hi Dad," more often. She shakes her head when we say "No," and nods it when we say, "Yes." Apparently she said, "peek-a-boo" when my mom was baby-sitting her last week, but she hasn't said it since then! We've been teaching her the parts of the body and she knows where the nose is and the mouth. When we ask her where her belly button is, she lifts up her shirt and looks down and sometimes pokes it. SO cute! She's definitely a smart one. Here's a cute little video from 3 months ago that I was going to post earlier and never got around to it until now.