Stair Master

Our little miss is learning so many  new things every day. I had to expand our fence that went around the stairs going down to block off the stairs going up too because Kynlie became obsessed with going up the stairs. We were wrapping Christmas presents last night and I spent most of the time below her on the stairs because when she decides she's ready to come down, she just tries crawling down, face first. At least it took her mind off trying to eat the dog food!

 She was over playing by the fence yesterday and I looked over and saw this. She was walking around her fence, checking out the situation, trying to figure out how she could get around it to get to those stairs!

 When I was getting some of our Christmas decorations out, I found these. When we finally got back to Bismarck after Christmas, after being snowed in in Dickinson Christmas day, these ornaments and a little card with her hand print were waiting by Kynlie's isolette. I could never thank Kynlie's nurses enough for everything they did for us. All the pictures they took, the photo sessions they did, dressing Kynlie up for Halloween, letting Santa come see her, making her a beautiful cake when she got discharged. They all treat the babies like their own and even call themselves "aunties." They definitely became family to us and will always hold a very special place in our hearts.

I finally got my camera back after its tragic boating accident this summer. I may be obsessively taking pictures now, just to see what I can do! I am excited for Kynlie to wake up to get some pictures of her and Pyper together, hopefully both looking at the camera, smiling! I may be setting my hopes too high though.

We got our house lit up on Friday, if you are in the area, come check it out. When I say area, you might be able to see the glow from any high point in the tri-state area! Kidding, come check it out, my hubby does a pretty amazing job decorating. He loves it, Kynlie loves the lights and we get a kick out of watching people drive by- really slow, checking it out.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. We went out to my parent's house for lunch, which was amazing, then came home and finished decorating for Christmas. Kynlie loves all the lights and the tree, which she has surprisingly left a lone. She feels the branches with her forehead and will feel them with her hands a little but so far she has been pretty good.

As I was enjoying time with my family today, I couldn't help but be thankful that I was home, with Kynlie and Neil this year. Last year, our Thanksgiving was spent in Bismarck, with some family. My parents, sister, brother and nephew came over for the day and we had Thanksgiving at my dad's cousin's house. Neil and his mom, brother and sister-in-law were in Denver at the football game. It was a very special day as that was the first time my parents had got to see Kynlie since she was born on October 9. Right after she was born the NICU  was restricted to parent's only due to the H1N1 flu, they couldn't even get on the birth center floor to look through the window. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, they opened it up so grandparents could get in too.

I want to just post a tiny bit about what I am thankful for this year.

• for a happy, healthy baby
• for a wonderful husband that works his butt off every day so I can stay home with my baby and loves me unconditionally
• for both of our families, who are so supportive of us
• for our friends, who are always here for us
• for our warm house with food on the table
• for modern medicine, that has helped some very important people in our lives
• for Kynlie's doctor, nurses (aunts & uncle) and everyone that took care of her and I in Bismarck
• for the Ronald McDonald house, my home for 4 months

Those are all I can think of, which makes me feel bad because I know there is so much more that I am thankful. I definetly did realize that I took so much for granted before though and now that it's the little things in life that matter.

The rest of my previous post

Here are the rest of the pictures that I forgot to upload in the last post!



Our living room looking from the stairs

  

Our living room looking from the couch, notice my little stair climber!





We had Kynlie's pictures taken with Santa on
Saturday and they turned out great!



A lot of randomness

There has been a lot going on around here lately. We went to Billings last weekend and got all our Christmas shopping done, I had to get a little done on line because I knew some of what  I wanted wouldn't be in stores. Kynlie is getting a couple swimsuits for Christmas (don't tell her). We are going to Hawaii the end of February for a great friend's wedding, and I knew her swimsuit from the summer wouldn't fit her then. Of course, she had to try them on to see if we should keep them or send them back!

Trying on her new swimsuit for Hawaii!!

 Remember THIS post? Well I picked up the last of the stuff we were waiting on for our dining room to be complete, so now I can post that our project we started in March is complete!

New table and hutch

New table and piano

Pub table in old dining room

I see now that I forgot to put the pictures of the living room on here and for some reason Blogger won't let me upload more pictures when I have selected and added them once. I'll do another post with them on here I guess!

Kynlie is doing new things every day. Last week, she showed me how she can climb up a stair, today, it was a lot of stairs, really fast! She is pulling to stand on everything in sight. She is obsessed with the dog's food and I know it's disgusting, but has got a few kibbles in her mouth. We put a little Christmas tree in her room and she wouldn't go to sleep last night because she was checking out the pretty lights. She has been eating like a champ lately and there still isn't anything she won't eat.

We are sticking around town for Thanksgiving, which I am very thankful for. My mom's birthday is Friday so we are going to have supper for her , then my sister is going to have my nephew's birthday party on Saturday. We will do a little Black Friday shopping around town here and I'm hoping to finish decorating the inside of the house for Christmas by time the weekend is done.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving, safe travels, great food  and good company.

Everything's Fine

 Kynlie had appointments in Bismarck yesterday afternoon, we saw Dr. Ocejo's nurse so Kynlie could get three of her follow up immunizations. She weighed 15 lb 9 oz so I'd say she's gaining weight good now! That's 1 pound in a little over a month. She had to get some blood drawn too, they did a CBC which is a complete blood count, checked her iron, and maybe a few others. All of her blood work came back normal.

Kynlie with all of her owies, there is another band aid on her arm with the blue wrap!

After her shots, she had an eye appointment. Her eye doctor said that structurally, everything in her eye looks perfect and that he is very optimistic about how good her eyes will be in the future. He said that a lot of times when they have to laser the eye as much as they did to her that she would lose a lot of the peripheral vision, but she doesn't look like she has lost any. He said that is probably on account of the Avastin injection she got. I was relieved when he didn't have to pry her eyes open to look inside of them. He said they are usually curious enough about what's going on at her age that they will keep their eyes open for him. I asked him about her eyes crossing so bad when she's tired, but her eyes were already dilated when he saw her so he couldn't tell if it was a problem or if her muscles just get weak when she's tired. He did some basic tests where he covered one eye and moved the light around, then the other and both of her eyes followed equally so she is not favoring one or the other. He said it could also be exaggerated by her young looking face, he said her eyes are wide set and the bridge of her nose is wide and flat and that can make her eyes look more crossed than they really are. She has to go back in six months to see Dr. L again and we will see Dr. S, who is a pediatric optamologist that will check her vision to see if she needs glasses.

It's that time of year again!!

Yep, it's that time of year again, time for us to decorate for- gasp- Christmas. I know it's a little early, but we put up A LOT of lights outside. Neil still thinks we need to buy more lights, I keep telling him that if we don't have enough to do what he wants to do, he'll have to wait til they go on sale, after Christmas to buy more for next year! We have a lot of fun decorating and it's a little more exciting this year with Kynlie!



This is how rednecks put lights in their big tree. Look close
 and you might see the world's longest paddle fishing pole
with a clay pigeon thrower taped on the end of it.



My two New York Giant's fans.

Neil and Kynlie with their snowman!

 On Friday, Neil and I went on a date, to Marmarth, ND to eat all you can eat crab legs and then to Bowman, ND to watch "Life as we Knew It." We had a fun night and Neil's mom and sister had fun with Kynlie. Saturday and Sunday we decorated and decorated and decorated, and we only did the outside. I'll do the inside the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow, we are leaving for Bismarck. Kynlie has an eye appointment and we will get her follow up immunizations and some blood drawn. I am also going to have Dr. Ocejo look in her ears to see if they are better or if her left ear is still infected, she's been pulling at it a lot still so I am wondering if it isn't still infected.

Snow Angel

It is so beautiful outside today, the sun is shining and there is NO wind. I decided I'd bundle Kynlie up in her NY Giant's snowsuit (Thanks Aunt Shirley) and see what she thought of the snow. She wasn't sure what to think. The snowsuit was just a hair too big so she couldn't move very good but she sure liked feeling it with her bare hands, brrr.

Last Friday we were on the road again, back to Bozeman to watch the last season Bobcat football game. When we got to town on Friday we went to the fieldhouse to watch the first men's basketball game, then Neil and Ken went to my cousin's college hockey game at 10:30 pm., then Saturday was the football game. It was a beautiful day for tailgating and football. I was hot in a long sleeve t-shirt. Since it was the last game, there was a flyover and fireworks. It was a great atmosphere and the Bobcats won. Kynlie was a much happier baby this trip there and actually had a ton of fun with all of Matthew and Lincoln's toys.

Kynlie and Champ

 I don't know if you are getting sick of seeing Kynlie sleeping but the kid cracks me up, things don't have to be soft or cuddly for her to fall asleep on. She's pretty funny because she'll be booking across the room crawling, then she'll just drop, bury her head in the carpet for a few minutes, then pop up and take off again.

Teacups are cuddly!

So are lids to cubes.

Kynlie likes her new friend Pyper

 Today, I started taking care of our good friend's almost 7 week old baby girl Pyper. She was a great baby and Kynlie was surprisingly very good with her. I thought she might try to maul her but she just looked at her and smiled, and squealed at her, but she didn't even try to touch her.

Not sure who's the worse beggar for animal crackers..

Neil was eating animal crackers tonight and he almost got mauled by Sterling and Kynlie, I guess the whole family loves animal crackers. Kynlie has been doing good eating solids and trys anything we eat. She is doing good taking bites off stuff and getting it chewed up good.

Neil and I were talking on the way home from Bozeman on Sunday and I told him we need to get our Christmas lights put up outside before it gets too cold and snowy (which I think it's too late for that already) and Neil made fun of me that I was even thinking of that already. Then, we looked at the calendar to see when we could do it and couldn't believe that Thanksgiving is two weekends away already. That means that we need to get our Christmas shopping done, soon, because I am NOT doing it after Thanksgiving. I couldn't believe when we looked at the calendar how close the holidays are already, where has the year gone. It's going to be so fun with Kynlie this year, she loves lights and ribbons and paper on the presents. I'm pretty sure we are going to have to fence her away from the tree!

It has been very busy these past few days around our house. We got home from Bozeman on Thursday. Neil got a very nice bull elk, his first bull ever. I didn't know he had never shot a bull before. He was very excited and his brother said he was like a kid at Christmas. Sunday we took Kynlie trick-or-treating to a few of our family and friend's houses. She was a crabby giraffe, she did good though, she especially loved her pink pumpkin candy bucket. Sorry these pictures are all blurry, I was trying to hold the dog out of the picture and Kynlie was jumping around like crazy! My good camera is being fixed and hopefully will be in Bismarck when we take Kynlie back for her eye appointment- I am SOOOO excited to get it back!

Happy Giraffe!



What I saw when I looked in Kynlie's mirror- Kynlie and  a giraffe!



Sunday night, we had a rough night, Kynlie woke up at 11:30 screaming, I picked her up and she instantly stopped. I laid her back down and 1/2 hour later she woke up screaming again so I brought her downstairs and we slept together in the spare room. She was tugging at her left ear all night and would randomly wake up screaming. Yesterday morning she was pretty hot when she woke up, so I made an appointment and took her to the doctor to find out that her left ear is infected. She had been pulling at it a lot the last week, but I figured it was bothering her because of her teeth. I guess I was wrong. She has been a different baby since she got her first dose of antibiotics. She weighed 15 lb 2 oz, which was a pretty good gain, the butter and pediasure must be working. I did ask the doctor if it was something that could be hereditary as I had problems with my ears growing up and he said it wouldn't be hereditary, but that her ears could be structured like mine and that could be the problem.

Kynlie's beaver outfit her grandpa Lee got her in Gander Mountain, Newfoundland on his last hunt.

Beaver Butt!

A funny story, this morning I had my full cup of coffee setting on the floor while I was playing with Kynlie. She was across the room from it and I got up to change the laundry. By time I had go the laundry changed out and back to the living room, which is right there, she had crawled over to the cup, I think stuck her whole arm in the cup and spilled it all over the carpet. Luckily, it had been sitting for a while and wasn't too hot! I guess I have to remember she is very mobile now!