Happy Birthday to me!!

We had a triple birthday celebration on Friday. The 10th is Neil's mom and sister-in-law's birthdays, then mine is on the 11th. We had a party for the three of us at Neil's brother's house. We ordered pizza and Bruce made two cheesecakes that were amazing. I got very spoiled, getting some awesome presents. Kynlie and I spent yesterday hanging out at home, Neil was working. Last night we went out and ate with some friends, then had a few drinks. It was a blast, I have the best friends in the world. Kynlie went over to Neil's aunt's with his parents for supper, then they brought her back home and hung out until we got home.

Miss Kynlie is going back to see the doctor tomorrow for her ears, it's the follow up appointment I made after her last ear infection, but I'm glad I already had it made because she is still really tugging and digging at her ears and I think they are probably still infected. I'm interested to see what the doctor says about seeing a specialist about putting tubes in.

Tonight we went over to Neil's parents for supper, then to our niece's Christmas program at the church. It was a very cute program and all three of the girls had pretty big parts in the play.

Kynlie loves candy canes!

Our little monkey

 The outfit Kynlie is wearing in the picture above is quite the composite of sizes. 6-9 month vest, 12 month onesie, 3-6 month pants and newborn socks! She's not built very proportional. I tried an outfit on her the other day that someone got her that is a size 2T. The shirt fits her perfectly, might almost be too short and the skirt is WAY too big. I'm going to do a little tailoring on the skirt so she will be able to wear the outfit together because it is adorable.



Kynlie loves this toy that I got back out for Pyper to play with.

 We have a busy week ahead of us, doctor appointment, DEAP (Development Education Assistance Program)  is coming for their monthly visit, we need to get packing for Vegas, then headed down to Sin City the end of the week. I can't believe that Christmas is NEXT WEEK! I don't know where the year has went, but if it's going to keep flying by, why can't it just be the end of February so I could be in Hawaii?

Prayers Needed

I read something this morning that is killing me today. A good friend, that's babies were in the NICU with Kynlie is facing some very hard times right now. Please pray for Jen, Raymond, Blake, Joe and Ella, especially Ella. You can read Jen's blog at talesofthebrunsonkids.blogspot.com . This family has been through so much the past 14 months and Jen is such an amazing person and mom. No one should have to make the decisions they are having to make or see their baby be so sick. Please include them in your prayers.

Once again, we had a very busy week and a productive weekend. I started my Christmas baking, which didn't get off to a good start. Instead of the almond extract I usually put in my sugar cookies, I grabbed the cinnamon flavoring out of the cupboard. I also like a little extra almond flavoring in my cookies so I added a lot of the cinnamon. I didn't notice my mistake until I was licking the batter off the spatula and it just did not taste right. I added a lot of almond and it overpowered the cinnamon and the cookies don't taste bad at all. Neil and I did a lot of baking today, then we decorated the sugar cookies.

I took Kynlie in to the doctor on Thursday afternoon because she had been crabby and clingy all morning. I knew her ears had been bothering her, but I think I can feel another tooth poking through, so I thought maybe that was what the problem was. I was wrong. She has another ear infection, this time in both ears. I am very glad I made her an appointment so we can get this taken care of because we fly out for Las Vegas on the 16th and it could've been a disaster flying with her if her ears were infected. We have another appointment scheduled for the 13th to make sure her ears are clear and if they aren't at least we can get 48 hours of antibiotics in before we would fly. When we go back, I am going to ask the doctor about seeing a specialist for her ears. I had problems with my ears when I was little and had to get tubes put in, I hope she doesn't need them, but if they would help it would be better than her fighting all these infections.

This week is already looking busy. I am going to attempt to take Kynlie and Pyper to my great-aunt's funeral tomorrow. My parents will be there to help so we should do fine. Wednesday is the Christmas Stroll and Parade of Lights, Friday is Neil's mom and sister-in-law's birthdays, Saturday is my birthday, I'm sure Neil has something really special planned for me!! Yeah right!

I am SO in heaven having my good camera back. I am back to obsessively taking pictures of EVERYTHING now.

They are so sweet when they are sleeping

I love her big toothy grin!

She had to feed herself prunes for lunch today.

After a change of clothes, she ate a frosted cookie- then needed a bath!

Mmmm, that cookie was great

Sterling and Kynlie play a lot of tug-of-war.

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.