12 Months

The time has come, Keira is now ONE YEAR OLD! She's no longer an infant, but is now a toddler. And a cute one at that! This seriously has been the happiest year of my entire life! I never imagined how much fun it is to have a child. And never imagined how much I could love this little bundle of joy. I have loved every new stage of her development and look forward to all that will come. I have learned so much along the way and am sure I will be more efficient and do some things different in the future. I'm not saying its always been easy, but worth every frustration, lack of sleep, and lack of freedom and personal time. I wouldn't change any of it for the world. And I know it's just making me a better person as I'm living Heavenly Father's plan.

Keira's now 18 pounds, 13 ounces and is 30 inches tall. She's spunky, fun, and adventurous (except when it comes to walking). Her favorite thing to do is use a finger or two and walk all over the place, but she's definitely not ready to walk by herself yet. She also loves walking up and down stairs. She's not one to like to sit still, which makes church a little more difficult now-a-days. She LOVES all of the new toys she received for her birthday! She loves looking at pictures of our family or other pictures on the wall. She points at everything she can think of. We enjoy going for walks in the Ergo baby carrier and pointing and talking about everything. She also enjoys being in her stroller when I run.

Keira is pretty good at standing. She gets very proud of herself and will usually start clapping once she stands up. She's especially good when she's distracted by something and doesn't realize that she's standing. As mentioned above, she's not walking. If we're walking and I let go she'll drop to the ground and usually start crying. She's LOVES going up the stairs. She could probably do it all day. We're not quite ready to teach her how to climb up yet. But she can climb up on our futon, to say hello to the cat. Kena is not as found of Keira as Keira is of her.

She's still a pretty good eater and will eat most anything we give her. I sure hope that lasts! Her favorites are still anything including cheese. We stopped nursing about a week before her birthday (although it was only once a day at that time) so we're trying to transition to a sippy cup and whole milk. She's not sure about either. I must say, I'm sooo happy I was able to make it as long as we did, but I'm sooooooo glad to be done!!!

Keira loves to read. She's getting a little less patient for the longer books, but loves this one because it has tabs to look under.

She LOVES her Auntie Wals! Laura moved in right in time for Keira's 1st Birthday and has been sooo helpful. Keira has been getting so much attention between herself and I and loves it! Aunt Laura also knows new fun games and tricks Keira enjoys.
Keira has quite an increasing vocabulary. It almost seems like she learns a new word everyday! Her favorites are Mommy, Daddy or dada, hi, cheese, juice, Jase, tree, and oh ayy (for oh oh). With a little imagination it also sounds like she says (or tries to say) thank you and bye bye and many others that I can't think of since I'm writing this back in time.

I can't imagine my life without Keira and I have no idea what I used to do with all of my free time. But I know that I never had as much fun as I have now. I love her beyond what words can express and always will. I look forward to what this next year will bring!

Almost There

My baby girl is turning ONE tomorrow. I can't believe how fast the time has flown. A couple quick memories over the past couple of weeks...

Pictures taken for Keira's 1st Birthday. It's going to be with two of her girl friends who all turn one within a month. We tried to get pictures of the three of them together, but we learned it's a bit difficult to get three 11 month olds to sit, stay, and smile. :o)

Last week Keira was a little monster in Sacrament Meeting. I'm afraid my blissful days at church are over. (Actually it wasn't as bad today.) When we got home she was so cute and helped me make cookies. It was so much fun with her watching me and before I know it she'll be helping!

Keira can stand from a squat and she just gets so proud of herself! Usually within about 10 seconds she thinks it's time to sit back down.

And here's a video of her standing and waving. :o)

She's not walking yet, in fact, she won't even try taking steps by herself. But today she walked 1/2 mile (-100 feet) holding onto our hands. She's got endurance!

You'll get the real update hopefully shortly after the turns one. :o)

Firefighting

Just when we thought things might start to slow down, Chris decides to go to Fire Academy. Chris has been thinking about trying to get a job with the fire department he's working out of. A couple of weeks ago he decided to go back to school to renew his Fire 1 license. He's taken the course a couple of other times many years ago. It's actually pretty involved, much more than I thought it would be. For the next semester he's in school four hours on Tuesdays and Fridays, and about nine hours on Saturdays. He'll have to study quite a bit and he'll be doing some pretty difficult physical training. I've been trying to get him to work out with me for the past two years. I've been trying to get him to run with me for the past seven years. And now he's finally ready to work out again and start running! I'm glad someone was able to! I'm so excited to run and work out with him again!

This past week was the first week and it went well. Chris is sunburned (which unfortunately for me is already turning tan), tired, and sore. He was made the captain of his team and is already doing an awesome job!

Luckily my sister is moving back in with us! We are so thankful that she will be able to help us by being Keira's nanny a couple of days a week while I work. I think I will also be taking over some of the home improvement projects so it will be nice to have an extra hand with that or with Keira. Chris and I will be able to go on dates every now and then and I'll have a little more flexibility with my work schedule. I must admit, it will be sooooo nice to have family in town, especially since she will be right here! And besides me of course, there's nobody in the world I'd rather watch my sweet baby girl. :o) THANK YOU LAURA!

My handsome, soon to be firefighting hubby in his bunker gear!

Very Bad Hair Day

Whoa! This is what Keira's hair looked like when she woke up from a nap today. The poor thing almost always wakes up happy but she became devastated when I left right away to get my camera. But can you blame me? :o)

A second later after I got her out of bed.

MY Hard Work

I have the SWEETEST brother! (And yes ladies, he is single!) While Chris was at work for two days I wanted to surprise him and do some work on the downstairs. I thought installing the floor would be something I could do. He's been feeling a little overwhelmed at all we have left to do before we can refinance. I called my brother up to see if he had any free time to help out. He helped TWO days in a row! On the first day he got here at 8:30am and we spent the morning moving everything out of the downstairs bedroom, tearing out the old carpet and tile underneith.

I had planned to take him out for a nice lunch, but he just told me to get a pizza. So after Keira had been sleeping for a while, I left her in his capable to finish her nap. So not only was he working on my downstairs, he was also babysitting for his first time and waiting for her to wake up. I got home right in time. She had just woken up a couple of minutes before I walked in the door so John was entertaining her without having to pick her up. It was so cute! She loves her Uncle John!

John worked so hard and I was so thankful to have him there! We got SO much done! Keira was quite the little helper also and was very good despite not having too much attention. It was really nice having him there also to help keep an eye on Keira. She's quite the little explorer.

John got me to the first row of the floor (one of the hardest parts) and then took off to go camping. That evening and the next morning I got about a third of the floor complete. John came to help again the next afternoon and couldn't have had better timing, since I was kind of stuck and didn't know how to make it work on the other side of the door. He was just so sweet and was so impressed at everything I had done while taking care of Keira and everything else and made me feel so good.

Thank goodness, the finishing touches! (And thank goodness John was here for this part too!)

Jason and Kena (John's dog) were very helpful and happy to have the floor finished.

The finished floor looks SO much better than the old green carpet!

JOHN, ThAnK yOu FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK. I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU!

Please excuse and forgive me, but I'm going to take a moment to brag. I had such a great and productive and busy week! I learned how to use a chisel, a miter saw, a table saw, and how to install a floor. I took care of Keira, completed all of the household chores, mowed the lawns, worked two shifts, ran, biked, walked the dog, couponed and grocery shopped, did some other shopping, caught up on my blog after being a month behind, went through and organized all of my books for our new bookshelf, and kept the Sabbath day holy. It really seems like the busier I am the more productive I also am. I'll have to keep that in mind!

Here's a pic of our new bookshelf. It looks SO MUCH better than the old ones. We're trying to declutter our home now that we have more room and make it look nicer. :o)

Camping

Last week Laura and I met up in Buena Vista and met with four other families from church to go camping. It was so much fun! I don't think we ever went camping (except once in CA) while we were growing up until high school activities, so we're starting Keira young. And even though I've gone camping many times as an adult, I really haven't done much just camping. Chris and I usually camped for our mountain biking, hiking, climbing, or backpacking trips. I was definitely the naive one there. Everyone else brought chairs, sticks to roast marshmallows, grills, bacon, eggs, pancakes, you name it!

I was so thankful to have Laurie there to spend a little more time with her and for her help with Keira. I think it would be a little difficult to camp with an eleven month old by myself. Laura had previously met one families there and didn't know any of the others, and she did so great and joined right in!

Keira loves camping and did great again!

The weather was perfect! It rained about the first hour we got up there, so I set up the tent in the rain but the rest of the time, it was great, and not cold at all. (Although coming from Tucson, Laura wouldn't agree.)

Keira's great friend Sydney. She's quite the experienced little camper because her parents are awesome and very outdoorsy.

Keira's other great friend Joshua with Jerusha. Joshua is her youngest of three boys, and is three weeks younger than Keira. I'm so thankful that we have so many friends from church and that Keira has so many wonderful baby friends!

Eleven Months

This is the last month of my baby being a baby. And what wonderful memories I will always cherish! Keira is sooo much fun and is as cute as can be! It is so awesome to see Keira's development as she learns new things and can fill her own wants and desires. Her developing vocabulary is amazing. Her noises are sounding more and more like words as she tries to imitate us. She definitely says "cheese." That was her first word after mama and dada. It also sounds like she says "juice" but it may actually be cheese, kinda hard to tell. Sometimes it sounds like she says a musical version of "hi". She's good at waving bye bye if someone waves at her or if I wave in front of her and sometimes waves just with the words bye bye.

Keira is generally so happy, but she definitely can throw little fits. Like almost every time I place her on the changing table and lay her down to change, dress, or dry and lotion after a bath. I'm not sure what her deal with it is. She also doesn't like to have things taken away from her and sometimes throws a little fit when we do. Usually she's calmed pretty easily by giving her something else if you took something away or with the pacifier. Which, speaking of which, she still loves. My plan was to take it away at a year. But I think we'll wait a little longer. I try to give it to her only at naps or bedtime, when we're outside and I'm mowing the lawn or something and can't keep my eye on her 100% of the time so she doesn't put things in her mouth, or when we're places where she's supposed to keep quiet like church. Chris is a little more lenient with the paci than me though. I don't think it's too early to teach her that she can't have everything she wants. I believe that more and more Americans are becoming greedy and selfish and think they need the biggest and best of everything. I really hope that Keira grows up knowing that she can't have everything she wants and she needs to work for the things she wants. (Don't worry, she's still a bit young to make her work for what she wants.) ;-)

Keira's doing better eating and will eat most things. As you may have guessed, her favorite food is cheese. She also loves juice. She's eating more and more of what we eat which is really nice. We're now only nursing once when she first wakes up which I must admit is great. I will continue this until she's one or until she loses interest. I'm SO thankful I've been able to do it this long because it really has been difficult with me working.

Keira seems very adventurous. She loves trying new things and experimenting. It seems like she might take after her dad in trying to see how things work. She loves climbing up the stairs and if she's downstairs and we don't put the barrier up, she'll be on the landing before the next set within seconds.

Her favorite thing in the world now is walking with help, preferably two hands. She could walk forever and ever. She loves going wherever she wants and also loves walking on different textures, like the kitchen to the dining room carpet. She loves to cross the line and walk back and forth. She also enjoys looking down at her feet which makes her a little imbalanced. She also loves wearing shoes, maybe since she thinks they're for walking. When Chris, Keira, and I are together it is the cutest thing when she holds one of each of our hands and is squeaking in delight at walking with both of us. Unfortunately she often throws a little fit when I stop walking with her. Which makes it a bit embarrassing when we're out in public shopping or something and I get the cashier to pay and she gets all upset that I'm not walking with her. Plus, not to sound like I'm getting old or anything, but it does get a little old to walk for a long time bent over helping her.

Since I'm two weeks behind, I'll give a 11 & 1/2 month update. :o)

She still LOVES walking and pretty much wants to walk all of the time, still with two hands. She loves imitating and when we imitate her. She loves to stick her tongue out to see you do it, especially if there's something foreign in there like gum. It's so cute to see her sticking her little tongue out to make me do it. Many of you will think this is disgusting, so I'm sorry, but I would never do it if we were sick. She loves to see her pacifier in my mouth. Now I don't suck on it, I just put it in my teeth. She loves to give people things, but often wants them back. However, lately she's been soooo good at giving me little pieces of carpet or whatever she finds that I would take away if I saw her with it so she doesn't put it in her mouth. (I ripped the carpet out of the downstairs bedroom.) It's so cute to see her stick her arm straight out as she's trying to share something. She also is starting to point at things. Our daily walks are even more fun now that I can tell her what everything is.

I love Keira more than I ever thought was possible. She is such a blessing of joy and happiness and love. She is my best little buddy and I love every minute I spend with her, even when she's throwing one of her little tantrums. Although my job has been much better lately now that I've been able to work at the hospitals I like more, I dread going because of the time away I'll spend from her. I'm so thankful to be Keira's mommy and so thankful for such a fabulous baby girl.