One Year Old!

Wow, the time has really flown by. I can't believe my baby is 1!! (Almost 13 months to be exact). She has grown into herself so much this year and it has been truly amazing to watch. She's full of personality, smarts and beauty. She can win over any crowd of people with her huge smile, has a funny sense of humor and gives the BEST hugs and kisses.

To celebrate this big day we took our baby to the Boise Zoo. It was such a gorgeous spring day. The animals were awake and active, sun was shining and the Ky Bird was excited as ever checking out all the exhibits.

We started things off with a trip to the kids park, where her and Dan went down the slide a few times. Going down slides is one of Kylie's favorite park activities, and this was one extra long which made her really excited.
Look how tall she's getting!!!!!

Next stop was the tiger den. She was in awe at how large they were, and liked watching them sleep.

Here she is checking out the bobcat. She stayed at this exhibit for a long time, watching the cat moving so fast and gracefully around his "home".

The penguins were hands down her (our) favorite. They were being extra playful that day, and kept swimming around the people and up on the glass. The last time we took her to the zoo she was 7 months old and didn't really seem to care about the animals - more just checking out the people and scenery. This trip was so different. She was walking/running around the zoo, observing the different animals and really taking it all in. Amazing.

After the zoo we were starvin marvin's. So we cruised over to the local drive in and treated ourselves to some oh so yummy (but oh so bad for you) grub. Kylie had a few french fries and her cucumbers, grapes and tomatoes. And check it out - we switched her car seat to forward facing!! I cannot tell you how fun it is to check the rear view and see her pretty face looking out the front window.

On Saturday the 22nd, we had a little birthday bash for her. Although she won't remember it, I felt it was necessary because who doesn't love a party? And she will probably enjoy looking back at these pictures and seeing who was a big part of her life at this age.

Looking pretty in her birthday dress with Grandma B.

Eating a little snack before presents and cake.

Grandma and Uncle Paul.

Kylie loves these guys - Brian and Amber.

Me and one of my besties, Andrea. (This is not the best picture of us...just saying)

PRESENTS!! Yes, she was more interested in the bows than the gifts. But almost a month after she is still really loving ALL the new toys and looking SUPER adorable in the new outfits. THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!

CAKE!! Time for cake. This was my second attempt at making a cake for her after the first one crumbled to pieces. Jan made the yummy frosting and I stuck those little sugar shapes on. Not bad for my first ever homemade cake.

After singing Happy Birthday, she was more interested in the decorations. And she did not want to get her hands dirty. We finally had to stick her hands in to show her how to do it, which made her look at us in complete disgust. So we put her finger in her mouth to see if she would like the taste. Nope, she just kind of looked at us as if to say, "What is this weird tasting stuff?"

So while Kylie doesn't like cake (yet) and we didn't get a good pic of her with cake all over her face, I can say that I am very proud that my little girl has good table manners and likes eating healthy foods.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLIE!

My First Half

May 15, 2010 was the Famous Idaho Potato Marathon. I decided to sign up for the half marathon- 13.1 miles as my goal/motivation to lose more baby weight. As I mentioned in a previous post, I started running the year before I had Kylie and got down to my dream weight, so I figured having this race nearing the future would help me stay motivated in my workouts.

I "trained" for 2 months and completed my longest run of 10 miles a few times during those weeks, and so I felt pretty confident that I could finish the half marathon. I trained by myself as I wasn't sure when I would have the availability to run. Going into the race however, I wished I had a friend or an experienced runner who could give me some pointers and keep me on pace.

Here I am the morning of. Nervous, Anxious - majorly Excited!
At beautiful Ann Morrison Park, the race finish. (And also where we caught the buss to take us to the start line at Lucky Peak). It was FREEZING at first, but I'm glad I wore shorts because as soon as we started, it got hot fast.

While I was running, Dan, Kylie, Jan and Frank were waiting at the finish line for me.

Here's the little beauty hanging out with all the runners and their families....waiting for her Mama.

My cheer squad!

Here are some of the runners heading into the park. After I crossed that bridge (far right) it felt like forever until I made it to my family, and then just a little farther til I reached the finish line.

The final stretch!

Yes! I finished!!! As soon as I stopped running, exhaustion set in and I needed to go to the bathroom immediately. I almost didn't even wait for my medal I needed to get in the potty line so bad. Anyway, my final time was 2:16:45, middle of the pack finish!! (Although my Garmin time was more accurate at 2:15:44 because I started the race at the back of the pack, crossing the start line accordingly.)

So, here I am, in complete exhaustion. I'm dizzy, dehydrated and about to pass out from heat stroke. This is why I would have really loved a trainer for this run because they would have told me to drink water at every station!

Yes this is just a joke, but I almost needed recessitation for real. haha.

And the best reward was holding Kylie while we both sat there in eachothers arms, in pure exhaustion, crying. (It was far past her nap time.) Maybe I wasn't crying on the outside (because my body couldn't produce tears-lol) but I definetly was on the inside.

Dispite the bad couple hours after the race, I had an amazing experience. I pushed myself, felt connected into the sport of running and lost 5lbs. I have officially become addicted to running, and am looking forward to my next race.

Making Out

Watch this movie if you want to see the funniest thing you've ever seen in your life. Kylie is in love with herself and thinks she's a really good kisser.

She's Walking!!!!

At 10.5 months she took her first steps. She walked from her high chair to the back door. Dan witnessed these first steps of independence, and said she did it like it was no big deal-almost like she didn't even realize what she had done. Then a week later, she took a few steps for me. Again, it was nothing major to her-just a couple simple steps. Practice runs maybe??

And then...she walked!!! She let go of our dining room chair and started walking towards the refrigerator with a proud look on her face. She stopped about half way to her destination, but didn't drop to the floor. She just had a huge smile on her face and kept going.

I'm not sure what other people qualify as "walking", so I'm just going to go with 11 months for when she reached this exciting milestone!! Here are a few clips we've taken of her walking around the house and outside. A little wobbly at times, but she has great balance and recovers quickly. We are SO PROUD!

Mother's Day

My first official Mother's Day was so meaningful. I got to sleep in a little, played all day with Kylie, got some sweet moments with my boys and felt very loved and appreciated. Dan took me and Ky out to a fun and sooo good dinner at Bardenay's, and my mother's day present is an MP3 player!! (Yes, I'm so out of touch that I am just now getting an ipod! LOL).

The best part of my day was just being with my baby. We played all day, and when the sun came out we went outside. Kylie has just started walking, so we try to go out every day that it's nice and walk a few blocks by our house. She loves getting all the attention when she's out walking; all the people walking or on bikes have to stop to say Hi to her.

When I was getting ready, she insisted on trying on my jelwery. Doesn't she look cute?!? Guess she's entering the dress-up stage.

She was getting tired, and I was sort of smothering her...so this is the face she makes! haha. But then, she finishes our afternoon with a big smooch session before nap time.

I really lucked out and got a few Mommy kisses in a row!

Thank you Dan for creating a beautiful daughter with me, and thank you Kylie for being healthy, inspiring and simply amazing. Thank you family for making my 1st Mommy's Day so special!

Swing Swing

My friend Jia and her son, Shae (13 months) invited us to go to the park to feed the ducks. So we met up with them downtown at Julia Davis one beautiful sunny afternoon. Sadly, our drive into town made my little angel sick and she threw up in her car seat upon arrival. Luckily, Jia had some pants that fit Kylie, so we had some clean clothes to put her in. And after a little fresh air and some walking around, she felt better. But you can see in the pics that although she was having fun, she wasn't feeling too great.

First thing after we got her cleaned up was to hit the swings! It was Ky's first time in the swing and she absolutely LOVED it. She had a big smile and was just staring at Shae and the other kids on the swings. (Too bad the park by my house doesn't have baby swings-Lame!)

Besides being a poor baby, this was so much fun for her and for me too! It's the best feeling in the world seeing your baby happy and laughing!!

It's hard getting a swing moving on video, so sorry in advance that this isn't the best. She was basically looking at them the whole time with the face in the picture directly above. So sweet.

Here's Shae. He's such a big kid already! Quite the walker and talker.While Jia and Shae were off feeding the ducks, Ky and I had fun walking around the park, checking out the crazy geese and just relaxing.

Cruising and Talking

Here is some great footage Dan got of our baby girl one day while I was at work. She was doing circles, cruising around the chairs many times and talking the whole time. She has started showing her temperment as you can see when she doesn't get to have the camera.

Awww-that last scene where she leaves to go find me is a heart jerker.

Highlights from 10 Months

Her 10th month was a busy one, with lots of new developments. For starters, she started eating a mostly finger food diet (along with formula, of course), personality kept emerging, and crawling became lightning fast. She still says Mama and Dada, and Baba means bottle or baby. She also tries to say Dog, so it comes out in some kind of variation - like Gada or Daa. ...And probably the most entertaining (in Kylie's opinion) was learning that she can stand up in her crib!

Maybe some of you will remember that she wasn't much of a roller. She did a couple times, but it definitely wasn't her sole means of getting around. Anyway, she discovered one day after a nap, that she can use this technique to roll onto her belly, which she can then sit up and then pull herself up to standing. Pretty cool how magically all the separate milestones come together for them and they teach themselves that they can do them in different successions to get around.

So yes, she gets a kick out this new found ability. Sometimes it's really hard to get her to take a nap because she'll just play and play in her crib. Rolling around, leaping from corner to corner, standing up - thinking it's the funniest game in the entire world.

Kylie had just woken up from a nap one of the days after she learned how to do this, and I had to get a picture to document it. I saw that she was up and ran out of the room to grab the camera, and sadly her huge proud smiles turned to major crying when she saw me bolt. When I came back, she was sort of mad, but still proud of herself as you can see in the pic.


Another fun game she likes to play is 'pull out everything in Mama's purse.' First she started out with the big objects-mint jar, wallet, sunglasses. But lately, she has been getting into the zippers and inside my wallet-pulling out credit cards, coupons, gum, etc.
The mints are a great musical instrument. They keep her busy at restaurants, in the car, and at home.

Baby Doll Kylie.

She loves when her diapers.com order comes in because they come in this perfect size box. She likes to bang on it, walk around it, play peekaboo around it, and it's a great stand for her to play her baby piano on.

More bath time pics! She still loves her bath time. Check out how adorable!!

Still loves her night time messages, too. She was one lucky girl that night, because Grandma B was there to help with the rub down.

Grandma also found this lovey for her, which she thought was pretty much the best present ever. After her bath she kept trying to stick the elephants trunk in my mouth and when I'd bite it, she thought it was the funniest thing, laughing so hard each time.

This is one of my favorite videos. One of her favorite activities is dancing, and this vid shows off her moves pretty good. Check it out! The music is kind of soft in the background.