Our Big Little Girl

Mom Ellis made us promise to get some pictures up. (She hasn't seen her Granddaughter for a whole week) Here she is!

She's holding her head up really well now, so we thought we'd try out her bumbo. Success! Well, it entertained her for about 4 minutes until she got tired of holding up her head and flopped over.This is content Kennady. Over the last week she has started smiling for us, and it's so darn cute!!! We were just getting a few small smiles few and far between, but tonight she was giving us a lot of them, perhaps because she is so happy to not be in her carseat anymore. She is also making cute coos, ahhs and gurgles, instead of the usual grunts and hisses (well not instead, just in addition to). She loves playing with daddy and pretty much refuses to sleep anywhere else besides his chest (sigh...one day she'll sleep in her crib, right? and then on a day even further away, maybe she'll sleep in her own room). Recently though she's started something that I am afraid is the beginning of some very long nights for us. When we turn out the lights she starts screaming bloody murder. I think she is afraid of the dark. After a few minutes, about the time our eyes start adjusting, she'll calm back down a little. I didn't know six-week-olds knew about the boogey monster.

We started giving her a little rice cereal mixed in with her bottle at bedtime, and oh the difference it has made! Now she sleeps 6-7 hours at night and seems much more content all day long. She still eats a ton, but she doesn't eat all day long now.

Ben had the whole week off school and work for Thanksgiving, so we decided to take the 12 hour trek to Mom & Dad Nelson's. I was a little worried about how Kennady would take a 12 hour trip, but she did suprisingly well. I made sure to have plenty of milk so it would be a little easier to feed her while traveling, and it worked pretty well, but she drank way more than I thought she would. 3-5 oz. bottles, 2-4oz bottles, a 3 oz bottle and then another 2 oz, so 28 oz., and that was just the 12 hours. So she is growing fast. Over the break she stopped fitting into a lot of her clothes and has moved from newborn to 0-3 months, most of which drown her, but at least she can stretch her legs out all the way.

We spent Saturday-Wednesday in Keizer, Oregon. And I don't think I held my baby for more than 5 minutes the whole time (except for feedings) and I changed very few diapers. We miss her aunts and uncles! Grandma was especially excited to see her, and Grandpa got to spend some time with her too, since last time he was sick. She really loved all of the attention.

While we were there we played a lot of Risk and enjoyed the opportunity to sleep in! Ben and I even got a date night without baby, and we went out for hamburgers and then played mini golf in the rain. We had the whole course to ourselves.

Thursday morning we got up and drove 4 1/2 hours to Richland, Washington, to Grandma Sharp's house (Mom Nelson's mom). Then we headed to Loren and Terry's (Ben's uncle and aunt) for the feast. And boy was it a feast!! We had Kennady all dressed up cute to go, and then she did the largest spitup of her life and we had to find a new outfit. And then once we were there, she pooped all over her clothes and we ended up putting her back into her pajamas because we were all out of clothes. She didn't mind and she enjoyed being held by everyone.

Friday morning we got up and headed back to Idaho. 9 hours. Somehow we didn't leave until after 11. And then Kennady got a little cranky around Ontario, Oregon and we had to stop for a little more than an hour to get her fed and calmed down. And then we decided to stop at BabiesRUs in Boise, because we got a gift certificate and there's no one anywhere near Rexburg. Talk about tons and tons of baby stuff. Ben was a little overwhelmed. We looked and looked and debated about what to get, and finally we settled on a tray for her bumbo chair and a mirror that hooks on the back seat of the car (with a remote control light) so we can see her while we are traveling. We finally pulled into Rexburg around 1 am, and, of course, Kennady did not want to go to sleep. Her schedule's been a little weird, but luckily Ben and I were both able to get a long nap today.

Now it is back to the grindstone, for Ben at least. Just 2 weeks of school left, which means finals. Neither of us are looking forward to that very much. We've rented a storage unit, starting tomorrow, to put all of our stuff in. Hopefully we can do a slow pack over the next couple of weeks and then it won't be so overwhelming at the last minute (haha..right). We don't have a set date that we are leaving, I figure it will depend on when we can get everything packed and cleaned, and then we'll gauge it around the weather. I really don't want to get stuck in a blizzard and be stranded in Denver again.