Thursday, May 28, 2009

Watch Me Grow - Kennedy - 6 Months

I've decided to switch it up a bit this month and put the pictures first and words second - I like the pictures much better! :) The quality of the pictures isn't great - I don't know what I'm doing wrong with Dad's camera. It's definitely time for me to have a new camera!!! Anyhoo... hope you enjoy Kennedy's patented Grandpa lips smile. :) I have truly smiley pictures of her but this or her tongue out of her mouth are truly Kennedy at the moment so I thought it was more appropriate even if it is a bit silly. lol :)
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6 Mon - May 2009
5 Mon - April 2009
1 Week - November 2008
Kennedy continues to be an absolute delight. She smiles so easily and is so sweet everyone around us smiles where ever we go. On our most recent trips with Grammy and Pa, Pa commented a number of times on how many people Kennedy made smile.
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When Reagan turned 6 months old the big news was she was finally rolling. Kennedy's big news is she's crawling! Yes, Kennedy is significantly more physically advanced than Reagan was or ever had an interest in being! :)
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One funny thing Kennedy is doing right now is she loves to be held upside down. There are times when she actively works at getting herself into that position when you are holding her. At first we didn't realize what she was trying to do. She would/will just arch that little back and start getting frustrated if you don't tip her upside down. Then it occurred to one of us that she wanted to be upside down. She just smiles and giggles. What a little nut!
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Kennedy can sit up when she is interested. :) If you go back and look at Reagan's 6 month duck pictures, it appears she is sitting up much better. I think the biggest difference is Kennedy has no interest in sitting up. If you sit her up, she pretty quickly gets herself onto her tummy (now hands and knees) and is off to the next best thing.
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Having said that, I think we have another little book worm on our hands and I couldn't be more delighted! Kennedy does very well at sitting and reading with Reagan and me. This is one of my favorite things to do with the girls so I'm so glad Kennedy has let us continue this. I also enjoy reading to her if Reagan happens to go down for nap or bedtime first. Along those same lines Kennedy has a pretty good attention span. As long as she's not tired, hungry, etc. she can pretty much entertain herself for a decent stretch. About the longest she's gone was at Uncle David and Aunt Jolene's house where we were intermittenly paying attention to her one afternoon - Aunt Jolene and Dad figured she mostly entertained herself on the floor for the better part of an hour while we were busy visiting.
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This week we have started introducing some veggies. The first was sweet potatoes which she loved and we've also started green beans which she appeared to approve of as well. We've also introduced oatmeal and bananas to our morning routine as well as increasing her cereal/veggie meals from once to twice per day since she seems to be enjoying her food (I guess that's actually three times total). She loves to drink out of cups and tries to hold them herself but basically refuses to take a bottle. I hope she doesn't give Daddy and Grandma Pat too hard a time while I'm scrapbooking with friends this weekend in Gatlinburg...
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Kennedy is a wonderful sleeper. She goes to bed between 8:00-9:00 and wakes up between 7:00-8:00 the next morning. She might briefly wake up once or twice during the night but even if she does all you have to do is put her pacifier back in her mouth, turn on her seahorse and sometimes cover her back up and she goes right back to sleep. Sometimes she wakes up for a feeding in the early morning hours but this is more the exception than the rule. She has also continued to accomodate me by taking an afternoon nap the same time Reagan does as well as a morning and somtimes evening catnap. I can't imagine a better little sleeper!
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Kennedy is such a precious happy baby and such a joy to have a round. We definitely think she is a keeper!!!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Family Pictures

Our First LaBar family picture including Kennedy.
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Can you believe we managed a LaBar picture this good with the kids??? I was amazed and so happy! Of course we literally took nearly 200 pictures (thanks to Andrew's awesome remote and burst capability) to get this picture. lol :) Thanks for all the help Aunt Arla, Brittany and Lynn!
We also managed this Lueker Family picture which I really liked. Thank you to Grammy and Pa for their help in accomplishing this one! :)
We've spent the last couple of weeks on the road. Shocker, right? :) Unfortunately my camera bit the dust and I forgot to get the cables for the camera Dad is currently letting me borrow. I may try to get to Walgreens in the next day or two and try and get some pictures loaded to a CD but that may be unrealistic... I'll at least try and get the Duck pictures for Kennedy's 6 month birthday. In case I don't get the pictures posted anytime soon (or at all) we had a great time visiting Uncle David, Aunt Jolene, Uncle George and Grandma in Michigan. We also enjoyed one evening with Darin, Elise, Brendan and Alaina. We also had a great visit to Tennessee and especially enjoyed celebrating Melissa Ensor's wedding (it was beautiful and lots of fun!) and Haley Sliger's graduation. I didn't actually get to attend her graduation ceremony (I'm so sorry I missed that!!!) but the Sliger's invited me to a luncheon their church did for the graduating seniors which was so nice. We also enjoyed spending time with the Stiriz's, Kelly's and of course Grammy and Pa!!! Sorry again for being so slow in our posts lately and let me apologize in advance for what I'm sure will be a gap in time before our next post!

Lance's Graduation

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Wisconsin celebrating my youngest cousin Lance's highschool graduation. Congratulations Lance! Aunt Arla and Uncle Scott had an incredible party for him Saturday afternoon that we throughly enjoyed too! Thanks for giving us a great reason to visit and can't wait to spend a little more time with you guys on our next trip!
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The Graduate
Grandma Carlson and Lance
Mom, Lance and Dad
Aunt Arla, Lance, Uncle Scott and Brittany
A less serious family picture :)

Good luck in Oklahoma and nursing school and don't let that big sis run all over you!!! :)

Gypsy and Taboo

Aunt Dee was nice enough to let us come up and check out their horses Sunday afternoon. Ever since Reagan's first horse ride in Lexington a couple of weeks ago Reagan has been quite excited about horses. She had a wonderful time riding, watching and feeding the horses! Unfortunately we didn't have our act together with the camera so we missed the most excited expressions of the first few times Aunt Dee put Reagan on their backs.
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Riding Taboo

Reagan naturally enjoyed climbing in and out of the coral
Riding Gypsy (Reagan actually spent more time on Gypsy but like I said we didn't have our acts together with the camera)
It's a good thing Great Aunts have lots of patience!!! :)
Learning how to feed horses with your hand open

Reagan filling in Aunt Dee on something. One of the cutest parts of Reagan's horse experience was she kept introducing the horses to us going through everyone's names. lol :)
Working on getting grass with Aunt Jen to feed Gypsy



Thank you so much Aunt Dee!

Spinning

After our LaBar family picture Sunday morning we stayed outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Aunt Arla asked Reagan if she wanted to spin and at first Reagan was pretty grumpy and didn't want too. Once Aunt Arla got her going she didn't want to stop! :) After wearing Aunt Arla out Reagan moved on to Brittany and then Aunt Jen. After a while she figured out it worked best to take turns between the latter two. Wasn't my daughter considerate to let them take a break between spins??? As a side note, I just love these pictures. I love how much fun Reagan is having with Aunt Arla, Brittany, and Aunt Jen, and I love the colors in the pictures too. I'm feeling super inspired to do a scrapbook layout of these pictures this weekend with the girls and can't wait to get to it!!! :)










Checking out Uncle Phil's cows



This is when Reagan figured out she get more consecutive spins if she started going back and forth between Aunt Jen and Brittany lol :)



Thank you to all three of you for the spinning - Reagan loved it! :)

Other Wisconsin Pics :)

Here are some additional pictures we took while in Wisconsin last weekend
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Aunt Pat was awesome and kept Kennedy entertained (and asleep) through Lance's entire graduation. Thanks Aunt Pat! :)
Playing in the sand at Lance's graduation party
Uncle Phil giving Reagan a tractor ride. Reagan really wanted a ride on his "cow"bine but it was in the shed and won't be used until this fall.
Kennedy and Aunt Arla
Sophia and Kennedy - both 6 months and born less than 24 hrs apart
Reagan and Aunt Arla reading and snuggling

Reagan being a "unicorn"
Reagan dictating where Uncle Scott should go and what he should get for her...

Reagan giving Great Grandma a hug while Uncle Andrew shows her Great Grandma some of his (beautiful) pictures
This is one of Dad's pictures and I just thought it was so pretty