Crawling, Dancing, Fishing & Racing!

Lydia has now officially abandoned her army crawl for regular crawling and gets around at turbo speed.  Her front top tooth has completely broken through and is coming in more and more everyday.  Unfortunatly she has started gringing on it with her bottom tooth, but she only does it when she is eating.  

She is loving all her new toys from Christmas and it just amazes me how smart she is and how quickly she catches on to things.  Grandma & Grandpa Kennedy got her a neat magnetic fishing puzzle that she really loves.   She also really enjoys the princess car that they got her.  She loves it when Mommy & Daddy push her in it really fast!!  She loves to dance to her musical toys and she has also become more of a cuddle bug lately.  Which mommy loves!

Here are the videos.  You can also see them all on our photobucket account.

Here is a video of her crawling. 

Here is a video of her racing in her princess car.

Here is a video of her dancing to her new toy from Grandma & Grandpa Becker

Here is a video of her playing with her fishing puzzle

Christmas 2008

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This is a slideshow of our Christmas this year.  It includes Christmas Eve with the Kennedy Family, Christmas Day with the Becker Family & the Day After Christmas with Seth, Hannah, our neice & nephew (Ian & Noel) and Darril & Dani (Ryan's cousin & his girlfriend).

Holiday Photos

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This is another album that is "flip style" there is an arrow at the bottom of the screen after opening.

We took some holiday pictures today of Lydia in her new Christmas dress.  I was hoping to get a few more of her with her santa hat on but she HATED that hat and kept pulling it off the second we tried to put it on.  She loved the little ornament though!  

10 Months Old

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Be sure after you click play to press the arrow at the bottom of the screen to "flip" through the pages of the album.  There are multiple pages of the "book".

Our baby girl is 10 months old today!  It just amazing me everytime I think about it.  It really does not seem like it was already 10 months ago that she was born.  

Some new things: 

Lydia has a top tooth coming in now.

We're Climbing stairs!

When she is upset she bats at her right ear. (Note: And if you hold her right arm down while she does it she'll start batting at the other ear!)  LOL!

We tried Oreo's for the first time this week! They were great until we wanted to share with Kaizer. She wanted to take turns with him, giving him a lick and then taking it back.  That didn't last long!

Merry Christmas!

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This photo was taken today and I love how it shows off her two bottom teeth really well.  

It seems like her hair and her two little teeth grow longer every day.   She is growing up so fast and doing new things daily! Her favorite thing right now is climbing - she wants to climb anything and everything she possibly can!  She has become quite a cruiser and moves from different pieces of funiture to get places.  She is getting very good at learning the names of things and she knows Daddy, Mommy & Kaizer very well.  She also knows juice, milk, sippy, "can I have some?" and most recently "tree".   We ask her "Where is the Tree?" and she lifts her hand and arm up to the tree and makes a "Oooohhh" sound.  She loves all the decorations and lights.  

Her cousins Ian &  Noel will be arriving next week and I am very excited to see how she interacts with them.  Noel is 4 months and Ian is almost 2.   I am also looking forward to seeing her reaction to her new toys and opening gifts for the first time.  I will be sure to post lots of pictures of our eventful week next week with family coming and all the celebrations.    

We want to wish all of our dearest family and friends a very Merry Christmas!  For those who are traveling we wish you a safe trip and to everyone we pray you all have a very blessed holiday!

Organic Meat & Produce

I had always purchased Tyson chicken at the store because I was under the impression that it was free of antibiotics and hormones. I recently found out that they inject the eggs with antibiotics and also feed them to the chicken's in their feed. 

Click Here for the Article

I have been doing some research these last few days looking for places to buy organic beef and chicken (locally preferably). There are quite a few places in Wyoming that sell "organic" 100% grass fed beef where you can buy 1/4, 1/2 of a whole beef. I decided to pursue Williams Grass Fed a little more and they said they had a 1/4 left packaged and frozen until next summer. My parents and I are going to be splitting that 1/4 to try it and if we are happy with the beef we will probably order at least a 1/2 next year. I really like supporting local farms and ranches and also getting something that you can trust in knowing exactly what is in the meat. These are all free of antibiotics, hormones & steroids. They are free roaming cows that are 100% natural grass fed and completely free of pesticides as well.

Unfortunately with our long winters there are no organic chicken farms anywhere around here and the cheapest I found is to order bulk organic chicken breast online from BlackWing Organic Meats at $7.90/lb. which does not including shipping. Our local Albertson's carry's Wild Harvest brand chicken and it is not 100% organic but it is free of hormones, antibiotics and 100% vegetarian fed and it is a bit less expensive so we will probably just purchase that locally at our store along with eggs and milk that we can get organic at Wal-Mart or Albertsons.

I am really looking forward to visiting some local farmers markets in Spearfish and Buffalo/Sheridan next summer/fall. Not only is it just a really neat experience visiting those markets and getting wonderful fresh produce but I think it's really great to support those local farmers that provide such great organic fruits and vegetables to us. To find your local organic farmers markets, ranches & stores Click Here. 

12 Days of Christmas Tag

"On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."

1 Embarrassing moment:
I cannot think of a good one to share!!

2 Best Friend: Ryan

3 Things I buy regularly: Milk, Vegetables, Chicken Breast

4 Places I want to go: Italy, Ireland, Egypt, and someplace tropical.

5 Goals for the upcoming year: Finally loose the baby weight from Lydia, conceive baby #2, find a church, go camping at least twice, gain less than 30lbs during pregnancy with baby #2.

6 Things most people don't know about me: I take SUPER hot showers and love them. I love wearing high heels. I am a makeup junkie (yay for Sephora's!). I have a soft spot for designer jeans and purses. I bite my nails when I am nervous. My hair is naturally curly.

7 Things I would never say: Please pass the peas. Cooked carrots are my favorite food. I have never been to Hawaii. My life is boring. I'm an only child. My favorite color is red. We own a cat.

8 Things I love about the Christmas Season: Celebrating the birth of our savior, Christmas music, the snow falling, decorations, lights, good food, wrapping & giving gifts, & being with family.

9 Things I say to my kid/s: I love you, want some juice?, Tootsie!, Hi Sweet Pea, Come to mama, Big girl!, Night Night, Patty Cake Patty Cake, No, No, No!

10 Things I do a lot: Vacuum, Cook, Change Diapers, Check our email, Prepare Formula,
Clean Dishes, Do Laundry, Wash Bibs, Feed Lydia, Run Errands.

11 Things I would rather not live without: God, Family, Friends, Our Home, Organic Food, My treadmill, Our Escalade, Our computer(internet), my camera & video camera & Spearfish Regional Medical Clinic.

12 People I tag: Christine, Danielle & Mom - I don't have 12!!

9 Month Check Up

Lydia had her 9 months check up on Wednesday of this week. She weighed in at 16lbs 4 oz and 27" tall. The nurse said she is no longer in the 10th percentile for her height but is now in the 25th. Which is great. She is still in the 10th for her weight but she said that she is following the growth curve perfectly for weight so that is great.

Lydia only had to get one shot this time; the HIB shot. She has always done really well up until the actual shot and has even had a shot that she didn't cry for but this time as soon as the nurse came over to her she knew what was about to happen so she started to cry right away and tried to roll away from her. I had to hold her still so that could give her the vaccine. She did fine afterwards though and had no problems with it at all.

Here is a chart of her growth since birth:

Birth: 6 lbs 12 oz; 17.75 in.
2 months: 10 lbs 1 oz; 21 in.
4 months: 11 lbs 15 oz; 23 in.
6 months: 13lbs 11 oz; 24 3/4 in.
9 months: 16lbs 4 oz; 27 in.

Army Crawl

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Snow Angel

I absolutely love this little hat of Lydia's. I got some cute pictures of her wearing it this weekend and I wanted to share my favorite ones. There a bunch more that you can see on our Photobucket.

Also, just an update on Ryan. His job at Marathon Oil Company FINALLY posted this morning!! They told us it wouldn't be up until Monday or Tuesday of next week so we were thrilled that it got posted early. He formally applied for the position today online and hopefully he will hear from someone tomorrow and be able to start by Monday.

New Carpet

We got our new carpet installed yesterday. I am so happy with it! The arrived around 10am and were done at 4pm. Ryan and I spent most of the afternoon and evening putting the house back together. It is so soft and feels great under your feet. We noticed though that the closet doors are kind of difficult to open now since the carpet and pad are so much thicker than the old stuff. We had planned on getting new doors anyway though so we will just have to deal with that for the time being. I had wanted to take before and afters but after uploading my camera I see that I must have forgot to take a picture of the living room before. I did get one of the office. Anyway, I know most of you are aware of the condition of our old carpet and what it looked like. Here are the pictures! The first picture is the before of the office, the last two are of the new carpet.

Festival of Trees

Ryan, Lydia, my sister in law Christine and I all visited the Festival of Trees on Sunday afternoon. There wasn't quite as many trees as I expected but they did have some really pretty ones. Here are some pictures.

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Lydia's Tree

We put up Lydia's tree in her room this week. She really loved the lights. Just thought I would share some pictures.

UPDATE: We will be getting our new carpet installed on Monday morning. We will be moving all our furniture out of the office and living room this weekend to get ready for that on Monday. We are excited to finally be getting the new carpet installed! I will be sure to post before and after pictures after it's all done. :)

Kisses

I just had to share this cute story. Last night Lydia was sitting on my lap and I was giving her little kisses on her lips. I looked over to Ryan to smile and then I turned back to look at Lydia and she swooped right in and gave me a big smacker right on my lips. Ryan just busted out laughing! It was so funny and so sweet. I look forward to lots more kisses from my baby girl now that she knows how. :)

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Such a Big Girl!

This morning I was on the computer in my office and Lydia was on the floor next to me crawling around. I looked down at her and noticed that she was suddenly sitting right next to my chair on the floor! She must have maneuvered herself from a crawl into a sitting position (she has never done that before). I told her she was a big girl and then she reached around and grabbed the seat part of my chair and pulled herself up to a stand! She has pulled herself up with my help before but she has never used an object to pull herself up with. What a big girl!!

New Video & Updates

We got a new video of Lydia this morning. I thought it was pretty cute so I wanted to share it with everyone. We are having a good week. Ryan is still out of work at the moment but is doing some electrical work for my Grandpa at their R.V. park this week. He is suppose to hear from Marathon Oil by tomorrow about the job but the supervisor at Marathon said if they wouldn't be able to hire him by the end of the week they would have him work for DRG temporarily until they are ready for him to start the new position at Marathon. It has been 3 weeks since he was let go.

Ryan's sister Rachael is 20 weeks pregnant this week and found out today that they will be having a girl. She says her name will be Emma Leigh. She is currently going to Spearfish for all her prenatal appointments and had the 4D ultrasound there today. She was able to get a video of it, how exciting! Her husband Chris' 26th birthday party is this Friday so when we go over to the Becker's house for that we will watch the video too. I am sure it will bring back lots of memories for me. It's hard to believe that I was pregnant this time last year.

I have been keeping up with my diet and exercise since last Monday and have lost 6 lbs so far. I am determined to stick with it this time and am excited to see the numbers go down each day on the scale. I have to get rid of this baby weight once and for all!

A couple of our neighbors have Christmas lights up already! I am getting excited about Christmas this year. It will be so special now that we have Lydia. I decided that our first holiday tradition is going to be that on Christmas Eve our family will all wear matching Christmas pajamas. I found some really cute affordable ones at childrensplace.com. I think it will be really fun and the pictures will be so cute. It looks like Seth & Hannah will probably be able to come out for Christmas this year. We are so excited about that. I cannot wait to see my nephew Ian again and my 4 month old niece Noel for the first time. They will be meeting Lydia for the first time too. We are going to be drawing names this weekend with the Becker's for Christmas gifts but just for the adults. I am currently working on my Christmas gifts for my side of the family.

Planning Lydia's Party

I have started to think about Lydia's first birthday. It's hard to believe that it is just 3 months away now! I have known for awhile that I wanted to do a little princess type theme so I went online to celebrateexpress.com I believe that is where my mom used to get us kids party stuff (they had the neatest stuff!). Right on the front page of the site they had a link for 1st Birthdays and there it was! The cutest Lil' Princess 1st Birthday theme ever. I am not sure what day we will be having it on yet because I have to check my Dad's schedule with the Becker's schedule to see what will work for both. I am pretty sure we will be having it at Grandma & Grandpa Becker's house. I wanted to be able to have it at a place we could decorate how we wanted, bring whatever food we wanted and stay as long as we like. It's kind of hard to find that here because there aren't many places to have parties except for restaurants which usually have stipulations and it will only be about 12 people so I wouldn't need to rent a big place. I just need to think of some fun games that the adults would like to play and what kind of foods to serve. I'm thinking we will just do cake, ice cream, punch and some snacks. I can't believe my little baby will be turning one soon; that will surely be a bittersweet moment for me..

Fun With Our Friends

We had a great Saturday night with our friends Lee Ann & Michael, and their son Joshua. We had pizza, watched Kung Fo Panda and played Rock Band in between visiting, it was a lot of fun! We look forward to the next time we can get together with them. I got some fun pictures from the evening to share with everyone.

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Picture Tag

My friend Lee Ann tagged me for picture tag so here it is!

The sixth picture in the sixth folder of my pictures. Me at 37 weeks pregnant with Lydia. (One week before birth)

New Toys

Kids Mart had a 20% off sale today so Ryan, Lydia & I went down to see if they had anything Lydia would like. We found some really fun things and took a video of her first reaction to them.

Talking & Clapping

Happy Halloween

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Great Friends

We were blessed with a visit from some close friends a few weekends ago. Unfortunately they weren't able to stay long but I am so glad I was able to see them. Lydia really liked Joshua, and I think it is so neat that they share the same birthday (he is 2 years older). Lee Ann took pictures and a video while she was here and sent them to me this morning. Here are a few pictures and the video. :)

Two Teeth!

Both of Lydia's two front bottom teeth have poked through! I kept expecting for her to get sick or start getting really fussy or not sleeping at night so I am so thankful she didn't have any problems. What a blessing!

She is also starting to climb and pull herself up to a stand by herself! She still is not crawling the official "hands & knees" crawl but she has developed her army crawl into an art and can get across a room really quickly that way. :)

She loves for someone to hold her hands so she can walk. She takes great big steps and can get around really fast that way too.

We are excited for her first Halloween. She will be dressed as a Teddy Bear! We bought a 6-12 month size costume but after pulling it out of the packaging earlier this week and trying it on, it is going to be way to long in the legs for her. Luckily our wonderful neighbor who happens to be a seamstress offered to fix it for her so she is taking everything in on it right now. We plan on making trips to each of our family members homes to say "trick-or-treat" and to take pictures.

Our First Video!

Personalized Baby Items

I ordered these personalized bibs and the shopping cart cover a few weeks ago. I was able to specify exactly what I wanted from colors to fonts and of course what text to put on everything. I just received them today. I really like how they turned out! The shopping cart cover comes with a bag to keep it in and the bag and cart cover both have her name on them. There are 6 bibs. 1 says Lydi-Bug, 1 says Tootsie, 1 says Sweet Pea, and the others are monogrammed with her initials or her name.

I See A Tooth!

I can see a tooth right under the skin on Lydia's bottom gum so I don't think it will be too long before we have one poking through! We still aren't crawling yet but each day she gets a bit closer. She is starting to bring her knees forward now, she just needs to get her hand movement in sync with her legs.

Some other new things we are doing this week are - drinking out of a straw, waving hello and goodbye, & clapping our hands together (we love to play patty cake)! We have also moved up to size 2 shoes and I think we will be needed to move into size 6-9 months sleepers soon.

Ryan & his hunting buddy weren't able to bring anything back from hunting, but they said they had a good time. It just wasn't a good area and they only saw 1 elk the entire 5 days they were there. They did see a lot of moose though. Ryan took some pictures with a disposable camera. I posted them in a slide show that you can see just below this post.

Hunting 2008

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