Merry Christmas!!

Kyrah had a great Christmas. First on Tuesday December 16th she decided to start walking everywhere. It was so weird, that evening she just started walking from room to room. Up until then she would only walk back and forth to people or from a toy to a person. Then Tuesday night it was like a switch flipped and she decided walking was better. She still stumbles a lot, but now it is her perferred method of mobility. She will still crawl around once in a while, but she is officially a walker.

On a sad note she has developed this nasty rash under both arms. Daycare thought for sure it was the start of strep throat so we took her to the doctor and they said it was nothing like that, just maybe due to teething or something she ate. Well it is now Dec. 29th and it is still there and has gotten worse - now it itches her all the time - poor thing. So Daddy is taking her to the doctor again today. Lets hope they can figure it out this time.

Here are some pictures of Kyrah on Christmas Eve morning showing off her new walking skills in her candy cane shirt.

On Christmas morning I tried to get her to understand that Santa delivered presents and she gets to open something, but she just wasn't interested. So we didn't open presents until later that evening when Broc came over. We went to Christmas mass at 10am and this girl babbled during the entire mass! She just would not shut up - she was not fussing or crying, just baby talk the whole time. When we were singing she would even do a sing song type of babble - very cute, but I am sure the priest wasn't happy - oh well. Here is Daddy and Kyrah before mass.

After mass we headed to my families Christmas at my parents house. She of course loves going there because there are 8 other kids running around and all the adults so she gets lots of attention and she has tons of activity around her to watch. She finally got the hang of opening presents as well.

Here is a picture of all the Propst Grandkids except Broc is missing. He did not get to the house until later.

After presents and a short nap (way too short), she was in a great mood and had fun being chased by Broc around the house.

Overall we had a great Christmas. We are doing Daddy's side on Jan. 3rd, so Christmas isn't over for us yet. Kyrah received wonderful presents like a dancing tower, a little giraffe that she sits on and rides around, a set of tunnels and mazes, an art easel and tons of baby dolls (two sets of twin baby dolls - of course - just getting her used to the idea!)

Speaking of which, yesterday she grabbed a baby out of her toy box and she carried it around and it sounded like she said "day-dee". I want to hear her say it again before I will officially call it a new word for her, but she does seem to immate words more. I pointed out the kitties to her and she sounded like she said "kit-tee", but when I ask her who I am or point to a baby doll and ask, she doesn't say anything. We will keep working on it.

By the way - here is Kyrah at Christmas one year ago when she was just 6 weeks old! Wow what a difference a year makes.

Day Care X-Mas Party

It has been a while since I have written. Thanksgiving was a bit rough. Kyrah was sick starting the Monday before Thanksgiving, then I got sick and had to go to the ER and then a few days later the hospital, so needless to say we are hoping for no more sickness.

She is getting better at walking. She stands up by herself from a sitting position and will take off walking. Her favorite is to walk between people and she is up to about 10 steps. She stills crawls most of the time though.

Sunday Dec. 7th we were grocery shopping at Wal-Mart and they had a Santa there and offered free pictures. So for fun we put Kyrah on Ms. Claus' lap....it didn't go well - crying and hands straight out.

Well tonight at her daycare Christmas party we knew Santa would be there and we tried again. Here are the results

This was the only bad moment of the party. She loved her present from the daycare workers - a curious George monkey and Curious George book.

She also enjoyed the candy cane Santa gave her even though she was being naughty.

After Santa and presents, Kyrah showed me some of the toys she plays with.

I hate to tell her this, but we are scheduled to see Santa again on Saturday. I don't expect her reaction to be much differnt from the first two times, but they say 3s a charm...

Kyrah's 1 year Photos

Below are Kyrah's offical 1 year photos that we had taken at Sears. The protrait studio was okay - I doubt I will rush back, but I knew I needed a lot of pictures so wanted to find somewhere less expensive. Of course Dennis wants to know why I bought an expensive camera if I still go to get her photos done... I told him he will never understand and not to question it.

I love the one of her in her tutu.

On her birthday she took 2 steps by herself and just this past Monday she took 6 steps!! She is learning, just has to get some confidence. A friend suggested I have her hold a toy when she is trying to walk and that may "fool" her into thinging she is holding onto a table so we may try that tonight.

Happy 1st Birthday Kyrah!

On November 12, 2008 at 4:12 pm Kyrah officially turned 1 year old. I took the day off work and made her egg bread (basically french toast) and eggs (her favorite). Then we played a bit and went up to day care to play with her friends and have a little party up there with her. We basically spent the day playing with all her new cool (older!) toys. I took all the baby type toys and stored them away for the twins and brought out all her new toys that help her develop. She also took her first official step on her birthday. She was on her blue chair and I was on the floor about 2 feet away and she stood up (which she does great now by herself) and took two steps to me. Very exciting. She likes to "walk" with fingers or with her little walker and just in the past few days she has been standing on her one very well so we are hoping she will be walking by herself soon.

This is what I wrote in her journal on her birthday...
My little baby girl is one year old today! One year ago today, November 12th, at 4:12 pm Kyrah Janet came into our lives. Over the past year she has been a wonderful baby and I can not imagine loving someone as much as I love her. So for an update on what she is doing and where she is at. She says Ma Ma and Da Da but won't tell you who I am if you ask her the question. She is cruising along furniture but is scared to let go. She loves to climb on things - especially her little rocking chair. She drinks 2% milk and only takes one bottle right before bed time, although we are going to take that away soon. She still takes a pacifier. I know that will be very hard when we make her give that up. She eats all adult food - no baby food anymore - although that has been for awhile now. She loves to pull up on things. She points with her finger at objects. She is really fast at crawling. She has 3 confirmed teeth - possibly more but it is hard to tell because her top gum does not show when she smiles and she won't let me put my finger in there to feel around. She can throw a ball and likes to put objects in to and out of a bucket or bowl. Kyrah loves to '"tickle" Mom or Dad - which for her is just touching our toes. She knows where a nose is on someone else and can point it out. She likes to play with Broc and likes it when Broc throws her on the bed then jumps on the bed like he is going to jump on her. She like to open cabinets and pull things out of them. She plays peek a boo by covering her eyes and then pulling her hands away. Just recently she has started crawling through Daddy's legs like it is a tunnel. She has also started "dancing" she really likes music and will bounce up and down or if she is sitting down she will hop on her butt like she is dancing. We are working on drinking out of an adult cup and likes to do it when we help her, but she is not that good at drinking. Most of the time the liquid will run back out of her mouth. She is not really a cuddler, I usually only get her to lay her head on my shoulder when she is really tired, but she likes to be picked up, so when she does cuddle up to me I take advantage of it and soak it up. She has started giving kisses which for her is just leaning in to you with her mouth open. She likes to have a blanket when she goes to sleep. She loves the Baby Einstein movies - usually we only watch those when she is in the van now. Before she would watch one at home when she was having her snack. She can stand on her own very well and likes to walk with help.

There are a thousand more things that make Kyrah special, but that is a pretty good list of what she is up to at 1 year old.

Kyrah's Birthday Party

Sunday November 9th we had Kyrah's birthday party. Because our families are so big we had to have it somewhere that could hold about 50 people. So we went to our local Community Center and had her party from 3-6. We had passes for the kids (or adults) to go swimming and Kyrah and Daddy went swimming. She loved the pool. It has buckets that spill water and little sprinklers and it has a graded shallow end so she could crawl into the water and play around. She didn't really have a theme to her party - I guess if you could say it was Balloons - she had tons of balloons around the room and had some on her cake and on the decorations. We had pictures for everyone to take with them and treat bags for the little kids to take along. Lots of people came to the party to wish her Happy Birthday. I would guess about 50 people came. She didn't understand about blowing out her candle, so we had to do that for her. We also did not let her tear into a cake, actually Grandpa fed her a piece of birthday cake. Maybe on her actual birthday we will give her a cake to tear into and get messy. The party was a great success and it is clear that she has lots of family and friends that love her very much!

Also at her party we opened the envelopes that told us what the twins will be and as it turns out we will have a boy and a girl!!!

This is Dale helping Kyrah open her presents.

She got lots of really cute clothes and books and toys.

Grandpa always lets you get messy when eating cake.

She didn't understand the concept of blowing out a candle but she liked looking at her cake.

Yummy - dinner ~ I know the pictures are in the wrong order, but ...

Kyrah had a great time on Halloween. She was a peacock. Her day started out at daycare and having a party with her daycare friends. There were 3 spidermen at daycare! Must be a popular costume for the little boys. I picker her up around 1 and we went to Daddy's school to watch the grade school kids walk the halls in their Halloween parade. She was so tired because it was 1:30 and she had not yet napped more then 30 minutes, but she sat quietly on my lap and loved watching all the kids. After that we left and I drove her around for about an hour to let her get a small nap in. Her Halloween evening started out by going to Grandma's and playing a bit until it got dark. By this point, Nick, Lydia, Jess, Anna and Dale had arrived. We walked around Grandma's neighborhood a bit and Kyrah liked going to the different houses. She didn't really need the candy so we usually declined when it was offered to her. The only candy she eats at this point is suckers. I hold the sucker and she licks it - she really likes the cherry ones the best. We headed home about 6 or so and gave out candy at the house. Once Nick and Lydia came over we walked around our neighborhood a bit. At this point she was in the stroller and cuddled up in blankets so it was much better. She loves being outside and loves watching all the activity. Of course when we got back home at about 8 and her bed time … then she wouldn't go to sleep and fussed until she finally fell asleep at 9 or so. All in all a very fun day. The next day we went to a Halloween carnival and she was in a costume contest and won "Cutest"!

The Pumpkin Patch

Kyrah, Lydia, Nick, Tina and I all went to Eckert's Farm Sunday Oct. 19th (on PwC's dime - a tax social event). It was a great time. Kyrah loved all the animals and playing in the straw. She rolled the pumpkins around (even the big ones) and she threw the apples like they were balls because that is what Daddy is teaching her to do. Also this weekend she is finally saying the "ma" sound. I have noticed that she says it when she wants something or she is unhappy so I try to respond to her when she says it -sometimes I just say "I am over here" or I come help her do whatever she is trying to do. Hopefully she will associate the sound with me. When we ask her "where is ma ma?" she looks at me but I don't think she has made the connection yet that she can say it and I will respond, but it is a step in the right direction. Here are some pictures of her great time at Eckert's

Look at all these apples!

She was sitting in the middle of the pumpkin patch while we were picking out pumpkins... she was just happy playing with her one pumpkin.

But this is the one we finally picked out to take home and carve.

I think this was her favorite part. She could have played with the goats all day.

Whoa... so many pumpkins... all for me??

The end of the day... she was very tired afterall she was 2 hours late for her nap so the smiles were over...

Sept and Oct Pics

I finally downloaded pictures from my camera. Below are pictures of Kyrah playing at our neighborhood BBQ we had Sunday night. She liked playing on the toys but mainly crawled around.

This was her favorite. She liked Daddy pushing her around.

She was a little short to make this one move....soon though.

Here is Kyrah showing off in her cute dress that she wore to a friend's wedding reception. The dress didn't last too long because she could not crawl in it, but it was cute for about an hour.

STG Homecoming

First I will say sorry for the poor quality of pictures - they are from my phone. The camera I brought along had dead batteries. This weekend was Ste. Gen's homecoming which is a big parade. Dennis was even in the parade so Kyrah, Grandma and I met up with Jess, Anna, Dale, Lydia, Nick and some other friends to watch the parade and get candy! This was Kyrah's second parade, a few weeks ago she went to see the Valle parade (the other school in our town). She loves watching the parade go by and really likes the band. Here is a picture before we went to the parade - you will never quess where we are at!!

Also, let me mention that the mascot for STG is the Dragon - isn't her shirt great??!!

This was her first McDonald's experience as well. She likes the fries and cheesebuger - well the bread and cheese mainly.

Here she is waiting for the parade to get started.

After the parade we had dinner (she was cranky - missing a nap). Luckily she fell asleep on the way to the game. She slept for about 30-40 minutes then woke up to watch the Dragon beat the Bombers in a butt kick'n. Not sure of the final score - we left at half time and it was 47-13.

She now has 2 teeth on bottom and I think 2 teeth on top. She will not let me put my finger in her mouth to verify she has two on top, but when she bites on things I can see two teeth marks. She is crawling everywhere and will practice walking when we hold her hands, but she gets tired and her legs just sort of fall down and she is done walking.

The little pill has also been getting up in the middle of the night crying. Of course Daddy goes in and picks her up and takes her out to the couch to go back to sleep. He will have to learn that he can't keep doing this or else she will get used to it and expect it everytime. But that is a Daddy for you.

As soon as I find my connector to my camera to download new photos I will. She has some great pictures of the BBQ we went to last night.