15 month checkup

We had our 15 month checkup today - still going strong! 21lb 14oz (50%), 30 1/2in (50%) - so we are a very average child!

She isn't talking much, just a couple words like BOB (Tiffany's cat), Mom, OP (stop at the dogs). I am a bit concerned however the doctor said not to worry. To continue reading, and showing her pictures and telling her animal sounds and singing alphabets in the car, etc.

I do have to say although she isn't talking, she understands A TON - you can ask her to do just about anything and she does - she just doesn't talk, but she DOES sign! She knows bird, bath, more, juice, milk, hi/bye. She seems to pick up on signs rather quickly - for instance, I have been trying to do juice with her for awhile and literally, just today I showed her milk and a juice box and asked her which she wanted - she pointed to the juice and I said can you say Juice - and she signed juice!! I was shocked and proud :) So we don't have verbal but we have sign! (now when I say we don't have verbal I just mean what we can understand, she talks a lot in her own language!)

Fall 2009

We went to Basses Pumpkin Farm to pick out some pumpkins - we had to get pictures in the same cutouts as we did last year to compare!!

2009 Picture

2008 Picture

2009 Picture2008 Picture

We got to see some goats and llamas, she loved them!

She really wasn't sure what to do with the pumpkins...

Tiffany took some adorable pictures of her on a rare warm day in October...so cute!!

The pumpkins we carved!!

Our first birthday party

So I'm a LOT late on this post - have so much going on here, no time to sit on the computer!! Kaiya's first birthday party was a HIT!! She had a blast and it was so great getting together with family, we don't do it often enough, though we still missed our out of town family.

Kaiya looked like a little princess in her VERY CUTE pink dress....

Her friend Lilah and her had a very cute hug!!

And then again later in the day...

Our decorations...

The cakes!!

Not sure what to think about it....

YUMMY!

Great Grandma Ryback and Kai

Great-Grandma being silly - that is one of kaiya's favorite toy though - her Roundy's bucket! Auntie Mary Jo holding her.

Present time!! Got lots of great gifts!

Playing in her ball pit with cousin, Peyton.

Kaiya got this purple chair for her birthday and she absolutely LOVES it - its perfect for her...just her size and did I mention she LOVES it!?

WE MADE IT A YEAR!!

Well, we all survived Kaiya's first year, and what a great year it was!! I am knocking on wood but Kaiya was only sick a couple times and when she was, it was just a cold - we were only at the doctors office for well baby visits. She is growing and changing on a DAILY basis - its very fun to watch her discover new things and watch things click in her head. Its also sad, my baby is growing up, I just sat and orgainzed her baby clothes and my maternity clothing tonight, ugh looking at the clothes that fit her when she was a newborn just brought tears to my eyes. The hat she wore home from the hospital, how small it is. Awh the memories.

But here we are, a year later and many, many, many milestones later! Kaiya has 8 teeth with a 9th coming in - one of her year old molars is peeking through the back gums. She is walking like a champ, she started at 11 months. She eats all table food now (I wouldn't expect anything less with almost 9 teeth!!), drinks juice from a sippy cup, and tries to use forks herself. We are going to be working on transitioning her off bottles for her milk too, slowly but surely. She will be getting cows milk tomorrow!! I am so excited for her to try it. I am very proud of myself that I made it a full year of giving her mothers milk for her first year of life but let me tell you - I am happy to be done!! FREEDOM!!

She is growing good - 29" and 19lbs. 12oz - so 50% height and 25% weight. She has learned how to go down the one stair we have in our house without a gate on it - she now will go down on her tummy. What's funny about this is we were at Chuck E. Cheese for her first birthday and when she would go down the slide, she would go down on her tummy too - she would get up to the top then turn around and get on her belly like she does for the stairs - it was very cute.

She is into everyting, she is a very curios child. Has to see what is going on everywhere - some call her nosy. She loves my tupperware drawer, we find covers and tupperware all over the in many different spaces.

We will be going on our first airplane ride in September to head out to California to visit Uncle Brett and we couldn't be more excited!! We will get to go to disney (probably) and do some other fun stuff in California - Kaiya will be doing all this WAY before I ever did as a kid!! So we will be there about a week and we can't wait! Though mommy is not looking forward to the airplane ride with a one year old - gulp....

All in all we have a happy, healthy one year old. This past year was a blast, watching her grow and learn and we can't wait for what the rest of the years have in store for us!

More....

I can't tell you how long we have been working on sign language with Kaiya - since before we should have even been cause she had no clue what we were doing!! And I am SO happy that she seems to have finally grasped one of the signs - MORE There are different variations of more - supposed to be your fingers hitting together or fists together, Kaiya has made it one fist hitting the palm of the other hand.



She also is trying to feed herself...when I put the spoon by her SHE has to grab it and feed herself, she doesn't like us doing it! Little miss independent

The Great Circus Parade

The Great Circus Parade has been a tradition in my family ever since I can remember...I remember my dad and my Uncles going down the day before to stake out our spot underneath this bridge to ensure we were out of the elements, be it rain or shine. They would camp overnight to make sure we had the best spot!! I remember going down and having a port a potty in our suburban so that when we had to go to the bathroom we could go to the car and go (its the small things).



(Caption above pic: I have never seen this before in a parade - there were lots of babies accompanying what I can only guess to be their moms in the parade. Must be conditioning them to crowds and working?)

It was a great family tradition and I was very upset when it left town in 1993 and didn't come back. Now that I have a child I really want to pass the tradition down to her of going to the parade, but I'm not sure how long it will be here unfortunately. It was back this year and we went, but not sure about next year. Regardless, I will be taking my family every time it is in town and it is a tradition I want to pass on.



The only thing missing this year from the parade that I can remember was the 40 horse hitch. It was a spectacular sight, have to see it to believe it (and give it LOTS of room around the corners). I was disappointed not to see that - but seeing all the wagons brought back so many memories.

This year we went down with my friend Erin and her two sons and her brother and his child. She has a little boy, Micah who is 4 months younger than Kaiya - Kaiya was more interested in him than the parade, but I have the pictures to show her she was there!!

Cute pics

Ok, is anyone else frustrated with moving pictures around on the blog? For me I am having NO luck! So here are two I wanted to put in my 4th of July post but I couldn't get them where I wanted them so I just decided to do a new post!!

WALKING

Walking, walking, walking - its official, we have an 11 month old walker. She is still a little unsteady, and goes for crawling at times but for 11 months, she does well for walking! She was cruising for awhile but just these last couple of days, especially in Eagle River with my father telling her - NO, you walk - come on - you can do it - WALK....she is now walking multiple steps on her own with no help!! She is so darn cute to watch! (now, until she starts running away from us). Here are some videos I got of her today. Sorry, first one is sideways - rest should be good.

Notice the tongue out towards the end of this video.

4th of July

I'm a little late on my blog, sorry, things have been hectic and I am without my laptop right now. Anywho - the family ventured Up North to our house in Eagle River for the 4th of July. I love it up there - its so peaceful.

We went to Watermelon fest, which is basically a bunch of art vendors - we went to the 4th of July parade in downtown Eagle River and Josh and I went to the Land 'O Lakes Fireworks by ourselves (very dissapointing fireworks I might add). Kaiya was interested in the parade for about 10 minutes - she would wave at the people and clap for them. She did love the ice pops that one of the floats was handing out. Then she wanted to get down and explore, enough waving at people!

We didn't get out on the boat at all, which is fine. The weather wasn't the best - it was a bit chilly. We did get to just relax and that is the most important part!

There was a rough part of the trip - Kaiya wasn't sleeping well up there. She would not nap (and when she did it was a struggle) and she didn't go down like her usual self, she woke up most of the nights as well which is not like her. So that part was stressful, but other than that we had a good time. Here she is in her 'toga' after she woke up from one of her naps.

My dad and I went fishing - he caught more than me but we had about 6-7 fish between us. I love fishing, I HATE touching the fish - they are slimey and nasty. My dad wanted to take a picture of me with one of my fishies I caught - he was trying to zoom and get the picture just right while I was holding the slimey fish!! So my expression in the picture was me telling him TAKE THE FRICKIN PICTURE ALREADY!