Webster Words

Monday, February 23, 2009

4 Months Old!

McKenna had her 4 month check up today and is doing GREAT!

These posts are mainly for bragging and journaling about her development :)

Weight 13.3 lbs. -50th percentile (2 pound increase)

Length- 25 in. -90th percentile (1.5 inch increase)

Head Circ.- 16.4 in. -75th percentile (.5 inch increase)

2 shots- cried for maybe 30 seconds. Even though the rest of the day hasn't been too pleasant, Tylenol has helped some...

Here's her cute zoomed-in face! X5 :)

Happy girl!

Skills:

Loves to touch the books I read to her. Even if it is to try to eat them, this makes mommy SO happy! As a teacher, I can't wait for her to show even MORE interest in books!
I put her to bed wide awake and she can put herself to sleep with relatively little fussing!
Speaking of sleep- she usually sleeps from 9:30pm-2:30am and then 3-8am (during her BEST nights). Dan is wonderful at rocking her back to sleep if I don't think it's time to feed her yet. :) He's an AMAZING DAD!
She loves to put weight on her legs for "long" periods of time.
When she sits in our laps she does not want to relax and recline anymore. She uses her tummy muscles to sit herself up and look at the world around her.
She's shown quite a love for music already. I have a hard time nursing her while watching Music and the Spoken Word because she wants to look around and see where that music is coming from. When I sing her to sleep at night she coos right along.
She seems to be learning how to fake cry to get attention (which isn't necessarily a good thing).
She gets distracted by the camera which makes it hard to capture her cuteness!
She's using her hands so much now, batting and grabbing. Everything she grabs goes straight to her mouth.

Here's a video of her playing!

Here's McKenna making the same faces daddy's making. When he smiled, she smiled. When he was serious, she was serious. Funny girl!

Dan's mom bought all of the girls in our family sewing machines for Christmas! I've always wanted to learn to sew and I'm very grateful for her giving me the capability to do so now more easily and conveniently than I could have before. Of course I could have asked MY own mom to teach me the whole time I was living at home... I regret that never happening. Different priorities at the time. I guess I'm becoming much more motivated now that I'm a mom and feel the need to become more domestic. :)

This is almost exactly what my machine looks like.

My first day of sewing consisted of getting to know the machine and playing around with the types of stitches on a scrap piece of fabric. It even does button holes!

For my first real project, I decided to follow a new little trend and make a car seat cover. This is basically the same thing as throwing a blanket over the car seat to keep baby warm and protected from the elements, BUT it's cuter, it won't blow away, and is made to keep the handle exposed for easy carrying.

The finished product! Thank you Sarah Jane (Dan's sister) for being such a great teacher! You can buy one of these for somewhere around $30 and I'm pretty sure I made it for less than $20. This was a great FIRST sewing project because the lines didn't have to be straight. :)

McKenna seems to like it too. We hope to get some good use out of it before the beautiful Spring weather comes and we won't need it anymore.

Any ideas for an EASY second project???

(Side note) Dan had these beautiful tulips delivered to my work for Valentine's day! I love you!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Harlem Globe Trotters and more

That's right! Dan surprised me with dinner to California Pizza Kitchen and 2ND ROW tickets to see the Harlem Globe Trotters for Valentine's day! Not only were our seats 2nd row- they were right behind the Globe Trotters bench! It was our first time seeing them perform and it was outstanding!! They were so talented and entertaining. Great fun for everyone. Here's where you can see how close we were.

McKenna was a champ! These are what her eyes look like right before...

this. Bless her heart. It was SO loud. But she slept for a good 30 mins.

Here's the "more" part of the post. I'm no photographer. But our little girl makes ANY picture a good one! (At least that's what I think.)

I love these darling overalls on her!

Here are the cutest cousins around! Whitney (almost 2 months) McKenna (almost 4 months) Kate (almost 7 months).

During family games (Yatzee-noisy dice in a cup), Uncle Brian has such a calming influence on McBaby.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Just because

So this post actually came to be on Feb 1st, but I started it on the 25th. Anywho, here I am, still alive and well after two weeks of not blogging. Oops.

Sometimes McKenna makes faces like her daddy :)

Before bath time

After

I love this sweet smelling, warm and wet, bundle of joy!

Here's my lastest craft project. It says her name in case you couldn't tell. :) The colors match her mobile that also has ladybugs on it.

Here's a great video of Daddy making "baby Kenna" (nicknamed by her cousin Joseph) laugh. She thinks his fake sneezes are hilarious. Sorry the lighting isn't so good. What really makes this, though, is her crazy hair from the hood she was wearing. So cute!

And here's a little video of her "tracking" skills. She's fascinated by cell phones. I just hope she doesn't want one by the time she's three.

Monday, January 19, 2009

3 Months old

Our little girl is growing up SO fast! We are truly trying capture and enjoy EVERY moment! Here's some new things in McKenna's life.

She's very social now and smiles at almost everyone. With someone new, she'll usually give them the cocked eyebrow stare for a moment while she studies their face, and then she'll charm them with her gummy smile!

She's eating from a bottle once a day (while at the babysitters) like a CHAMP!

She can LAUGH! We've gotten a few good chuckles out of her as we discover her ticklish spots (ribs and under arms for sure!). Pay no attention to Dan at the end of the video. He's laughing at a funny noise mommy made... :)

She's officially sleeping upstairs in her own crib! I think the transition was harder on ME than for her. I kinda miss having her next to me in her bassinet.

BeforeAfter
Along with sleeping upstairs, Dan and I are making more of an effort to get her room "finished". We finally purchased a dresser for her clothes and I'm currently working on a craft to hang on her wall. More pictures to follow.

The set up while putting the dresser together
Dan working very hard!
McKenna intently watching and eating her hands.

McKenna's neck muscles are strong enough she seems to be ready for the Bumbo seat! She's still not very interested in toys, as you can see.

We love this girl SO much and are very excited for what next month will bring!!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Another new trick

At two and half months, McKenna has recently started cooing like crazy! Her favorite thing to coo at you might ask? The ceiling!! Here's a cute video with some proof. We love having her sweet, happy spirit in our home. She's getting to be so fun as we see her personality emerging.

Some other big news in our family is that I have officially gone back to work teaching first grade (part-time in the afternoons). I'm six months away from getting my level two teaching license. Once I receive this, I'll only have to renew it every 5 years. This is pretty easy to do by substituting and taking classes every now and then from the district. This way, years from now, I should be able to return to teaching more easily.

For the past week and a half we've been getting used to the routine of playing in the morning and taking her to the babysitters (grandma/neighbor/aunt) in the afternoon. Of course I miss her terriblly while I'm gone and feel guilty for not being with her evey second of the day. But we'll get through the next six months alright. :)

Dan is SO supportive and comes to school with me (and plays with McKenna) in the evenings and on Saturdays while I plan and grade papers. Sometimes, he gets lucky enough to capture these moments while in my classroom!