I Want to Move!!

Kendall doesn't seem to have much time for laying around anymore. We discovered this weekend that when placed on her stomach, she's starting to try to move. I don't think I'd call it crawling quite yet, but she's on her way. Here's a little snippet from the video I took:

We better start thinking about babyproofing the house!

Fun in the Sun

We travelled to the Colorado River this weekend with some friends, for Kendall's first trip to the river. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but it actually went amazingly well. Kendall loved all of the attention, and tolerated the 100 degree heat. Don't worry, she was covered or in the shade at all times. Here are a few pics:

Hangin' with dad

It was Aunt Jessica's first time at the river too!

Yum Yum Yum

Now that she's past the 4 month mark, we've started trying to feed Kendall solids. We don't want to rush it, but hopefully her reflux will get better once she starts eating more solids on a regular basis, and we'd love to get her off of her daily dose of Prevacid. A couple of weeks ago, we started with rice cereal and it didn't really get the raving reviews that we were hoping for.

We tried rice cereal for a few days, as well as oatmeal and neither were well received. We then moved on to bananas, which to our surprise, were also not well received. However, avocados and sweet potatoes have fared better.

I'm also being adventurous and making most of her baby food. This way we can avoid any milk or soy reactions since we know what's in everything, and it's saving quite a bit of money. So far I've prepared and frozen sweet potatoes, squash, green beans and apricots. More to come!

That Dog is Hilarious!!

Kendall thinks Lani is the funniest thing around these days. When Lani comes near her, we've been getting a lot of reactions like this:

Keep in mind, Lani could really care less about Kendall. She's gentle with her and gives her kisses, but Kendall can't throw the ball for her, and that's pretty much all Lani cares about. That and Dan. Man, that dog loves Dan. He leaves on a business trip and Lani waits by the front door for DAYS waiting for him to come home again. Kind of sad, but kind of sweet at the same time. A bit off topic, I know. Anyways, Kendall doesn't seem to mind that Lani doesn't pay much attention to her. She still thinks she's hilarious:

She Looks Good In Pictures

I learned early on in Kendall's life how great it is to have a neighbor that knows a thing or two about photography. My neighbor, Marissa, started photographing her kids a few years ago and has turned it into a hobby. She took the photo that we used on Kendall's birth announcements and spent a couple more hours with us last week to get some updated shots. Here are a few...

I love them!

I'm 4 Months Old!!

Kendall turned 4 months old yesterday - I really can't believe how quickly time is flying by. The past month has been a busy, yet exciting one. She's started laughing every day, has learned to roll over, and has found her feet. I thought she'd be sitting up on her own by now, and although she's close, she's not quite there yet. Maybe next month. She's also a big girl. We had our 4 month checkup today and she's done a lot of growing over the past couple months. Here are her impressive stats:

Weight: 14 pounds, 4 ounces (66th percentile)

Height: 26 inches (97th percentile)

Head Circumference: 16 1/4 inches (60th percentile)

My dad and brother should be happy that it appears she's headed for the basketball team.

I also wanted to post an update regarding her health. We did see a pediatric GI specialist on Thursday and they believe that she has a milk and/or soy allergy. After determining that there are no milk or soy ingredients in her rice cereal (apparently some companies do add them), we have to suspect the formula that she was on. Although it is a hypo-allergenic formula, there is a bit of milk casein in there, which could be causing the bleeding. We've switched her to Neocate, an amino acid formula, with the hopes that the bleeding will stop. I'm also going to be making all of her food when she starts solids (the doc said we could start in about a week, or once the bleeding has stopped), and will become a label reader as she starts to eat things I can't make, to make sure she's not getting any milk or soy. We'll do this for the next year and hopefully she'll grow out of this allergy. We've also got weekly doctors visits again for the next month or so to make sure that the bleeding has stopped and that she's still continuing to gain weight. Fingers crossed!!

Finally, here are some shots from the past month:

13 Weeks

14 Weeks

15 Weeks

16 Weeks

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Our First Visit to the ER

I can't say that this is a happy post filled with pictures and laughs. We had our first visit to the Children's Hospital ER on Saturday, and I have to say it was a pretty miserable experience. 8 hours of my life I'll never have back, but at least we were able to go home knowing that Kendall had been checked out and wasn't in immediate danger.

This all started when I took Kendall to see her pediatrician on Friday afternoon because I was finding blood in her diapers. This had been going on for a few days, and by Friday the amount of blood was substantial enough that I felt she needed to be seen. The pediatrician checked her out and instructed us to take samples in over the weekend thinking she might have an infection of some sort. On Friday night, she had two diapers that were completely filled with blood. I mean totally pink and red. I was scared and called the after hours nurse center who instructed us to go to the Urgent Care associated with our medical group. After we waited there for 3 1/2 hours, the doctor told us that she needed to be seen by a pediatric specialist and sent us to Children's Hospital. We drove on over, and finally at 10:30 p.m. a doctor saw Kendall and ran a few blood tests and a couple of X-rays. She told us everything looked fine, instructed us to follow up with our pediatrician and, hoped "whatever she has just clears itself up!" I don't know about you, but anytime I see blood in a baby's diaper something is wrong. I was frustrated that we didn't get a bit more attention, but hoped she was right.

Fast forward to yesterday and we were back to see the pediatrician. He's ruled out any sort of infection. One might also think it's a dairy allergy, but she's already on a hypo-allergenic formula because of her reflux and the fact that she was quite fussy when I had dairy in my diet and was giving her breast milk. I guess it could be an allergy to the formula, but the pediatrician said he's never seen an allergy to this formula. Has anyone else ever heard of an allergy to Nutramigen?

So, we're off to see a pediatric GI specialist tomorrow. We've already been warned that the doctor may want to scope her, which is something that I really dread. But, I'm also very alarmed at the fact that we're still discovering bloody diapers every time we change her. I don't mind spending days and days at the doctor's office and emergency rooms if someone can tell me what's wrong!