Our 2-day Christmas

Unfortunately, Christmas of 2010 turned out to be a 2-day affair. Most times this would be a great thing, but this Christmas will be remembered for the stomach flu that knocked me out for most of the day. I can't remember the last time I was that sick, and that's probably a good thing because it was no fun at all.

Christmas day started off OK, but I started feeling a bit queasy around breakfast time, and things quickly went downhill. I managed to get through some of the present opening, but also spent a good portion of the day lying on my parent's bathroom floor, thinking that I wouldn't wish this feeling on my worst enemy. Luckily my parents and Dan were able to entertain Kendall, and I went to bed.

Wow! Look what Santa brought!

Riding in her new wagon that MeMe and Papa Steve gave her

She loves Curious George. Thanks MeMe!!

She also loves the new car that Santa brought her

More presents from Gram and Dude

One of Dan's gifts. Best wrapping job ever!

Waiting for Dude to assemble the dragon

Playing with all of her toys

We tried it all again the next day. Pulled out the food we didn't eat the day before, turned on some Christmas music, and opened some more presents.

My own baby!

Giving baby a kiss

More toys!

Kendall had a great Christmas and now has more toys than she can play with. She's into everything, and it's neat to watch her have so much fun. I wish I had felt better for the weekend, but the important this is that Kendall had so much fun. Believe it or not, we did it all again this past weekend after Sean and Jessica returned from spending Christmas Day in Arizona with Jessica's family!

Pre-Christmas Zoo Trip

A couple of days before Christmas, Kendall and I spent the day at the zoo with Gram. We have passes, and my mom bought a pass for her and my dad, so I have a feeling that there are many more zoo and Wild Animal Park trips in our future.

It was great to see how much more into the animals Kendall was this time around. Every time we visit one of the parks, you can just tell that she sees more and is more and more interested in what the animals are doing.

Her favorite part was the petting zoo!! She LOVED being able to pet the goats and sheep, and we happened to arrive right at feeding time, which meant they were occupied enough to ignore little grabby hands.

We saw lots of other animals, including the orangutans. This was probably the highlight of the day as one came right up in front of us and started washing the window! Pretty amazing to see, and Kendall thought so too!! She just sat and stared...

Such a fun way to kick off the holiday week!

Waterlogged

We've had A LOT of rain here the past few days. This bucket was empty last Friday:

I know that this may not seem like much to some of you, but for us, this is sometimes all the rain we get in an entire year!!

Santa told Kendall he was putting her on his "naughty" list...

Our trip to see Santa went about as well as I thought it would.

Honestly though, I love this picture.

I'm 11 Months Old!!

Once again I'm a couple of weeks late with this post as time seems to just fly by. The fact that I'm working two jobs, trying to get ready for Kendall's first Christmas and her birthday party all at the same time doesn't help. I really don't want to complain though because we're so lucky and I really try to remind my self of that this time of year. We're all doing well and looking forward to the upcoming weeks!!

At 11 months old, Kendall continues to grow and change every week. As you can see, we've had to resort to using props during our month photo sessions. A bear in one hand and an animal cracker in the other allowed us to get a couple of shots in without Kendall ripping up our sign or attempting to jump off the couch. She's all over the place and into everything.

She now has 7 teeth, which has been great for eating and trying new solid foods, but not so great on mom and dad's sleeping schedules. For the past month she's been up in the middle of the night at least one or two nights a week, and wants either Dan or I to hold her. She must be completely asleep when putting her back in her crib, or she'll start crying and you have to start the whole process over again. We let her cry herself to sleep some nights, but there are some nights when she just won't go back to sleep without us comforting her. I know that her teeth are bothering her - her gums are inflamed and many nights she refuses to eat anything solid. Some nights she won't even finish her bottles, which is very unlike her.

Despite the pain she must be in, she's usually a very happy and playful baby. She's getting a lot better at playing on her own, and LOVES to play with her stuffed animals. She hugs them, kisses them, and has conversations with them. One of her favorites is the pink bear seen in the above photo. The bear was a gift from my friend Carla, and Kendall has kept the bear with her as much as possible since she received it. If pink bear is on the floor in her room, and Kendall is in her crib, you'll walk in to her pointing at the bear and saying, "that".

Speaking of talking, Kendall is working on learning new words. "That" and "boom" are two of the latest. She's also SO close to walking. She cruises around furniture with ease and is standing on her own for longer periods of time. At times, she's also crawling with her butt in the air, or one leg out to the side.

Here she is over the past month:

44 Weeks Old

46 Weeks Old

47 Weeks Old

Future class clown

Our Happy Thanksgiving

The Weatherbys had a great Thanksgiving. For the 6th year in a row, we hosted the big day at our house. It's always such a fun day, but I think it was even more special this time around because Dan and I have so many things to be thankful for this year:

the birth of our beautiful baby girl

having made it through a complicated pregnancy in one piece

a happy and healthy baby

our loving and supportive families

great friends

visits from Caleb and Nick

each other

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Kendall had a great time on her first Thanksgiving, despite having had a flu shot the night before (she didn't even cry) and battling a slight fever and rash that's gone on for a couple of days now. We'll be back to the doctor on Monday if she's not better, but we spent the day not thinking about it.

Her first Thanksgiving feast consisted of turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, jello, mashed potatoes and biscuits!

She loved it!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Weatherbys! We hope that you had a great day as well!

I'm 10 Months Old!

I know it's no surprise that I'm late again this month with our monthly update. It's getting harder and harder (check that - nearly impossible) to get the little girl to sit still for our monthly photo session. You can see it in her eyes in the above photo. She's ready to pounce. I even had to enlist Dan's help this month, which I thought would make things easier, but Kendall found it to be even more of a game once Daddy was involved. We have many photos that look like this:

Or this:

Enough about my failed photo sessions, let's talk about Kendall! Time is still flying by and I can't believe she's 10 months old. I'll have a 1 year old in a matter of weeks. She's still growing like crazy and is now in 12 month, 12-18 month, and even some 18 month clothes.

Over the past couple of months, Kendall's personality has really started to come through. She is the goofiest, funniest baby that you can get to laugh at just about anything. She also has a very sweet side. She's started to give hugs and kisses without any prompting, and there are days when I come home from work and she crawls over to give me hugs. She says, "mom, mom, mom" as she crawls over. It melts my heart.

With that said, she's also come to know what she wants, and isn't afraid to let you know. Once you put her in her highchair to eat, she wants her food right then! She has five big teeth to eat with! If you take something from her that she has found during one of her exploring sessions, she gets very angry. She is very interested in our food, and isn't happy when she doesn't get to try what we're eating.

In addition to being interested in food, she's interested in just about everything else in the house. Sometimes this can be a good thing, although sometimes this can be a bad thing. It's neat to watch her play with the plastic bags (don't judge) and try to hold them all in one hand. It also amazes me to watch her solve problems. If she can't reach something, she'll figure out how to get to it. On the other hand, it's a bit scary to watch her pull wine bottles off the rack at my parent's house. She tries to climb everything and has started opening cabinets and drawers.

Bottom line, we love her more and more every day! Here's a look back at the last month, although I didn't take too many pictures that you haven't already seen, so it's a quick look back:

40 Weeks

42 Weeks

Daddy's Day Off

Dan had one more vacation day that he had to use before the end of the year, so he decided to use it this past Friday. We took advantage of Daddy's day off and headed to Sea World for the afternoon to visit Shamu and the rest of his friends. Kendall and I were at Sea World just four months ago with my friend Rachel and her family, but we figured that the little girl would be a lot more interested in the animals this time around. She wasn't totally enthralled yet, but you could tell that she was more aware this time around. Especially when we were in the Penguin Encounter! She was excited to see those penguins!

Checking out the Beluga Whales

At the tide pool with Dad

Thinking about touching the starfish

Finally! The Sesame Street play area!

It's so nice to have passes to all of these great parks in San Diego! I remember growing up here and visiting all of the attractions, and I'm so thankful that Kendall will have the same experience! What a lucky girl!

Halloween 2010

Kendall had a great Halloween weekend this year! It was a great start to what will be many wonderful Halloweens to come!

We started the weekend with a Baby Halloween Costume Party, hosted by my mom's group. There were a TON of people there! It was nice to see the babies all dressed up and to even meet some new babies that we had never met before. Kendall een won a prize for one of the cutest baby costumes! And, to top it off, I even got Dan to dress up. Here's Tiger Woods and his little lady:

To complete the couples costume, I went as Elin Woods:

On Halloween night, we had a bunch of people over at our house and even did a bit of trick or treating. Gram and Dude, Aunt Jessica and Uncle Sean, as well as my friend Elizabeth and her family all joined us! Kendall seemed to like all of the decorations and people that were out trick or treating! Sadly I have no good pictures from that night. We did take some of her with the pumpkins though!

Kendall soon realized that the pumpkins' tops came off...

...and that pumpkin didn't taste too bad...