Kenzie's Baby Shower

Grandma Durr, Julie, Jenn and Tricia Popp threw me the most beautiful baby shower to celebrate Kenzie's life. It was a family shower and it was sunny enough to spend the entire time out on the back patio. I am so blessed by my family.

The First Boat Ride of the Summer

Memorial Day was the first boat ride for Kenzie and the first boat ride of the summer for the rest of us. It was a gorgeous day. Kenzie slept the whole time. Abigail wasn't sure about it at first. She said, "No like it," in regards to the life jacket. She warmed up quickly, however, and eventually wanted to go fast and drive the boat.

Smiling

Kenzie has been smiling since birth but the social smile, although present the last month, has happened quite a bit lately. I didn't catch the big smiles, but here's a taste of the beautiful baby smiles we've been blessed with lately.

Folk Life Festival

Playing in the Fountain

My sister and I think alike...same suits, really?

Total Experience Gospel Choir Workshop

Abigail wasn't too into the fountain.

Abigail liked the ketchup more than the curly fries.

My dad playing in his band at the Mural Stage.

And of course there was dancing!

Cousins

We had a wonderful time at the Folk Life Festival this Memorial Day weekend. My dad plays in a circus band and was performing there. Fun times!

Diva #1

Diva #2

Young Married Small Group

Every Wednesday we get together with our church small group. There is one couple missing in this picture. We just finished doing "The Truth Project," which was awesome and really gave me some new perspectives about my faith. We are now doing a S.H.A.P.E. study to discover our spiritual gifts.

Praise the Lord

Kenzie is already praising the Lord.

Shapes

We're working on our shapes. We've enjoyed cutting (which I have done) and gluing (which Abby has done using her "co-pot (polka dot)" style). We then go on a search throughout the house for those shapes. So far, she is more fond of the circles, and I must admit, they are easier to find and don't get confused with rectangles.

Shoe Obsession

I don't know where she gets it, but my girl has a shoe obsession. She will spend so much time alone in her room, and I go upstairs to find her shoes all spread out like the above picture. She sits and tries all of them on. When she's not into her shoes, she's into mine. The "Abby do it" phase is in full force, and she is like this with her shoes. She doesn't understand that she can't tie shoelaces or do all of the fasteners to her shoes and becomes frustrated. She may be walking around the house in a diaper and shoes only. Life with girls!

Eating

Eating is probably my least favorite time of the day with Abigail. She could really care less about food. Luckily, she's not a picky eater, but she's uninterested. We also wonder whose daughter she is because she devours the fruits and vegetables before she will touch anything else. If I left her to her own accord, I'm not sure she'd eat much of anything. She likes to poke at her food, stare at her food, stare at our food...anything besides eating it. If I didn't help and and try different strategies to encourage eating, she'd probably sit at the table for two hours before she got the calories in her. As is, the process is a long one anyway. The newest trick, as shown above, is the dip. Dipping it seems to work. The other day I made her a sandwich and put a side mustard dip. She proceeded to dip all her strawberries in the mustard and eat them...um - OK, so that wasn't the plan, but whatever! Another strategy is the airplanes ("big airplanes specifically"), boats and cars that enter her mouth. We also tell her the number of bites she has to eat and can usually sneak in a couple extra bites than the numbered amount. We always do "last bite" for one last attempt at getting food in the kid. For the first bite, we do a "one no thank you bite." This gets her to try everything and not refuse the food right away. The kid does love sweets, however. She asks for treats, candy and chocolate throughout the day. We definitely limit those, but they're often on the mind.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is full of traditions. We normally do a brunch with Jeremy's immediate family. This year, Jenn hosted it with Jer and Julie helping with different elements of the brunch. Delicious. Then, it's off to the races. We always do that with my family. Abigail and I slid down the big blow up slide, and you can see that she wasn't a big fan of the horse when she got closer. She was a fan from afar. We then went to visit my sister's new dog, Daisy, who is only 8 days old.

Just Our Little Girl

Family Love

The cousins and Abby loving on Kenzie.

Kenzie at One Month

Kenzie turned one month old on May 2nd, 2009. She has been a delight and a wonderful addition to this family. We really thought Abigail was an easy baby, and she was. However, I think Kenzie may be even easier (so far). I remember Abby going through a time where we thought she had a bit of collic, and we had to bounce her on the ball to calm her down. We haven't had that with this one. Kenzie has a lot of dark hair and looks like she'll have dark blue eyes. She weighed in at 8 lbs 10 oz (29% bracket) at her first month doctor appointment. She is 22 inches long (80% bracket). That makes her tall and thin like her dad. She has super long fingers, feet and chicken legs. While Abigail resembled me from birth, Kenzie seems to resemble Jeremy. She has been a lot more alert and awake lately. She is a good sleeper (4 hours at a time), eater and cuddler. When she gets upset, her screaming escalates quickly. She's been a little less settled lately, but nothing too challenging at all. At her doctor's appointment, we talked about her belly button, which protrudes a bit. Apparently it's a type of hemorrhage. Basically, the abs aren't close together yet and there's a small hole behind the belly button where the fat surrounding the stomach is pushing through, causing the belly button to poke out. It's not too uncommon and normally goes away by a year. It poses no problem and hers is small. She has been a wonderful addition to our family. She is still sleeping in our bed, and I just love to lay next to her and stare at her beautiful face. Thank you, Lord, for this amazing blessing. Picture to come.

All In

=My girlfriends threw me a diaper shower, which was right up my alley. Perfect! It was quite entertaining. First of all, I think girls don't normally play poker because they talk too much and laugh too hard and don't pay attention to the game. Also, it was quite entertaining to watch the girls try to figure out the game. We had someone claim to have a "full deck." Finally, someone got the term right, proudly announcing her "full house" and yet had three diamonds and three hearts...umm...not quite. Another person asked what the term "four of a kind" meant. I think we need to practice a bit more. I won...OK, so I didn't technically win because my hands were lame all night. However, I did go home with all the diapers. What a blessing!