First Mother's Day

Picture time for the cousins

Kickin' it with the big girls

Mommy and Kyra on Mother's Day

The mommy's and their babies!

The girls looked adorable in their matching dresses (thanks Carol!)

I love my baby girl!

Every day is Mother's Day, but our first official Mother's Day was pretty great!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies out there! Yesterday was my first Mother's Day, and it was a great day! We had so much fun getting all the kids together - Carol made matching dresses, so of course a photo op was a must! It was a bit chaotic trying to get all 4 girls posing for the camera, but we managed to get some cute shots.

Kyra was passed around throughout most of the family, and Mia and Maddie were especially interested in holding her. She was a good sport through it all, but by the end of the day Kyra was a little tired and cranky. But can you really blame her?

It's hard to believe that it's already been over a year since we were trying to get pregnant. I remember last Mother's Day, a few of our family members were anxiously awaiting a surprise pregnancy announcement that they were expecting me to make, and I was very sorry to disappoint them that day! Mia even asked me if I had a baby in my tummy, which broke my heart a little...But it was just a couple of weeks later when I did actually get pregnant, and now my little Kyra is already 3 months old (tomorrow)!

I'm already looking forward to next year's Mother's Day, when Kyra will be moving around and playing with her cousins...but I guess I'll settle for a fun first Father's Day for Geoff next month! Geoff is such a great Daddy, and Kyra can't wait to celebrate him!

12 Weeks, Almost

How is it possible that my little baby girl is going to be 12 weeks old tomorrow? I think this will be the last time I'm able to tell people how old she is in weeks. After this, I'm going to have to move on to months, and then years! So I'm going to try to savor this next week as much as possible. Kyra will be 3 months old on May 11, but 12 weeks just feels so much younger!

Mom, Dad, and Grandparents have all been sick with colds over the last week or 2 but, luckily, Kyra seems to have remained healthy. We're all on the mend now, so hopefully she won't catch anything now. She's been working on her hand/eye coordination lately, learning how to hit at her toys and try to grab them. She'll grasp things if you put them in her hands, and loves to grab at her Sophie Giraffe toy. On her playmat, she's able to slowly wiggle and turn her body so that she starts with her head facing one direction on the mat and ends up facing the other side. She also loves to "stand" if we hold her up. She wiggles and shimmies her whole body. She's so strong!

Kyra's been developing her vocal skills lately, making all kinds of adorable squeals. She's also been smiling so much! It's the cutest thing! But she's been making it pretty tough for us to get photos of her smiling. She's much more interested in looking at our faces than at our cameras! I included a smile picture above, but that's just a small smile compared to her full-face smiles!

Kyra got to play with her Aunt, Uncle, and cousins last Saturday, so there are also a few pictures from that afternoon!

Oh, by the way, Kyra's Daddy has started blogging. You can follow his blog at "Tipdawg's Love/Hate Relationship With The World." I don't know how to make the title a hyperlink (is that what they're called?), so I'll just include the regular link here: http://tipdawglovehate.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday Grandma Carol!

In honor of Grandma Carol's Birthday today, Kyra wanted to make a few video Birthday messages. She couldn't decide on her favorite video, so she asked me to post a few of them here.

Enjoy, and happy Birthday Grandma!

10 Weeks!

Kyra is 10 weeks old, and she's an amazing little girl! She has become such a good sleeper! We tried a particular sleep training method and bedtime routine, which have worked well for us, and Kyra is now sleeping through the night (from around 7pm to 7am)! Not bad for 10 weeks old! She's been sleeping consistently for about a week, so hopefully this will be "the norm." We've still got a lot of work to do on our daytime nap schedule though...When we get her up in the morning, she's full of smiles! If you're friends with me on Facebook, I just posted an adorable video of her smiling this morning. I tried posting it here but the file was too large, so I'll have to remember to take shorter videos next time.

Yesterday we took Kyra to a pottery studio to get her handprints and footprints done. Geoff's students chipped in and gave him a gift certificate for the session, and we're excited to see how the finished product comes out. Kyra was such a good girl during the session, although she could've made it a little easier to unroll her fingers to put them in the clay!

Kyra Is 2 Months Old Already!

I don't know how, but somehow 2 months have already gone by! Our little girl is growing up! I included 2 of Kyra's newborn photos (taken of her at around 5 weeks old), but I don't want to post too many before her birth announcements go out in the mail. These were taken by Rebecca Hayes, who also did a maternity photo shoot for us. Both sessions produced some great photos!

Kyra had her 2-month check up today, and she's doing beautifully! She now weighs 11 pounds 6.5 ounces and is 22.5 inches long (at birth, she was 7 pounds, 20.5 inches). You definitely feel her growth when you carry her! My arms and back have been getting a workout! I'm trying to adjust to the fact that I'll probably have some lower back pain for many years to come...but of course it's all worth it! Kyra got her first shot today, which she didn't like but she only cried for a minute. She got eye drops, which stung and also made her cry. But she calmed down quickly and was a good girl when she drank her other liquid vaccine.

Kyra set a brand new sleep record last night! Amazingly, she slept for 11.5 hours! She also went to bed a little early tonight (similar to last night), so we're hoping she sleeps off the effects of her vaccines and doesn't get a cold or fever. She loves getting a bath, and we're trying to work that into her bedtime routine. The doctor gave us the go-ahead to bathe her every night (previously, our doctor had recommended just a couple baths a week). We'll only use soap during some of those baths since it can dry out her skin. So we're hoping that Kyra will continue having a successful bedtime routine, allowing her to continue sleeping through the night!

We're so proud of our little Kiki Bear!

Nearly 7 Weeks Already!

Hello again!

On Thursday, Kyra will be 7 weeks old. It's beginning to feel like she's always been here, which I suppose means that I'm beginning to adjust to Mommyhood. I posted some pictures above, which I took of Kyra yesterday. I'm hoping to take pictures of her on a regular basis, since she's growing and changing so quickly.

Kyra's been smiling a lot lately, although I have yet to get a picture of any of those big, beautiful smiles. She's been spending much of the daytime awake and alert. She likes looking at the toys that hang down from her swing and bouncy chair. She seems like she wants to reach out and grab them sometimes, but she's not quite able to do that just yet. She loves to kick her legs and move her arms, and she even likes to "stand" with some help from Mommy and Daddy.

She's already grown so much - her newborn clothes are pretty snug, but I'm still putting some items on her while I have the chance...But some larger-sized pieces have managed to find their way into her wardrobe. I can already tell that it'll make me sad to pack up her newborn clothes and put them in storage once she's truly outgrown them. How can my little girl be so big already!? I might have to put some of my favorite newborn clothes on to her stuffed animals just to keep them around a little longer!

We've been trying to get out of the house with her more. A couple days ago, she took her first trip to Chipotle (one of our favorite places), and yesterday she went to Pinkberry and took a stroller walk up and down Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice. Today, we walked to Target and the food court at the mall. We picked up a few cute summer dresses for her - I can no longer set foot in Target without walking through the baby and kids sections!

We're also working on charting out a daily routine, although that's still definitely a work in progress. Her sleep patterns are still changing, but we've been lucky in that she usually goes to sleep between 7-8pm, and then only gets up for one nighttime feeding sometime around 3-4am. She recently set a new sleep record - 9 straight hours! So Mommy and Daddy have been getting some pretty good sleep! When she's 8 weeks old we'll start her actual sleep training, during which we'll work on eliminating the nighttime feeding. Wish us luck!

Kyra's 6 Weeks Old!! (I owe you an update!)

Hi all,

I've been a bit busy lately and haven't had much time to update the blog. Sorry about that! I'll try to post some new photos soon. Kyra had newborn photos taken last weekend, so I'm looking forward to seeing how those come out. I'm sure there will be some cute ones!

Kyra is officially 6 weeks old today! Time seems to be flying by. She's doing great, and is already growing so much. She's learning how to hold her head up on her own, and loves to look around at things. We're getting more and more smiles lately, which are always so cute! She loves getting a bath, and even seems to like having water on her face. We're trying to get her ready for swimming with Daddy soon, so we always spray a little water on her face so that she can get used to it. She's going to be a little water baby! She's also been a good little sleeper - her current sleep record was set 2 nights ago, when she slept nearly 8 straight hours! Of course, her amount of sleep still seems to be changing, up and down every night. But hopefully this is a good indicator that she'll sleep through the night soon!

Congratulations to Shaunna and Zac, who welcomed baby Natasha Olivia Larson into the world yesterday! We're very excited to go meet her today! I didn't even get a chance to post baby shower photos before she arrived!