1 year old!

Wow....really?  I have a one-year-old??!!

To say this past year has flown by is the understatement of the century!  I've fallen more in love with our little Kinley Brooke every passing month!  It still amazes me on a very regular basis that our Lord and Savior would entrust Trent and I to raise Kinley.  What a privilege, honor, and serious task!  It's all beyond me, which keeps me going back to the Lord for strength, energy, trust, faith, and hope.  Guess that's how He planned it in the first place!

I'll post on Kinley's birthday later, but wanted to write down the usual developmental stuff and share some pictures as a way of reminding myself mostly!

Kinley's 12th month was a BUSY one -- with lots of trips and FIRSTS!

• Measurements:  We went to the pediatrician for Kinley's 1-year well check and found out (ok, it was really no surprise) that we have a tall skinny gal!

Weight: 20 lb 3 oz (25-50th percentile)

Height:31 1/2 in (95th percentile!)

• New Cousin!  My brother and sister-in-law had their second child on October 19th...Welcome to the world precious Lola Harper!  We've yet to get a good pictures of the cousins together (despite MANY efforts!)  Hope we can get a good one at Christmas!

 

• First extended time away from Trent and me:  Trent and I took an anniversary trip to Chicago which I posted about here.  Kinley spent 5 days with Trent's family...I did much better than I expected being away from her, but I absolutely couldn't wait to get back to her by the end of the trip!
  
• Halloween:  We're not huge Halloween fans, but it sure is fun to dress up a baby!  Thanks to an awesome loan from a friend, Kinley was a peacock for Halloween!  For whatever reason, this costume had an amazing effect on Kinley - the second we put it on her, she went into this super subdued state!  It was hilarious...I think this picture gives you somewhat of an idea of what she looked like 100% of the time that she wore it.  Chilled.out.

This one cracks me up -- so much for getting all the babies together for a cute picture -- needles to say they were ALL ready for bed!

• Baylor Homecoming:  We made it up to Waco for Baylor homecoming this year, I couldn't wait to see how Kinley would feel about the homecoming parade.  She was enamored and didn't take her eyes off the floats!

 

Waiting for the next float to come by!

• First words & Signing:  I've been showing Kinley "Baby Signing Time" videos to see if she might pick up a few signs and honestly, I thought she just wasn't interested.  Well I was wrong!  She's picked up a few signs and is loving it.  So far, she pretty much does the signs we ask her to do, but hopefully soon this will translate in her being able to tell us what she wants or needs.  Right now she'll sign All Done, More, Bye, Hi, and Eat.  She also started saying "AAAHH DAA" (all done) and BAH (bye) when she signs those two words.  So fun!

Here's our little girl at 1 year old!

Happy Birthday baby.  We love you soooo much!

11 Months Old

Ok seriously, this last month flew by -- i.e. came and went along with the 1 year marker and I've YET to blog about it!!!  Here's to catching up a bit!

Here's what happened in Kinley's 11th month:

• FIRST STEPS!:  This one was a HUGE shock to me...I mean our child just went from never having taken a single step in her entire life to walking (something she'll be doing for a very LONG time!).  It's just a little crazy (and awesome) how Kinley's precious little body and mind figured out how walk!  (I know I'm a mom and it's not that big of a deal to the rest of the world, but I'm just in awe once again at how the Lord has made our bodies to work!).  You can watch the video of her first few steps HERE.
• 2 More tooth! Kinley has 8 teeth now - 4 on top, and 4 on bottom.  I honestly didn't even realize she was teething till they popped through - this was by far the easiest "teething" experience we've had to date!  Praise the Lord!
• Lots of Kinleys =):  We had a youth event at the beginning of October called Glowball...picture capture the flag + football + freeze tag + pitch black room + glowsticks + techno music...that's glowball!  Anyways, for all our big events, every high school community group dresses up and competes for "best costume".  Long story short, but my senior girls decided to be babysitters and decided that each of their babies should actually be Kinley.  Here's a pic of all the Kinley's for the night!

• Into EVERYTHING: Kinley is mischevious and LOVES to find new places to explore.  Her favorite spots are cabinets, trash cans, and the dishwasher...lovely I know.

I PROMISE my floors were clean!

• First visit to see the Baylor Bear!:  As a Baylor Alum, this was fun for me, and my sweet husband was kind enough to oblige my desire to pull over on a trip back from Dallas to take a few pics =)

• Playing Peek-a boo:  Kinley learned this game and is hilarious to watch!

Here's a few of the regular shots so you can see how she's grown!

Chicago - Anniversary Trip!

Trent and I just celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary by taking a trip to Chicago.  Kinley stayed with the Gram & Papa Jack (and Aunt Linde too!).  It was great time for her to spend family and great time for us to get away too!

Trent spent 3 years there while he was in seminary at Trinity, so he knew all the great places to show me around (it was my first time there).  Plus I got to meet some sweet friends from while he was there.  Here's some more about our trip via pictures =)

Day 1: 

We arrived right around lunchtime, had lunch with a friend from Trent's Chicago days (and our KIND and gracious host for the weekend -- THANKS Jim & Maria!!).  Then we went up to Trinity and walked around campus!

 

After looking around campus we drove around and Trent showed me Michael Jordan's front gate!

That night we went on an old-school traditional date -- dinner and a movie!  I can't remember the last time we did this now that we've got our little kbear around!

Day 2:  Into the city!!

We took the train into the city and had one of the most beautiful fall days -- clear crisp and not too cold for this Texas girl =)  After lunch at Macy's (they have the most amazing food court and dishes from famous local chef's!), we headed to Millineum park to see the famous "Bean" and walk around the Art Institute.  

 

Here's the bean....there literally are NO seems in this thing - it makes for such a great view of the city!

 

This is our reflection in the bean!

 

Apparantly this was being built while Trent was living up there.  He said it went WAY over budget and took tons longer than they had originally expected.  Locals thought it was a big waste, but now it's turned into a HUGE attraction.  It's sooo big!

This was from underneath/inside the bean...I'm the white jacket right in the middle.  Can you find me?!

I know...enough pictures of the bean already...I just can't get over how cool these shots turned out!

Last shot...you can see a good portion of the city in the reflection

More views from Millennium Park...

Lake Michigan - it seriously looks like an ocean!

Next we walked over to The Art Institute and saw lots of famous paintings and some really neat sculptures...I love how peaceful and relaxing museums can be!  Recognize this one?!

This is me being coerced by Trent into imitating the lion behind me.  Why is it that I can be 29 years old and still get embarrassed by what someone may think??  Maybe it didn't help that as I'm taking this picture a lady walked by and said "Don't worry, nobody is watching".....hmmm.....ironic?!

We spent the rest of the day walking around town and doing a little shopping.  Chicago is SUCH a beautiful city!!

That night we went to Trent's favorite pizza place - Giordano's (pronounced Jeer-u-don-O's)

We definitely enjoyed our deep-dish Chicago-style pizza =).  Here's the order from bottom to top:  Crust, toppings (we had sausage and bell peppers), LOTS of cheese, then the tomato sauce!

No pictures of our final stop, but it must be mentioned...after dinner we strolled by the Ghirardelli shop and I got liquid chocolate...not Hot Chocolate...literally liquid Ghirardelli chocolate.  

It. was. heavanly!! (and sooooooooo rich!)

Needless to say, we had a VERY full day =)

Day 3:

We slept in on our third day and then went for a walk in a beautiful forest preserve...I forgot to bring my camera, but just picture the most beautiful trees covered in a broad array of fall colors and you get the idea!  Then we met up with one of the guys Trent mentored while he lived in Chicago, Zach, and his wife Kaelee.  We had a blast spending the day with them!  That night, they took us to the greatest hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant in south Chicago.  If you ever go to Chicago, you have to find this place!!!  It's called Gio's.  Another guy that Trent mentored came and met us for dinner as well!

Here was our dinner group

And a picture of my amazing dessert...cappuccino and cannoli's!!!  YUMM!  This picture makes my mouth water

Day 4:

On our last day in Chicago, we made every second count!  First we found a great church in Northwest Chicago called Park Community Church.  Then we basically walked the length and breadth of the city!  First we grabbed brunch at a place called Yolk (YUMMY!) and then walked south to Sear's Tower (actually called Willis Tower now).  Here's a pic of the tower:

We went up to the 103rd (yes....103rd) floor to the Sky deck to get this amazing view!

And found this crazy ridiculous glass floor deck...here's the view from the outside

And the crazy view from the inside....yes I squealed like a little girl!

After that, we headed west to the Navy Pier to go on a river architecture tour.  

The views were amazing from the water!  Here are a few

So pretty!!!

Our last stop on our trip was to visit the family Trent lived with for the last half of his time in Chicago.  I'm sooo greatful for their kindness to him and it was wonderful to finally meet them!

All-in-all, we had a fabulous trip!

Pumpkin Patch!

We took Kinley to a pumpkin patch last weekend and got some really fun pictures!  

This is SUCH a fun age!!!