Ahh the mountains, how I love thee...

Now that is one cute kid! Kaylen was the lucky girl with TWO St. Patrick's Day outfits and this was one of them! She had a great smile to go along with it!

We were very lucky to have my parents and my sister, Julie my brother-in-law Doug, come out for a visit!!! Julie and Doug live in San Francisco and it was Kaylen's first time meeting her Auntie Julie! And it was wonderful! Julie is not exactly a "baby person", but she soon realized that my bragging about our wonderful, perfect baby girl is quite a reality! Julie and Doug stayed in a nearby hotel so being together was quite easy. We decided to spend Saturday skiing, so we went up to Snowbird, which was my first time. My parents actually gave it a whirl... their first time skiing in well, um... a LONG while!

And they did great! I don't think my Mom was very prepared for the altitude... a lovely gentleman we passed just walking up to the resort when we got there thought she may have been hitting the bottle bright and early (which she wasn't) because she had to stop for a breather just as we were walking up to the lodge! Ha ha...At almost 8,000 feet, it's quite the altitude change from a measly 1,000 feet in St. Paul!! It was funny! It was like riding a bike... quite a few years later! Their skiing skills are very in tact! But they called it quits and watched Kaylen for the majority of the day, which gave us the day on the hills! We managed to find our way to a double black diamond, NOT what we were looking for and took a bit for us all to get down! But it was such a great day with the family! We're so glad we went!

Kaylen and her Auntie Julie

Because Julie and Doug were already staying in a hotel, my parents decided to stay a night so that we could make good use of the pool Sunday afternoon. It was Kaylen's first time! She had been a little under the weather, so there wasn't much laughing, but never any tears. She did so great! Gregg even dunked her a couple times in the water. She was A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E in her little tiny swimsuit!

Well, the bad news is...we took Kaylen to get her ears checked and we've pretty much exhausted all of the antibiotics available. The Ped gave us a list of her recommendations of ENT docs to see for what will most likely result in tubes. We're actually going to see one of the two she preferred and it so happens that our friend Ali, who is a nurse at Primary Childrens recommends him as well. I've already informed her that she will need to be around and go back with Kaylen since we won't be able to or I might just go crazy. It's nice to know that if we can't be with Kaylen when she goes back, someone we love and trust can be. I just love having friends in high places! :-) As much as we aren't looking forward to tubes, we also can only feel so good about going round after round of antibiotics. Her body is just not responding well to them and we've really struggled with them. We've heard positive feedback from others who have had the surgery for their kids and most of the time, it has wonderful results. So, we'll just pray that everything goes well and that the tubes (should that be the result) bring her pain free living! We see the ENT on April 6th and will schedule things from there!

The Jones family will be in town, minus JJ ( :-( ), this coming week as the littlies are on spring break. Cherie's already planning to bring some yummy food for dinners, we have a Jazz game planned, Kaylen will get to take a trip to the Zoo and we might get a girl's movie night! We'll have to see what pans out!

9 Month Baby Girl!

Our beautiful baby girl turned 9 months on March 4th!!! It's so crazy to think how fast all this time flies and before we know it she is going to be 1 year! It's one of those things that I look forward to and resist all at the same time! Each day, each week, each month goes by so fast! There are too many moments when I wish I could just stop time and stay in it. (Although her habit of waking up at 5:30 AM is NOT one of those moments!) She is seriously such a joy. We find her more beautiful and more wonderful every day of her life... gushy, but true. And at 9 months, she never ceases to amaze us! Two weeks before her 9 mo birthday, she started crawling!! A little slow at first, but she has definitely gained her momentum!

Kay, quick story... so I finally grabbed the video camera to get some video of one of the early crawling moments, turn on the camera and Gregg and I are watching her s-l-o-w-l-y move across the room (straight for my purse) in complete silence. It was so cute because she was moving SO SLOW! After a few seconds, Gregg just comes out and says, "she's not breaking any speed records, is she?"..... A HA HA, it was so funny and so true! I'm in love with that moment.

Kaylen had her 9 month appointment this week, to get all of her stats and also unfortunately to address her ear infections that just won't go away! Bad news first, both ear infections were still there (and had caused a side eye infection) and we're getting close to exhausting our antibiotic options, so she got a shot. She has to get a booster shot tomorrow. It's a fairly gnarly shot, but we're hoping to try to get her into Spring when she might stop getting all the colds and might not get the ear infections. If not, soon we will have to look into tubes. Onto the fun news! She is a very sweet and wonderful 18 lbs! (25%), 28 inches (75%) and has a tiny little head! Good thing it's all brain! She is a smart cookie that's for sure! She has quite the head of hair, loves to pull out ALL her toys now that she can get around and is working on pulling herself to standing. She can get to kneeling... and oh-so-close to standing!
Above is our little Boo Boo crawling! Gregg took her jammies off that morning because she drags her left leg a bit, so her leg keeps going forward and her jammies don't keep up, so she gets frustrated... ha ha. We try to fix them, but it was just easier to take them off! And she's so darn cute naked! :-)

Her ultimate destination is my purse. None of her toys could get her to move across the entire room, but my purse could! And she wasn't interested in the wallet... which I'll remind her about later in life, she just goes for every single piece of paper!! And it's amazing just how much scrappy paper I keep in my purse! There's her little mischievous grin now!

Ahhh, sweet pea at bath time! We love the bath pictures! She's just so darn cute! Picture speaks for itself, she's gorgeous!

SO, at Kaylen's 9 month appointment, Roberta, the Medical Assistant from New Zealand (LOVE the accent.... sorry Cherie! Those Aussies and New Zealanders have quite the rivalry!), gave Gregg and I Tootsie Pops and a little Dum Dum for Kaylen! She told us to let her enjoy it in the bath! I'm a little OCD about what goes in her mouth and sugar isn't usually one of those things, BUT, I thought... heck! Why not! It was the Dr's office that gave it to us after all!!! And they said a warm bath might help with the shot. So, in the tub we went and her "mystery flavor" turned out to be blue raspberry!! GEEZ! It was like crack cocaine for this little girl! If I even tried to take it out to try to get her to swallow all the yummy-ness, she would freak out if I had it out for more than 2 seconds!! It was adorable... I think you can actually see the blue streaming down her chest in the picture! It was very cute! I let her eat half and called it good! But for being such a brave little girl with her nasty shots, I thought the sweet pea had earned it!

As a side note: It was my wonderfully amazing Mom's birthday on March 5th! Even Kaylen got in on the action wishing her a Happy Birthday! Wanted to mention this as I, for one of many, am incredibly fortunate that my Mommy was born March 5th 19...... just kidding, I won't go there. She's as beautiful now as ever and I couldn't be more grateful and blessed to have such an amazing Mom! Thanks Mom for all you do for me and for our family. You are cherished and loved by so many! XOXO