baby blessing

on the 18th of this month kahree received a special blessing from her daddy and had her name officially given to her at our church. it's a very special occasion for new babies and families of our faith and something i was looking forward to very, very much. 

we had a rough and busy morning trying to get out the door and i was doing my typical stressed out everythingisruinedforever thing and craig had to remind me what mattered most, which wasn't how cute she looked or if she cried throughout the whole thing but instead the special experience that was going to take place. and it truly was wonderful, i hope i can remember all about it forever. as an added bonus she did look super adorable, as you can see, and she didn't cry one bit, she slept through the whole thing. she is a ridiculously good baby. it's almost like she isn't real. doesn't she just look like a little doll and not quite like a real, miniature human? or maybe like a teeny tiny angle statue. except for warm and cuddly and just the best.

i love these two more than pretty much everything ever. 

p.s. i'm so glad kahree has aunts and uncles and grandparents who love seeing pictures of her. otherwise i'd have trouble hiding my obsession with posting way too many pictures of this kid's squishy face.

first bath, 2-25-12

while my mom was visiting and helping me take care of my new baby, kahree's umbilical cord finally came off and we all gave her her first baby bath.

she hated it. a lot. luckily every bath since then has been a lot of fun, she really loves them, just something about that first one was not okay with her. but these days she plays and splashes and tries to drink her bath water. silly little fishy.

we have this really cute little baby tub and bath toys that my sister drashell got for kahree. i can't wait until she gets big enough to play with her rubber ducky and frog. and so far she's only been bathed and pampered with burt's bees baby products. it's our favorite!

pink dress, blue hat, big love

i made this fuzzy blue hat with ears on it for kahree a month before she came. i over estimated how big a baby's head is. she'll grow into it someday. probably.

we were at a fun get together with some of our friends monday night celebrating craig's birthday and our friend ryan's birthday which just happens to be on the same day. while we were there babyk just fell asleep in her baba sling. and stayed asleep for ages. i love that feeling. i could just hold a sleeping baby all day, every day.

i am like a star

someone discovered the little star and moon shaped lights on her swing this weekend.

 
i just live for those big, shining smiles in the morning.

i hope everyone had a great weekend.

tummy time

this is going by way too fast. good thing babykay has that chubby tummy to weigh her down. i'm not ready for my little baby to be mobile! not for a long while.

this froggy blanket is pretty special. there's this lady who was born on valentine's day at the hospital where we delivered and every year on her birthday she brings hand made blankets for all the babies born on valentine's day. kahree didn't quite make the cut but she was supposed to be born on valentine's day so the lady left a blanket for her. i didn't get to meet her but i wish i could've said thank you, it was super sweet of her to bring soft, fun blankets for all those new little ones.

from scratch

 it's craig's 25th birthday tomorrow. today i attempted to make my first cake from scratch for him. it was eventually supposed to be an ice cream cake roll but i didn't even make it close to the ice cream part. after agonizing over the egg whites + sugar mixture for ages until they formed perfect, stiff peaks i lost it when it came to the dry mixture. i had way too much dry mixrure. so much that in the end i just added water and baked a cake flour brick because i didn't think there was anything else to do.

it was only hours later after re-reading the recipe the millionth time that i realized that what i thought said 5 cups of cake flour really said .5 cups of cake flour. good grief.

luckily i have a husband who was happy just eating the ice cream and this cute little girl to cheer me up.

take two on first cake from scratch will commence later this weekend, i'm not letting it beat me until after at least two more tries.

batman and red robin

We love taking babykay out so much! I feel like we go out way more now than we did before we had a baby because she is so much fun to take places. Sometimes we make up errands to take her on. Shopping, groceries, Costco, eating out...every time we manage to get her back home in one piece always feels like such an accomplishment. She's so curious and loves all new things, experiencing everything through her makes life a hundred times more enjoyable. Right now it's Red Robbin and frozen yogurt. And next? The zoo? The ocean?? We'll see :)

1 month

i know everyone warns you how fast it goes by but seriously, it goes by SO. FAST.

having kahree is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. i'm happier and more fulfilled than i've ever been, even on days where we spent most of it sleeping, just having her there to cuddle with is the most incredible blessing. craig and i feel like we have a real family and like our lives are serious now, it's the real deal! we're parents! everything we do now, like making dinner or watching movies or just existing together and watch movies, has this new meaning now because we're doing all of it with her.

she's such a good, mild baby. it takes a lot of warming up before she really cries. long trips in the car are not her favorite thing, she ends up crying by the time we're almost home nearly without fail, which is frustrating because there's nothing i can do about it at that point. most of the time i'm getting pretty good at figuring out what she needs and predicting how she's going to feel next. she's smiles and giggles and babbles all the time now. she's an AMAZING sleeper. she goes to bed when we do and sleeps all night, and then some. i really have no idea how many times she eats a day but it seems to be enough to keep her nice and plump. those wrists are getting super chunky and i love it so. i also love sleeping with her, it took a bit of faith in my mothering instincts to bring her into bed with me that first night or two, but it's so clear that it works best for us for now. the nights we've tried to move her to her bassinet have turned into the worst nights for sleeping. and how could i ever be upset about the fact that my baby sleeps best curled up against my tummy? that's just too sweet to mess with. i have no idea how long we'll do that but for now whenever she curls up against my stomach i feel like she never left.

nursing has been going so well. it's seriously a dream compared to all the horrors i was bracing myself for. my whole approach to nursing [and a lot of baby care techniques really] has been less is more, as in the less complicated i make it hopefully the better it would go. so in that spirit we haven't used bottles or pacifiers at all so far, just to help limit the number of things we need to worry about right now. i just feed her every time she tells me she's hungry, sucking on her hands or fussing a certain way. i can usually tell when a cry is a hungry cry [not always, babies can be super mysterious when they want to be] and there are certain sounds she makes when she's sleeping that wake me up and that i know mean she's hungry.

it makes me sad when people [mostly strangers] only bring up all the negative things about having a newborn. babies are wonderful, they are the best thing, they're what life is all about, bringing more precious spirits to the world and teaching them how to get back to Heavenly Father. all i ever want to do my whole life is take care of my children. and i'm typing that out while covered in quite a large amount of dried spit up from a baby who has been pretty fussy today, so hopefully you can tell i mean it. and she's still the ABSOLUTE BEST and most well behaved angel. every mother should be allowed to be enamored with their new little darlings as much as they possibly can be.