HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

So this is obviously Makenna's first Halloween, and guess what she is?! We actually took this picture a couple of weeks ago when we took Kenna to her first pumpkin patch with cousins Elliott & Wesley. People were probably wondering why we had the kids dressed up so early, but who cares? They all looked damn cute anyway! Since Kenna is still too young to indulge in all the sweets involved with this holiday, we won't take her door to door just yet. She will be making appearances at her grandparent's homes so they can all get a glimpse of her in costume, that is, if she hasn't already grown out of it! Happy Halloween!

Kenna says Mama!

Auntie Sarah bought Makenna her first set of Mickey (or should I say Minnie) ears. Even though its still a bit large for Kenna, there's not much room for her big head to grow! Hehehe, just kidding!

Kenna's new word is Mama, and although she still isn't saying it on command, she does say it every now and then. We first heard her say it this past weekend, and she's been saying it for the last couple of days, mixed in with her normal chant of dada =) We're pretty sure her next word will be Marino, since she hears his name more than anything. Who knows? Maybe "mama" is her first attempt at saying Ma-rino? At least she called for her mommy before calling out for her pup =)

Happy Monday!

We had a fairly relaxing weekend, not much planned, but nevertheless a fun weekend with the little one. Her crawling has become a lot faster now, even though she's still using her elbows more than her hands. She has also started to master some yoga poses, and even freezes in the upper position of a push-up! She'll get on her hands and knees, and start to rock back and forth, but she has yet to master the actual "hands and knees" crawl. Regardless of her form, she's still a speedy little squirt, and I can't recall how many times I had to get up and chase after her. She ends up in the same spot though, in front of our first dvd rack, and she grabs the same movie, Collateral Damage. Not quite sure if she wants to watch it, or if she likes Arnold. Whatever the attraction is, we'll never know. She always goes for that same disk!

Here's a little video clip to start the week off right. Its one of Kenna as she cracks up at my expense. I never realized how much beating myself up could make the little one laugh! Enjoy & Happy Monday!

Getting over the hump...

Kenna has become a lot more vocal as of late, although a good majority of what comes out of her mouth is dadada! Its fun to watch her as she watches us and attempts to imitate our words, but in the end, it always comes out as dadada or lalala. On a couple of occasions, we've heard an inadvertent "mom" slip out, but we haven't been able to get her to do it on command. Its coming soon though, no worries!

Makenna's new thing is noticing scents, especially from food. If we've eaten something sweet, and its on our breath, Kenna notices. If one of us is holding her, she'll immediately plant her mouth on our lips to get a taste of what it is! It comes across as a kiss, but we know better. She's just trying to get a jump start on eating real food! How smart is that?

More Dada

So my computer took a dump yesterday & I wasn't able to update the blog. Now I'm back up and running, so I'll do my best this week to get all caught up.

For starters, Makenna just keeps on growing. She's graduated to the larger containers of baby food & will begin the fruit stage later this week. We're both sure that she'll enjoy that, without a doubt. Her top two teeth are starting to poke through her gums, and we think that's the reason why she hasn't been eating like the hoover she's become! She hasn't had a problem eating her veggies, but once those teeth started poking through, she's become a little more fussy. Hopefully that phase will pass when those teeth are in. She still loves to call for her Daddy, and we're constantly hearing her through the monitor whispering "dadada" to herself before busting out in song =) Someday soon she'll be able to say "mama."

On another note, Enz has been feeling baby #2 move around a lot more. So much so, that she started to feel some kicks. Sunday was the first time I was able to feel the baby kick, and it was just like we started over again. Then again, it wasn't but about a year ago that we were going through the exact same stuff. We'll keep you posted on more of baby #2's development. Now that Enz has reached the 6 month mark, it's starting to feel a little more real. Hmmmmm.....

Happy Friday!

So another week has passed, and little Kenna continues to prove that she's going to be an independent one in the near future. She's learning things very quickly and we attribute a lot of that to her cousins Elliott & Wesley. Maybe its her desire to play with the both of them whenever she sees them, but whatever it is has her picking up on things quickly and easily. As promised, here's a short video clip of Kenna as she practices her finger dexterity with Cheerios. Both of us were so proud, and it was for something so simple. Go figure! Happy Friday & have a great weekend!

Stand Up!

Although I've said it before, I can't help but notice how much Makenna wants to stand up, even though she's not yet able to do so on her own. She loves to "crawl" and she's getting to be a real champ at it (as sloppy as it may be). Once she gets to one of the couches, she immediately reaches up as if she wants to pull herself to stand. One of us will usually stand her up, and she gets so happy when she's upright! Its almost as if she enjoys the new view. It'll be interesting to see when she gets to that phase on her own, and maybe then we'll get more aggressive with baby-proofing the house.

Happy Hump Day!

Makenna must know that there's something going on in her Mommy's belly. Now that it's grown to a more noticeable size, Kenna has been placing her hand on mommy's stomach whenever she's near. Although we still don't know whether its a boy or girl, we do know that he or she likes to eat, and we're guessing that this one will be another big baby! Here's a pic of Kenna patting Mommy's belly as she attempts to give her a bottle...


Now that Kenna is on the move, she prefers playing on the ground to being in her activity center, or even sitting up playing with her toys. Once she gets down, its off to the races so to speak, and we're constantly having to pick her up and turn her in another direction. Her favorite places to go are towards the tv (obviously), and also towards the sliding glass door. She already crawled into the glass on more than one occasion, and the thumps on the head haven't phased her yet. I always said it would be fun to see her crawling around, little did I know the consequences of when it would actually take place! And who'd a thought it would be happening so soon?!



*this post was late due to the site being down yesterday*

Makenna's Baptism

This past Saturday was Makenna's baptism, and what an event it was! Even though Makenna still wasn't 100%, her spirits were high and she did her best to entertain the families! We were surprised that she didn't cry in the church, she probably thought she was getting a bath! And she was able to get through the reception with little rest. We've already figured that she loves to be around people, and the constant passing around on Saturday didn't bother her one bit!

Thanks to our families for helping to make this special event memorable, and an extra special Thank You to Rick, Merr, Dennis & Sarah for graciously accepting the resposibility in guiding Kenna with her spiritual growth!

Today's my baptism & grandma made my pretty dress!

Newly baptized with Mommy & Daddy

Makenna with Father Ben, parents & godparents

Ninong Ricky & Ninang Merr with Makenna

Ninong Dennis & Ninang Sarah with Makenna

TGIF!!!

Happy Friday! Its the end of another long & interesting week for little Kenna, and she's capping it off on a sour note. The little one has caught whatever it is that's going around, not quite sure if its just a cold, or if its the flu. Nevertheless, she's not feeling her usual 100% =( She's got a big weekend ahead of her, so we'll do our best to make sure she's well rested for the upcoming festivities. Saturday is Makenna's baptism, a really important event for the little one, and Sunday will be her first taste of Halloween with a trip to the pumpkin patch. We'll have to play Sunday by ear depending on how she's feeling, so hopefully the weather doesn't bring her down any more than she already is. Happy Friday & have a great weekend!

Social Butterfly

Just like any other kid, Makenna starts off shy when she first sees a bunch of new people. She'll even act that way around people she knows, but hasn't seen in a while. That being said, we've noticed that it takes her no time at all to warm up to all those around her.

Yesterday was a full day for the little one, as Mommy brought her over to Daddy's work to visit for lunch. What a way to break up another monotonous day at the salt mine! It had been a couple of months since she last visited, so my co-workers were all amazed at her size. As I took her around the office, she marveled at all the new things to look at, and some new faces as well. She warmed up to a few people so quickly, that I found it hard to get her back!

She then spent the afternoon with Grandma, as we went in for our monthly appointment for Baby Coconut. All went well, and we had another chance to listen to baby coco's heartbeat. It was so mellow & rhythmic, nothing like the "hard house" beat of Makenna's! They scheduled our hospital appointment, so barring any unforseen circumstances, baby #2 will be born on February 5, 2008. Keep your fingers crossed! We still have to wait until December to find out what we're having, so we'll let everyone know then.

Kenna's day ended up at cousin Cole's 3rd birthday. We normally don't have Kenna out past her bedtime, especially on a school night, but we made an exception. Kenna wasted no time hanging out with all the grown-ups as well as all the kids. While we stayed for only an hour or so, Kenna kept going strong, posing for pictures, waving hi & bye, just having a grand old time! Needless to say, we had no problems putting her down for the night!

She keeps on growing...

So it seems that our little girl is growing up way too fast. No, she's not walking yet, and no, she's not standing up on her own just yet either, as the picture would suggest. We just can't get over how quickly she's picking up on things. We just started her on solids a few weeks ago, and that's going great. We're really beginning to see exactly how big her appetite is, and can't help but laugh as her mouth stays open while we feed her! Her stomach has become a bottomless pit, and now we understand why she remained fussy after ounces and ounces of milk/formula. The supply couldn't keep up with the demand!

She's still working at mastering the crawling motion, and even though she's not that quick, she still moves faster than expected. Yesterday she ended up in front of the dvd player, and I caught her reaching up for the buttons! Ahhh, the makings of a little troublemaker!

Cousin Wesley's First Birthday

This past weekend the Arbolante's celebrated Wesley's 1st birthday. From the looks of it, everyone had a great time, and the food was excellent(as always)! Kenna did her best to hang with the bigger kids, as you can see in the last couple of pictures. All in all, it turned out to be a fun event! It won't be too long before we celebrate Kenna's 1st birthday...


HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY WESLEY!
Mommy & Kenna enjoying the festivities
Do these glasses fit my face?
The wagon kids enjoying a ride

Kenna crawls for Barney! Happy Friday!

As of late, Makenna has been very persistent in making attempts to crawl. She's grown tired of her activity center, and only likes to be in it for short amounts of time before letting us know that she needs a change of scenery. Since she's learned how to sit up on her own, she really enjoys playing on the floor with her toys. She's also mastered going from the sitting position to the crawling position, although there have been instances where her timing was off and she ended up face down on the carpet! Being the trooper she is, she's learned to shrug that off and just carry on.

She's picked up on how to roll from belly to back and vice versa, as well as spinning on her belly to change directions. The next natural step would be for her to begin crawling, and even though she's been working on her "army crawl," she's finally realizing that her legs need to do some of the work! We were fortunate enough to catch this little "glimpse of things to come" on video. She still has some work to do, but you can see the foundation of what looks to be a very active little child! Enjoy & Happy Friday!

Middle of the week...

Alright, so even though the Dolphins are winless at this point in the season, Kenna likes to play with this ball. She's been doing pretty well with eating solids and as I mentioned before, her diapers have redefined the word "stink!" She finds it pretty humorous when we change her, especially when I'm hacking and gagging, but I guess its just a part of life...

We're slowly introducing Cheerios for her to try out. In fact, when we gave her one to eat yesterday, she gave us the "bitter beer face" probably due to the new texture in her mouth. Of course the cereal itself is pretty bland, but its not like we've given her lavish gourmet meals just yet either. At this point, all she knows is that the Cheerios go in her mouth. It'll be more fun to watch her in the coming months, as she gains more of her finger dexterity to be able to pick these things up and feed herself!

As for our "baby coconut," everyone keeps asking if we know the sex of the baby, and the answer is still no. We haven't done the sccond ultrasound yet, and we don't have an appointment scheduled to do so. I'm sure we'll know more by next week since Enz is due for her monthly checkup. Hopefully we can set something up soon so we can determine if this will be a junior or juniorette! For now, Enz has been playing baby coco some music in the evenings, much like she did for Kenna. The baby responds, but tends to be a lot more mellow than the energizer bunny we currently have at home =) Stay tuned, and Happy Hump Day!