My Little Starfish :)

Woo hoo  Kinley is a star fish :) We have a pool (which I love) but having a baby with pool is quite scary. To cover our bases (we watch the news way tooo much), we went ahead and put in a pool fence and enrolled her in swimming. Once a week she is a "starfish" at Houston Swim Club which is the beginning swim level for her age group. She loves it and we go with our friends which makes it even more fun. The pool fence started out as a piece of mind, but actually has worked out great already. Since we have the fence, she can now play outside and ride around on her car with getting anywhere near the pool. 

Kinley & The Diaper Cream

Well I was finally trying to play "tough love" and I thought that Kinley was just over tired and wasn't napping. So . . . . learning to let her "cry it out" for a few minutes and not give her a bottle, I ignored her for about 10 minutes until I finally gave in. You can imagine my surprise walking into this . . . . Keep in mind that we have rearranged her nursery 2 times now so that she can't get anything into her crib. I am still wondering how in the world she managed to get an entire tub of diaper cream into her crib. 

FYI: These pics were taken after I already wiped most of it off her face so it wasn't in her eyes, called poison control, and got it out of my hair (since she was sweet enough to share it with me) 

On a brighter note, another good page for the baby book . . . and as my parents & Mike's parents say . . . we are getting our "payback." I just can't imagine either one of us doing something like that :) 

Kinley's First Birthday

Well . . . it is official. All of those moms that I made fun of for "going overboard" with their child's first birthday. I can actually apologize. I just couldn't control myself and will be the first to admit that I definitely got carried away. With a little help from Pinterest of course (and family/friends), I pulled it off. * CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN * to see all of the details :) 

Favorite Things of 2012

I wanted to make a list of my favorite moments/things that I am grateful for of 2012 and of course as a new mom most of them revolve around something to do with my daughter. So here they are in no fancy order :)

1. Obviously having my daughter. I can't believe she is already almost a year.

2. Being my age, I know I am very lucky/blessed/grateful (etc) to have 3 grandparents still living. I was so excited that Kinley got to meet all of her living Great Grandparents this year. Unfortunately, we lost my PawPaw in early February so he was unable to "officially" meet Kinley. We did go to visit him and I know that he got to see her :) 

3. It was very important to Michael and I to have Kinley Christened. It was very special for us to have our minister who married us do it in the church where I was raised in Indianapolis. 

4. Kinley's First Christmas and Snow 

5. Kinley meeting many of her extended family members is definitely next on my list. Living in Houston, most of my family is pretty scattered across the US but we were fortunate enough to have Kinley meet so many of them this first year. She is definitely loved :) 

 6. I couldn't be more grateful for my parents and my in-laws. Kinley is definitely lucky to have 4 amazing grandparents who couldn't love her more. I was raised with some pretty amazing grandparents and had 4 up until this year who mean the world to me. I know that one day she will know and understand how much they mean to her.

7. On top of 4 amazing grandparents - I am grateful for Kinley to have 2 wonderful aunts who I am sure she will one day call to complain about me to and also 2 wonderful uncles. 

As we walk away from 2012 - Michael and I couldn't be more grateful for amazing friends, family, health, and of course our daughter. This has been an amazing year for our family. We have definitely had ups and downs but we can't wait to see what is ahead in 2013.