11 Months and more Christmas spirit...

Can you believe that just a year ago, I was pouring my heart out to this blog about being terrified about having a c-section?? And now here I am, with this beautiful 11 month old baby, and I can't imagine what my life was really like before her. She is such an amazing little girl. We are still not quite walking yet, but she is getting oh so close! I am not sure I'm ready to have her walking away from me just yet ;)
I am really looking forward to Christmas this year! Even more so than previous years :)
There's no denying that Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday. I get crazy in a good way around this time of year!

Sadly, my family will not be making it back to Nebraska for the holiday yet again this year :( Liz's husband Josh is getting deployed right around Christmas, if not the actual day, and we cannot let her be by herself during this hard time, so mom and dad will be staying with her for Christmas. While I am sad about all of them not making it here, I am a little excited about Sophie's very first Christmas being with just the 3 of us, our little family. I want it to be perfect, even though I know perfect doens't exist lol, and I know she doesn't understand what's going on yet.  But in my mind, it will be a perfect day :)

 

 I was playing around with Sophie and our camera the other night and captured some fun amazing pictures! Some of the idea I got from Pinterest...imagine that lol. This black and white one is so beautiful...it looks like something you'd see in a magazine.

 Here she is playing with some lights I put out for her...safely playing I might add. I made sure she didn't put them in her mouth or hold onto a bulb for very long.

 But just watching the wonder on her face, is another reason why I love this holiday so much.

 

 This is not her first encounter with Santa, and she was more interested in the "real" guy than this stuffed version. More than once after this was taken, she would throw him down and crawl away lol.

Ugh, My baby is just getting too big. I wish I could stop time just for a little while longer. She is so fun right now, even though some of that fun is slightly naughty lol. We are learning patience, and the word "no" is said alot around our house right now. I just love watching what new things she learns and how she listens to me when I'm talking to her and how she tries to respond back in her baby babble.  This kid is going to do great things <3

10 months and counting, plus a few holidays thrown in!

Lots and lots happening around the Ka family home! Sophie is growing more and more every day, and the things that she comes up with, they just amaze me. She amazes me. I cannot believe that my baby is almost 11 months, and almost a year old :( Time is going WAAAY too fast!

Just this month, we've decided we no longer want pureed food, we want what Mommy and Daddy have! She has finally figured out how to roll over and get up on her own from the laying down position and just last night, she figured out how to walk while using her walking/learning toy! She's such a big girl!

We also got to have lots of fun and snuggles with Me-maw and Grandpa when they came up for Thanksgiving last week and we cannot wait to see them again for Christmas!!

 Here's the proof that this kid will not eat pureed food anymore! She enjoyed some cabbage rolls mommy made. And I'm not kidding, she ate an entire roll all by herself! She seems to love things that have tomato sauce on them like these rolls and spaghetti and chili, etc.

 I love to go shopping for Sophie. It's seriously one of my favorite things to do, because this kid can wear anything. Any color, any style, anything! She looks so cute all the time! This outfit is one of my favorites that I happened to find at a consignment store (Big Wheels to Butterflies - my favorite place!) for a steal of $4 for the whole outfit (leggins and button-up shirt)! I added the long sleeved onesie under it b/c it was cold, and I had this adorable bow that my sister had given me for her! She looks sooo grown up!

 She is also developing quite the personality! She is sassy as all can be, throws tantrums the next minute and is a snuggle monster in the next breath lol. I just love her!

 She is literally about to take a nap in this picture, but I had to show off her Thanksgiving bow I made her! I couldn't find anything I liked to dress her up in for Thanksgiving, so I decided to put her in her orange dress and make a turkey bow! She left it alone for about 5 minutes and then demanded it be taken off lol.

 While my mom and dad were still here, my mom and I decided to take Sophie to go see Santa Claus!!  We went to the Westroads Mall and let me just say, the set up there was soooo stinking cute!! I thought for sure she would have "stranger danger" sitting on Santa's lap, but my big girl did so good! She didn't even cry or whimper once! He reached out for her and I handed her off and she turned and looked at him, stared him down for a few, and was totally fine!

This was the closest we could get to a smile. It was one of the last pictures, and she just wasn't in the smiling mood apparently, but I'm still happy about her Santa pics! I need to get a frame now!

I hope everyone had as good of a holiday as we did and I'll be posting a video soon of her walking with her toy!

Daddy and Me time

Every girl's first love is their daddy. I'm so glad that Ibou and Sophie seem to have a wonderful start to a great father/daughter relationship. It makes me feel overwhelmed with love and joy when I watch them play together. She absolutley adores him. I know she loves me too, but there is definetly something about a daddy's love that is way different than mommy's <3

 

One of their favorite things to do together is to tickle and giggle! 

 

 Then they yell at each other for a bit-usually it's him yelling BOO! and her giggling like crazy and squealing!

 Another favorite is to slap at him, and then try to crawl away while he catches her lol.

 She thinks it's hillarious and will go back for more every time!

 Hi momma!

 She loves him so much :)

 

 

 So big!

 Clapping and yelling YAY!

More wrestling and giggling.

I hope that they always have this kind of bond because it is such a special thing to have.

Happy Halloween!

Sophie's first Halloween! I wracked my brain over and over again on what I was going to have her dress up as. Then I saw a Pinterest idea for an owl costume for a toddler, and I thought "hey! I could do that!"

So, with the help of a friend, I was able to pull off a relatively cheap costume, homemade-style!

 

 Here is the back. You can see the brown spot at the bottom, that's the tail! I used some fleece material for the cape, and stitched on all those colored "feathers", hand-cut from pieces of felt.

 Here's the front-just brown pants and a brown shirt. The owl hat was made by a friend of mine that runs a little side business called Cutie Booty Kid Stuff.

 Here's my lil owl from the side.

 Ok, so I love this picture mostly b/c I think she really looks like me here! I make that face all the time!

 Trying to get a smile out of her!

 She looks so much like a big girl :( Makes me sad to think that in 2 months she'll be 1 years old :(

Daycare took this picture on Halloween! She just really has the best smile ever and is the cutest owl on the planet! Such a beautiful girl :)

1st Pumpkin Patch and other updates

I'm amazed at myself right now! 2 updates in one month?? Ha ha! I may even be able to squeeze in a 3rd once I get her Halloween costume done!

On Saturday, I decided that I needed to share a fun tradition with my daughter. I know that she had no idea really of what was going on, but nevertheless, I have never missed a year at the pumpkin patch, and I wasn't about to start missing out now. So, off to Vala's Pumpkin Patch we went!

Vala's is a tradition among many of the families in Omaha, and even though they don't change much, it still draws crowds of families to it every year. It was super busy there on Saturday, but we didn't mind and still had a blast. I wasn't able to get all the pictures I wanted, but I still think I got some good ones!

 

 Here is peanut with daddy!

 Now she's enjoying the big chair that the witch usually sits in! I was going to take her picture standing in the big cauldron, but it was really gross inside of it, so we nixed that!

 Ride'em cowgirl...she's not impressed lol.

 My little Cinderella in her pumpkin coach!

 We arrived just in time to watch the pig show! Suweeeee!

 

In the Storybook Barn we saw Snow White and a fairy princess! 

And swung with Raggedy Anne!  We also got to go to the Dragon Show and watch him chomp on a pumpkin! We ran into our friend Oliver and his mommy Diane and friend Melinda as well! We love finding friends out and about! 

 Here we are with Mommy on the tractor pull!

She did so good the whole time we were there. Next year will be so much more fun because she will take notice of more things and we'll be able to do a few more things with her that we couldn't this time. She is the cutest pumpkin in the patch though!

 I scored this awesome toy for $3 at a garage sale and she LOVES it! I just need to get batteries in it for her to completely enjoy it. The light is supposed to come on and the chair does things as well. But you can see just how much she does like it now without sounds!

 

 And what kiddo does not like to see themselves in the mirror? I don't think she's figured out that it's her she's looking at, but it's so fun to watch her play with her "friend" when we go shopping. I just couldn't help myself and had to take pictures lol.

Ah, my beautiful little girl. She's growing up so fast and I feel like time is just slipping away already. I wish I could get the hands of time to slow down. But for now, I'll enjoy the ride and continue to document how she's growing and watching her become her own little person. <3

9 Months Brings new Adventures

Oh boy! Here we are, 9 months already. This is insane to me. I cannot believe that just 9 months ago, my precious baby was just about to make her debut into the world. It's even harder to believe that she has now been outside of my tummy just as long as she was inside!

She continues to amaze me everyday with all the new things she is accomplishing. Just in the past 2 weeks she has started eating more solid table foods like we eat, she says "momma", "daddy", "dada", "yes" and "uh-oh". She is a little on the sassy side sometimes with her words, haha. I told her "NO" last night and she looked right back at me and said "YES". I'm going to be in big trouble with this little girl I have a feeling lol.

She is also trying to pull up on everything and 5 days before her 9 month check up, just up and started crawling! The same night she flipped from her back to her belly for the first time. She is also cutting her fangs-skipping her 2 top front teeth alltogether for now. Time is just going way too fast for me. I have a feeling I am going to blink and she will all of a sudden be a year old. :(

 We were playing around at Gordman's while sitting in our big girl seat. Love my little Witchy Poo!

 This box was left at my work one night and Ibou drops Sophie off to me at work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays while he goes to school, so my boss and I thought this was the perfect way to wrangle her in for an hour! She's always trying to get my phone while she is here as well, so I dug out one of our old phones and she has a blast with it. She gets to be just like momma :)

 As I said, she has started eating alot of the same food we do now, as well as still having purees (that I make) and still having bottles. Some foods are a hit and miss, but others, like Spaghetti, are a hit! I feed her what we're eating as a form of Baby Led Weaning. If she isn't interested, then we go back to purees and a bottle, and if she likes it, we try to give her a bit more after she's eaten what we give her first. This looks like a lot of spaghetti, but I assure you, she cleaned her plate!

 And the cutest thing about the first time I gave her spaghetti is, the blanket I had under her Bumbo Seat at the time, is a blanket that I used all the time when I was a baby. It's a sweet white blanket with little blue flowers all over it that one of my great grandmother's made me and it always holds such sweet memories of my childhood, so I wanted Sophie to enjoy it as well, and wasn't really thinking when I had it under her while she was eating spaghetti. Well, of course the noodles don't always stay on the tray, or in her hands and some of the noodles and sauce fell onto the white blanket, leaving a small stain. Instead of getting upset about it, I giggled. If you were to look at the opposite end of the blanket from where she was sitting, you would see an almost identical spaghetti stain from ME when I was little!

I called my mom and giggled to her about it and she said I should take a permanent marker and go back to both stains and label who did each one and keep the tradition for the next baby as well. I just might do this lol.

Now this last picture still makes me smile when I look at it. My sweet baby was at daycare, the same week that she learned to crawl, roll over and pull up on things. Daycare laid her down for her nap and came back to check on her a little while later and found her like this!  I had no idea when she sent me the pic that she had originally laid Sophie down on her back for naptime, which means, my sweet baby had figured out how to sit up on her own! It was obviously an exhausting process and she promptly fell asleep, sitting/slumped in this position lol. Poor kiddo, being a baby and learning new things is hard work!

Now for a bit of sad news...

I mentioned in my last entry that we were house hunting. We had been approved for up to $115K and were on the hunt. I wanted a house by December so I could spend Christmas in the new place and Sophie's birthday could be in a bigger space as well. Well, we found a house on Friday of this last week, wrote an offer on Saturday, got countered, countered back and finally everything was accepted and in place.

Unfortunately on Monday, the whole thing crashed down around us. The Lender pulled our credit one last time to refresh everything for the sale and to make a long story short, something showed up on the credit score that we weren't expecting and the bank could no longer finance us. I was devastated. I cried for 2 days.

After mourning the loss of a potential home, I prayed hard for an answer as to what to do next and woke up the next day feeling refreshed. We decided that we will stay where we are in our apartment and renew our lease - which isn't up until January- renew for 6 months, pay off the debt that hurt us and see if it could be removed alltogether, work on our credit again and see what happens after the 6 months is up. Hopefully by next Summer we will be able to restart our search and find an even better house than the one we were about to settle for.

God works in mysterious ways and he obviously knew that we were not ready for that house. He has a better home out there for us and when we are ready for it, He will put it in our path. I honestly believe this. It may have taken some convincing at the time that this was His plan, but I do see it now. I couldn't picture my things in that house and I knew it was probably going to be a stretch for us to live in it. So, he fixed the problem for us. I am OK with this new plan for now since I know that this is not permanent.

For now, we sit back, do what we need to do and watch our beautiful girl continue to grow :)

8 months and counting...

8 month update! I didn't forget this time! Not much really to update other than the rest of her 7 month pics and that we are still trucking along with purees and solids. She recently tried pumpkin french toast and loved it as well as beans from my chili. LOL.  So far, no upper teeth yet, but she sure does want to chew on everything in site! Still not crawling yet, although it seems like we might be getting there soon. She gets frustrated that she can't seem to get where she wants to go. She has recently started liking baths, so that's a huge plus for mommy! She has hated baths from day one and would scream and shake all the way through, but here lately, she's splashing and playing with her toys in the bath! So much fun! I will post the video I took of her in the bath when I get to my computer at home.

Other than that, things are pretty much the same for all of us. We are still house hunting, praying that the right house for us will come along. We've found a few that we like, but nothing that we're ready to setting on just yet. My goal is to be in a house by December so I can set up a proper first Christmas for my baby and so we have a place for her first birthday as well!

Here are the rest of her beautiful pictures from her 7 month session! We won't be doing any more pictures until December when we do her 1 year pictures and christmas pictures. So until then, you'll have to settle for my photo skills lol.

Also, if you are reading this now, we have 8 days left of the Gerber baby photo contest, so if you have facebook, please log on and go to the gerber baby page, or my page and click the link and vote for Sophie! The grand prize is 50,000 and a photo shoot. Other places get a 10,000 life insurance policy which is nice also!

 She is just so breath-takingly beautiful :)

 Big Girl!

This is our ornery face! :) 

 I actually got her hair to lay flat!!

 But sadly in the back it looks like a bad combover lol.

 munching on some crackers lol. Look at those rolls!!

 Trying celery...didn't go over very well!

 That's my Husker Baby!! GBR!! Can you believe I found that outfit for 1.50 at a consignment sale?!?!?! Best find ever!

Ugh, I cannot believe she is already 8 months, almost 9 months. The time goes by way too fast. I have to remember to cherish every second I get with her because I feel like I blinked and ended up here. I want to go back to when she was a squishy newborn lol, but I am also excited to watch her grow and see all the new wonderful ways her little mind works. She is really developing such a personality and becoming a little individual and really just makes my life complete :)