Bumbo Seat Rocks!!!

So there is this truly amazing invention out there for babies called the Bumbo Seat. www.bumboseat.com - I highly recommend everyone out there to get one!!! Kinsey has been wanting to sit up for a few weeks now - she is always straining her head forward and trying to sit up on her own and it's hard to play with her like that because we have to hold her with her back to our stomach to really support her and she gets frustrated. But this seat is awesome - it's this soft rubber and as long as your baby has good head control, probably around 2-3 months, she can sit up on her own in it! Kinsey loves it! It's perfect for her to sit in the kitchen with us while we cook, watch tv with us, play with her toys, or just sit and enjoy feeling like a big girl! Here she is watching Daddy wash bottles.

Oh yea, and this week we taught her how to read - she seems to like it:

So anyway, we love the Bumbo :-) Moving on with life...

We are having a bit of a rough week - Kinsey is learning to go to sleep on her own and she is great about it at night, still sleeping 10-12 hours, but during the day for naps, she is NOT giving in. So please pray for patience for us and a quick learning curve for Kinsey.

I forgot to post these pics sooner - last weekend we took pictures of Kinsey and her cousin Hailey (2 months old). Hailey is such a sweetheart and it was really good to get to spend time with her. You can tell their grandparents really enjoyed having them together for a long visit.

And here's a couple of cute shots of her laughing this week in her froggy onesie.

Happy Birthday Hallams - Our Visit in Huntsville

Prepare for lots of pictures!!
It's the annual birthday celebration for everyone Hallam (well, everyone except Larry, Crystal, Hailey, Kinsey and Darin). We came to Huntsville Friday morning and celebrated Brian's big day, Saturday was Robert's, and between now and Tuesday we need to squeeze in Candy and Douglas. It's been really fun to hang out with the whole family and get to just be together, especially now that we have the two babies!
Saturday we all went bowling. We had a great time! I won't share my score, but I will say in two games, I scored two strikes (plus one Robert bowled for me while I was changing Kinsey) and beat the pants off of Robert BOTH TIMES. Hailey and Kinsey seemed to enjoy all of the lights, ceiling fans, and admiring folks walking by talking about how cute they were. Their favorite moment was when the alley went to dark and blacklight - that was way cool.
This weekend Douglas and Candy sang at church. It was beautiful - they did Phillips, Craig & Dean's "Your Grace Still Amazes Me". They spent a lot of time this weekend practicing and then this afternoon they just played several different songs and we had a good sing-a-long- everything from Praise & Worship to the Eagles. It's such a blessing to have a musically talented family! Here are some shots of us hanging out after church. The second one is what we like to call the Kinsey sandwich.Paw Paw came for a visit to meet Kinsey and see Douglas and Candy sing this morning. She really seemed to enjoy hanging out with her great-grandfather! I definitely see a family resemblance. Before Robert went back to Lamar this evening, he and Kinsey and Jack had some bonding time.
This evening we went out to feed some ducks at the Sam Houston museum and pond. Those of you who know me well know that birds and I don't get along. Ducks don't bug me so much, but there were these two big killer roosters that I had my eye on the whole time.
The other awesome thing we did this weekend was play Dance Dance Revolution with Robert. It's a semi-dance based video game with floor pads and there are arrows on the screen to tell you where to step. It is a serious workout and tons of fun. Robert kicks butt on that thing - he is super fast. Douglas and I were not so good, but we had a blast! We're going to have to get one of those! Keith and Barie, look out - I see a new game night coming! Here are a few more pictures from last week. For Backyard Bible Club on Wednesday, cute little Katie brought 5 friends from down our street - Kayla, Kurt, Keegan, Ethan, and Tristan. They were soaked the entire time doing water games. And most of them came back on Thursday night, too. Please lift them up in your prayers, along with Tyler, Katie, Ilyana, Brianna, Cole, and Jasmine. We had such a great time with them and we really pray that some great seeds were planted in their hearts by God last week.

For Thursday night, Douglas made cupcakes for everyone, with a little help from his assistant chef. Notice our white trash baby yet again with nothing but a diaper on. Love the belly button through the mesh!

It's not as if she doesn't have a lot of adorable clothes. Nana and Pops brought her some precious outfits a couple of weeks ago. Here she is in her Hawaiian hula shirt. Daddy taught her to put her hand in her pocket.

Have a great week everyone! Tomorrow we'll take some pics of Hailey and Kinsey together :)

Grammy Visit

Good Wednesday everyone! We are having a great week. Grammy (Patty) is here for a visit and we are hosting a Backyard Bible Club for the church this week.
Grammy has to leave today to get back home and help Poppy put in a new pond, but she's helped out a lot this week so that we would have time to get the house ready for the Bible Club.

Kinsey discovered her toes this week - it's so fun to watch her play with them. She really prefers to be naked so she can grab individual toes, but she'll grab feet or toes while she's in her sleeper.

Her eyes are starting to change colors - there's quite a bit of brown coming out from her pupils, and now the blue is a really pretty blue-grey color.

It's so fun to watch her play with toys now - she loves her musical bunny from Aunt Cindy and Uncle Walter. And her barking dog from Mike and Marcie is always in her diaper bag for playing on the go.

So a while ago we had a big family celebration for my grandmother's 80th birthday. I finally got some pictures of the event. This is all Grammy's side of the family.

4 month checkup

Hi everyone,

We went for Kinsey's 4 month checkup today. She's 25 inches long and 15lbs 3oz. That keeps her in the 75th percentile for height and weight.

The doctor said everything else looks good - she's keeping her head erect when sitting up, rolling over, and her eyes are tracking objects and lights right on schedule. She was smiling and showing off for the doctor and the nurse (all before the shots of course).

The shots were not fun at all - she wailed quite a bit, but we gave her a little bit of Gripe Water and she calmed down really quickly and went to sleep. A few minutes later in the car, she woke up for a second and gave me a big smile, so no long-term trauma done :)

Gripe Water, for those of you who are interested, is this amazing all natural European concoction for upset baby tummies. It's got ginger and fennel which are naturally good for stomach upset and it is safe for infants up to adults. Kinsey LOVES it - it works a lot faster than Mylicon gas drops, and anytime she's gassy or really fighting to fall asleep, we give her a little bit and she calms right down. Not every store carries it, so I go to http://www.babys-bliss.com/ and find the local stores that have it.

We'll be taking some more pictures soon I'm sure. Have a great day!

4 months old!!

Happy 4 month Birthday Kinsey Marie!!!

Hi everyone! Happy late 4th of July! Hope your holiday was wonderful. We celebrated on Sunday night with our church small group - went out to a local golf course and watched fireworks. Kinsey loved it - she watched the whole thing and didn't freak out at the noises. And then last night, Nana and Pops came over and we had chili and went on a walk to celebrate the holiday. Lots of people in our neighborhood did fireworks, so we got to see a few small ones.

And obviously she's very patriotic - her Daddy got her the onesie above at Target "Every girl needs a little sparkle!" So true!

To celebrate being a big 4 month old girl, Kinsey rolled over today for the first time from her back to her tummy! She was so proud of herself!!! Here's shortly after, when she had gotten back to her back. She's been trying really hard for about a week to make it all the way over and she finally grunted enough to get over! She's been doing the tummy to back for a while, but this one seemed much harder to master!

She's also talking a lot more now - making lots of gurgles and giggles, but also more squeaks and aahs. So precious! And she's really getting good at grabbing at toys and Daddy's chin, especially when he's tickling her tummy!

Her new favorite toy is this spinny light thing that Douglas and Uncle Robert picked out at Target in Humble. It's hard to tell in a picture how cool the lights are, but it does different bright light patterns and it really makes her zone out :)

She likes to hang out with us whatever we're doing, whether it's kitchen stuff, laundry, or even computer stuff. Here she is next to the laptop while we upload pictures.

And here's a shot of her reading her own press last week with Daddy, she seems to like the blog: Kinsey's new favorite game is to kick jingly toys strung across her crib. She will laugh and kick these and talk to them while Mommy gets stuff done around the house.
The rest of this week should be relatively slow, which is good because it starts getting really busy next Monday - we are hosting a Backyard Bible Club for our church Mon-Thurs evenings so pray for us for good attendance and good weather. Every year a lot of kids come to know Jesus through the church's summer programs and we are really excited to be a part of that!

Have a great week and God Bless America!