It is now confirmed as official: we have a cutie living in our house! Laura has wanted to take Kiley to a pumpkin patch for some pictures for a while now, and we finally found two that we could go to that were close by. I had just two days in town before heading back out to work, so on Tuesday, we headed a half hour away to Heath, Ohio to see if we could get some pictures of her amongst the pumpkins.

I don’t know if there is a secret parenting manual out there somewhere that says that you have to take your infant/toddler to a pumpkin patch for pictures, but it seems that it is all the rage and everyone does it. We are not big fans of following the cliched crowds, and pumpkin patch pictures are about as standard as it comes. Said another way, when you go to the Grand Canyon to take some amazing pictures, don’t stick your tripod legs into the same holes that thousands of other photographers have shoved their tripods into; go your own way and make your own pictures.

The only caveat to that is that if I do what everyone else does, I guess I’ll end up with half decent pictures because there is a reason pumpkin patch pictures are popular, and there is a reason why so many tripods have been set up in the same places at the Grand Canyon — they produce fun pictures.
Continue reading Pumpkin Patch →

Our little girl is growing up fast. Sometimes we feel like time is flying by, and other times we think that she can’t grow up fast enough. With the acid reflux continuing to bother her and when she doesn’t sleep through the night, we wanter to her to get older soon. However, when she rolled over from her back to her belly the other day, we realized she is growing up and we want to hold on to all those precious moments.

Kiley is doing a lot of “talking” during the day. She loves laying on her back and playing in her play-gym. She can see and interact with the toys that dangle down in front of her, and we can tell she enjoys them. She will coo and talk to both us and the toys, sometimes for a half hour. Kiley still has her moments of screaming and being upset, but those times are getting fewer and fewer. That is a major joy for us, and it is extra special for her to be carried down stairs from a nap and see Laura or me and smile with a big, shy grin.
Continue reading Kiley at three months →

Kiley is two months old this August, and time is flying by. She is still on the small side, like her parents, and is in the 12th percentile for weight verses other babies in North America. With our country’s fascination with carbs without exercise, maybe that’s a good thing? At nine pounds and five ounces, she still weighs less than one of her cousin’s birth weight! She is 22.5 inches long (46th percentile) and is still growing, so no one is concerned about her.

Kiley has had quite the bout with acid reflux problems and pains with intestinal gas. Combining the problem, I call them gassid pains. That leaves her in pain, which equals crying a lot of the time. In a comical side note, Laura looked up the symptoms of reflux online, and found that our little baby girl displayed all 12 of the signs. She was scheduled to get a upper gastrointestinal study done, but the test was cancelled because we knew she obviously had reflux. Canceling was fine with me, because it would have involved drinking barium and then getting x-rayed. I get x-rays all the time at 40,000 feet above the north pole, so no biggie there, but getting Kiley to drink barium was going to be a feat we didn’t want to try and accomplish.
Continue reading Two Months Old →

Kiley got her first bath in the baby tub today. Up until this point, she has only been getting sponge baths because we couldn’t submerge her belly-button until it was fully healed. She had a special rubber ducky that told us if the water was too hot, and mom bathed her while dad took lots of video and photos.

She surprised us and tolerated the water wonderfully, and actually smiled a bit while Laura poured water on her head. So far, she likes her bath and being in the water, but once she got out and dried off with a towel, out came the screams with the force of pent-up energy. Oh well, the bath was fun! You can click her picture for more photos of the bath time.

Seeing her all wet in the sink reminded me of another baby we have that gets bathed in the sink . . .

Kiley is now one month old, and to celebrate, she put on her “First July 4th” outfit. I was out on a trip so Laura took some pictures of her in her one month old shirt. You can see those by clicking on her picture. Kiley had her second checkup at the pediatrician’s office since we brought her home. She grew three-fourths of an inch to become 21 inches long, and has gained exactly one pound, moving up to 8 lbs, 7 ounces. She started out in the 68th percentile for length and now has dropped to the 39th percentile. For weight, she started out already thin, in the 29th percentile, and now she has dropped to the 25th percentile. Oh well, she has small parents and she is still growing. Because of her positive growth, the doctor was satisfied. Continue reading One Month Down →