Our big girl!

I realize it has been a very long time since I've posted and it seems to happen in between each blog post. I am kept very busy each day by our tiny tot that is on the move! A lot has gone on since my last post but I am going to keep it short and just post quite a few pictures. We went on our first vacation with Gwen on the annual Kalil family vacation, where all of Matt's family travels to usually North Carolina. Gwen did great on the car trip until it was nap time then she decided she had enough. She was such a trooper! She had a wonderful time hanging out with her family!

We also celebrated her 1st BIRTHDAY!!! Our little girl is one! Matt took her actual birthday off to spend the day with us and make her 1st birthday just that much more special. We cannot believe it has been a year already. I was quite emotional around her birthday. We are so incredibly blessed with such an amazing child! We had a birthday party for her with a couple of her little friends and some of Matt and my friends. She had a blast and throughly enjoyed the cards, I might even say more than the gifts themselves!

Unfortunately, since her birthday, I stopped nursing her and she has been sick ever since, at least that it how it feels. We started going to Gymboree, story time at the library and the nursery at a bible study I attend each week and she is picking up every illness she possibly can. We have a nebulizer for her now and have to use it occasionally, praying she is not asthmatic.

We flew to Connecticut for Matt's brother, Rick's wedding. Gwen did great! Each flight we were lucky enough to have 3 seats for the 3 of us so we had plenty of room to play with her and watch some Dvd's and read books.

Biggest news....Our little girl is walking!! She has been taking a few steps here and there for a while now, but as of about December 18th, she is on the move and is loving it. She walks around with her arms waiving in the air and a big smile on her face. The other day she got a soft cat ornament off the tree and was waling around the house with it in her mouth. So cute!!! She is talking quite a bit now. She says the obvious, Hi and Bye bye, mom, dada. She also says pup pup (for dogs and cats), pop for when she pops bubbles, dots, ducks, apples, yes, no. I am sure there are more, and she repeats some words she hears.

Gwen is known around our neighborhood as the happy baby or smily baby. The neighborhood loves our baby. Walking around the block on Christmas eve and Christmas day we received a few gifts from neighbors that just love our little girl. I was brought to tears on Christmas just thinking how blessed we are to have such a wonderful little girl. We pray that God lets her be an example to others and be a light and if she keeps this amazing personality of hers, I truly believe she will do big things for the Lord!

On the move!

We have been busy girls lately! Gwen is still doing her swim lessons 3 times a week. She loves every second of it! She splashes, smiles, laughs the entire time no matter what! No more crying, praise the Lord! She is doing great kicking her legs and doing her reach and pulls. We actually won a free 4 week session, so we will continue with one more session once this one is over! I am so proud of her, she definitely overcame that fear!

On July 16th Gwendolyn started crawling! At first it was just the 2 little crawls, then she would lay down, now she is on the move! There is no stopping her! Goodness gracious! You never realize how dangerous things are in your house until they actually start crawling right towards that stuff! She loves to stand on her own, without leaning on things or anyone holding on to her. She is very independent! She has taken one step while doing that here and there but nothing consistent.

At the end of the month we will be driving up to the mountains of North Carolina for our Kalil family vacation. I am excited for the vacation but not so excited about the drive! Now that Gwen is on the move, she doesn't like to sit in one place for too long and that is a long drive! We may stop in Georgia and stay with Jenni (Matt's sister) and her family for the night and we will all leave the next morning, just to break it up a bit.

We had to get Gwen allergy testing done at her 9 month check up. Boy was that an experience! Poor baby had to be held down for about 5 minutes because they couldn't get her vain. Good news is that she has no allergies (as of yet)! We were worried because each night she has a rash covering her mid-section, turns out it is just eczema. Praise the Lord! Other than that, her 9 month check up was perfect. She only gained about a pound since she was 6 months. She is in the 30th percentile for weight now and still 90th percentile for her height! She is perfect and beautiful!

We love our little Gwendolyn!

Here are some pictures

Swim Time and Teeth Time!

It's been a while since my last update but we have been quite busy. Gwendolyn has been going to swim lessons 3 times a week for 4 weeks. It was a rough road and I was ready to give up early on. Gwen loved being in the water so I figured she was going to have the time of her life at the lessons. Boy was I wrong! She screamed like she was being tortured for the first 2 weeks until she finally started to settle down. Through all of the screaming she did learn how to kick, reach for the wall while swimming and she loves to float on her back (with me supporting her head of course). She did begin to settle down and have fun and pretty much only cried when I put her under the water to swim. This is not only dunking them under the water. This is putting them under the water and letting them go to swim to the wall and grab on by themselves. Scary, but so much more helpful for them incase they are to fall into the pool. She graduated from her class (which was a parent/tot class) and she begins her private lessons on Monday to be able to learn more and hopefully excel with her swimming skills!

She is teething pretty hard right now. My poor little baby doesn't let much bother her and you can barely tell when something is wrong because she is so happy. But starting last Monday (Memorial Day) night those darn teeth got the best of her. She had a pretty sleepless night but of course was happy on Tuesday. One of the bottom front teeth finally broke through. Now I think we are working on the other bottom tooth. She had a fever of 102.4 today, scred her mommy and daddy, and was fussy for a while. Thank the Lord for baby Advil! It broke her fever pretty fast and settled her down. She is sleeping now, praise the Lord and will hopefully get a good night sleep tonight and that tooth have come through. I hate to see my tiny baby in pain!

So cute in her pig tails!

Getting ready for swim class!

Gwen loves her pup pup, Mily!

Loves her daddy! He came to watch me graduate!

Ms. Shannon Helping Gwen swim

Kick Gwenny!

Graduating! So proud of her!

New love!

Gwen has found a new love! She absolutely loves to swing! I took her to the park on Tuesday and put her in the swing before we went for our walk and she was laughing and had absolutely no fear! She also had the cutest outfit on...Matt loves Under Armour and wears one of their shirts basically every day. So, mom K bought her a little Under Armour outfit and I loooooove it on her!

Ohio Vacation

We did it! The Ohio vacation was a huge success and we had a great time visiting family that had yet to meet Gwen. Gwendolyn did amazing on the plane both times, huge thanks to my mom who helped me entertain and keep Gwen busy! She adjusted wonderfully to being in a new place. Slept great at night, not so much at her naps, but we figured that out. Everyone fell in love with my little one and she absolutely loved all of them as well. She had no hesitation about going to all of the new people she was meeting. Here are a few pictures of the trip.

4 Generations

Great Uncle Baldy(Tim)

Great Great Grandma Mary

Great Grandpa

On the airplane for the 1st time!

Big Girl!

Gwendolyn is sitting up! All by herself, no help needed. I just sit her on the floor and she just sits there for quite a while and plays with her toys. She gets tired after a little bit and falls over, but she is such a big girl! She has this one toy that are bowls that you stack and a rattle ball on top and I started clacking them together and she took two bowls and did exactly what I was doing. She's so smart!

Matt and I took her to the beach for the first time on Saturday and she did great. I have to admit, we pretty much took her so we had a reason to put her into her tiny little bikini. So stinking cute!

We are leaving Friday for our trip to Ohio to meet part of the family she hasn't met yet. I am excited but incredibly nervous. I think it is just the airport, not the actual flight that I am nervous about. Everything will be great though and I can't wait for everyone to meet our precious little girl!

6 Months Old!

I cannot believe my little one is officially 6 months old. We had her 6 month pictures done on Saturday with a friend of mine that did her newborn pictures, Rachel. If any of you would like to use her, let me know. She is wonderful and has amazing prices.

This weekend was great. Saturday started off with Gwen's pictures, then we came home and both planned on doing some yard work. That proved to be more difficult than we thought since one of us had to watch Gwen. So, in the end Matt ended up doing the whole thing, but it looks amazing! Sunday was great...we went to church then had to usual Sunday lunch with Matt's parents at Firehouse. I relaxed at home with Gwen while Matt had some errands to do for Westcoast. We then went to down town Dunedin for dinner at Cafe Alfresco where the table next to us just ooggled over Gwen the whole time. Then we went to our favorite ice cream place, Stratchen's. Gwen was so well behaved. No fussing what-so-ever! It was even past her bed time. I cannot even express how much I love and adore my family. I love every second of us being together, and this weekend, especially Sunday, made that so clear to me.

She sent me a couple of sneak peak pics from our photo session, here is one.