Getting Big



Well it has been a while since I posted!! We have had some fun visitors, hit a few more milestones and just generally been cute as a button. Not that I'm biased or anything.
I realized I need to take more photos and not just on my iphone, so I can capture how fast this little one seems to grow. Just today I already had to go through her dresser to clean out all the stuff that is TOO SMALL for her now! Crazy because a lot of that stuff was too big when we first brought her home.
Last weekend Ann came to do a pre-Thanksgiving celebration and hang out with the little one...here are a few cute pics:

Seeming to enjoy tummy time (sometimes a rarity)

Hanging out with mom...

And then I like this pic b/c I think Mark and K look so much alike...and they have the SAME expression


We have also added some REAL FOOD to K's menu...our pediatrician who is of the appropriate mindset that most kids do just fine...says see what she likes over the next few months before she has to really get some eating done. So we started with some rice cereal which wasn't quite a big hit, but was tolerable BUT then added some prunes which are quite the delicacy. So Baby K has been learning about eating from a spoon which is fun for us, a bit harder on her clothes :-)
I also had a big weekend where I went out skiing!! First time since last winter. There were successes and failures on all accounts.
Here are the successes:
1. Returned home with all my toes and fingers
2. successfully got on and off the ski lift without any major mishaps
3. Successfully skied down a black run (accidently) b/c Mark took me that way
Failures:
1. Fell while standing still and had to have Mark take a ski off for me to be able to get up
2. Fell while on a cat track, all alone, and relatively flat
3. Did some complaining about the cold
HOWEVER all in, it was a good day and I got to rock my new skis...

Here are a few more cute shots of Baby K before I sign off for a bit...


These last couple shots have to be imagined with a high pitched continuous squeal in the background since that is the noise she is making....







In just a few weeks we are headed to Boston for my bro's wedding and are so excited to have K meet many new friends :) so look forward to photos in a few weeks and this weekend Tommy and Renee visited and they got a few good shots so we will add those too...

In the mean time, enjoy the holiday season! We have snow just piling up :)

A Few Shots of Around Here

These are from back when I was small....




So far it has been a great weekend (and it is only halfway!) I got to host a fun baby shower for one of the girls in my small group and help get excited about welcoming her little boy in the next few months. Mark and I went out to dinner for sushi in Park City and little peanut cooperatively slept the whole time. Baby K is a pumpkin and will be having an extended photo shoot later today (which I of course will post), and I have the best choc. chip cookie recipe. And I'm going to go to yoga this am and the climbing gym later today. Sweet.
Yup.
The Best.
Here it is if anyone is interested:

2 sticks butter (8oz) softened (I always use salted butter when I bake, but the recipe calls for unsalted)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup sugar in the raw (turbinado sugar)
1 and 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 and 1/2 cup flour, all purpose
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 oz cholcolate cut into small chunks--they say 1/2 inch, but I typically like my cholcolate chunks smaller than that. They also say use the best quality you can--I usually by 3 giradelli chocolate bars that you find in the baking isle, usually 2x semi-sweet and 1x bitter sweet.
seasalt (I had to especially buy the kind with the big crystals especially for this recipe "coarse" sea salt)

Preheat to 350
Cream butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light 4-5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple of times during the process. Continue mixing while adding the eggs one at a time. Make sure each egg is incorporated before adding the next. Add vanilla.
in separate bowl, combine flour, soda, and salt. mix with wisk. with machine on low, slowly add all flour but just a little bit. Then add chocolate and remaining small bit of flour all together. Stir with spatula just until all is combined.

Then scoop and place on cookie sheet. No need to really press dough down. Since I usually can't get the salt crystals to stick on the top if I just sprinkle them one, I will usually put a little salt in the palm of my non-dominent hand and push the top of my cookie ball into it.

Bake at 350 x about 12 minutes. Do not overbake.

And here is a preview of the little pumpkin:

Both Sides Now...

As of yesterday, we now have a bi-directional roller...front to back, back to front...
Big day in the Parrett house! We're going to have to start thinking about baby proofing and maybe expanding her play mat so she can roll around a bit more.

This weekend coming up should be fun :-) I'm off and don't have to be on call (woohoo!) and get to host a baby shower for one of the lovely ladies in our small group. She is having a little boy and we are doing a fun fall themed shower..be on the look out for more pictures of this. I went to target (with mark) and got some cute little boy stuff!

We also introduced Kyla to formula cause she is eating me out of house and home! The good news is she didn't even seem to blink an eye at the formula and now seems equally as happy with formula or breast milk. I had talked to various friends to find out what type people were happy with and settled on an organic one called "Earth's Best." Kyla, as I said, seems that she couldn't care less. All the worry about starting it to find out that she is totally satisfied with either!! That's just one more reason why she is my favorite baby. I think the build-up to starting formula was way more than the actual event. She just sat quietly and drank away like she always does; and now that she can drink it, it takes a bit of pressure off of me to feel like if I miss one time to pump at work she will not have enough to eat!

I started a new rotation (Gynecology oncology) and am loving it. There's lots of surgery, time for teaching, and interesting things about it. The hours have also been less brutal and there have been two mornings this week where I have actually gotten to see both Mark and Kyla-what a good treat!

Anyways, that's the brief update from me..oh, and it snowed!
Happy Friday!!

More laughing baby... volume is really soft but you can turn it up

Kyla Laughs!


She's getting better each day :-)

Love My Daddy

So I want to make a post that gives a lot of credit to my hubby. My job is what I might call "restrictive..." as evidenced by my utter lack of posts these past few weeks.
Now, don't get me wrong, I truly do love what I do and knew pretty dang well what going into it would look like for me and Mark.
However...I didn't necessarily factor in completely how it might look with a little peanut added. We have been blessed beyond measure in the form of little Kyla and she is just such a happy little girl. Here's where all the shout-out goes to Mark.
Before we had Kyla he was a bit green when it came to kiddos, not a ton of babysitting, more just figuring it might make sense when the little one was his own.
Well, love, not only have you made it make sense you have made it look easy. Kyla LOVES her daddy. He wakes her up in the morning, feeds her, gets her ready for the day, baths her and just generally loves on her.
It is fairly often that I come home from work and the guitar is out, Mark playing to Kyla and seeing if he can get her to chime in well he sings.
It is such a wonderful and lovely blessing to have a little girl be so loved by her dad.
Mark-you are an awesome husband and are already just about the best dad little Kyla could ever want...

I'm so proud of you both :-)

Kyla loves this toy!
~Dad

Also, here's me chatting with Kyla - I think she is a bit more talky in this one than she was with mom.
~Dad

Finally! I caught the roll on tape!
~Dad

Kyla is a chatterbox...



And she's working on sleeping through the night! We've got two whole nights under our belt :)
Not too shabby. Right now me and kp are getting some girl time and listening to opera. She likes it. And its in german so maybe she, like her mom can learn a totally useless language.
Sorry for the lack of posts...been logging some serious hours at work and caught a nasty bug. I'll try to be better in the next few weeks.

Look How Big I've gotten!!




Now her tummy fills this whole outfit...and we have had to go through the clothes drawer and get rid of all the "newborn" stuff! All the outfits I thought would be too small for her when she was born but actually fit just right are now too small!
Mark and I made a trip out to target to stock up on some fall clothes...picked up a cute pair of jeans, some little jackets and sweaters and some cute pjs.
She is going to be well dressed! And I'm sticking on one more pic of another cute outfit that a coworker made for me...so many talented people!



If you can't tell, it is a little giraffe on the front of the onesie..Kyla is shocked/excited out of her mind about just how good she looks (if you can't tell already by her expression...)



My goal for the next few days is to capture the little one rolling over...she has been doing it for about a week and half but gets camera shy whenever I try to capture it! So stay tuned for this...

Also, big welcome to baby Thandi! She was long in coming but my friend Mikki and her hubby JQ now have this sweet little cutie to call their own....
Babies everywhere!!!

Kyla Makes a New Friend!

Saturday morning fun



Dog days of summer
The local pool by us does the last day of the season as a dog day...for $3 your dog can swim. pretty darn funny.



This is what Kyla did amongst the barking.



Phoenix loved it...

So Much Good News!

I have lots of good stuff to share...
the first thing is (that I have been quietly trying not to tell...)
Judd got married!!! We are just so thrilled for him and his new wife Jana. When we first met Jana we knew right away that she was a pretty special lady...not to mention a wicked photographer and designer. We flew to Boston last week end for their wedding. That's where all the fun pics are fun!
I have only a few shots of the happy couple before my battery died...




The next big news is we have a porker on our hands! Kyla had her two month appointment yesterday and she weighed in over 10 pounds! Not too shabby. She also survived her shots although the look of utter anger that took over her face after the first poke was a sight to see. She then, however, went on to have her best night of sleep ever (per Mark). Who knows maybe shots help sleep?
I'm documenting the start of her thigh roles:



Someone was excited about it...


The last big news is I can wear my normal pants now!! Woohoo!
And now off to sleep for me...
Welcome to the family Jana! We're excited to have you ;)

Some sweet family time..

This past weekend we had the chance to make a spur-of-the moment trip to Boston for a family celebration (more on this later!) And it proved a great chance for Kyla to
1. fly
2. meet Great grandma Robertson
3. be super cute in her little outfits
4. hang out with mom a LOT!
5. meet her future best friend Ryland Kraper (but my camera was out of batteries at this point so I'm waiting for Cate to post the pics!)

Here are a few pics from the weekend...


Hanging out with Great Grandma R


Helping Daddy work


Playing with Grandpa


Looking all cute with my daddy


Hello to my great-grandmas!


Been a long day :-)

I'll put a link to Cate's blog when she has time to post some pics of the Ryland meets Kyla extravaganza...we were so glad to be able to say hello to the Kraper family for at least a little bit...it is funny to hang out with Cates with a baby because we can say we knew each other way back when in college when we were single and so young...and now we have babies!!!!

Crazy how time flies...
Baby K has her two month appt. tomorrow and her first round of vaccines...send some good thoughts to Mark tomorrow night that she won't be too fussy and that he gets some sleep. Especially because he is getting his first ever cavities filled today...poor guy and what a time for me to be on nights!!

Who Loves Pictures of KYLA!!!!

Cause I know you don't get enough...here are a few that my good friend Cherish took during her time with us. We are so blessed to have a professional photographer who is willing to take them for free :-)























Ok the last of the onslaught!
Hope you enjoyed them and again, much props to Cherish...they are good because of her!

She Smiles!!

With a little prompting she smiles for us! She has been working on it for the last couple of days but now is actually giving for-real smiles-what a treat. The video goes sideways at the end but you get the idea. Thanks to Cate for the idea of making that noise...it makes Ry cry but Kyla loves it!

Four Generations

This past week was a big week for a lot of reasons...it was my last few days off before work started back again (more on that later) but for more fun reasons it was also the first time Kyla got to meet one of her great grandmothers-my mom's mom, Ruth. We were thrilled to have the two meet and it was just really special to see four generations of ladies get to hang out.

Needless to say, Kyla loved all the attention and was just as cute as ever. I think she is finally getting bigger though because one of the outfits that used to work as a dress now isn't long enough and only works as a shirt!

I'm including some of my favorite pics from the weekend....





My mom also got a few sweet photos of me and Kyla, and I have to admit, I am going to miss her a ton being at work.


Grandma meets Kyla :-)



My grandma also brought the very sweet gift of a locket that her grandparents had given to her when she was a little girl...there is a lot of history in this locket and I'm excited that Kyla will be able to have this little piece of our family's history...My grandma is working on getting a pic of she and my grandpa that can fit. In the mean time, I'll hold onto it until Kyla is a bit older...



Here's a final shot of the four generations...

Kyla is still working on the smile thing, but "not crying" is also a perfectly acceptable face for a photo :-)

Back to work for me!

If you haven't already...

You should read my friend Cate's blog-her most recent long post is a really insiteful and thoughtful look back on early motherhood...

Good to read and relate to!

Our Baby took her first dip this weekend and Amelia and I were lucky enough to have it on tape! Part 1 & 2 included below:

Eye Candy

This is what happens when mom gets bored; an afternoon photo shoot by a very amateur photographer... Also, the cap and shoe were a gift from a very talented co-worker and the background is a quilt courtesy of my mom..

Enjoy!

















I stuck a few more on facebook too...I am pretty much that parent who is going to make everyone look at pics of their baby whether or not they want to...