Recent Pictures

Not much new around here, but we hope you enjoy these January pics!

Oh! Did I mention that Shyla is crawling? Well, she's still better at scooting on her butt but she's also starting crawling with one arm stuck under her body. The picture above was her practicing at the McDonald's playground.

Ahhh, bathtime!
We've been doing bath-time nightly these days, as part of the bedtime routine. Thankfully Shyla loves her bath. She's quite the Splashy McSplasherson from Splashvilles, Ohio (which I make sure to tell her nightly). Bath-time, of course, only occurs after the "I'm a Naked Dancing Baby" dance. Don't you all wish you were here around 6 pm?

One Sock Shyla, lookin' cute in her crib. This was her school outfit today. It was, strangely, not the outfit she was wearing when I picked her up!

Last weekend we celebrated Uncle Vinny's 90th birthday! Uncle Vinny is Pat's uncle (his wife, Mary, was Pat's dad's sister). It was a great time and great for Shyla to meet him and lots of other family members.

A Visit from the God-Parents!

We are a truly blessed, lucky, and fortunate family in many ways. And because we are blessed, so is Shyla. For one thing, Shyla has fantastic god-parents: Dan and Erin.

Let's talk about Dan. Dan (a.k.a Digital Dan Francisco Carrillo Gunning III) went to high school with me and Stevie and we have such great memories from that time. Memories include lunch with Dan day...traveling to football games...infamous red cups..."that kid" in our english class (who was he?)...skiing at Sunrise and conquering the vanilla cake...the aunt and uncle who aren't really my aunt and uncle...dipping bad fortunes in the terriaki sauce...pretty much everything that happened in Mr. Harper's class, and Mr. Wykoff's class...and the list goes on and on. And on.

For college, Didge went away to University of San Diego where he quickly met the most wonderful woman in the world: Erin.

Let's talk about Erin. Erin is amazing ...caring ...beautiful ...determined ...funny ...compassionate ... friendly ...understanding ...and just a good person.

As you blog followers (all 3 of you) know, Dan and Erin were married in San Diego in October. Stevie was Dan's best-man (just as Dan was his) and they had a truly awesome wedding. It was romantic, fun, and beautiful.

Erin and I have a lot in common and I feel that we grow closer with every email, every visit, and every blog-update (still waiting their unnamed blog to come...). We have lots to bond over!

We told Dan and Erin that we wanted them to be Shyla's god-parents because we think they are the bee's knees (a metaphor that isn't used nearly enough). To elaborate, we want them to be her god-parents because we know that they will be very involved in her life, they will lead by great example, and we already think of them as family as it is.

Anyway, the Gunnings (I still like the sound of that!) came over the weekend after Christmas for a visit. Shyla was sleeping when they got there but she woke up to play, to open the really generous present that they bought her (this Christmas was all about the wrapping paper though), and to throw up on Erin a little bit.
We look forward to many happy memories to come with Dan and Erin. I'm in the process of trying to arrange a visit to SD during my Spring Break but with my husband going to Vegas for March Madness, it could be hard to fit in. But if we make it, I do expect some Kendra/Erin time...

Didge and Erin - thank you for being amazing friends and for being such an important part of Shyla's life. She is SO luck to have you!

Didge - I hope I sufficiently used groups of three for you.

New Year's in Pinetop!

We spent the past weekend in Pinetop with our family and had a great time!

Dad and I got one-day of skiing in at Sunrise. It was crazy hot but a lot of fun. We stayed on the greens and blues but had a fabulous time.

I didn't take my camera to the slopes, but here are some shots from the rest of the weekend:

I had two goals for the weekend: to have fun and to take a decent family picture. Guess what! Both goals were attained!

Ummm...this is my husband dancing with the GP dummy. What? Is that not normal?

Awwwhhhhh. Zackary loves Pancake and showed her by giving her a little hug. Doesn't that warm your heart?

Lilly dressed up to play in the snow. It's surprising that she was even able to move after all the layers that grandma put on her. It was Christmas Story-esque for sure.

And Pancake loves playing in the snow! She especially likes it when she sinks into it.

It was a great weekend and a good way to end a two-week break. As both Chelsea and I have said before: that cabin holds numerous memories for us and we are thrilled to be able to share those memories and create more with our babies!

Thank you, mom and dad, for the cabin, the memories, and the food times to come!

Stacey's Birthday!

Just some pictures to enjoy...

Shyla got this really cool round-a-bout from Grandma and Grandpa Palmer for Christmas and she really likes it!
Something she didn't really like was sitting in the cart at Kohls though.

Today, December 28th, is good friend Stacey's birthday. Stacey lives in Houston but she is here for the holidays and has friends over to celebrate her birthday and to just catch up! Although I just realized that I didn't get a picture with Stacey, I did get some with other friends.

Here she is with Karen, who happened to be wearing a really cool silver necklace!

And here she is with Cicely and Ara who currently live in Boston where Cicely is an attorney and Ara is in medical school. Don't they look like naturals? I think Shyla is ready for a Bostonian cousin and bff!

And a beautiful picture of Shyla with Girl Wasley. Girl lives in Oregon and is a lawyer.

Shyla also got to play with her friend Sophia who belongs to Jessikah and Brian Eller. I didn't put up the pictures because I forgot to ask Jess if it was okay, but be assured that they were SO cute. We are all looking forward to the soon-to-be world champion soccer team!

Stevie and I are so lucky to have amazing friends who are more like family and we feel so fortunate to bring Shyla into this loving extended family. We know she will be loved and cared for and supported and that makes our hearts happy. Thanks to all our beautiful friends, pictured and not-pictured.

Shyla's 1st Christmas!

What a great Christmas we had yesterday!
Christmas Eve we were at Steve and Pat's house, though, and Shyla spiked a pretty high temperature. We rushed home in a panic and, although she had a pretty typical night, we didn't get much sleep. We have 3 different thermometers which always give 3 different readings. That night, as she slept, we probably took her temperature at least 10 times. She has felt pretty well since, thankfully, and for the moment we are blaming the spiked temperature on teething.
Because of that we didn't put out the cookies and milk for Santa or the Reindeer Food but the jolly old man still came around and still spoiled Shyla on her 1st Christmas.

This isn't actually a Christmas picture but it is a cute one from recent. Actually, I think this was taken while Daddy put up the Christmas lights!

Here is Shyla in her Christmas outfit! A good friend of mine, Kristen, had given me a Baby Gap gift card while I was on bedrest and we were saving it for something special. We bought this outfit there for Shyla to wear on Christmas. Turns out it was too warm for the sweater but the onesie says "Best Gift Ever" which couldn't be more true.

Shyla is pretty sure that Christmas is all about wrapping paper!

But she of course got books as well!

And more wrapping paper!

And The Hangover!

We hope everyone had as amazing of Christmas as we did. It was a crazy day but we are thankful for every moment of it. We have so many friends and family who we love and want to see on Christmas day. We are so lucky!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Shyla Meets the Real Santa!

But first she played some basketball on a really cool toy that Zackary inheirited from Soren.

And she played some piano.

And we stood in line to see Santa!

And finally the jolly old man showed up!

Shyla meets Santa and Mrs. Clause!

Okay, not really, but we took her picture with our Santa and Mrs. Clause dolls. We may or may get get down to the mall to meet the real Santa, so these pics may need to suffice for year one. Is that lame? As Chelsea pointed out, it would save us from standing in line for hours with H1N1 infested kids. Humm, something to thing about.
At first she was a little scared. But then again, Santa looks kinda creepy in the picture so I don't blame her.

Shyla got much happier once Mrs. Clause arrived. I love this pic!