Sibling Love

I love watching my babies interacting together, especially when they don't know I'm watching.  They both love each other so much.  One of my favorite things is at bed time. Makenna typically goes to bed first and before she goes to bed she has to get all of her good night kisses. When I put her down at Denver level to get a kiss she snuggles her head into him and smiles and he giggles! I love it! Denver watches out for Makenna and if she's crying he has to go check on her or come and tell me that some thing is wrong. Makenna has to be where ever Denver is and doing whatever he is doing. Thus she has become mobile! Makenna now crawls all over the place and is working very hard on walking. She walks very well pushing something, putting her hand on a wall or whatever is close for her to help her if she looses her balance, or by hanging onto some one's hand (or hands). She has taken several steps, probably the most being 4 at a time, but once she realizes she's doing it on her own she plops herself to the ground. Denver's been sharing his toys with Makenna which has been hard, but he's adjusting quite well. Makenna loves Denver's 4 wheeler and has learned how to go forwards and backwards. Both of the kids love to be outside, so we spend as much of our time outside as we can and have really enjoyed the nice weather lately. Our bike rides to the park to play have begun and if Denver had his way they would take place every night and if Makenna could talk she would probably be chiming in with him.  Her are some pictures of the sibling love my babies share!

Playing Farm

Being Silly

Enjoying the outdoors.

I'm going to get you with a snowball Mom!

And here it comes! (He got me!)

Practicing Standing

Blowing Bubbles!

Both of the kids love this...Denver loves to chase them and Makenna watches him and laughs.

I love you big brother!

Both love to swing!

I can get any where with this!

Tubing!

Evan took some time off work so we could take the kids to Great Bear tubing on March 1st.  It turned out to be a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun.  Makenna wasn't so sure about it.  I think she didn't like the air blowing on her face as we went down the hill.  I wish I had time to blog about this earlier because I know Denver said some really cute things, but so much has gone on since then its a blur to me.  One thing I do remember is Evan said something to Denver about going fast and Denver responded "Jungle Junction fast!".  Jungle Junction is a Disney show that Denver loves to watch; they are animals on wheels and they go "fast".

There was some miscommunication when we left the house and the mittens that were supposed to be brought along for Makenna were left at home. Evan and I joked that some day we can tell our kids we were too poor they had to share mittens! :) It was really nice out, but your hands would get cold so after a while I ended up taking Makenna in and Daddy and Denver tubed until they were ready to go.

March 5th....10 months!

On March 5th our beautiful little girl turned 10 months old.  We didn't have a lot of time to focus on this "monthday" though because we had to say goodbye to an amazing man, Evan's dad, Keith.  I will have another post, some time, that will be a tribute to Keith, but I'm not ready emotionally or physically to do it now.  I felt I had to mention it so the rest of our friends and family were aware that Keith has been healed and is with our Lord!  Until then you may view Keith's obituary at www.hartquistfuneral.com/.  We appreciate all your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

Now, on to the happy stuff....our Makenna is growing up to be such a big girl!  New things in the past month include:

-tooth #3 (top, right...just poking through)
-pulling herself up (she had done this a couple times before, but has more consistently now)
-sitting up by herself from a laying position
-a couple crawl motions, but still pretty much refuses to crawl
-can bend over and pick something up while standing hanging on to something
-really improved her walking skills (she can now push the little push toy that Denver had by herself...but is still mastering that)
-Evan claims she says "da da" and associates it with him (I'm not so sure on that); otherwise she continues her other words, but I don't think she's made an association with them
-loves to share
-more hair! (can now do little pigtails as you saw in her late 9 month pics and has continued to fill in)

This post has been written since March 11th, but I've been waiting on pictures.  We just haven't been home to get the 10 month photo shoot done and now that 11 months is approaching in days I decided to just give you a couple snap shots that I took of Makenna in her adorable hat that she got as a gift.  There is also 1 picture from our family photo (pictures done by Schoolmeester Photography) shoot a couple days before she turned 10 months.

9 month comparison

I've been wanting to do this post for quite some time, but haven't had extra time on my hands and I thought maybe I should wait until Makenna was 9 months as that was my age in the following picture.  Makenna's looks have changed some now and I don't feel its the spitting image that she used to be, but now you can tell that Denver and Makenna are siblings!  If you remember this is around the age that we could finally see some of me in Denver.  We'll see if she keeps looking more like her daddy or if she stays looking a little more like her mommy!

Makenna is wearing a dress of mine that I worke when I was about 12 months.  I believe my Great Aunt Judy made it and I maybe wore it for someone's wedding, but I could be wrong as its been a little while since mom and I talked about it.  It was really hard to get Makenna looking the same angle, etc that I was, but this is the best I could do for now.

9 months old....almost a month ago!

So life has continued to be crazy and with sickness and battle scars I haven't gotten Makenna's 9 month pictures done.  I figured I better quick get them done before it's time to do a 10 month post!  I'm going to try hard to not include Makenna's latest learnings and only what she did, knew, had, etc at 9 months, but that may be hard to do.

9 month well baby visit report: as always Makenna looked great at her appointment with no concerns. She weighed in at 19lbs. 3.9oz. (this is only 1.9oz gain since 6 months, but they were okay with that, as was I!) which drops her to about the 65%. Makenna was 27.5 inches long which puts her in the 70%. She only had to get 2 shots and she would've gotten away with none had we not needed to finish her flu and H1N1 vaccinations. Our pediatrician checks a hemoglobin at the 9 month visit so she had to have her finger poked. She just whimpered after the poke; she's such a tough girl!
Makenna got her 1st tooth at about 8 1/2 months and tooth number 2 popped in a couple days before she was 9 months old.  Prior to her teeth Makenna amazed us at what she could gum up, but now she really amazes me.  This little girl loves to eat big people food.  A new favorite at 9 months was pizza and probably taverns (sloppy joes, barbeques, whatever you call them).  She also likes her sippy cup and any other finger food that we allow her to have, especially sweets!

Still not crawling.  Makenna still refuses to crawl.  We know she's strong enough to as she's one tough cookie, but just does not like being in that position.  She'll be in a crawling like position long enough to get what she wants and then back to her butt she goes.  I'm still wondering if she'll ever crawl.  I thought that with Denver though and he all of a sudden did and said forget about all this walking around with people holding their hands, so maybe she will too.  Makenna loves to stand and she's learning to like walking while hanging onto someone's hands.  Otherwise Makenna's method of getting around is rolling.  She rolls around on the floor way more than Denver ever did.

Makenna loves her baby.  My mom and dad got her a little, soft baby for Christmas and she loves it and always has it in bed with her.  She holds it, plays with it, talks to it, and is learning how to rock her baby.  Its adorable.  Baby dolls are one of my favorite memories of being a little girl and I can't wait to be a part of this with Makenna!

Another talker.  I think we might have another talker, but what a surprise, right?! :)  When given the opportunity Makenna loves to talk.  Lots of da, da, da and ba, ba, ba.....she also does ma, ma, ma and pa, pa, pa now, but that should probably go with her 10 month post as she's only been doing that about 2 weeks now I think.  There is also lots of other talk that I can't write out!

Some where in here Makenna also learned how to patty cake!  She's very proud of herself and we're proud of her too!  Makenna also gives high fives...this sounds familiar...maybe this was in her 8 month post?  It all runs together.  Too much going on and not enough time!

Makenna's 9 month photo shoot was so much fun!  She's just so stinking adorable (or at least her bias mommy thinks so!), which made it so easy to take pictures.  When the camera comes out the smiles are limited, but the pictures are cute even without a smile in my opinion!  I hope you enjoy!  (Makenna took a fall to the floor and we think she took a book along with her which left a mark on her forehead...I edited it out on some of my favorites so that's why you see a mark on some and not on others)

Makenna LOVES her big brother and absolutely loves it when he plays with her.

Makenna showing off her standing skill...

...realized Mommy let go!...

Mommy!!

Starting to reach for a toy...

Patty cake!

Aren't I sweet?

So serious...

...my "I'm not sure of this" look.

1st time eating pizza!

Being child number 2 and having an older brother that doesn't quite know better some times is in Makenna's favor. The other day Denver was having oreos on a blanket in the living room and Makenna was sitting with him and when I came back in the room I found Makenna eating oreos too! At least he likes to share some things with her!

Makenna also does quite well eating with a fork! I help her get her food on it, she then puts it in her mouth, and then hands the fork back to me to start all over. Although now that we're approaching 10 months we have gotten a little attitude and typically throw the fork after taking the yum-yums off it!

Morning play time in our pj's!

A common position for Makenna.  Since she's not willing to crawl she walks herself out from this position to reach whatever it is she wants and then returns to a sitting position to play with what she got...or eat what she found (this can be scary...you never know what might be left on the floor!)

Also to update everyone the sickness has left the house!  I think I can officially say everyone is better.  The kids still ocassionally cough and at times you can feel a little rattle in Makenna, but otherwise everyone is healthy.  Evan and I got colds out of the deal too, but thankfully ours didn't last as long as theirs and weren't as bad either.