New Skills

Jenna has become quite the little climber. She loves being on the couch but we don't really let her up too often because she jumps around too much. So she has started trying to think of her own ways to get up on the couch. I caught her in the act....

Hmmm....maybe if I give mommy my cutest squinch, she won't be mad

I just love this pic of my sweet girl in her special Christmas jammies

This is a picture of Jenna on Christmas morning with her new gift, which she absolutely loves. She did push it over to the couch, climb in the open door, out the window on the opposite side, and onto the couch. The car is now outside where it belongs. What a goofball

Jenna Meet Santa

Jenna totally loved Santa!!! I know...I'm shocked too. We took her to go see Santa today and she did awesome! We had to wait in a small line and so Pat stood in line and I took Jenna to watch as the other kids sat on his lap. She smiled at Santa, squinched at Santa, and even blew kisses to Santa. I was still convinced it would be all fun and games until she actually had to sit with Santa. But Jenna surprised both of us and was completely fine with the whole thing. She smiled at him and didn't try to squirm away from him, and even smiled for the photo. What a precious girl she is. We are having so much fun with her right now.

Ugly Sweater Party

Well, I'm another year older....29 to be exact. And I happen to share my birthday with our close friend Brian. So in honor of both our birthdays, we decided to have an ugly Christmas sweater party. It turned out to be really fun, and as you can tell...pretty ugly.

busy little bee

Seriously, this girl is into everything!! I was unloading the dishwasher the other day, and I turned around to put something away, and this is what I found when I turned back around. What a little stinker! She is a little climber. She is desperate to climb up onto the couch and she now pushes her toys over to the couch to assist in that task. I'll have to catch her doing that with the camera too because it's pretty funny. I'm just hoping she doesn't figure out how to climb out of her crib.

Jenna's Birthday Weekend

Alright, well this post is a tad late but oh well. Last weekend we celebrated Jenna's birthday with a party at our tiny little house. We invited more people than could fit in our home and it was essentially like trying to fit 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 pound bag. We were lucky that the weather cooperated and so we were able to put some people in our back yard. We are so lucky to have so many people that care about us and wanted to celebrate our sweet baby girl. Unfortunately, I didn't spend a lot of time taking pictures, and I had very few to post.

Our little family
Jenna and her cousins

Daddy helping Jenna with her cupcake

Jenna went face first!!

Yummy!!

Sweet girls

The aftermath

The cleanup

On Sunday, we had Jenna's baby dedication at our church. Somehow, we managed to let an entire year pass before having her dedication done. Lesson learned on that one. The next kid will be dedicated in the early months. Jenna was a total rascal up on stage. Like a serious little rascal. She couldn't decide if she wanted mommy or daddy and so she kept hopping back and forth until Pat finally handed her over to our pastor, which Jenna took surprisingly well. She was a bit of a fuss, and I think we will definitely dedicate the next child much earlier. Anyways, it was a very special day for our family and we were so glad to have Jason and Joanna, Jenna's Godparents, present for her dedication.

Happy Birthday Jenna!!!

Is it really possible that our sweet baby girl is really a year old??? It sounds so cliche but I really can't believe how fast this last year has gone. It has been so fun and so amazing to have this wonderful little creature in our lives. I'll post some Jenna updates tomorrow after our 1-year check-up, but for now, here's some pictures from Jenna's day.

Checking out her birthday cupcake

Yeah...I'd say she likes it

Jenna and her two big cousins, Paige and Ally

Self-portrait with my sweet baby

The three sweetest little girls I've ever seen!!!

Seriously????

Yup...that's a picture of our latest purchase...Jenna's new nebulizer.
We had a bit of a rough weekend around here. Jenna started coughing during the middle of the night on Friday night. It was that super hoarse, barky type of cough. She had a very restless night, although we were still able to sleep fairly well. Saturday she didn't seem quite as perky as usual and still had the cough, but no other symptoms. The middle of the night was similar to Friday night. Sunday, she was a precious, sweet natured baby, with the horrible cough. Sunday night, it all went downhill fast. She was wheezing, coughing, and showing signs of respiratory distress. I knew it was likely croup, and we had many moments where we almost packed her up and headed for the hospital. The on-call pediatrician recommended taking her out into the cold night air, and trying to keep her as calm and comfortable as possible. Yeah, right. Pat and Jenna were up most of the night. I didn't sleep well at all, but luckily Pat did most of the getting up because I had to work today.

Our pediatrician is so awesome and he always manages to squeeze his patients in when they need to be seen. Pat took her in and our Dr. confirmed that it was in fact croup, and that it doesn't get any worse than Jenna's case. He gave her a breathing treatment in the office, which she hated, and prescribed some medications for her. One of the medications has to be given by the nebulizer, and so we had to buy one. Jenna screamed bloody murder tonight when I tried to give her the treatment so I ended up rocking her to sleep and then treating her after. What a long and tiring day. We are hoping to get some more sleep tonight and hoping our baby gets well soon.

Lazy evening watching TV with mommy

Not feeling so hot. Oh and notice the red mark and bruised forehead. Early Sunday morning, Jenna tripped and hit her face on our dresser....awesome, huh?

Smiling while watching The Wiggles.

First Zoo Trip

Today was an awesome day. With the schools all closed for Veterans Day, Pat didn't have to work, and I took the morning off. We decided to take Jenna to the zoo for the first time. When we took her to the fair, she totally loved all the farm animals, and she loves looking at books with pictures of animals. I wasn't sure what she'd think of the zoo if anything at all, but she really seemed to have fun. She was super giggly all day and kept laughing at all the animals. For whatever reason, she seemed to like the camel, the bear, and the elephants the best. Here are some pictures from our day.

Jenna laughing with Daddy

Smiling and laughing at the brown bear

I told you she was giggly!

Funny story...Pat is holding on to her in this pic because the first time we set her down she promptly ran straight toward me and had her first run in with a step

She wouldn't look at me...so enthralled with the elephants

Daddy Phase

Jenna is in a total daddy phase. She is so clingy with Pat, and is just all about daddy right now. She follows him everywhere and wants to be held by him all the time. It's really pretty sweet. This is the second major daddy phase, and the first one was a little hard on me. She seemed to really prefer him to me and it lasted a long time. This time I'm handling it much better. Pat is in school right now and so he often has to shut himself away in the office to study. Poor Jenna just doesn't understand why Daddy needs this time to himself and she spent all day Saturday glued to the door of his office. She literally stands outside the door and bangs on it with her face pressed up against the glass until Pat turns around and/or comes out. Pat, of course, can hardly resist this sweet baby girl.

Pumpkin Painting

So I was trying to think of a way to get Jenna involved in the whole pumpkin decorating thing, and I knew there was no way that she could actually carve one, and so came the idea of painting. I figured she might have fun using finger paints, and boy was I right. She loved it! She loves to squish her food in her hands and in between her fingers, and she loved to do the same with the paint. I bought non-toxic, children's paint because I knew she'd try to taste it, and luckily she decided it was pretty gross. Anyways, it was so fun to watch her get so dirty. I ended up with quite a bit of paint on me as well but it was so worth it.

Halloween...finally!

Ready to go trick or treating!

Allright, allright....here are some Halloween pictures. Just to be clear though, none of these pictures are on facebook yet. Anyways, I have a ton of really crappy pictures that I attempted to take of Jenna in her costume. Thankfully, I also have a few really cute ones that our photographer took for free! I'm sure you can tell the difference

Impossible to Photograph

Seriously...she is impossible to photograph. I try and try to get the perfect picture of her and it just doesn't happen. I end up with 600 pictures of the side/back/top of her head. And while I dearly love her squinchy smile, she is now doing it every time she sees the camera. The pics below are some examples of what I'm talking about. It will be interesting to see what happens when we do her 1 year pics in a few weeks.

Alright, so once in awhile, I get lucky....