Walking Videos!

Kiana has been changing dramatically in the last couple of weeks, it's almost hard to believe. She won't do anything new in months, then all of a sudden she does tons of new things in a matter of days! It seems to be her trend! She's gotten so much better with walking behind her alligator push toy we barely have to spot her anymore. She's doing better at walking around our coffee table and she constantly wants to walk with you around the house, meaning mom is getting lots of exercise. In the last couple of weeks she has also became very cuddly, which we love! She can give high fives, which she loves! Grant taught her to raise both hands above her head when he says "touchdown," but still only when she's in the mood. She has learned how to use sign language to say "more" and "all done," although she never seems to be all done anymore so I don't see it unless I say all done to her.,She has also put two vowels together to now say "da-dy". She doesn't say "hey" anymore to little kids, all she says now is "da-dy" to everyone and everything, which makes Grants day when he comes home from work and she turns to him as soon as she sees him and says "da-dy." I only get my mama's now when she's really upset or tired.

We took the following videos of Kiana on the 20th when she first started walking behind her alligator on her own for the first time. You'll notice every time she passes by the outlet she gets distracted and has to stop to check it out! She also found her little girl scream about a week ago, now she seems to think that it is easier to push when you make noises!

She does this funny smile now where she tucks her face into her shoulders. It's almost like a bashful smile, but we think she does it because when she did it for the first time we laughed so hard she now likes to see our reactions.

The following videos we took yesterday, notice how much faster Kiana is walking in just one week. She also has no problem pushing her alligator toy on carpet now! Kiana seems to have a growing trend in all her clothes, she walks right out of her pants.

Alligator Push Toy!

Kiana started using her alligator push toy this last week. If she's on the carpet it's a little harder for her to push it unless we help her, so she usually just stands there and rocks it back and forth. If I put her on the wood floors she can push it just fine. Although it sometimes runs away from her, so I still spot her so she doesn't fall on her face. She seems to have an easier time walking forward though as opposed to walking sideways, like around the coffee table or couch. She's still just army crawling, hasn't got up on her knees yet to crawl, but she seems to enjoy being up on her feet walking, so maybe she wont crawl long and jump right to walking!

She often gets distracted and wants to play with the spinning blocks!

Getting ready for Halloween!

Kiana's first Halloween costume arrived yesterday!!! Kiana is going to be a girly elephant! I saw this one online and couldn't resist. Kiana either loved it too or she loved having us laugh at her, because she was giggling harder then she ever has before when I was taking her picture. Also, when I tried taking it off of her she got really pissed at me!

Practicing her best elphant impression!

Creeping and Standing!!!

She so proud of herself when she's standing! She knows she's turning into a big girl now. Here's some pictures from the other night. She must be getting even taller, because the table doesn't seem as tall anymore.


Our next shopping trip is going to get some baby proofing tools. She thinks the knobs on our table are her toys and doesn't understand why mommy doesn't want her opening the drawers.


When her toes aren't curled under like above she loves standing on her tiptoes!


Kiana has been trying a lot of new foods in the last month, broccoli, pasta, yogurt and cottage cheese. She seemed to have found a new facial expression the other night while enjoying some pasta stars! After about the 20th time we had to go get the camera!

Look at me I can do this, although the food keeps falling on me!

Kiana has seemed to mastered the army crawl in the last day, and we're still anticipating her to get on her knees anytime now. She gets up on all fours and still rocks her knees back and forth, but hasn't mastered pushing off with her hands yet without falling forward.

She's almost off!

Demolition Derby!!!!

The other weekend Grant and I went to our first Demolition Derby at the Colorado State Fair!!! We weren't quite sure what to expect, as neither one of us have ever been to one before. We actually had a pretty good time and got to see quite a few friends that ended up going to the show as well. As fun as it was I think I may have to talk Grant out of participating next year, some of the cars got pretty banged up.

Grant's Recent Adventures!!!

Earlier last month Grant spent two weeks in Florida becoming a Federally Certified Marksman Observer. Basically he's a sniper, but I guess that's not the politically correct term anymore since they're not supposed to "snipe" people. While he was running their obstacle course he decided to climb up an "A" ladder and whack his head on the large metal bolt that holds the two ladders together. His scar isn't too bad, stitches may have help that though! ;)


Last week Grant and his SORT team climbed up Marble Mountain in Westcliffe, CO. They started in the valley at the beginning of the treeline around 8,000 feet and climbed up to an elevation of 13,266 feet where they could do some repelling into caves. Grant was pretty tired when he came home, especially since he threw his back not quite a week before. Good thing he got back in time for his soccer game that night!

Here is an image I found that shows a good picture of the mountain to show the hike from the bottom to the top. The red circle shows where the caves were that they repelled through.

9 Months Old!

Sorry for the six posts in a row, I have been so busy with all our traveling and haven't been motivated to put up some new posts in the last month. The new posts go up to Kiana's 8 month picture. I did take the pictures on time I just didn't post till now.

Yesterday Kiana turned 9 months old! She went to the doctor yesterday and weighed 14 lbs 9 oz and is 26 inches long. She's still in the bottom 5th percentile for both length and weight. The doctor reassures us everytime though that he's not concerned at all about her, she's just tiny. She's stopped wearing her 6 months clothes earlier this month so we are in all of our 6-9 month clothes now. Some of her 9 month footies are starting to outgrow her so she's sleeping in a limited number until she fit into her 12 month pajamas soon.

She's been doing so much in the last month. She learned to sit up on her own, she reaches for me now, if I sit next to her she can climb up on me to a standing position, and she has walked across a coffee table on her own. Her Great Grandma Wilma has a very low height coffee table that seems perfect for her. One night she walked across the whole table to get a toy, it took about a half hour but I didn't touch her once. I just spotted her from behind so she didn't fall and hurt herself. We also expect her to start crawling in the next couple of days, she does push ups and gets up on her feet and can get her knees under her now. She also started moving her knees back and forth, but hasn't quite figured out to move her arms. She did do a few army crawls last night, but she prefers to be up on her knees and bounce back and forth, she just hasn't moved her arms yet. She's still babbling away and loves motorboating with her lips. She's starting spitting about a week ago, so were hoping this is a new sign of some teeth, but probably not!

Here is what I consider Kiana's cheesy smile!

I don't know how long were going to be able to do this with the blocks...she loves playing with them!

Here she is standing like a big girl. Our coffee table at home is a little too high for her to get her balance to walk across, but she does love standing.

She's so close to crawling, her she is doing her pushups. It's hard to get a side picture of her doing pushups, because everytime I go to her side she spins around so that she is facing me.

Holding in the plank position, this girl is going to have abs of steel.

Kiana was having difficultly learning how her sippy cup is supposed to work, so while we were in IA we tried one of Colin's out that had a soft tip spout. She seemed to like it better so when we got home we replaced her's with one like Colins. It only took a few minutes for her to learn how to drink out of it herself. She's turning into such a big girl!

Cousin time in Iowa

Will, Erin, and Colin were going to visit Grammy Cindy in Iowa the last week Grant was in Florida so Kiana and I decided to visit for a few days as well. She sure got a lot of traveling in this month, mommy is worn out. Two benefits have come from all this traveling though. As soon as we got back to CO Kiana started taking two naps a day, for almost two hours each. She's also back to sleeping through the night again. For a little while she went back to waking up at 4am each morning. Kiana had a good time with Colin, when of course he'd sit still long enough to play with her. Below are a ton of pictures from our trip to Iowa.

The first day we were there we went to check out the pigs. Spencer and Garrett are sending some to the State Fair, so they have to get up every morning until the fair to "walk" them.


Spencer was Kiana's buddy the whole time we were there.




Cleaning up after playing at the farm!

It was so hot and humid that when it started down pouring I couldn't resist playing in it. Kiana was so happy she was jumping in my arms. We also don't get rain like this in Colorado that I figured it would be fun for her.

Snuggling with Spencer after playing in the rain!

Kiana loved Grammy's highchair, she can put her feet up. Someday we'll tell her it's not polite to put your feet on the table!

Hanging out with the guys!

The kids even got to go and see some baby pigs!

Playing with Great Grandma Lois! Colin loved to put the toy animals through the holes of the cabinet. He thought it was a shape sorter.

Kiana got used to being pushed around by her Great Grandma Wilma on her walker, so when Colin started pushing Great Grandpa Shorty's walker around Kiana got excited and wanted a ride like she gets back in Colorado.

We tried to have a mini birthday party for Colin, but he was pretty tired and wasn't too interested in the cake. He only took a couple clean bites, he didn't make the mess they were hoping for.

Tired out from all the festivities.