Happy Birthday, Kayleigh!

Kayleigh,

Today is your birthday. You are one year old. I know it's cliche but I feel like just yesterday I was holding you in my arms for the first time. One second I was holding a brand new baby in my arms, then I blinked and you were walking and talking.

It hasn't been easy, though. Parenthood has many peaks and valleys. There was much to learn, many sleepless nights and many tears - some yours and some mine. But there were so many more joyous moments! The first time you smiled at me I melted - the same smile now that still melts my heart no matter how big of a fit you just threw. I celebrated the first time you rolled over, the first time you crawled and almost started bawling when you took your first step. You are growing so fast and I don't want to miss a moment of it!

You already have us wrapped around your finger and you don't even know it.

I pray that you grow brave and strong, like your daddy. I pray that you can see the joy in every dark spot, like your mama. Most of all I pray that you never be afraid to be you.

I love you for forever and a half.

Happy (belated) Easter!

I hope everyone had a great Easter! We spent the day at my Grandparent's house where Kayleigh had a blast playing with all the other children!

 

Of course the Easter Egg hunt was a blast! Kay had so much fun finding the eggs (although she did have some help)

St. Louis Zoo Trip & Easter Egg Hunt

I haven't really had too much to post about lately (I never did get around to posting about our vacation to Florida in February...) but with Kayleigh's birthday coming up next month I will have some birthday planning posts. Can you believe she is 11 months old today?!

The weather picked up temporarily here in St. Louis last week (back to the 40's today. boo.) so we took advantage and had a day trip to the St. Louis Zoo with some friends!

Of course, Kayleigh LOVES the goats (she always has since we went to Eckert's last year)

Miss Sass had to walk on her own most of the day. She hasn't stopped walked since she took her first steps back in March.

Watching the Otters

We took a train ride around the whole Zoo which was very entertaining

Smooches with her new friend

At the end of the day she passed right out in her stroller.

Saturday we went to an Easter Celebration at a friend's church. They had tons of games for the kids but since Kay is so young we didn't participate in any of them. We did get her face painted, however!

Then there was the Easter egg hunt!

They gave you a map and a riddle to solve to find where your next egg was. Kayleigh wasn't too good at figuring out the clues but she quickly figured out how to get the eggs out of the bags!

 

She had to have an egg in each hand for the rest of the night (she also likes to bring them with us when we go anywhere, too)

Babyproofing

Kayleigh has been crawling for almost two months now and we are still getting around to baby-proofing but I wanting to show what we have done so far.

Our first big thing was getting rid of our glass and metal accident-waiting-to-happen entertainment console.

Between trying to crawl into it, almost whacking her head on the glass corners and pulling every cord she could find we were running ourselves ragged. You pull Kayleigh away and set her down but before you could grab a toy to distract her she had already made a beeline back towards it. That little bugger is quick, let me tell ya.
We were able to unload the console on craigslist for $80 pretty quick to two college kids who just got their first apartment. They were so excited it was still available!

I'd been searching for a while for some sort of dresser or entertainment center that had closed storage but hadn't found anything I liked. We had to pull some old furniture out of storage and decided we like new dresser better than the one we had in out bedroom so we switch them. During this Charlie decided to measure the old dresser and lo and behold it fit perfectly.

So we took a few drawers out to make room for out blu-ray player and sound system and put our computer tower in the middle cabinet (we opened the back so it gets plenty of air) and now it is 99% baby proof!

 (The 1% is because Kay sometimes tries to play with the volume knob on the sound system)

Now all the cords are hidden in the back and we have plenty of room for storage that the wiggles can't get into.

Then we have out Evenflo baby gate.

We originally had a cheap wood one but it broke a month before Kayleigh started crawling and hadn't gotten around to buying a new one. Then one day my younger sister was helping her boyfriend's parents clear out their storage and saw they had a perfectly good working baby gate that they were just going to throw away!

It's really neat, actually. The gate has a wireless remote to latch and unlatch it so if you are carrying a child you won't have to put them down just to open it! Just press the button, wait a second, and open and close the gate - it will automatically re-latch itself. The only bad part is when the batteries start to run out it will randomly go through it's 'start up' phase, which consists of unlatching and re-latching about 10 times, during which the baby can easily open the gate and reap havoc on unprotected areas. (Why, no, this hasn't happened to me... Why are you looking at me like that... I swear!)

We still have to find some sort of a solution for the bookcase and coffee table. Right now we just distract Kay as much as possible and we are also trying to teach her 'no' but that's going as well as you probably think is it!

Ribbon Bows

The other day my friend came over and since we were bored we heading over to Joann Fabrics and bought ribbon to make bows for Kayleigh!

(The big one we dubbed the "Go Big or Go Home" bow. It's huge!)

I never realized how simple they were to make! Just ribbon, alligator clips and hot glue is all the basics you need to get started.

When looking around on pinterest for ideas I came across the most amazing way to keep the bow from slipping out of Kayleigh's hair - No-slip drawer liners!!

I don't know why I didn't think of that!

I am loving the bows and they stay in her hair longer than headbands since she doesn't realize they are there. (But once she does she pulls it right off)

I'm going to be making a video tutorial for the simplest ones soon. My cousin wants me to make her some for her daughter so I though it was a great opportunity.

Snowed In

We got hit with "Snowmageddon" 2014 here in St. Louis. Our house got a whopping foot of snow with up to three foot drifts and around -17 degree (plus windchill... BRR!). Miss Kay came down with yet another cold on Friday and was just feeling awful so we pretty much didn't leave the house from Friday morning until Monday afternoon.

I started making weekly videos you can check out over on Youtube. There is only one up so far since I just started but it give you a look into our life!

Besides that, not much has been going on here at the Wiggles Household! I am still in the process of starting my new Etsy shop but I should have it running in the next week. Just dealing with finding shipping boxes to fit the signs.

Thanksgiving Fun

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!! We had a great time with the family. Of course Kay was passed around like a hot potato but she loved the attention!

 

I also got an early Christmas present on Black Friday!!

A Canon 70D and two lenses!! I have been wanting a camera upgrade for a few years now and we finally bit the bullet and got me one!

The best part is that it can record video so I am going to try vlogging as well! I've been wanting to do it for a while but the only thing we had that shot video was our camera phones, which aren't that great.