Vay-kay-shun

After a long night of packing, we are finally (just about) ready to get up early to catch our 7:30 am flight. Ouch, that is going to be rough, but our final destination is warm and beachy. My bag has ample bottles of SPF 800 for Kennedy and SPF 4 for me. Sand and sun, here we come!

Easter Adventures

Kennedy celebrated her first Easter this weekend and it was certainly eventful. We planned to leave for Midland on Friday around noon, but due to a nasty case of food poisoning, I was not able to get in the car until about 2:00. Not so much of a fun drive for me, but Kennedy (and Olive) did fantastic in the car. DVD player and Baby Einstein for the win.

The Easter Bunny happened to come to the Hunters on Friday evening, and even though it was well past Kennedy's bedtime, we let her stay up a little to play with Grammyflash, Big Poppa and her new toys. After all, she had just spent 5 hours quietly transfixed by Baby MacDonald in the car.

On Saturday I woke up feeling like new. It's amazing what 12 hours of sleep can do for a person. While we are lucky that Kennedy is a good sleeper, I haven't gotten to sleep that long since well before she was born. Anyway, Greg invited some friends over for some pool time and we hung out around the house. Greg and I got to enjoy a night out with friends and I was ready to start eating real food again, pepperoni and black olive pizza, to be exact.

Easter morning we planned to go to church, have lunch and have an easter egg hunt with Kennedy. Greg and Grammyflash woke up feeling yucky so we let them rest and spent the morning at home. After a delicious ham lunch we went outside for the egg hunt. Big Poppa walked Kennedy around and helped her hunt eggs, she picked up on the idea of the hunt pretty fast. She had a lot of fun picking up her plastic eggs and throwing them on the ground. Olive followed us around desperately hoping we would drop something edible her way. At the end of the hunt, I think technically I had the more eggs in my basket than Greg did...but who is counting? Actually, I am. And I did.

The drive home started out normal, Kennedy was asleep and I was planning which Dairy Queen we would be stopping at when we came up on a pretty nasty storm. Through the magic of the iPhone we learned that there was tennis ball sized hail and a tornado headed for mile marker 271 in 10 minutes. By our calculations, we were also set to be at mile marker 271 in about 11 minutes. Not good. We pulled over (with everyone else heading east) and sat under the highway for a little while watching the weather radar on our phones. When we saw the storm moving faster and closer to us, we decided to backtrack a little bit and get out of the storm's path. We thought we would just hang out at Sonic until the storm passed so we could head on home. I'll spare you all the storm watching detour details, but the drive home was tense and a little scary. It took us 10 hours, instead of the expected 5. We made it home safely and never encountered any nasty weather thanks to Big Poppa watching the radar and calling us with route updates.

Despite a little sickness and some weather delays, we had a fantastic weekend and Kennedy enjoyed her first Easter. Here's a whole buncha pics from the weekend:

Thank you, Easter Bunny, I love my new ball pit!

Water Baby

Saturday afternoon with Grammyflash.

Kennedy and Socks

Easter cutie.

Post egg hunt. Don't worry, the flock of flamingoes in the back posed no immediate danger.

Kennedy and Mommy.

Daddy and Big Poppa teaching her how to hunt for eggs.

Olive getting in on the Easter action.

Kennedy and Daddy on Easter Sunday

Happy Easter

Hope everyone has a happy Easter Sunday! We are enjoying a weekend visit with Grammyflash and Big Poppa in Midland. Kennedy will get to go on her first egg hunt this morning after church.

Hanging With Dad

Most of the time when we get together for dinner with friends, the ladies prepare the food and watch the babies, while the boys drink their fancy beer and play games. I know it sounds a little Old School and unfair, but it just works for us. Don't go feeling sorry for us moms, we definitely don't miss out on the fun, plus there is wine involved.

This weekend however, Caroline and I managed to convince the boys that a game of bean bag toss would be much better with babies in tow. Before the boys had too much time to think about it, each dad had his child affixed to his person by way baby carrier. This left me and Caroline to get dinner ready and drink our margs. Emphasis on the drinking of the margs.

Kiddie Drawer

I was laughing last night as I was reading my friend Caroline's most recent post about her daughter getting into everything, because I was putting together a post about the very same thing.

Kennedy is like a little raccoon, if there is a closed container/drawer/basket, she will seek it out, find a way to open it and rummage through its contents. I decided to just give in and let her have her own drawer of goodies in the kitchen. I think she likes it.

Polka Dots

We had a navy and white polka dot kinda day today. I love navy, white and polka dots, so both of her outfits today were win-win-wins. As an added bonus, one of the outfits has a friendly little crab on the chest. Embroider something nautical on the chest and I will probably buy it.

We put on our swimming costumes and played in the pool for a little while. The water is cold from all the rain we had on Tuesday, but Kennedy couldn't have cared less, she was splashing and having a great time. We are a little matchy-matchy in our swimmies, hers is navy and mine is black, and they both have white polka dots on them.

After her nap we went outside and played in the grass. She loves to be outside and it was a perfect spring day.

Leftovers

I was so proud of Kennedy for eating all the foodies I put on her tray tonight. That was until I lifted her out and saw a good handful of her dinner had made its way under her thighs and bum.

Nom nom nom.

What was for dinner?

Noodles, cheese, turkey, and corn

Playing With Friends

I know three posts in one day is a bit much, but I couldn't wait to post some videos of Kennedy and her friend Emily playing together. They have been next to each other since they were newborns but rarely interact. They will 'parallel play' together, meaning they sit side by side but play with their own toys. Well last night they finally started interacting and just couldn't get enough of each other.

Yummies

Normally this blog is All Kennedy, All The Time. But today we are taking a quick break from regularly scheduled programming to bring you the Most Amazing Frosting. Ever. I salivated over the pictures posted by Kellyn at k Bakes and knew I had to try out her recipe. We were going to dinner at the Pfeiffer's last night, so it was the perfect occasion to make some red velvet cupcakes to share.

I posted the recipe below, but definitely check out her blog for some seriously delicious recipes and ideas.

Baby asleep.

Cupcake frosted.

Now this looks like a nice little Saturday afternoon.

Ingredients:

4 cups powdered sugar sifted
1/2 cup butter, room temp
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (you can also use nutmeg)
1 tbl heavy whipping cream (this is optional but I find it helps the frosting to be extra fluffy)

1. Cream the butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Slowly (seriously, slowly) add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and heavy cream mix until well combined.
2. Add the cream cheese and beat on high for about 5 min or until the frosting is light and fluffy. Try not to over-beat.

Punk and Prep

We have a little hair. Not quite enough to hold a bow, but just enough to spike straight up or do a little baby combover.

Punkster

Prepster

Looking Outside

6:00ish is a pretty exciting time in our house. Its when Greg gets home from work and it makes Kennedy quite happy. She squishes her face, squeals and screams in delight. Its adorable. Tonight she heard the garage open, crawled toward the window and I helped her up to the window to wave.

9 Months Old

As I said earlier today, I can't believe our little Sweetie Pie is 9 months old. We had a great well-baby check up this morning and didn't have to get any shots.

Her 9 month stats:

Weight: 15.9lbs, 9%

Height: 27.7 in, 64%

Kennedy is on the move. Crawling everywhere and into everything. Starting to pull up on just about anything she can. She is very active and very vocal. She wants what she wants when she wants it.

Still a great little sleeper at night and takes 1.5 hr naps twice a day. Now that she is so active she has been napping a little more frequently during the day, and I welcome these breaks from chasing her around the house!

We are still doing well with eating solids and are exploring more table foods - cubed watermelon and pieces of cheese are the current favorite.

She has one little tooth on the bottom and loves to gnaw on Mum-Mums (rice cakes) and biscuits. I think there is another tooth on the way because the drooling has been a little out of control this week.

I just love the stage she is in. So playful, interactive and funny.

Look at that little toofin!

Telling me a story.

Hangin with Bunnz.

Standing Up

Kennedy is 9 months old today. I can't believe it. After her doctor appointment this morning (more on that later) we met our friends at Northpark for lunch and shopping. We came home for a little playtime before the afternoon nap, and I realized Kennedy has a new trick. She stands. She can just about pull herself up but needs a little help to completely stand up. Once she is up, she is up. Its pretty cute, but, OMG it makes her look like such a big girl!

Babydoll

Kennedy got her first baby doll today from Gramms. Its a cute little Madame Alexander baby dressed as a bunny. She liked it almost as much as the box it came in.

"Oh cool, this looks new."

"Baby, is it me or do we look a lot alike?"

"Baby, I like you, but have you seen this box?"

Gramps

Gramps (my dad) came to Dallas for a conference on Thursday and stayed with us through the weekend. Normally when my mom comes to town the list of things to-do starts and ends with shopping. But I wasn't going to take my dad on a shopping Tour de Dallas so this took a little more thought and luckily the weather cooperated with my plans. Kennedy is usually a bit slow to warm up to Gramps, but this time she was laughing and playing with him in no time.

We went on a picnic at the Arboretum on Friday. It was packed, the most crowded I have ever seen it. I guess everyone is trying to enjoy the outdoors before it turns into a schvitz. We managed to find a bench in the shade for lunch and a shady spot in the grass to let Kennedy crawl around. She made her way to the flowers and promptly filled her mouth with dirt and bark. Lovely. My little lady eats dirt. The crawling didn't last long since she wanted to put everything in her mouth: grass, flowers, stroller tires, etc.

The most exciting part of the weekend was Kennedy crawling. She had been taking a few crawls here and there, but was mostly using her Corkscrew method to move about. It was fun to have my dad here to see her conquer such a big milestone. I think she might have been showing off for him.

Hurricane Kennedy

We were warned that when Kennedy became mobile she would probably get into a lot of things. True fact. She is literally into everything. She left a path of destruction in the playroom today as she quickly moved from one toy to the next.

I think we will be adding more bins to the playroom to make clean-up a little easier on me and Greg.

Who, me?

Yes. Yes, you.