Personality

Korbyn amazes me every single day.  She is growing so fast and is becoming her own little person right before my eyes!  She's started pointing to anything that she finds interesting.  A lot of times Colton and I can say "what's that?!" and point to it and she'll gasp and point to the same thing.  She's also starting to understand some words, even though she can't say them she knows what they mean.  Nothing crazy, just words like night night, juice, bye bye.  She also knows when I'm talking about daddy, rocky or pixie.  Every morning when I get her out of bed rocky and pixie are usually laying in the living room and we'll walk in and I'll say "there's rocky and there's pixie!" and point to them.  So the other day I said "where's rocky?" and she looked directly at him and then I said "where's pixie?" and she looked right at pixie!!!  I was so amazed that she could recognize who I was talking about and knew to look at them!

And we knew this from day one, but this booger is one to be set in her ways and she knows what she likes.  Last Saturday Colton went fishing and I heard her stir around 6, which isn't too early for her but she usually doesn't wake up around 7.  So I thought I would put her in bed with me and we could snuggle and sleep a little later since it was Saturday and we had our bed all to ourselves.  I put her in bed with me and she would lay on a pillow and doze off for about 10 seconds and then she would start kicking and screaming like she was uncomfortable.  I thought maybe she didn't feel good or she was thirsty so I tried giving her something to drink and she didn't want it.  For the next 10 minutes she did this and I was running out of options!  I don't know what made me put her back in her bed but I decided to try it and the girl was back to sleep almost immediately and slept for another two hours!!!  The little stinker didn't want to be put in bed with me, she wanted her own bed with her own pillow and blanket!  Gotta love her though :)

New car seat

Yes I know, a lot of people would argue that a 9 month old is WAY too young to be turned facing forward but as most of you know Korbyn is not an averaged sized child.  She surpasses the weight and height guidelines before she even turned 9 months for what a one year old would be!  She was also so ready to get out of her infant seat.  I think her infant seat said it could hold up to 40 lbs....sorry, there's is absolutely no way I could fit a 40 lb. child in there even if I tried!  The straps on Korbyn were already way below her shoulder blades and she was so uncomfortable.  So we all went to Target and got her a brand new car seat.  I did research of course before we went and I'm kind of skeptical when things are advertised as "three-in-one" but the Graco Nautilus is the one we went with.  It was under $200, I couldn't find a single bad (safety wise) review online about it, AND it is a forward facing seat, a high seat booster, and then it can be used as a regular booster too!  We have a friend who is a state trooper and he is a car seat technician as well and this is the one they have their child in and the one that he recommends to everyone (I got this information AFTER we bought it, so that made me feel even better!).  I'm looking for a cover for it so it will last as long as we hope it to, because technically we won't ever have to buy another seat for Korbyn. 

When we got home with it we were supposed to head over to a friend's house right away so I told Colton to just set the box inside so I can read the instructions (I get it from my mom), wash everything I can and take time to figure it all out.  Well I went to change clothes and by the time I got back he already had it out of the box ready to go and wanted to put it in the truck NOW.  So I said fine, whatever!  He was SO excited.  After he got it buckled in and got Korbyn in it he sat beside her and said "here, take a picture of us and put it on the blog!"  I about died!  He's never said anything about wanting to take a picture and have other people see it...EVER. 

 She even looks big in the new seat!

 She didn't know what to think about it at first.  I'm sure it was really weird for her to be able to see everything now.

 We (I picked it out) bought her a pink, wooden pistol at Gander Mountain that same afternoon.  She loved it of course.

 This was after her dr. appointment.

I have a feeling this picture sums up Korbyn now and forever!

Pics

 I thought this was so funny.  I made Korbyn a matching pillow case and blanket for her to take to daycare but we use them at home right now until she moves up into the big class.  But now I don't know, I might need to make her another one!  This picture was probably taken almost a month ago.  I was changing her sheet on her bed and I was going to wash the blanket too so I threw the blanket down first and then the sheet and it was close to bed time so she immediately laid her head down on her blanket and just sat there.  The first picture is with the light off and just her lamp on but then I turned the light on to take a picture and she was still laying on it!  She obviously loves this blanket, which I have to say makes me feel pretty good :)  She sleeps with it every night and I have to be conscious about when I toss it in the washer because it better be ready for bed time.

 My friend Yvonne and I made a trip to see our friend Tara who recently had a baby.  She's absolutely adorable!  I can't wait for Korbyn, Tye, and Kinzley to play together!

 I love when she falls asleep!  Not because I get some free time ;) but I just think she looks so darn cute!  So peaceful.

Play dates

 My friend Yvonne who I grew up has a little boy only three months younger than Korbyn, the only bad part is they live almost two hours away!!!  But thankfully her mom only lives about five minutes away from us so whenever they come to visit they usually stop by for a play date :)  I can't wait until they get a little bit older and they can really start to play with each other.

 Any day Korbyn gets to see her cousins Avery and Addy is a good day!  They really enjoy helping out with her as much as they can.  Again, the only problem is they live almost two hours away!  So cute.

 When we were in Colorado memaw Loranne took Korbyn to see her parents in Georgetown.  They really enjoyed seeing her.  We seem to live in the middle of everyone!  EveryTHING and everyONE is always at least an hour away!

I love this picture of her looking up at grandpa :)

Unstoppable

 Now that miss thang can crawl she is into everything!  She seems to be so much happier though now that she can get where she wants to go.  She loves playing with dad's cans of snuff.  I don't know why but she just loves to hold onto them, she won't even put it down to eat!

 And thankfully Rocky is a much calmer dog than we ever thought he would be.  We were nervous for a while before she was born because he was just so wild and would move so fast without realizing how big he was.  But ever since she was about four months old he seems to have become a different dog.  I've noticed a couple of times that if she starts crying and I can't get to her right away he'll come and sit down next to her and put his nose next to her face.  And now that she can crawl she's all over him.  I have to say I still watch him pretty close when she's around him just because he's never really had any interaction with babies crawling on him and pulling at his jowls etc.  I've sat there and watched to see what his breaking point would be and what he would do when he got there, every time he seems to have had enough he just gets up and walks away and goes to lay down about 10 feet from her.  Sometimes if he's sleeping and laid out like he is here and she happens to come up behind him and grab him like she is, he may whip his head up really fast to look what's going on but then he just lays right back down.  I'm so glad he's much more gentle than we thought he would be.  Now Pixie...that's a completely different story!  Pixie will not tolerate for one second Korbyn pulling at her hair, she will nip at her right away.  I try to tell Korbyn "gentle" and take her hand and lightly pet the dogs every time she gets near them, but then she gets so excited and just starts pinching and pulling everything she can get her grubby little fingers on!  We'll get there :)

 She gets so interested in the tiniest things.  Colton would stick his gum half way out of his mouth and as soon as she would go to grab it he would suck it back in.  They played this game for minutes!  I thought she would give up a lot sooner but every time she would see it she'd go after it.

9 months!

 I cannot believe our beautiful little girl is nine months old!  Nor can I believe I'm trying to plan a one year old's birthday party!  Time has flown by SO fast.  I think the nine month mark is like a turning point, now is when she's starting to show her personality and is becoming more opinionated (I know it sounds weird but trust me for her it's possible) and overall just so much fun.  She still loves TV!  I caught her watching it and when I called her name she turned around and gave me that classic Korbyn smile.

 Another happy day at daycare :)

 A couple of weeks ago I had to make a trip to College Station and it was just Korbyn and I who went and I had so much fun with her.  This is when we went to go eat at Cheddar's, she was such a ham the entire time we were there and would even turn around in her seat and smile at people sitting behind us and then turn back around and then do it again...little flirt!

She has filled our lives with so much joy already and I can't wait to continue to watch her grow :)

Colorado

It's kind of sad going through my pictures of Colorado because they do absolutely no justice to the real thing!  It was AMAZINGLY beautiful.  And the smell!  Oh my goodness, the smell was incredible.  Fresh mountain air with a hint of pine, I know it sounds so cheesy but it's true that's what it smells like!  The snow had just melted only a couple of weeks ago so everything was fresh and green and the mountains still had snow on the top and we even got to play in some!

 You really think 1,200 miles would stop this man from doing what he LOVES?!

 We left Friday around 1p.m. and got there Saturday around 9a.m....yes it took us 20 hours to get there!  I was dreading the drive like you wouldn't believe just because I'm not a good car rider (I tend to get car sick pretty easily) but surprisingly it went by so much faster than I thought and it wasn't bad at all.  There was a group of about 20 of us that stuck together all week.  We all rode around on the rangers when we got there Saturday and ended up getting a ticket by the stupid forestry service for not having an OHV sticker on the ranger!  We would have gotten the $20 sticker had we known we needed it.  And he was a total jerk about it too.  The store where we had to get it was literally down the road and he knew none of us had been there before and had no idea that we needed it.  He COULD have just told us to turn around and go get one but he wrote us a ticket for not having one!  Even the locals at the store said that he's a butt head and we should call in and make a complaint.  But we didn't, it just stunk that we're already in trouble the first couple of hours that we're there. 

Sunday was the wedding.  The place where they got married was so pretty!  It was such a small and intimate wedding...so opposite of what ours was!

 The water was so clear in all of the streams!

 We constantly had a caravan of rangers along the trails!

Monday morning I woke up and was about to get on a plane and head home.  I had had fever and the chills all night (I had the chills so bad that I had to sleep on my hands just to stop from shaking) and just felt so unbelievably bad.  I've only been sick a few times as an adult and this was by FAR the worst I've ever felt.  I remember opening my eyes and squeaking to Colton "I think I have a fever" he felt my forehead and said I was burning up.  Not only did I feel bad from the fever and chills but it was like my body couldn't function right.  I would stand up and try to walk across the room and it would take me forever because the entire room was spinning and my legs felt like they were going to give out right from under me, it was awful!  Monday morning we check out of the hotel that we were staying in for the wedding and drive an hour to the cabins where we'll be staying for the rest of the week.  Before we left the hotel I went into the bathroom and just sat down on the toilet and started bawling!  I really didn't know how I was going to make it through the day nor the rest of the week!  I just remember being in the truck and not being able to hold my eyes open for anything.  On the way there we stopped and ate some lunch and I felt like I was getting a little better, my appetite was really puny and I didn't even eat half my lunch but it felt good to get something in my stomach.  When we get to the cabin of course everyone has to go the bathroom and I remember sitting on the bed (while everyone else was unloading everything!  Sorry!) and all of a sudden I yelled to Colton who was in the bathroom "are you done!?" because my lunch was about to come up.  No sooner had he opened the door I was on my knees hurling up my lunch and then that was followed by diarrhea...nice I know.  It was around 2 p.m. when we got there and I went straight to bed while everyone else went riding again and I didn't move until the next morning.

The next morning I woke up and I STILL felt bad!  This time the only symptom I had was dizziness.  I was perfectly fine laying down but as soon as I would even sit up in bed the room would spin.  We then assumed maybe it was altitude sickness!  So I took some dramamine and that saved me!  It helped me get out of bed and get around, I still felt awful but by the end of the day I was feeling like my old self.  So then that left Wednesday and then Thursday we went home!  But by then I was ready to come home.  I was missing Korbyn so bad by then it was physically painful.  And to make matters worse, she got sick the DAY that we left!  She had a little bug and thankfully she was well taken care of by the memaws but that made me want to hold her even more knowing that she wasn't feeling good and she was so far away :(

Friday when we got home around 6 a.m. I noticed I was starting to get a rash.  It was on my hands, legs, shoulders and stomach.  I called Loranne who still had Korbyn and asked if they could wait a few more hours before bringing her over (that was SO hard to do) so I could go to the dr. and see what the heck is going on with me.  The dr. said it sounds like I had a virus on Monday followed by altitude sickness and when my body was weak from all of that I picked up hand, foot, and mouth disease (just a virus) which is now what my rash was!  Talk about a rough vacation.  All I wanted to know is if I was contagious because I think I would have lost it it she would have said yes and I couldn't be around Korbyn!  When I saw her she looked like she was so much older it was ridiculous!  And just like I thought she is now crawling all over the place.  She is unstoppable!  She's even trying to pull up on things.  The first nap that I tried to put her down for was kind of rough, she hadn't been in her bed for a week so it was understandable.  But I was so shocked when I went back in to check on her and she's on her knees at the foot of her crib hanging on to the slats and just peering through them and smiling at me, I couldn't help but laugh!

This is a picture my mom sent me while we were gone.  She wanted to show me that she was in fact feeling much better :)  Overall it was a fun, much needed vacation for Colton and I.  But I don't think I'll EVER leave my baby for that long again!!!