She's walking

Kiley is now walking!
it started about a week and a half ago, it's really wobbly and only a few steps at a time, but she's walking now!

We don't have any pictures or videos up yet, but she's doing everyday for us. She has not yet decided that she wants walk as a way of getting one spot to the next. She only walks to people if you stand her up first.

It's the next "step" for her growing up and we're very proud of how her.

-Shawn

The Great Escape

A 3:30pm today I got a call on my cell phone from a phone number I didn't know. Normally I don't answer my phone if I don't know the number, but today I was bored, so I answered it. It was from a guy about a 1/2 mile from my house asking if I own a dog named Darla. I said Yes and he said that she had wandered over to his neighborhood.

I asked about my other dog Hank. He said that there is another dog with Darla, but he was too fast to catch. They couldn't get close enough to read his collar. He told me he would hold onto them until I got there.

I woke Shawn up so he could watch Kiley and I jumped in the car and drove over to the guy's house. As I was pulling up, the 1st thing I noticed was Hank running ALL OVER THE PLACE. The family who had Darla was trying to catch Hank, but he was darting from house to house on the block. Then I spotted Darla. Laying on the front yard grass being pet by some kids. She was in Heaven. I quickly got the dogs into the car and thanked the family for catching them for me.
When I got back home, the dogs got grounded straight into their kennels. I doubt they cared because they were tired from their adventure.



It didn't take me long to realize how the dog's had escaped. Below are some pictures of what our fence now looks like.

Shawn has decided that after Hank and Darla pass away, we will NOT be getting another dog.


This is the side of our house...and YES that is our fence and gate flat on the ground.

Close up of the fence and gate on the ground

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

Yes, that's right, my 14 month old daughter has a black eye! She had an accident yesterday when I was at work. She misjudged the weight of a table and tried to stand up using the table as leverage. The table was too light and she fell over backwards taking the table down with her.

The eye looks pretty bad, but she's acting like nothing ever happened. She hasn't been any more grumpy then usual. I'm just hoping that the black eye goes away before December 26th because we are taking family pictures on that day.

You'll Regret It

My Aunt Nancy keeps telling me we're going to regret not taking video of Kiley while she's this small and so much fun. Pictures are great, but videos are better. We have a video camera, but I'm not sure how to use it and I'm not even sure where it is. I just used my camera and took a few videos of Kiley. I hope I can remember to take more video from time to time because it's going to be fun to look back at these times in her life.

MURRIETA GARDEN'S X-MAS PARTY

Last night, Kiley and I had the privilege of attending the Murrieta Garden's Holiday Bash! For those of you who don't know, My G-pa Ford recently moved into the Murrieta Garden Assisted Living facility. Last night was the big Christmas Party and Kiley, Myself and G-ma Ford went to the party with G-pa.

The night started out with festive music provided by none other then the Murrieta Garden's Choir...YES, this is a choir made up of the old people who live there. I JUST LOVED IT

The staff sang a few songs and then dinner was served. When I say dinner was served, I mean dinner was laid out in a buffet style. It was chaos. Imagine 30 people in their 80s with wheelchairs and walkers trying to make it 20 feet across the room and then go through a buffet line. I think I was in the line getting food for G-pa for 20 minutes. Then I got to go back in line for my food.

Because of Kiley's unpleasant attitude, I was unable to eat my dinner. But, it's OK, because it didn't look all that appetizing.

Then, SANTA CAME! I thought it would be weird to bring Santa to an Old people Christmas party, but you would have been surprised. Lots of the old people were taking their pictures with Santa. It was pretty cute. Kiley took her picture with Santa and did NOT like it. She was not a fan of Mr. Clause. I would like to thank the Murrieta Gardens for not skimping out on renting the "Good" Santa Clause. He had a full on, REAL beard. It was a great looking Santa beard.

After dinner G-pa and G-ma took me and Kiley on a tour of G-pa's room. It's a nice room and a really nice facility.

KILEY

We haven't posted many pictures of Kiley lately. These are some pics over the last month or so of the girl. She's getting SO big!
Just an update, Kiley has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth now. She is able to walk holding onto someone's hands. She can wave hello or goodbye and she can point at things or people.
Her favorite things are the bathtub, the closet with toilet paper and papertowells and the closet with all her blankets.
She knows what NO means, but thinks it's funny and does it anyways (she actually looks at you and smiles while she getting into something she knows she shouldn't).
She still sucks on her 2 fingers and can't sleep without her blanket touching her face.
She just started reaching out for people to hold her.
Most importantly, Kiley has turned into a smiler. She loves to smile now and she loves to laugh. Sometimes, when we arent really paying attention to her, she just starts laughing!

Book Report

I bought this book with a Barnes and Noble gift card I got for my birthday and took it to Hawaii with us so I could read it on the plane and where ever else I wanted to kill time.

There is not a lot that we know about the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. It was long believed that they were just a bunch of unruly pirates and prostitutes until the English took over the colony. But they are working on translating 30,000 pages of manuscript found in the Hague and a library in Albany. They contain court cases, letters, laws and public and personal records. They show a very civilized, tolerant and extremely diverse population of people who were living well.

Sounds pretty boring but it was a very fascinating book. It reads more like a novel than a text book and goes into detail about many of the characters who were responsible for developing Manhattan and the American way of life. The first representative government in the new world was started there for instance. A great book, if you live in New York it would be a lot of fun to know about all the places they talk about in the book.

I would recommend anyone who is interested in history or just likes learning different things to read this book.

-Shawn