10 Months.

At 10 months Kennadi is…

-19 lbs 7 oz and 27.5 inches long.

-her hair is finally long enough to put it in a ponytail!

-mastering the concept of climbing up stairs. Going down stairs is a different story.

-must point at everything. She points where she wants to go, to who she wants to see, and to what she wants to eat or wear.

-gives kisses by putting her forehead on your lips. If I try to get her to kiss my lips I am usually greeted with a tongue inside my mouth.

-loves to talk on the phone. She will put the phone up to her ear or my ear and talk into it.

-loves to be outside. Her favorite thing is when I let her play in the sprinklers on the patio (she still absolutely hates the grass) or when she gets to play with grandpa and grandma’s owl. If she is inside I can always find her standing against the window and pointing outside.

-is way too social! Church is proving to be a real challenge because she just wants to go see and play with everyone. I am already counting down the months until she can go to nursery.

-can balance by herself and can take a few steps by herself as long as her ending destination is really close.

Cheese ball.

Stunna Shades.

Love this little girl.

First Ponytail.

Somebody got into the puffs.

Father's Day.

This good looking husband of mine got to celebrate his first Father’s Day. Queue the cheesy, sentimental Father’s Day blog post.

Austin is seriously the cutest dad to Miss Kennadi. Kennadi just adores him and lights up as soon as he walks into a room or she hears his voice. There have been some days when she has been moody all day yet as soon as Austin gets home from work she is happy and smiley. Most days she wants nothing to do with me once Austin is home. And every day she just points to Austin’s pictures on the wall and grins while he is at work. There is truly something special about the bond between a father and daughter. I hope Kennadi will always look up to Austin and appreciate all that he does for our little family. I for one appreciate how willing (and most of the times happy) Austin is to change poopy diapers, make Kennadi some oatmeal for breakfast, or take the middle of the night shift so that I can get some much needed beauty sleep. I also appreciate how hard Austin works to ensure Kennadi and I have everything we need plus some. Anyway, I guess the point I am trying to make is that Austin is one spectacular dad. Happy Father’s Day Aust!

American Fork Canyon Half Marathon.

This past Saturday I ran the American Fork Canyon Half Marathon, my very first half marathon. To say it was fun and exciting and thrilling would be straight out lying. Honestly, it was hard work, exhausting, and I was unable to move my body for days afterwards. Was it worth it? Absolutely! Will I do it again? You betcha. Actually I am registered for another one next month.  

Race day started out very early, “3:30 am” early to be exactly. I met up with my dad who was also running and we ventured onto American Fork High School. From there we loaded buses and headed up the canyon to the starting line. We had to sit at the starting line for about 45 minutes as we waited for the rest of the buses full of runners to arrive. It was freezing up there, the lines to use the restrooms were long, and anxiety was kicking in. I could not wait to get going.

The starting gun finally went off at 6 am sharp. It was chaos as 2,100 runners were trying to fit through a little opening to begin the race. The first couple of miles went by quick as we were running with a herd of people, trying to avoid being trampled, and trying to set a good pace as to not die before we made it to the finish line. Slowly the people were being weeded out but my dad and I stayed strong. My dad is seriously the best! I absolutely loved running with him. He was my motivator to keep going. Once I hit mile 9 or 10 my legs were starting to feel like jello, my knees were aching, and I felt like I hit a wall. My dad was my silent motivator to keep going. I didn’t want to slow him down any so I kept pushing through.

13.1 miles later I finally crossed the finish line!

There are very few feelings greater than crossing that line and putting the finisher’s medal around your neck. My dad and I both crossed the line at the same time at a time of 2 hours and 19 minutes. My goal time was 2 hours 30 minutes so I was thrilled we finished even faster than anticipated. In the end, I am happy that I can finally mark “Run a Half Marathon” off my bucket list. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time yet lacked the motivation or support to do it. One of the driving forces behind my desire to run this time around was to lose some of the baby weight I put on while I was pregnant with Kennadi which makes me happy to report that most of my pre-pregnancy clothes are a little baggy now! I consider all the training and the race a success!

Now the training begins for the next race…

9 Months.

At 9 Months Kennadi is…

-in 6 month and some 9 month clothes and still rocking the size 3 diapers.

-walking alongside furniture and if we hold her hands. She will stand by herself for a couple of seconds but once she realizes what she is doing she quickly falls down.

-absolutely hates grass. She refuses to touch it and if I sit her down on it she quickly tenses up and freezes like a statue.

-has mastered the waving hello/goodbye.

-always begging to eat more table food but she is still toothless so I have been pretty reluctant. Maybe once those darn teeth come in we can be a little more adventurous in the food category.

-can give high fives and constantly claps.

-loves getting her back rubbed and sometimes that is the only way she will go to sleep.

-has this strange obsession with the bathroom. She absolutely loves being in there and if the door is shut she will knock on the door until someone will open it. She also believes that whenever the tub is turned on it means that it is her turn for a bath. I have caught her crawling into the bathroom with her towel in hand multiple times.

-survived her first ear infection! I am confident it was tougher on me than it was on her.

Madison's Homecoming.

My sister, Madison, has been living in Florida and doing an internship at Disney World for the past semester. When it was finally time for her to come home we thought it would be fun to all greet her at the airport and embarrass her. I think we accomplished our task. I am pretty sure Madison could care less if I was at the airport though, all she really cared about was the babies. This was the first time Madison got to meet Easton and Kennadi sure grew up a lot while she was gone. Kennadi was so excited to finally get to play with Madison again. It did not take long for Kennadi to warm up to her. Maybe all those FaceTiming sessions paid off! 

We look like an embarrassing crew, right?

Kennadi couldn't wait to see Auntie Madison.

I think she missed the babies the most.

Memorial Day Weekend.

If there is one thing you should know about Austin it is that he gets cabin fever fast. He is not the type of guy that can just sit on the couch and enjoy watching TV. That lasts about an hour before he gets super bored and starts rummaging the cupboards or golfing inside the house. As Memorial Day Weekend rolled around we realized we had no plans whatsoever. This was not going to fly because I knew Austin would lose his mind. Because of this we decided to plan a last minute trip to Tremonton. We got up there Friday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. During our stay, we were greeted by this awesome sign my sister-in-law made. My sister-in-law is so crafty she also made this crown for Kennadi. Isn’t it adorable?

While we were there we took Kennadi to Pizza Plus for her very first time. For those that don’t know this is where mine and Austin’s love story started (A pizza place, it doesn’t get more romantic then that!). We wanted to go show Kennadi off to all our old co-workers plus I was in some serious need for some of their famous breadsticks. Kennadi was as cute as a button (as usual) and mastered drinking out of a straw while we were there too. Sometimes I am amazed at how quick she can master new skills.

For Memorial Day we were back in Provo and decided to take Kennadi to Seven Peaks. This little munchkin loves taking a bath so we wanted to see if she would love swimming. To no surprise she was like a fish. She would just squeal and splash and kick around. I think her favorite part of the park was the lazy river. She would point to the waterfalls and beg to go underneath them. I have a feeling we will be going back often. Thank goodness for the Pass of all Passes!

Graduation.

I am done! I am finally done! I am an official university graduate.

On April 26^th I graduated Cum Laude from Utah Valley University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. On Graduation Day, I opted to forgo the commencement ceremony and just do convocation. I figured the most memorable part of the day is the actually walking across the stage part plus I didn’t want to make my family suffer through two graduation ceremonies. Scratch that, I didn’t want to have to suffer through two graduation ceremonies. I have been blessed with an amazing support system to help me get through this crazy college experience. It was nice to have such a low key day and spend it with those that have helped me reach this goal. My low key day mainly consisted of stuffing our faces at Chuck-A-Rama and then sitting on our couches, stuffing our faces again with ice cream, and just visiting.

I have absolutely loved my experience at UVU. I only have positive things to say about that fine place. I have created memories that will last a lifetime. I have developed relationships that I will cherish forever. I have had opportunities and experiences that I know I would not have had anywhere else. One of my favorite, most life-changing experiences would have to be my internship. I know I have mentioned this before on my blog, but I was able to intern with the Presidential Cabinet at UVU. One of the Vice-Presidents mentored me specifically and gave invaluable career and life advice. I learned more in my weekly mentor sessions then I did in some classes and those sessions helped me set a path for my future. Because of my internship experience I can't help but look at those students who were unable or unwilling to do extra curricular experiences while in college and feel bad for them. They miss out on such! 

So now you may be asking the question, what is my future exactly? What’s next? Well, I am planning on attending graduate school in a year or two. I have been specifically looking at the University of Utah’s joint Masters in Public Administration and PhD. in Educational Leadership. As for the more recent future, I am now working at UVU. In order to get into the graduate program I want I need some sort of work experience plus I just love UVU I just couldn't get away. It is a win-win situation.