The Girls

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:08:30 -0600

There is something special about daughters. Rick totally gets the whole throwing the football around with your son thing, but with the combination of his athletic ability and height, there is not much of chance for athletic greatness. We see our friends’ boys running full speed into each other while screaming as Rachel serves imaginary cookies and tea to everyone. There is also something to be said about not getting peed on when changing diapers. We know we will be paid back from 5th through 12th grade, but we are enjoying it now!
Now that we have two, there seems to be no question about the evidence of an innate sisterly bond. It almost seems like the second they laid eyes on each other they knew that they would be together forever. We love watching Rachel help Anna with her pacifier, the swing, or most recently putting on diapers. She loves to put them on right over Anna’s pajamas.
Rachel is absorbing everything anyone says or does around her and is learning new things every day. Her latest passion is sign language and she constantly amazes us as she picks it up from the “Signing Time!” videos. If you are interested in your child learning ASL, check them out as they are by far the best we have seen.
Anna is up to about 12 pounds and is doing great. We started physical therapy with her to increase her core and upper body strength. She doesn’t like tummy time much at all, but we all need to remember that she has the typical Kendall head size. She is making great progress, and we all feel confident that she will get where she needs to be. She is full of personality and loves to smile. We all love to make googly eyes at her!
As a family, we have had a great few months. Once Rachel was born, we didn’t know what we did at night without children. Now we don’t know what it was like to only have one. To Rick, it is no longer “Allena and Rachel” and “Allena, Rachel and Anna” just doesn’t sound right. To him it is just “The Girls.”

Both Rachel and Anna’s pages have been updated. The links at the top of the page will take you directly there. We have also updated the photo gallery, so go and check out the new pictures!

10 Months Later...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:49:04 -0700

So when we said that we would be posting less often, this is not exactly what we meant. Over the past 10 months, Allena became pregnant again, Rachel grew into a little person, Rick became the interim principal of his elementary school, and our new daughter, Anna, was born! I guess you could say that we have had a busy 2009! Anna Rose was born on October 26, 2009 and spent the first 8 days of her life in the NICU at St. Joseph hospital. Because of the H1N1 flu, Rachel could not visit her until she was discharged. On November 2nd, the Kendall family became whole again and we couldn’t be happier with our little family of four. Thank you to everyone who prayed for our family, provided meals, and sent positive messages our way.

We have updated the Rachel/Zeek pictures, and are contemplating a similar series with Anna. Rachel’s pictures from the past 10 months, along with an album of Anna are both also up. Links to all 3 are below.

Rachel with Zeek
Rachel B.A. (Before Anna)
Anna Rose

Wow. What a Year!

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:37:31 -0700

It is absolutely incredible to think that a year has gone by since Rachel was born. We look back on our lives before her and honestly cannot remember what we did on weekends and evenings. I guess that goes to show you how important this whole parenthood thing is. We hear that the next 17 or so years will go even faster (and get increasingly more expensive), so we are trying to make sure to make the most out of every moment. We feel so incredibly lucky to have a very happy, healthy child, and we hope we are doing the right things to help her become a happy, healthy adult some day. It seems like our roles in her life are changing every day as she becomes more mobile, independent, and opinionated! We know this is just the beginning of a long haul, but we would like to stop for a second and say thank you to everyone that has loved our daughter over her first year. We are so lucky to be surrounded by friends and family that care not only for our family, but also genuinely love Rachel. There are too many of you to list, but please know that your actions are greatly appreciated.

Finally, we have been told that you can only do the crazy 500 pictures a month/ monthly blogging/ general baby bragging thing for a year with your first child before you become one of “those” parents, so we will try to back off on that a little as well. We will, however, need to prove through video that we know how to give her a bath now.

The complete set of 12 monthly Rachel and Zeek Pictures are HERE, and her 12th month pictures (Including the Party!) are HERE. Enjoy.

Baby Cussing, Cheerios, and Runny Noses

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:33:33 -0700

As new parents, we have learned that there is a period of time between when your baby knows what she wants to tell you, and when she can actually form the words in English to tell you. We are now in that time. You can tell by her mumblings and squeals when she is any of the 3 baby emotions: happy, crabby, and tired. When she is crabby, there is a very specific type of baby talk that Rachel has developed. It usually only happens after we have taken away something that she wants to play with like silverware or the remote. She snarls her lip up a little bit, and out comes these mumblings that are distinct from any other noises she makes. We have decided that it is baby cussing. She is not using any English, but she is definitely letting us know what she thinks of our parenting at that exact moment. From what we hear from other parents, it is not uncommon.
Rachel has spent a good portion of her 11th month either eating cheerios or telling us that she wants to eat cheerios. We have attempted to teach some basic sign language like the signs for “milk”, “more”, and “finished.” With us both being teachers, you might expect that this has gone smoothly. It has not. She first started doing the “milk” sign now and then when we would bring her bottle. This seemed like a success until we realized that she would do the “milk” sign when she wanted anything. Usually this was cheerios. We then tried to get her to sign “more” when she wanted more of something. Well it turns out that she always wants more cheerios, so I am sure you can guess that the “more” sign became for sign for cheerios. We then tried to teach her the sign for “finished”, but as she is never finished with cheerios, we have yet to teach this sign in context. She has learned one extra sign that we did not teach her. For this sign she bangs her hands on the table and cusses at us in baby language. This sign means “More Cheerios.”
Rachel is growing and changing daily. Her teeth are breaking through in several places on both the top and bottom, and her nose runs like crazy. We think it is a little strange, but evidently that is what happens with teething. She is also darn close to walking. She pushes everything around, and recently acquired a walk-behind car. Turning is still a little rough, but we think she won’t need it before too long. We love spending time with her every day, and count our blessings daily. Pictures are below.

Rachel's Eleventh Month

Rachel with Zeek

Halloween and The Zoo

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:06:51 -0700

Rachel’s 10th month included her very first Halloween. As you can tell from the picture above, she went as a pumpkin. She is the pumpkin on the left in the photo. The one on the right is a real pumpkin, for those of you that are either pumpkin or costume challenged. How many Halloween costumes are there for babies? It seems like based on their size and relative plumpness, you only have a few options. You can obviously dress them as some sort of round vegetable, such as a pumpkin, or a very chubby animal. I personally have seen lots of fat monkeys and lions with huge manes. I don’t think you could make a recognizable super hero costume with their size, and it seems like the popular clown or monster costume just wouldn’t look right. Well, at least she was a very cute pumpkin. I am looking forward to the Halloween in the future when she realizes that she can get free candy from people just by dressing up like a witch or a princess, and saying a simple phrase. During this month, Rachel also visited the Denver Zoo for the first time with Nana and Papa Braunstein. It is kind of surprising how uninterested she was in all of these strange creatures. I would think that if I was a foot and a half tall and weighed 17 pounds, I would be a little frightened by a lion or a gorilla. It was the Boo at the Zoo day, so at least we got another day of use out of the pumpkin costume. Overall, Rachel is doing very well and we love her more and more each day. We have been taking some new video, so hopefully we will have that up next month. We really want to reprise the bath video, as we have learned a few things since then and bath time is a lot less dramatic! New pictures are below.

Rachel's Tenth Month

Rachel with Zeek