Many First for Hadley

This month has been a very busy month for the Kannady family. The next couple of weeks/weekends look about the same... our first weekend without plans is November 20th and I would really like to keep it that way! We shouldn't complain that we have so much to do and wonderful friends and family to be around - it is just all very exhausting and definitely wearing on Matt and me both.

This October held many first for Hadley

• Coo/Giggles
• Road trip and first overnight stay
• Rice Cereal
• Halloween
• No more Swaddle

Cooing

She has really started “talking” to us. She reacts to your facial expressions and will let you know how she feels about them. I love her smile so much and when we get her up first thing in the morning she stretches, huffs and puffs, and then when she finally opens her eyes and looks at you - SMILES and coo’s and lets out a little giggle! She is loving all the neighbor girls (who love her) and she will smile and flirt with them. She still doesn’t like cameras and I don’t understand this.. she has grown up with one in her face. J The second we get it out to record the cute funny thing she is doing she stops what she is doing and gives it the death stare.

Road trip

We went to Grandbury, Texas for Justin and Jamie’s wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and the town is so quaint. We were really worried at how she would do on the 5-6 hour ride up there. She did surprisingly well. It is unbelievable how much stuff I packed and planned for. I am pretty sure I had enough supplies, clothes, diapers to stay for a month, but out of all it I forgot a long sleeved footed pajama (jams) for her. This is the one thing we really really needed! We were in an old house and it was the cutest little house! There was so much history and knick-knacks all around. At night it was much cooler outside and the house was very drafty. Although Hadley still sleeps swaddled, she un-swaddles herself every night. (I am just too scared to stop the swaddling completely because I am afraid she won’t sleep through the night!) Anyways, back to the point I woke up at night freezing.. so if I am cold everyone else must be ice cubes. I looked at her monitor (yes, I packed it up and brought it even though she was in the room right by us) and it said 62 degrees. I got up and checked on her and of course she was un-swaddled and her little arms and hands were freezing! I wrapped her up and held her for a little bit to warm her up, but it wasn’t working. So against my belief (I am just afraid we will roll over on her or something) I put her in bed with us. I woke Matt up to tell him she was there and then reminded him about every 5 minutes she was there. He would start to move and I would be like watch out for Hadley and he finally said I KNOW! You have told me literally 10 times she is in our bed. I didn’t sleep very well the rest of the night, but she was warm and cozy so that is all that mattered!

She slept through the night both nights and did really good through the dinners. This was another thing I was extremely worried about. The dinners were planned around her nighttime feeding and bath. She is on a really good schedule so I didn’t know how she would do after we bathed and fed her earlier than normal and then put her in her car seat all decked out in bows and frilly dresses. She again did really well! I am a proud mom! She slept through dinner completely the second night and the first night she just woke up right before we were leaving to go back to the house.

The drive home went as well as the drive up there. We actually didn’t even get out of the car this time to feed her. When Matt stopped in Waco to fill up on gas and road trip snacks I fed her in the car. She slept most of the time or played with her little duck, lion, or giraffe the rest of the time. The last 20 minutes in the car on 290 she pretty much cried and squealed but I don’t blame her… we were all over the car ride!

Rice Cereal
Click here to read the story on why we started rice cereal. We have videos of this event and I will post them when I get a chance.

Halloween
This was Hadley's first Halloween. We live in a cul-de-sac with 14 kids so to say this is a BIG holiday for out street is truly an understatement! We have had a block party for the past couple of years with food, snacks, sweets and plenty of trick or treaters! This year we went out a little earlier because we knew we would only be out there for a couple of hours because of Hadley's bed time. This is one thing that is hard to change about her schedule. (I am totally okay with it though.) She is in bed between 7:30 - 8 and our bedtime routine starts at 6:30-7 with bath, bottle, snuggle and bed! We had fun with all the kids and they all love Matt (aka Mack, Max)! They think he is the funniest thing on earth and even when he insulted one of the kids by calling him Justin Bieber they still were laughing at him and encouraging his bad jokes :-)

Click here to view pics from today/tonight.

Un-swaddle
I know this sounds silly, BUT to me this is a milestone. She no longer sleeps with her arms swaddled. I wrap up her legs with the swaddle blanket just to keep them warm. She is getting so big and even more squirmy! She set off her movement alarm 4x this weekend. I knew she was okay, but of course I still jump out of bed and run like crazy into her room. I usually just pull her out of the corner and slide her back down! I love the monitor and even if it goes off every night I can sleep much better knowing it is on.