A New Cousin!!

The Engfer family's newest member made his entrance into the world late last night. Jeffrey David Engfer was born to proud parents Brad and Mary at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, weighing exactly 6 pounds and measuring 18 1/4 inches long (he is quite the little peanut). Both Mom and baby are doing great!!

Of course, being the proud Auntie that I am I have about a million pictures the little man so far, but here are just a few from his first 24 hours ...

Literally just about an hour after birth.

All snuggled up with Mommy around 3 a.m. this morning.

Taking a late morning snooze today.

Then, this evening we took Krysten to the hospital to meet her new cousin ...

Checking him out at first.

Shaping up to be best friends already :-)

Krysten actually was kind of indifferent about her new cousin as this video shows. We are pretty sure that she is trying to say "baby," but that could just be wishful thinking. I'm sure that she will find him much more interesting in about 3 months or so when he starts perking up a bit.

Musical Baby

Krysten had her 1-year check-up with the pediatrician just after her birthday and is coming along just fine (new stats are on the left). We were given the green light to switch from formula to baby food (thank goodness) and Krysten is 100% on table food now. We are very fortunate that she is fond of fruits and vegetables. In fact, if you put her entire meal on her tray at the same time she will usually eat the fruit or veggies before anything else. Her favorite fruits are watermelon, bananas and grapes. For veggies she loves carrots.

Krysten's walking ability seems to improve each and every day. She still has a bit of a wobble in her walk, but can sure get around now using those two little feet.

Krysten has begun to show a bit of her musical side and has taken to tinkering with Dave's electric keyboard. I took a video of her one night as I found it very interesting how she alternates between banging on the keys to gently pushing on individual keys.

She also started to outgrow her bathing suit from last summer, so I bought her a new one at Target. Even though I bought an 18 mos. size, I don't think it will last through this summer. Regardless, she looks so adorable it it I had to take a picture.






Other than that, not much has been going on around here. We enjoyed a wonderful spring-like weekend over the last two days and hope that it hangs around. And, of course, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Krysten's first cousin (actually, Mary is in labor as I write this post!) ... we will be sure to have more info on that very soon.

Krysten's 1st Birthday!

Krysten turned 1 last weekend!! I know is sounds very cliche, but my goodness, it's hard to believe it has been a year already. It's amazing at how much can change in such a short period of time.

Here is Krysten just hours old last year ...

And here she is one year later enjoying a nice birthday breakfast ...

Last Saturday was a big day for Krysten, as we had her birthday party on the actual day of her birthday. We started the day with attending our swimming class at the YMCA and Krysten received her very first report card with rave reviews. Then, shortly after we got home, Grandmom Ulmer arrived from New Jersey (despite the snow in Chicago that day) and we got to work preparing for the big event.

Krysten was actually sleeping when her guests began to arrive, but soon woke up from her nap to join the fun. We opened Aunt Liz and Uncle Brian's present before dinner because Aunt Liz had to leave for work.

Then after dinner we had cake. Krysten did very well with her smash cake, as you can see for yourself.

Even though it was obvious that Krysten thoroughly enjoyed her chocolate cake, she was able to make time to stop eating and say goodbye to Rachel.

And finally, just in case anyone didn't know, Krysten decided she needed to remind us how big she is now.

After cake we opened the rest of the presents, and per usual Krysten was a very lucky girl. She received lots of clothes for the summer and some new toys and stuffed animals too. Unfortunately I was busy with opening the gifts and didn't get any pictures of this production on my camera.

One of Krysten's most favorite presents is her little girl chair from her Grandma & Grandpa. Here Krysten tests it out the morning after the party.

Later in the day, she took a break from playing and relaxed in her chair while taking in an episode of Super Why!

Just as the chair is the perfect size for a little girl, it also appears to be the perfect size for 2 fat cats ...

Krysten does not like it when the cats are in her chair, but I guess she needs to learn to share sometime :-)

Sledding, Swimming and Walking!

A few weekends ago we decided to break-in Krysten's new sled that she got for Christmas. We have had plenty of snow here this winter, so we thought we may as well try to make it fun. Here's our girl all bundled up with Daddy and ready to go.

"Um, I'm not sure what you people are thinking, but why are we outside with all this cold white stuff?"

Sledding turned out to be trickier than we anticipated, as with her snowsuit on Krysten was not able to sit up very well by herself in the sled. I wound up running behind and holding her up while Dave pulled the sled.

After that got tiresome (trust me, it didn't take long) we tried her on her tummy. That didn't last too long either.

On a completey different note, Krysten started Parent & Kid swim classes at the YMCA last month. Here are some shots from this morning's class.

Daddy and Krysten hanging out in the pool (that's the teacher, Miss Jenny, on the left).


Krysten didn't like the back float so much ...

... but was OK when she had a toy to play with. Miss Jenny encourage the parents to throw the toy and have the kids practice reaching and swimming towards it.

Noodle time didn't go so well today ...

... so Miss Jenny gave us 2 dolphins to play with

By the end of the class she was all smiles :-)

Krysten is also getting in touch with her domestic side. She LOVES to help load the dishwasher ... let's hope it sticks.

But, the biggest news of all ... Krysten has taken her first steps! Over the last week or so, Krysten has gotten very brave and has taken up to 5 or 6 steps at time on her own. Here is a picture of her getting ready to go and a video of the real thing.

We're thinking she meet expectations and be walking fairly well by her first birthday, which is only 2 weeks away!

Krysten's First Christmas

So, it's pretty much the end of January and I am finally getting around to posting our Christmas pictures ... sorry. Anyway, Krysten had a wonderful first Christmas. Santa, and pretty much everyone else she knows, were VERY generous with her. Needless to say she has plenty of new toys to keep her busy, clothes to keep her warms, and our house now looks like a Fisher Price showroom.

This is our attempt to get Krysten's picture in front of the tree Christmas morning.

After that, we pretty much dove right in to opening gifts. Krysten did a pretty good job of unwrapping her gifts, however most of the time she was much more interested in the paper she had just ripped off than the gift itself.

She really liked her Fisher Price Learning Chair from her Grandmom.

And Mommy and Daddy gave her the Fisher Price Learning Home.



Of course, one her most favorite things to play with was a big empty box.

We celebrated Christmas at Grandma & Grandpa's house too, and Krysten got a princess bath towel, complete with a crown.

Krysten also really enjoys her new rocking horse from Grandma & Grandpa. Here she has fun riding it while showing us she is "so big!"

Krysten Meets Santa

Krysten had her first visit to see Santa Clause yesterday and things went better than I expected, despite the long wait. We arrived at the mall in around 4:00 and got in the long line and then were told that Santa would go on break at 5:00 to feed his reindeer. Well, at 4:50 we were no where near the front of the line, so we decided to go finish up some last minute shopping and sit down for a snack. We got back in line around 5:50 and she was finally on his lap around 7:00. Krysten was a sport through the whole thing, although she was jealous of the kid in line behind us whose parents were letting him play with a cell phone. She doesn't really looked thrilled with the Santa experience, but at least she's not crying ... Merry Christmas!

She's on the Move!

Life in the Ulmer household will never be the same ... Krysten is now officially mobile! She actually had her first success with forward motion the day after Thanksgiving at Dave's mom's house in Jersey when she took two or three crawls, no more than a week later she was officially on the move ...

Now that she can get around, it didn't take her long to discover the entertainment center and all the goodies stored inside.

An sense she is such a good explorer, we had to take measures to keep her so that she won't explore the cat door leading to the basement or decide to conquer the stairs on her own.

Before all this excitement began, Krysten had her 9 month birthday on November 21st. Here she is on that day.

She had her 9-month check-up at the Pediatrician around that time and is proving to be right on schedule (you can see her latests stats on the sidebar), although she is starting to show signs of having some pretty sensitive skin that we need to keep an eye on.

As much as she likes to explore the world around her, she also is enjoying the wonderfuld world of food beyond formula and baby cereal. She eats baby food on a regular basis, but we also are slowly introducing table food that are gumable (she still only has her two bottom teeth). She loves bananas, crackers and cheerios the best.

Krysten experienced her first plane ride when we flew to New Jersey to spend Thanksgiving with Dave's family. She had fun hanging out with both Mommy and Daddy on the plane.

Who knew that a baby could pass for carry-on luggage?

Krysten had so much fun on the flight that she wore herself out enough to take a nap before landing.

During our visit we were able to head down to Cape May for a short visit to the shore, where we had lunch at the Ugly Mug and did some shopping on the outdoor mall.

Although it wasn't exactly beach weather, we still had a nice time.

Krysten got ready for her first Thanksgiving Day celebration by enjoying a nice bubble bath ... I guess this is the way they do things in New Jersey :-)

And I think this picture just sums it all up ...

... Mmmmm, Turkey!