Blessing Dress Extravaganza

My sister Cali had her baby on January 1st and wanted to bless her on February 1st. She called me on Wednesday, January 21st and asked me where I got Kennedi's blessing dress. We got talking about it and realized that wouldn't give her much time to get one ordered and she mentioned that her sister-in-law's baby had a crochet dress that was so adorable. That's when I opened my big mouth and volunteered to make her a dress. I'd never done one with thread before, I didn't know how it would turn out, and I didn't even have a pattern. After much coordination and thread shopping, I had her sister-in-law fax me the pattern and I got to work. I started it late Friday night and worked on it steady for the next week. I finished it the following Friday and fell completely in love with it. It was fun to make, but next time, I'll give myself more that a week. I figured it took me 20 hours, but it was definitely worth it. In fact, Melissa, my sister-in-law has already put her order in and her baby isn't even born yet! Isn't it adorable!

What a beautiful baby!

And the matching headband added the perfect final touch!

The little puff sleeves looked so cute with her little bracelet.

I loved the little buttons down the back!

The bottom ruffle with the beads is my favorite part!

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We’re so excited to send this holiday letter this year. It’s been a very eventful year and we’re excited to share it with you. In April, we had a beautiful baby girl and we named her Kennedi Ray. She’s been such a blessing to us and is the sweetest baby. It’s amazing to see how fast she’s growing up. Kennedi loves to crawl around, play with her toys (especially the ones she’s not supposed to have like mommy’s decorations and sewing machine) take baths, and our favorite-give big, wet kisses. She’s such a happy, fun-loving baby. Mike’s still going to school to be a civil engineer. He has hopfully 2 more semesters until he’s finished. After finishing school, he has a job with Thompson’s Engineering and then we plan to build a house and settle down. I’m finishing up my last year teaching orchestra. I have really great students and I enjoy my job, but I’m looking forward to staying home next year to be a full-time mom. We’re excited for the holidays and hope you all have a great holiday season this year. We love you!

Merry Christmas!
Love, Mike, Sharlie and Kennedi Winder

Long Over Due

It's been so long since I've blogged! It's been a crazy past few months and I have a lot of catching up to do. I started teaching school again, which has kept me insanely busy and besides that, our computer died! That was such a tramatic experience. It's now fixed, but I ended up losing EVERYTHING including pictures of Kennedi. It's taken me forever to put things back on and re-load everything. Our computer is in Kennedi's room since we live in a small apartment and every time I have have a few minutes to do computer work, she's asleep.

School is going well and we're surviving, but I'm so ready for this year to be over and to just be a full-time mom. I have the day off because of parent-teacher conference and I love staying home with Kennedi. She's growing up so much, I can't believe it! Here's a quick update on what we've been up to since July.

We took a trip to Bear Lake with my family for the week, and I took a ton of pictures, but those ended up being the ones I lost from the computer crash. Luckily the rest of my family took a ton of pictures too. We had a great time and the water was beautiful! I never realized how big Bear Lake was. It felt like we were at the ocean.

(I don't know how to turn it)

(She was so happy when she found out it was food!)

Kennedi started eating solid foods. Now she's a pro at it and she loves veggies most of all.

Kennedi learned how to sleep without her swaddle blanket. That was the best day ever! I thought she'd never grow out of being swaddled and now she sleeps better than ever! She can even put her own pacifier in at night. That is wonderful!

Kennedi's been rolling all over the place and then she learned how to scoot. It only took 2 days and she fully learned how to crawl! At just 6 1/2 months, our baby has grown up and now she's into everything! It's such a fun stage, but I was a little sad when I had to baby-proof the house.

Kennedi learned how to give kisses and it's the sweetest thing! She knows what it is and when you ask for kisses, she gives them freely! It's so precious!

On Friday, October 31, 2008, Kennedi turned into a ladybug! She looked so adorable! We didn't really "trick-or-treat" for Halloween because she's too young, but we visited my parents and my Grandma and Grandpa Raymond. She had fun playing with the candy wrappers, but it will be a long time before she finds out what's inside the wrapper!

Isn't she cute!

Kennedi found the laundry basket and wanted to get in it. She's much cuter than laundry-don't you think?

Kennedi loves to help mom-especially when she's doing crafts! Kennedi wanted to play with my hot glue gun, scissors and pins. Luckily, I was able to distract her with some ribbon. What a sweetie!

Trip to Provo

I'm so behind on my posts, but in July, we took a trip to Provo, Utah to see my friend Ami and her cute family. They had a baby in December and I'd never met the little guy, so we decided it was way past due for a mini-vacation. We had a blast! Of course Ami and I had to go shopping and the guys had to stay behind and babysit. Don't feel bad for them one bit-they got to play

X-Box while the babies slept. We have such good babies and such lucky dads. Here are a few pictures from that weekend.

Simon, Ami and Jacob's baby, wasn't sure how he felt about Kennedi, but one thing's for sure. She has fun hair bows to grab!

Things quickly escalated and Simon decided he wanted to hold her hand instead.

We had a great time!

Winder Family Reunion

On July 25th, we spent the weekend with Mike's family up in Spencer, Idaho. My sister-in-law's family has a cabin so we took advantage of that (thanks, Dawn). It was so much fun hanging out and spending time with the family. They have the most gorgeous view that looks down into a creek. We hiked out way down there and spent some time in the water. Even though it was pretty chilly water, Kennedi loved it! I was surprised because she likes her bath water pretty warm, but she had a blast.

What a Beauty!

We took Kennedi to get her 3 months pictures today and I couldn't be happier with the results. I think Katie did an awesome job, don't you!?! I can't believe how grown-up she looks. We don't have all of the pictures back yet, so here's a sneak preview.

(Don't worry, I'll post more when I get them back next week!)

We also got family pictures, but she's more fun to look at!

100,000 miles

My car hit 100,000 miles yesterday. It was a depressing moment for me. I had to take a picture and have a moment of silence for my wonderful car.

I hope it makes it another 100,000 miles.