happy holidays from our little fam to yours...

I have officially promised my good friend Makalya Harrison to be a better blogger, so now I guess I really do have to stick to my word. And speaking of miss Makayla, let me start this post with a HUGE congrats to her and her future hubby on their engagement!! Her ring is almost as pretty as she is :)
As I type today Kenley and I are listening to our Christmas music on Pandora... which by the way has to be the best invetnion ever. I use it more than usual during the holidays, but NEVER listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. And for the first time in 3 whole years, Christmas music finally makes me happy again. I was afraid that Christmas would never be the same for my family and I after the loss of my Uncle Ken on Christmas Eve. Our family has come so far in these short 3 years and I still miss him more than ever. This Thanksgiving I really felt his presence more than I felt sad that he is gone. It seemed like he could just round the corner at any moment.
The last place that I talked to him in person, before I kissed him goodbye in the hospital for the last time, was a walk that we took in Westwood Hills in Napa by my house the day after Thanksgiving. All of the cousins had stayed at my parents house and myself, my aunts, uncles, Mom & Dad all decided to take a walk. Before I knew it, my Uncle Ken and I were up ahead of everyone else having our own little discussion. I was a sophomore at SSU at this point, and really just at a kind of weird point in my life. I was half-way through my golf season and basically half-dedicated.... I wanted to quit. I had almost completely fallen away from God, had some not so great influences in my life and was not doing well in school. My Uncle knew all of this. I remember begging him to help me talk my mom into letting me take some time off from school. I wanted to take the spring semester off and move to Tahoe... haha! imagine that.
We walked and talked, talked and walked... then raced to the top of the hilll where you can see all of Napa. I will never ever forget it. So every year since, the day after Thanksgiving, I do the same walk. Unfortunately, this year, I sat in my car in the parking lot of Westwood Hills because we were all in such a rush, said a prayer of my Aunt Barb and cousins who I know miss him even more than I do and just had a moment.
Gosh, well that was heavy and totally not where I planned on going with this post at all! God is so so good and I know my Uncle would be so proud of me. He would be so happy to see how good Gavin is to me and probably so amazed by this little miracle of a baby that we get to call our own. OH yeah, and completely honored that we named her after him :)
And on that note! What a little miracle she is. Everyone at home was so so so happy and excited to see her. She was such a good little traveler during our Thanksgiving trip. She slept the entire plane ride to SFO and didnt make a peep on the 8 hour drive home! I was worried about both and she totally proved me wrong.
She is just doing all KINDS of new stuff that I feel like she started doing all at the same time. At Gavin's "team Thanksgiving" the night before we flew home, she was sitting on my lap and stuck her finger in my sweet potatoes and then stuck her fingers in her mouth. Now you tell ME shes not ready for solids!! haha!! It was totally hilarious and even Gavins teammates who know nothing about babies/milestones thought it was pretty hilarious.
Besides that little encounter with the sweet potatoes, our little girl is allllllmost sitting up by herself. She can totally do it while sitting on the couch where she sinks in a little bit and definitely when she is holding onto something like her crib. Speaking of her crib, Kenley has totally and completely been sleeping through the night for the past month now. Goes down at 7:30pm and is up at 6am... a little early for my liking but that is a near 11 hour stretch, people!!! I will take it.
She didnt do quite AS well during our little trip home for Thanksgiving. She was up twice each night while sleeping in her pack n' play but did pretty well all in all. And the most amazing thing of ALL that our little Kenley has started to do...
She TOTALLY knows who her mama is. Someone else besides myself took her out of her pack n' play on Thanksgiving day after she had awoken from her nap and I was in the room as well. She was in this persons arms and looked all around until she spotted me... and THEN, she reached out her little arms for me and let out a squeal! Im not gonna name any names of who was holding her because I dont want to hurt her feelings :::cough::: my mom:::cough:::: LOL sorry mom. I do think it kind of bummed her out. Its not that she doesnt trust her! It just that she is always just with me... 24/7. And we like it that way :)
So yes, it is true, baby girl is a little crankier than usual as well. She is DEFINITELY teething. Every single thing you hand her gets put right into her mouth. Its actually pretty impressive and now we just need to be more careful about things that are in reaching distance. The poor little thing is constantly drooling and you can tell her little gums are really bothering her. I cant WAIT to see that first little tooth though!
So onto our trip home.... we had SUCH a blast. It flew by and I cant believe that we are already home again. It was SO good seeing everyone that I had been missing so much. I had a great time with my beautiful girlfriends, who by the way are so cute with Kenley and love her so much!! And of course both of our families were dying to get their hands on her. All in all, it we had an amazing time and are so THANKFUL that we have such a loving place to go for the holidays. cant wait to come back up in a few weeks for Christmas! We were even able to expereince a little seasonal weather (which we barely get down here at all) I loved watching the sky turn grey and our second night it Cloverdale it even rained. loved every second of it.
WELL!! this turned out to be rather lengthy! I still havent figured out how to attatch pictures and text in the same post, so I will do another post with our "potential" Christmas card photos and pictutes with my family. Bless Caitlin O'Reilly for even attempting to get my circus of a family in one photo... my brothers never fail to make that a real experience for everyone involved. Let me just say that they had me laughing to the point of tears the entire time I was home. Its like we speak our own little language and whenever we get together its like we never missed a beat. Between Stephen doing his strip tease before he got in the hot tub, twirling his shirt around his head and throwing it on some lit candles to Michael and his usual 90's LA hip hop antics... those two are something else. And they are SO cute with their little neice. They both know I have a special place in my heart for Uncles in general and how special the Uncle/neice relationship is to me so to watch them with her completely warms my heart.
Hope everyone is staying warm and enjoyed their holiday!!
hot coco & candy canes, Mama Mills