2020 in Review

 

 

January 16th 2020 at 10:40am my life changed forever when our little princess, Kayla Rose Charles was born!

We went on our first "family trip" with Kayla.  We went back to Hancock for the first time at the end of February.

Phew!  Then about a week or two after we got back Covid 19 hit!  Wow, who could have seen that coming?  This virus totally dominated 2020 and led to so many cancellations and disappointments for so many people.

Personally for us, we lost out on many family activities.  Kayla is nearly a year old and we still have many friends and family members that have either not met her yet or only seen her once or twice.  We had to cancel 3 vacations; Myrtle Beach, Las Vegas, and then our family cruise that we had planned.  My 6 month maternity leave was not as intended... I had hoped to get out and about with Kayla a lot more than what we really did.  We also had to cancel Kayla's first Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with our extended family.  We will also be having to cancel Kayla's first birthday party too.  There's no sugar coating it... it has been an extremely disappointing year in that regard.

However, watching Kayla grow and thrive throughout the year has brought us extreme happiness and joy!  Here is Kayla at 1 month old.

Kayla at two months old.

Kayla at 3 months.  She rolled over for the first time at the very end of this month.

Kayla at 4 months.

Kayla at 5 months old.

Kayla at 6 months old. Kayla was able to sit up on her own at 6 months old.

Kayla at 7 months old.  She was crawling around everywhere this month!

Kayla at 8 months old.  Kayla got her two bottom teeth this month!

Kayla at 9 months old.  Kayla started taking her first steps and "cruising" around.

Kayla at 10 months old.  She loves to say "Hi" to everyone.

Kayla at 11 months old. We officially have a walker!  She loves to run around and get into everything!

Other notable happening this year include... Cody's dad turned 70 this year.

 Kayla's First Easter!

 My work had a phenomenal maternity leave program.  They allowed me 4 months off paid, and then I worked from home part time for 2 months.  It was wonderful because I got to spend so much time with this sweet girl and get to hang out with some family/friends along the way!  Things changed when I came back to work... we had two retirements in my department and I was able to move into my own office instead of sitting in a cubicle like I had before.

Cody and I celebrated our 5 year Wedding Anniversary this year!  I can't believe how great of a husband and father this guy is!

 

Kayla got to go swimming for the first time with Aunt Becky and Abby at Aunt Sherry's pool.

We also got to go to the zoo with each other for the first time!

Raquel, Brylee, and Uncle Timmy came to visit us for Raquel's 30th birthday!

Here we are with our girls.

We got to spend several days hanging out with Aunt Hannah and Maia.  Maia absolutely adores her "baby Kayla".

After our wonderful 6 months together, Kayla started daycare in July.  She has struggled with taking her bottle at daycare but we are trying to work through it.

In September we got to go to the zoo with Daddy, Aunt Becky, Uncle Bobby, and Abby.

 

 Hannah and Levi got married on 9-12-20.

 

In October we went on what is hopefully our annual Apple Picking trip with our besties!  We had so much fun together!

 

 Grandma Machovina passed away on October 7th. 

On October 18th, Aunt Mary passed away.  It was so shocking to me because we had just seen Aunt Mary a few months before and we really had no inclination that it'd be the last time we saw her.

Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.  Kamala Harris became the first female vice president in history.

Abby turned 1 years old and I was able to take her birthday pictures.

Shawn and Katelynn announced that baby Bally #3 is on the way in June!

Aunt Gina and Uncle Gail celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary!

My sweet girl got to experience her first Christmas!

 

 My girl is helping me cross off the only item I'm checking off my bucket list this year... which is to breastfeed my baby.  My girl and I are going to make it to a year of breastfeeding!  If you've never breastfed... you can't imagine the impact and significance that has had on my life this year! I think that my entire 2020 revolved around feeding this baby girl!

Oh the difference a year can make!  Kayla has truly transformed our life and changed it completely.  Our whole world revolves around her now and she always comes first!  This year had it's ups and downs, but its still Kayla's first year.  We were still able to make many memories with our sweet girl, and we have hope for 2021 of being a great year!

Kayla 10 Months Old

 

This month Kayla got to spend a little bit of time with her cousin, Abby!  This was the first time that the girls were able to kind of interact with each other.  Abby is a pro at walking around, and Kayla is just starting out this month.  Kayla is able to walk while mostly holding onto things.

Poor Kayla was scared of Abby.  Abby kind of knocked into her a little bit and Kayla cried and fussed.  I was surprised that she wasn't used to this at daycare with all the other kids, but she seemed a little bit scared of Abby at first.

However, they were so cute in the end!  They were peeking out at each other and playing peekaboo!  It was too cute!  Here they are in their cousin's bibs!  Quite a difference from the first time they wore them.

Here's my girl playing with her basketballs.  She loves BALLS.  Any type of ball.  It's almost always her favorite thing to play with.

Every day Kayla comes home and starts digging through her daycare bag.  She always pulls out her day summary report or her "report card" and looks at it.

She also loves to pull everything out and scatter them across the house.

Here she is with her report card.

Kayla loves Elmo!  She loves watching Sesame Street and her favorite part is when the "letter of day" song comes on.  She bounces and bops to it and always gets a big smile.

Me and my girl snuggling!

Here is my girl walking with her walker in the basement.  She is really starting to move around.

Here she is playing in the basement.  It's pretty much a big wide open space so she can really get moving with her little walker.

So whenever I give Kayla snacks at home, she gets really excited and her little feet start bouncing.  Well, I told the girl at daycare that I was going to start sending in snacks for her, and the girl goes "oh good, I'm glad that you are because I've been meaning to tell you that she gets excited whenever I give snacks to the other kids, but I never have any for her so I can't give her any."  WHAAAT!  My poor baby!  I just imagine her little feet bouncing and her being excited to get snacks and never get any!  Poor little thing!  Next day mama sent the whole bag of snacks above!  

Every time I go to the bathroom... this is what I see.  Cody and Kayla follow after me and she plays peekaboo with me on the other side of the door.  She gets so excited!

Baby girl LOVES her books!  But she has started chewing them this month!  AH!

So she used to have this tote out where she could just go over and grab whatever book she wanted... but now I had to change it to a container with a lid so that she can't get them and start chewing on them.  She was ruining book after book.  

She also loves getting into EVERYTHING!  She loves pulling her diapers out of her diaper caddy.  So we had to move her diapers up too, because she was throwing them all around the house.

Kayla loves being on daddy's shoulders.

And she loves getting daddy!

Happy baby!

Scared daddy!  Look at that "little rascal"

She is such a goof ball!  She never really took to pacifiers... this is how she sucks on them.. with the nipple facing the other direction.

Here she is "helping me" with the laundry.

Kayla had her first Halloween this month!  She went as a duckling in honor of her favorite book "Little Quack."

My Little duck!

We passed out candy for the first 45 minutes or so, and then we went to a few houses close to us.  Grandpa held down the fort and passed out candy while we were gone.

Here she is in her stroller with her trick or treat bag!

Cutest little duck around!

Grandpa and baby.

Kayla has an ongoing collection of Minnie Mouses.  All of these either sing or talk.  She loves playing with all of them.

We got to go to the park and swing on the swing.  Kayla kinda likes swinging, but she wasn't really too into it this year.

We got a toy box for Kayla downstairs to try to manage the toys that are in our living room.

Kayla loves her Cosi!

Here is Kayla in one of her many halloween outfits.  She was a little star this halloween season with tons of different outfits everyday!  

Aunt Hannah watched Kayla for a few hours while mommy went shopping.  This was the first time that Aunt Hannah watched Kayla and it was only the third time we've had any but daycare watch her.