2009

Hard to believe it's the last day of 2009.   At this time last year we had just moved into this house and were still getting settled in.  Kate was just 4 months old.  Now we have made this house a home and my baby is not so much a baby anymore.  She is 16 months old now and talking, babbling, signing, walking, running, dancing, bouncing and "hopping".  She is developing a mind of her own and is expressing her wants, likes and dislikes in not so subtle ways!  There are many different things she does some of them funny, some quirky, and some mischievous but all of them adorable!  My how she has changed over this year.  At the beginning of the year she couldn't even roll over and now look at her!  A few of the funny things she does that I don't want to forget is how she says off...."osh"! If daddy walks in the house with his hat on, the first thing she says is "osh" and points to his hat, she is relentless and will repeat until he removes his hat.  She is the same way about shoes, she doesn't want us wearing our shoes in the house or leaving them in the living room!  She will try to take them off our feet or if they are laying around she will pick them up and bring them to us, again she is relentless and will keep on until we put them up!  The shoe thing is not just our house, it's anybody's house!  If she could talk I'm sure she would say, "Hellooooo, we don't leave our shoes laying around, put them up please."  or "We don't wear hats in the house" or "We don't leave coats laying around, hang it up please".  This rule only applies to things that are not hers of course because the living room, or whole house for that matter, could be littered with her toys and look like a bomb went off and that is fine with her because it's all her stuff, but leave one pair of shoes and it's all over....they must go!!  She is also notorious for picking up the teeny tiniest little speck of dirt from the carpet or floor and bringing it to me!  Sometimes it is so tiny I can barely see it in those little pincers of hers but it must be brought to my attention and thrown in the "ash".  She also knows when she is doing something she's not supposed to be doing because she will look at us and shake her head no (and then do it anyway!).  It's cute!  Biting is the only thing she does that is not cute and I pray it's just a phase. She won't wear clips, bows or ponytail holders.  She has a good time looking at herself in the mirror and talking.  She gives kisses.  When she first wakes up and I get her from the crib she snuggles up to me and rests her head on my shoulder (sweet fleeting moments that make my heart swell!)  When she gets tired she faces me and snuggles up tucking in her arms.  She signs a few things - milk, eat, more, help, book, dog. She says quite a bit more - mama, dada, ank (Hank), papaw, nana, nonnie, oma, osh (off), ash (trash), da der (cracker), snack, night night, bath, bye bye, more, milk....there are more but I'm drawing a blank. She still loves her books, baths, being outside and Hank!  She "reads" anything and "talks" on anything! When we tell her or ask her if her diaper needs changing she runs down the hall to her room so we can change diapers!  She loves to "help" mommy do stuff like empty and load the dishwasher, turn on the washing machine, close the dryer door, fold laundry, flush the toilet, turn lights off.  We are learning to clean up our toys and put them "back"!  We attempt to color but she tries to eat the crayons so coloring doesn't ever last long.

There are so many other things she does that we think are adorable I could probably write a book so I will stop here and continue posting in 2010!  Here are a few of Kate's Christmas Portraits!

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas 2009

Well we all had a BIG Christmas this year!  Kate, Jason and I got lots of wonderful presents and got to spend time with our family...all in all it was great.  We had a busy week, we spent the Sunday before Christmas with Jay and Connie and celebrated Jason's birthday and opened presents, then on Tuesday Jason's actual Birthday Charlotte brought dinner over and we opened Christmas presents then Wednesday we drove to Lufkin, then celebrated Christmas on Saturday with Mom and everyone then Sunday we came back home!  Whew, what a whirlwind!  It was fun though! Here are a few pictures from Nana's house...

 The temptation is too great!

(We didn't keep the presents under our tree at home!)

 

"I'll take this one!" 

She liked that one particular present for some reason and it was the only one she would pick up and carry around.  She's so funny!

Madison and Kate sitting in their rocking chairs :-)

Santa Claus

Mom & Larry came to visit and we took Kate to the mall and had Santa pictures made!!   Yay :-)  This was the first time she saw a Santa and had the typical reaction...she cried.  After a few pictures they decided that I needed to sit beside her!  I got her calmed down and we were able to get a cute little pic of Kate and Santa! 

lately

Baby Kate keeps us on our toes!  She is talking, walking, running and interested in everything.  She is getting bigger and much more clever everyday.  She loves to play with water, any water, bath tub, faucet, dog bowl, my cup, anything.  She loves her books, but only likes to let us read them at warp speed flipping the pages as fast as she can, I don't think we have ever actually been able to read her a story no matter how short it was.  When she feels like reading she will open a book, touch the book to her nose and just babble and babble!  It's adorable!  She also likes to pretend talk on the phone!  She walks around with the "phone" (anything) to her ear babbling then after a bit she will say bye and take the phone from her ear!  Too CUTE! 

She has discovered that Hank likes to eat what she eats, so she has been dropping him food lately. Dogs don't eat people food and Kate needs to eat anything I can get her to, so I have started fussing them both. Yesterday after lunch I took Kate to change her diaper, when we came back I caught the bad dog with his paws on the table eating the remains from her tray, UGHHHHH, YUCK.  BAD BAD DOG!  That's why dogs don't eat people food!  So here is where the clever comes in, today I noticed she would put the food in her mouth, lean over her highchair then let it fall out of her mouth and Hank would gobble it up (technically, she's not feeding him!  Its just falling out of her mouth. Yes I can read her mind!)  This makes her laugh which makes it hard for me to keep a straight face, so today we ended snack time on that note.  Today's Lesson: "If we feed the dog our food, then we don't get to eat."  Don't worry folks, she doesn't eat anyway. Not actually sure how the child survives to be honest, her doctor said her appetite would diminish as she became a toddler and boy did it.  She ate more 4 months ago than she does now! 

Other than Kate getting a double ear infection, we had a great Fall Festival and Thanksgiving! We got to see almost all of our family!  We tried to take Fall pictures but BK did not want to cooperate! Pictures to follow!

Kate got another tooth on the top on Dec 1, that makes 4 top and 4 bottom.  We visited the Dr. today because we thought she might be getting another ear infection but turns out her molars are finally coming in.  Doc said 2 are about to erupt and 2 are on their way and are very swollen.  Poor thing.  But maybe now we will be able to expand our menu once those big ones come in, she will finally have something to chew with!

Arboretum

Today was a beautiful day and we got to spend it at the Arboretum with Connie!!  Kate had the best time running around, trying to pick up pumpkins, exploring the little houses and teepee, finding all the soggy wet muddy ground and walking in it, picked a flower (don't tell on us!!),  saw a bunny, squirrel and a koi pond!  It was so much fun!  We will be going back in the future for sure!

Here are a few pictures from our outing today!  I need a warp speed camera, it is so hard to get good shots of miss speedy gonzalez!

 Posing for a photo!

Checking out her shadow!

 

 Playing with pumpkins and grass!

 

 Just making sure this pumpkin doesn't roll off!

 Running around!

 

 Running from Nonnie and Mommy!

 Whew!  Running is hard work, I need to rest a second!

 

 Ok, I am ready to go again!

I think I will just walk now!

Pumpkin Patch!

Here are a few pictures of Miss Kate from the Pumpkin Patch! It was her first visit and she had a blast walking thru all the pumpkins and trying to run away from her mommy and nana! She found a baby pumpkin and she carried that little thing all over the pumpkin patch!

The grind...

This past weekend I discovered that baby Kate got two new teeth!! She got her first top tooth and another one on the bottom. She now has a whopping 4 teeth! ha! It's cute but kinda strange that both top ones didn't come in at the same time! Anyway, Kate has started grinding her teeth and it is making my skin crawl! Anybody know if I do something to get her to stop grinding?J

toddlers.....

At Kate's 12 month check up last week the doctor said something to the effect that since Kate is now one she is considered a toddler. Well I took this with a grain of salt because toddlers toddle and Kate only crawls so I paid no mind to his comment. Kate must have heard him though because today after her daddy got home Kate was crawling down the hall towards the living room, then she stopped and just stood right up! Then not even 10 minutes later she and her daddy were playing and she took 2-3 steps to him! NOW it is official folks......we have a toddler!!

In other exciting news Kate no longer has to drink stinky Nutramigen formula because she is a big girl and big girls drink WHOLE MILK!!!!! We have also stopped using the Binky and will stop using bottles very very soon! All in all it has been an eventful couple of weeks between the birthday celebrations, getting sick a couple of times, our weekend getaway to the lake with the family, standing/walking/whole milk/no bink.....que mas??? Oh yes how could I forget...Family Portraits and One Year Portraits (Thank you Nana!) Here are a few for your viewing pleasure :-)

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Kate.
Happy Birthday to you!!!

Nana, Oma, Nonnie & Papa came to your party and brought fun presents! (PawPaw wanted to be here but was bad sick and couldn't come. Get well soon PawPaw!) We had dinner, cake and presents. You got an airplane you can ride on that lights up and makes noise, a push behind walker that can also be a scooter, an outside swing, clothes, shoes, money, a book, a puzzle, bath toys, and kisses from Hank! WOW that's a whole lot of presents!

Happy Birthday my sweet angel baby...you are so loved!