Weekend At Christopher's

Dear Kate,

As if we don't spend enough time with Christopher during our normal weekend activities, this past weekend, we spent the WHOLE weekend at his house!!! See, Daddy had some friends come into town on Thursday to watch March Madness. Every year they go to someone else's house and part of going to that person's house is there are not children's (or wives, for that matter) to mess up their fancy basketball watching guys weekend. So, the wife usually packs their bags and heads to the grandparents or wherever. This year, the guy's weekend was at our house. Naturally, we'd head to Munford BUT, your sister's first soccer game was on Saturday, and, well, we weren't missing that! So, we decided to still let Daddy have his weekend and just go hang out with Christopher and Aunt Steph and Ellie! (Uncle Jaybee got to play with Daddy and his friends.). So Friday night, we (me, you and Sister) met Aunt Steph and Ellie and Christopher at Mexican. And Miss Leigh joined us because she had NO kids and wanted to experience a different kind of Friday Night Mexican! One day you may understand...

On Saturday morning, you and Christopher just hung out and chilled for a bit...

And then we headed to your sister's game, which got rained out, which then we went to this indoor playground thing, which was fun! You got to be held by me most of the time, so that was really fun for you :)

That afternoon, you and big C did some more chillin' but you decided you wanted to do a little more playin' than chillin'...

Watch the eyes!!!

It's like you know you did something wrong and are laughing at it!!!

But you hugged it out...

Saturday night you cooperated very well and let me enjoy an evening with Aunt Steph while you played on the carpet, and then quickly went to sleep!!! So thanks for that baby girl!

Sunday morning, we ate breakfast, and yes, I TRIED to give you cereal, and then we headed home back to Daddy!

A fun weekend at Christopher's!! I can't wait for the 2 of you to start playing like Ellie and Abs do!!! Love you!!

6 Months Old!

Dear Kate,

Well, here we are, 6 months old! What a beautiful baby you are! And sweet as can be, too. We went to the doc on your 6 months birthday and you were such a happy baby and loved looking at yourself in the mirror. You weighed in at 17 pounds, which is the 75%, and 27.25 inches, which is 97%!!! Hello tall girl! Just like your sister. Doc said you probably will be 5'8, if not taller. We shall see, we shall see.

So 6 months brought on a whole lot of new activities. For one, you started eating food. Mommy was a bit nervous about this for some reason, ever since you were born. It was the one thing I was not looking forward to. Thankfully Doc said not to start it until 5 1/2-6 months, so I took the 6 months route. I tried about a week before you officially turned 6 months old and you did not care for the cereal at all (but man alive, you sure look cute!!)

Even when your sister tried feeding you, you just shunned it....

So I was getting a little discouraged, but after the doctor visit, he said to start real food, like peas and carrots and such, so we did. What a world of difference!!! The first night, you ate the entire container!! And tonight for dinner, you ate the whole container of peas AND squash AND cereal!! What a difference a little food makes, huh. And this is only one week into it. Keep it up, we like good eaters in our family. And with a full belly comes another great 6 month milestone (sort of) - sleeping!

Now, I've said before you sleep good at night, and you do, but we're actually on a pretty decent schedule these days. I was just complaining about us not being on a schedule, then food came along and pretty much forced us to get on one! It's not set in stone (thank goodness because we go way too much for stone work) but for the most part I can predict what you are going to do, sleep wise. Sometimes you take a long morning nap and sometimes it's the afternoon, but most of the time I know I am getting a good 2+ hour nap out of you, which is excellent. We had a week there where naps were terrible and even night time was just weird. And you were waking up at 5:30. Now, it's 6:30 every morning with asleep by 8! I LOVE me some routine!

Another big move on your part is you are totally sitting up by yourself. You can't get to that position, but once I get you up, you stay there. That is, unless you grab for something far away. But it's nice because I can sit you down and walk away and you will play. Oh, and another awesome thing is you and your sister actually are playing together. That's right, I can take you both up to the playroom and leave you two together while I make dinner or iron clothes or whatever. Abs is a good big sister, so that's part of the reason. She lets me know if you are getting anywhere near the door, which has been never so far, and she loves playing with you, especially 'pretend rain', which I'm not a fan of because it involves her umbrella... But, point is, you two play!!!

Now that you sit up, you can also ride in the stroller facing front ways!! Hooray. Me, you, Daddy and Kate went on a walk after dinner the other night and you were happy as a clam and so was your sister because she got to push you! You smiled at all the neighbors and loved the fresh air on your face!

Here's another big girl sitting up trick - the shopping cart!!! That's right, you can now ride in the shopping cart. You LOVED this and loved grabbing everything that went into the cart.
And one last fancy trick is you now sit in a high chair at restaurants!! Woo-hoo!!! (well, sort of woo-hoo. Mommy and Daddy's world is shaking a little now that we have 2 in high chairs, but it's all cool!!).

What a fun month this was for us all. You are growing up so quickly that Mommy wants to freeze time, but at the same time it's so special seeing you do all your new 'tricks'. We love watching you grow and grow and think you are one beautiful baby girl!

LOVE LOVE LOVE all 27.25 inches of you!!!!!

Cutey!

Dear Kate,

Man alive you are one cute little baby girl!!!

That is all.

Love you cute little baby girl!

PS - You clean up pretty good, too!

Snowshoe 2012

Dear Kate,

Well baby girl, you made your first (well, sort of) trip to Snowshoe, West Virginia - where we go skiing every year. I say 'sort of' because last year when we went you were in my belly, but we weren't telling too many folks back then! Anyway, we'll call this your first trip, and what a trip it was. Because you and Christopher joined our family, we had to change up a few things, including separate cars and bringing Mimi along to help out!! And man alive, what a help she was. But first, we had to get there. And man alive, what an adventure that was! It's a 10 hour drive, so we were prepared for that and maybe even a little bit more, but what we were not prepared for was being stuck in the same spot on the interstate for 6 hours. Yep. SIX hours. With you. And your sister. In our Pilot. Yes, adventure is probably not the appropriate word! But we survived and believe it or not, you (and Sister) did pretty darn good, considering. You did a lot of sleeping in the beginning, so that helped, and even when you were awake, you were content in your seat...

But then the minutes crept into hours...
And we all were moving around! You liked sitting in the front with Daddy and Pic-pic and your sister did a good job of entertaining you...

Thankfully Mommy was fairly prepared and lots of formula already made up for you. We did have to wash a bottle out with water (rather than soap and hot water and a dishwasher), but I'm pretty sure you will survive! I wasn't quite prepared in the diaper category. See, we were planning on stopping at Walmart before our hike up the mountain and so I just brought enough to get us there and maybe a couple more. Thankfully Christopher was a couple cars ahead of us, but unfortunately he's 3 months younger and is still wearing a size 1! We squeezed you into it though and saved the last size 2 for the overnight diaper!! It was a long six hours and towards the end even you had had enough. You wanted to stand up and walk around just like everyone else, but we just could not get you out in that weather. So Mommy did the best she could and cranked up the sound machine that I packed (see, I am a little prepared!) and rocked you as best as I could. Eventually you fell asleep (no so much your sister...) and eventually we started moving. We got a hotel room that night and you were so exhausted you did not even wake up when I transferred you from the car seat to pajamas and then your sleep sak! (again, not so much your sister!).

We picked back up in the car the next morning and eventually we made it to the top of the mountain! Hooray! While you didn't get to ski, you did get to watch your sister...

And you got lots of playtime with Mimi and Pic-pic and Abs!!!

Unfortunately, your Momma is a little obsessed with skiing and taking every opportunity that's available to do it and just wasn't real good with taking pictures! In my defense, we did TRY a couple times to get us all out in the snow to take family pics but either the weather was terrible or someone wasn't there or we were all just too exhausted!! Next year I'll be sure to make up for my lack of camera attention on you!!!

As I said, you hung out a lot with Mimi and Pic-pic stepped up a lot, too. One afternoon we left you napping with Pic-pic and sort of lost track of time. When we got back to the condo, you were awake, just hanging out with Pic-pic! He said you were about to break down, but he was able to calm you down. He keeps talking like that and he may have more opportunities :)

We also stopped by Nona and Papa's for dinner one night and you got some play time in with Christopher (and Abs and Ellie, too!)

Overall, a fun trip even if you didn't get to play in the snow!!! Thanks for being such a sweet, sweet baby, even when you are cramped in a 2 bedroom condo for 6 days!!!

Love you sweet Kate!!!