Michelle and Rowan

September 30, 2008

So my best friend from College, Michelle, was here with her son, Rowan. Her hubby, Brent, couldn't make it so it was just the girls and the babies. We had a great time hanging out, talking baby, and shopping. We ended up buying them matching outfits, so dang cute! We bought them bigger sizes so they'll fit around Christmas. Rowan is 6 months old and super fun. When they first got into town he was cracking up at me tickling Katherine and playing peek-a-boo with her.

I know it's the 2000's and all, but I kind of think we should do an arranged marriage for these two...well maybe not but that sure would be fun! If nothing else I hope they grow up knowing each other and become great friends like their mama's.

After Michelle and Rowan headed out of town Katherine and I decorated for Halloween. We're super excited for her first Halloween. I think we're going to go to a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins. It'll be a fun tradition to start...much more fun, for her, as she gets older than going to Safeway.

A Snack and a Great Book

September 29, 2008

I spent most of last week making baby food. I only have 2 freezing trays, and it takes 8 hours for puree to freeze, so I could only make 2 foods a day. I would have much preferred to spend a few hours one day and knock it all out, but alas you can only do what you can do. None the less, I was able to get a good stock made. Once frozen the food has about a 2 month life span so making 2 trays of each kind of food seems to work best for time frame purposes as well as giving her good variety. Katherine now has apples, black beans, broccoli, butternut squash, cauliflower, nectarines, peaches, pears, sweet potato and zucchini. I need to make more green peas and acorn squash as she blew through those. She also gets fresh banana when I have it on hand. Some of the foods have oatmeal or rice cereal added in as they were not as thick as they needed to be once pureed. This is great in my opinion, kill two birds with one stone.

After she makes her food selection she likes to pick out a good book to read. As yo can see, she has quite the selection to choose from. I thought I was cleaver by leaving the bottom shelves empty, but once she started pulling herself up I realized I was doomed...as were my books!

My good friend Michelle and her son, Rowan, are coming up tonight. It'll be great to see them and fun to see how Katherine and Rowan interact. They saw each other about a month ago. I'm sure I'll have some cute pics to post in a few days.

Lynx Lake Camping Trip

So friends of ours just went camping at Lynx lake and their pictures were amazing! We'd never heard of this lake, so we decided to get outta town and go check it out.

We drove up Monday evening, arriving around 7pm. We were very pleased at the camp site; very beautiful, private, quiet as it was a Monday and lots of natural land. It also had running water and bathroom, which for us aren't a must, but nice none the less. We set up camp and hung out. Katherine was more than adorable, whatever that word may be, crawling all over inside the tent in her purple footie pajamas.

We were extra adventurous this time and brought the pups too. We had Katherine sleeping in her tub and the puppies sleeping outside the tent. Neither of these sleeping arrangements ended up lasting through the night. The dogs were being very good, not barking, but growling at every lizard, bird, etc so I got up and put them in the 4 runner with the windows cracked. They are city dogs after all.

Katherine did great in her tub but when I got her out to feed her her arms were rather cold; even though the rest of her was nice and toasty. She had long sleeves on and socks over her hands, but I couldn't keep a blanket over her arms so they were cold. After she ate we let her sleep in between us the rest of the night. This was very cute but we did not sleep well the rest of the night for obvious reasons. Oh well, that's what naps are for.



We got up bright and early, actually watched the sun come up from the tent door. We had donuts in bed and then decided to go check out the lake and let the puppies play. I got Katherine all strapped into the chest pack and then realized I was hot. Instead of taking her off to take off my sweatshirt I thought I could get it off with her strapped onto my chest. I did it, but I got stuck and had to have Nathan rescue me...well us really.


The lake was gorgeous and the dogs loved it. Nathan threw a racket ball we'd brought and then had a ball fetching it in the lake. We pretended not to know that dogs must be leashed at all times...surely that doesn't include when they are playing in the lake...right? :)

After our walk/swim we went back to camp to get packed up. We put a sleeping bag in Katherine's tub and her inside it so we could both pack up. It worked beautifully until she started standing up. We were almost done anyways.

We clocked the drive, it's 65 miles door to door, which is wonderful and much better than going all the way up to Flagstaff. It's my new favorite camping spot!

First Steps

Katherine is starting to walk, with lots of help from Mommy or Daddy. She likes to high knee march at this point, hopefully that will change as she gets better at it...I may be a tad embarrassed if my 5 year old marched everywhere she went...

She is doing great at pulling herself up and is trying it out on more and more items. She's learned how to pull herself up in the crib too so it's a whole new ball game at nap time, which for some reason she tends to despise.

This morning Nathan put her down for a nap as she was cranky, rubbing her eyes etc. I got in the shower when he put her down and when I got out she was still screaming full tilt. Nathan said she was standing in her crib screaming. I went to check on her a few minutes later and she was down to her knees, head down in an exhausted defeated position, holding on to the crib rail with one little hand...screaming. This child! I picked her up and she collapsed onto my shoulder. Poor little munchkin. As she calmed down, however, she became more awake. I didn't try to put her back down but let her come get ready with me instead. She won that battle but we'll win the war, I'm almost positive!

As Katherine is almost 8 months we're starting to give her bites of banana or single peas to let her figure out "solid" or non-mushed foods. She tends to gag on anything not pureed so needs to get used to different textures and chewing. So far they intrigue her but that's about it. I gave her 1/2 a banana this morning and under Nathan's watchful eye she demolished it covering her tray and herself in a banana paste. I don't think any of it got into her mouth though. Not ready yet I guess?

One of her favorite past times is Kitty Hunting. She chases Lee all over the house. It's good for both of them I guess...she practices crawling and Lee is getting some exercise!

This weekend I am going to make a whole lotta baby foods. We're down to squash, green peas and sweet potato so I need to get cracking. I'll let you all know how she likes the new foods we'll be giving her.

Sitting and Standing

September 16, 2008

Katherine has been a busy girl this last week or two. She started sitting up on her own about a week ago. It's so crazy. All of a sudden she could go from her belly to her knees to her butt! So cute to watch and so amazing that it just takes enough time for her little muscles to develop and get coordinated enough and then "Poof!" She can do something new!

Today is a big day; she pulled herself up to a standing position all by herself! We video taped it on the cam-corder and then video taped the T.V. so the quality is a bit lacking. She had started to try a few days ago and then today while we were in the front living room she did it! She is very considerate to do it for the first time on my day off so I was able to be there for her big moment.

She's still not crawling with her belly off the floor. She'll take a few "steps" on her hands and knees and then drop to her belly as she can move faster that way.

Colorado Adventures

September 11, 2008

Colorado was a success!

The Bradley training was great, albeit very long days. Nathan would drive me to class. We'd leave Kelly's at about 7:30am and get home around 10:30- 11:00 pm. He'd drive me so he could have the rental car during the day. Kelly, Nathan and Kate would come visit me for lunch or dinner sometimes, which was nice, but for the most part Nathan had the baby with him so I could concentrate and take notes. I did keep her one day though as he and Kelly had gone up to the New Belgium Brewery and discovered the Fat Tire Festival was the next day. I took Katherine that day so Daddy could go play without having to worry about her (plus that way I didn't have to worry about them while in class).

I have a few things left to finish up and then I'll get my provisional teaching, meaning I can start teaching my first class but have to report back to the Academy weekly. I have to do 2 classes like that and then I become a full fledged teacher. If anyone knows of a pregnant couple interested in taking pregnancy education classes, feel free to pass along my name! From what other teachers have told me it's kind of hard to find couples for your first few classes as most of your couples tend to be word of mouth referrals once you're up and going.

We went to Ella's 2 year birthday party on Sunday, which was super cute and fun. It was a tutu party so Kate had a baby tutu on as well as the other girls as the party. She loved to suck on it, which was disgusting as the mesh holds the spit, making a soaking wet glop of material. We got some cute pic's of her "doing" the obstacle course. Okay she only made it through the first tunnel, after about 5 minutes of some serious coaching from Mom, but it was fun to watch non the less. We also got some cute pic's of all of Tally's kids and Katherine.

The only bummer about Colorado is Katherine got sick there. I'm not sure if it was from the kids at the party, two were sick, or something else, but it sucked. She slept like crap Sunday night, had a fever on the plain ride home on Monday, and then slept HORRIBLE on Monday night. I had to go to a La Leche League meeting on Monday night and when I got home around 9pm she was hysterical. We spent the whole night with her in our bed tossing and turning. We'd take turns getting up to walk with her.

The next morning her fever had broken and she was acting so much happier. I took her on errands with me so Nathan could get some sleep. When I got back her fever was back and she was miserable. I got her an apt at the doc's. We took her in and were told she has a virus. She still had a fever and white spots on her throat - poor baby. As it was a virus there is nothing you can do but let it run its course and try to keep her as comfortable as possible. That night I had to go shadow a Bradley class and when I got home at 11pm I took her so Nathan could go to bed (he was exhausted) and was up and down with her until about 2:30am. She was miserable, hot, didn't want to eat, couldn't sleep....it was like the first few days she was home again! I found myself holding her, pacing trying to calm her down and ending up crying with her as I couldn't make her feel better. I got Natan up at 2:30 as I need to get some sleep so I could function at work the next day. I didn't see either of them again until about 7:30am when he brought her in to eat. He told me he'd packed her up in the car and driven from 3am -7am as that's the only way she'd sleep. If he stopped to get coffee or even pee on the side of the road she'd wake up screaming. What a good Daddy!

Yesterday was okay, last night better, and today she seems much better. We're both hoping and praying for sleep tonight. You never realize how amazing sleep is until you can't get any!