Standing Ovation

The most frequently asked question I get about Kate is, "Is she crawling yet?" The answer is still no, but she makes little attempts at movement. Such as the other day when I set her down near this basket and went into the kitchen. I came back to fine this: 

Yeah, she was trying to bite the prong on the basket. Not the safest thing considering her precarious position:)

I sat her back down and she immediately pulled back up. 

Two Saturdays ago Kate woke up and started clapping! I was so thrilled because it's super cute and I couldn't figure out how she had learned. I thought she was brilliant until I found out Minnie had been showing her how the night before:) It's still one of the cutest things I've ever seen her do. All I have to do now is say, "Yaaay!" and she'll start up (most of the time.)

Rather then practicing crawling, Kate LOVES to stand up holding onto the furniture.

It's the only thing she'll do happily for any length of time right now. You can just tell she is so

proud of herself! She does knee bends and head bops and pounds the table.

The past two Sundays she's fallen asleep on the way home from church and just keeps

sleeping when David carries her inside. It's so sweet!

Tomorrow I am heading over to Knoxville with the Seavers (Dave is joining us on Friday:)

There will be lots of fun pictures when we get home!

"Mama, my hair's a mess!"

Kate is sticking her tongue out in these because she is feeling her little tooth which has finally broken the surface! 

8 Months

A quick note: Over the past months my purpose for this blog has distilled to having it as a way for family and friends to stay up to date on Kate and for me to keep a little record for my future use. There are many other things of great priority and importance going on in my life but I just don't want to use this blog for any of that. That's why I only post pictures and updates on Kate and on fun trips/activities we've had as a family:) I would rather save the "other stuff" for face to face (or phone to phone:) times.

8 months has brought a lot of changes to our Katina (one of my favorite nicknames for her)! She suddenly seems like a "little girl" baby, not a "baby" baby. Her greatest accomplishment this month has been to start consistently sleeping through the night. I thought that once a baby stops getting up to eat at night (which happened 6 months ago) they would sleep through the night every night. Haha, First Time Mom! For many months there were any number of things that she would wake up for (needing her paci back being the most common.) Most recently she was waking in the middle of the night and taking a full 2 hours to go back to sleep. Not fun. However, now she is able to find her paci on her own (most of the time) and she rarely wakes at night anymore! 

Just this week she is starting to be able to pick things up with her thumb and forefinger and put them in her mouth. Yesterday she stuffed her mouth full of cheerios! I was worried she would choke on them so I pulled some out, hehe. Sometimes she thinks she has gotten something in her mouth and sits there happily "eating" it while the piece of food still is in her hand. That always makes me laugh!

She will now "dance" (bob up and down/rock back and forth) when you sing to her or when she is happy. It's really fun. 

Still no crawling but she is moving in that direction I think. She is getting stronger and stronger.

Her current favorite playtime things are to take all the jewelry out of my little basket I keep stuff in, to shake anything you give her, and to try and drink out of a sippy cup. She also is delighted with her own image in the mirror:)

She expresses frustration and anger now with a loud whine/growl. She knows what she wants!

I really feel like she is my little buddy more then ever and each day I get so much enjoyment out of her. Children really are such a gift from the Lord!

Playing with my calendar. She was shaking it and pulling it up over her face and babbling at it.
Mama and her Blue Eyes!
Last night the weather was lovely and breezy and Kate was so cheerful. We spent some family time in the backyard. She really needed her bath after that. She was filthy!





Bath time is one of our favorite times of day! Kate kicks and splashes like crazy! I love watching her and it gets out some wiggles before bed time
Her hair is growing so much!

My "Chleotubdra"

Pool Time

Kate and I went to the pool with Marilyn (Minnie) and Aunt Jeni and Aunt Keri on Tuesday. Other then a brief dip at Rekindle, it was Kate's first time at the pool! I think she is going to be quite the water bug! She splashed and cooed and dipped her face in the water without crying. She did some pseudo kicking:) She played with the water that was refilling the pool and chewed on other kid's toys. All in all it was quite a success! I am sure we are going to be spending many hours at the pool in the weeks and years to come:)

The Girl Loves Her Food!

Jumping Bean

7 Months of Fun

**this is a very long update. I understand if you don't want to read all of it**

Our Katina has been around for 7 months now! I think the last month has been one of the most change filled that we've experienced with her. She is still growing and growing at the 75% for height and weight! 

I had some trouble getting her started on baby cereal. She seemed to react badly to the cereal and so we started very slowly. Then, Carolyn recommended HappyBellies baby cereal and she has done GREAT. Kate absolutely loves eating:) She has loved every single type of baby food I've given her with a seeming preference towards squash, peas, and apples. Today I tried giving her some mashed up avocado and she hated it! The first thing she hated. Horrible faces, spitting it out, gagging, and finally spitting it up. We'll leave that alone for awhile. She is eating like a pro twice a day for now. She has also been enjoying small bits of Ritz crackers that I put in her mouth. She can't pick them up yet but she knows when they're coming and opens her mouth SO wide, like a baby bird. It's really fun. She chews them very well even though she still doesn't have even one tooth. 

She sits beautifully for very long periods of time and tries really hard to reach toys that move out of her reach but no lunging or getting on all fours yet. That's fine with me! I like knowing she has to stay in one place. She stays happy this way for a long time, shaking and chewing on toys. I think I do need to start getting some more involved toys for her though because she seems to be getting a little tired of the chewy type toys. I had to put away her little play mat with hanging toys because she wouldn't play in it anymore. That was a sad day since it was the first thing she played with!

On the behavior front, Kate is starting to show strong displeasure (i.e. a fit) when we take away something she is really enjoying. For now we are just firmly telling her "no" and then distracting her:)

In vocal news, she says "da da" very well, blows raspberries with the best of them, and still REALLY enjoys hearing herself scream! She also cracks up at her toys a lot which is adorable.

The BIGGEST change though, is that she sleeps with no more swaddle blanket!!! And it was accomplished with no tears for either of us! I was so anxious for so long that Kate would sleep in her swaddle forever or that weaning her from it would be a terrible ordeal. But, I laid her down for her nap one day on her tummy as an experiment and she did great. I kept doing that just for naps for a week or two and then two nights ago went to tummy for night sleep and she slept 11 hours! Presto, done with the swaddle. I'm so grateful to the Lord that He made it so peaceful!

I think that is all the major updates, so, here are pictures:)

Morning Playtime.

 I chuckle so much about the picture below:) Her hair has been sticking out on the sides recently and it looks so funny. This picture captured it well.

Kate loves playing with the basket that holds her changing stuff. On this particular day she pulled everything out and got bored and proceeded to put her head halfway under the couch. She pulled it out before I could get the picture.

The picture below was after her first night sleeping on her tummy. Her eyes got so swollen from being face down! I think she looks so different then normal, but still super cute:)

Today Lizzy and I took the babies to The Bradford Store to let them play a little bit. It was so fun! Jason and Kate really light up whenever they see each other! They had a lot of fun at this kids play area. The store is so kind to let you just hang out.

Kate went right for these sunglasses when she saw them in the basket. I put them on her and she left them alone.

Flirting with Jason...

He was mesmerized...

First time with a Barbie. Barbie got chewed on.

Way more interested in the paper signs then smiling

I had her sitting here until she reached forward and almost flipped out!

Disgruntled, "the sun is too bright," look:)

Well, there is the end of the giant update!