Livin' Life

And I STILL need to do a Memorial Day post, but it seems like we've just been sooo busy the past few days!  Plus we've been watching the DVR'd Hatfield & McCoy mini-series that came on the History Channel and it has been really, really good.  Anyway, Kevin had a softball game tonight and Kate's already in bed (8:20) so I actually have a few minutes to blog about today! 

Kate took a short nap when I got home, but woke up right before Kevin had to leave for his game.  I took Kate outside to play on the swing since we hadn't done that in a while and she started smiling and bouncing when she realized where we were going.

We played in the yard a little longer and she practiced her standing skills.  She seriously stood all by herself for at least a minute.  She was SO proud of herself. 

And of course, she tried to eat the grass... again.  I spent the next few minutes trying to distract her.

I've said it before, but one of Kate's favorite parts of the day is bath time.

And one of her NEW favorite parts of the day is when I brush her teeth.  She thinks it is so fun and is usually laughing the whole time.  

By the way, I was laughing at myself when I went to take this picture.  I felt like a 15 year old teenager taking a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror, but since Kevin wasn't home there was no other way to get this!  

Sorry for the totally boring post!  At least you got some cute pictures of Kate. :) 

Things I Want to Remember

I really need to do a Memorial Day post, but in the meantime here's a list of a few things that I want to remember... with a few Memorial Day weekend pictures slipped in!

If you've been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that this blog is ALL about Kate. :)  Basically it's her baby book.  Since she is changing so much and doing so many new things, I wanted to do a post on some of these things so I don't ever forget them!  So, here we go...

1. Kate has learned to spit.  Perfect.  One minute she'll be crawling around on the floor, and the next minute she'll be frozen in place (still in the crawling position), looking at the ground.  When I look to see what she's doing, she'll be making a big spit puddle in the floor.  She thinks it's amazing.  I think it's disgusting.

2. She's learned to share, or at least wants me to copy what she's doing.  When I'm playing on the floor with her, she usually has a toy that she is chewing on.  She'll be chewing away and then realize that Mommy's not chewing on anything.  So she'll crawl over to me and try to shove whatever toy she was playing with in my mouth.

3. She has started turning her head to the side to look at you.  It's so cute, but hard to explain.  She'll be staring at you and then just cock her head to the side and smile.

4.  She LEANS where she wants to go and has total faith that you won't drop her.  It's getting pretty bad.  This past weekend, she did it to my dad while he was holding her on the couch.  She just leaned over the edge toward the floor.  Luckily he had his hands on her, or else she would have face-planted onto the floor.  She does this all the time!

 
5. She LOVES her Daddy.  She's a happy, people-person kind of baby anyway, but when her Daddy walks into the room she just lights up.  He gets the best smiles.  Not that I'm jealous or anything.

Sick Girl- Again

I have a sick little girl, again.  She did great until 7 months and now it seems like she is catching a cold just about every month.  She's on #3 right now.  You wouldn't tell from the pictures below that she's sick, but she was pretty pitiful Tuesday night and Wednesday night.  

Kate's such an independent little baby.  Normally, she does NOT want to be held or cuddled.  She does like to be carried around but for the most part, she would rather crawl around, play and basically do things on her own.  However, on Tuesday and Wednesday, all she wanted to do is be held and cuddled.  I'm not going to lie, I like that part.  I don't like the part where I can tell she doesn't feel good.  She would cry, then crawl over to me, get into my lap and just lay her head on me.  So sweet and so sad. 

Tonight she's still congested and stuffy, but at least she's happy again...

Practicing Her Steps

We are SO lucky that Kate's Nana keeps her during the daytime while Kevin and I are at work.  We know Kate is well taken care of, and maybe getting a little spoiled.  That's okay though. I keep hearing that that is what grandparents are for.

Kate has lots of toys at Papa and Nana's house and her Nana picked up this walker toy at a consignment shop.  Because they have hard wood floors, Kate had trouble controlling it and it kept getting away from her.  We have rugs and carpet mostly so we decided to try it out at our house.  The toys on the walker keep distracting her and she would much rather be standing up and playing than pushing it around.  BUT, here's the proof that she can push it and walk, even if it's not intentional!

That's My Girl!

I TOLD you that Kate likes books!  :)  She has a whole box of toys, and what does she pull out?  This is her favorite book right now.  It's a First Words trainer book- a gift from her great grandmother in Charleston.  Kate loves it!

Happy 9 Month Birthday!

I'm a little late in posting this, but oh well.  Kate turned 9 months old on May 10th so here is her monthly update (finally)!

She went to the doctor the day after she turned 9 months old and weighed 21 lbs 2 oz, which put her in the 89% for her weight.  She was 29 1/3 inches long, which put her in the 95% for her height.  Can't remember her head circumference but it was along the same percentiles.  I guess to sum up the stats, she's definitely still on track for being much taller than her 5' 1" Mama.  

She LOVES to eat and it does seem like she's wanting less and less formula and more and more solids.  She definitely wants table foods, and we try to let her have small tastes of our meals.   

She still sleeps well at nights.  Normally she goes to bed between 8 and 8:30 and wakes up around 7 or 7:30 in the mornings.  Naps are another story.   She hasn't been napping as well the past week during the day and basically fights taking a nap.  Then she'll go to sleep as soon as Kevin gets home with her and then sleep from 5:30 til 7:45ish.  I've had to wake her up from naps to feed her dinner and give her a bath before bed.  So we're still working on the whole napping thing.  However, today she took a 4 hour nap so maybe she was just saving it all up for the weekend. 

We THINK she's teething and are looking for her top teeth to pop through any day now.  She's been putting her hands in her mouth a lot- especially her thumb.  She'll have her thumb in her mouth facing up and just push against her top gums.  She hasn't been especially fussy but she's had a LOT of dirty diapers the past week.  Isn't that a sign of teething too?  So it's either the teething, or those sweet potato puffs that we just realized were sweet potato.  :) 

And what's a monthly update without lots of pictures?  So, here they are...

Oh Kate, you've grown SO much in the past 9 months. I can't believe that in just a few more months, we will be celebrating you being one year old!

           

           

            

 

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Haven't done this in a while but I'm jumping back on the Wednesday bandwagon.

Here we go!  Here's what I'm loving this Wednesday.

1.  I am more of a chap stick or lip balm girl.  Occasionally I'll put a little color on my lips but I don't usually buy lipsticks.  I LOVE Burt's Bees lip products.  I have a ton of them, but this is my latest favorite...

It's pink grapefruit-  so yummy, refreshing and perfect for summer. 

2. I LOVE this all-purpose cleaner by Method.  All of the cleaning products are (now) locked up and baby proofed, but this brand is also non-toxic, which is a big plus with a baby in the house.   And it cleans great!

3. Baby pig tails. So fun!

4.  Our new baby-containment system when we're working in the yard.  Technically it's not new, this was just one of the first times we brought it outside.  Kate wasn't too thrilled with her situation.  She'd have rather been eating grass.

5. This post by Kevin about my first Mother's Day as a Mommy.

6. Our upcoming beach vacation!  3.5 weeks and counting!

What are YOU loving this Wednesday?

Clemson or UGA?

As most of you know, I'm a Clemson fan and Kevin is a Georgia fan.  I come from a BIG family of Clemson fans, but Kevin is basically the only Georgia fan on either side of our family.  So he's a bit outnumbered.  However, he is determined that Kate will have an equal opportunity to choose which team she likes.  Just our luck, she'll end up being a Gamecock fan and make us both mad. :)

Anyway, a friend of our gave us this Clemson pillow pet for Kate.

However, Kevin wouldn't let me give it to Kate until he found the matching UGA counterpart. 

Instead of just giving them to Kate, we decided to put them on the floor and see which one she went to first.  Well, you can't tell it from the pictures but she definitely chose the Clemson one!  That's my girl!

And even when they were stacked, she moved the Georgia one out of the way to get to the Clemson one.

Future CLEMSON fan!  Go tigers.

Playing Around With Pictures

After playing around with Pinterest, I ran across this blog (Mommy's Camera) and decided to try my hand at photo editing.  You know, with all of this new free time.  :)  Not sure just how much I'll really play around with this but at least it was pretty easy and fun. I have absolutely ZERO photography experience unless you count that 7th grade photography class where we used 20 year old cameras and developed the film ourselves.  I'm guessing that probably doesn't count.  I also don't have a fancy camera, just a regular old Canon PowerShot.  I love my camera but it's just a basic point and shoot camera- exactly what I need.  So here's what I did...

Ever see those pictures where the kid is in focus, but the background is all blurred out?  I always wondered how that was done.  I'm sure you can take that type of picture with a fancy camera and a little bit of instruction, but here's my attempt using a free program (GIMP).  Before and After...

I used this tutorial and it was really easy to follow.  Definitely a rough first attempt but it took about 10 minutes, and I did it on my laptop with just the touchpad instead of a real mouse.  Anybody know of any easy/simple photo tricks?  Or any Canon PowerShot tips?

Mother's Day Weekend

First, Happy Mother's Day to my mom!  I am so lucky to be your daughter and hope that I can be as good of a mom to Kate as you are to me. :)

This was my first Mother's Day as a mom myself, so it was pretty special.  On Friday, Kevin and I headed to some nearby outlets to get my Mother's Day gift- some new clothes and tennis shoes.  :)  We ate dinner at Cook Out and of course had to get milkshakes.  I got an orange creamsicle milkshake and it was SO good.  We were walking out to the car and I had Kate in one hand and my milkshake in the other.  Kate was reaching for it SO hard.  Somehow, Kevin talked me into giving her some.  I should have known better, but I gave in.  She made the craziest face on her first taste, but she loved it.  She kept reaching for more, so she wasn't satisfied with the few little tastes that we gave her and pitched the biggest fit when we stopped.  Seriously, I haven't seen her cry this hard since the cake incident.  

On Saturday, we celebrated Mother's Day with my mom, dad and sister.  They came up to visit for the day.  We all met up at our house right around the time Kate woke up (10:30ish) and gave my mom her gift.  My mom also gave ME a pot of pretty flowers!  What a nice surprise.   

We ate lunch downtown for a change and then took Kate to the zoo for the very first time.  Our city has a nice zoo and it was actually the first time that I've ever been there (that I remember).  It's not huge, and nothing like Riverbank Zoo in Columbia but it was still good and took us a little over an hour and a half to see everything.  Kate was pumped.  Can't you tell? 

First stop was the elephants. 

And then giraffes.  Probably my favorite. 

Snakes and other reptiles...



Lions...

I picked on Kevin because while all of us were oohh-ing and ahhh-ing over the animals, he was reading all about them.  We just wanted to look.  He apparently wanted to learn. Nerd.

I saved the best for last.  The monkeys.  Specifically, the Gibbon Monkeys.  When we got close to this exhibit, these monkeys started making SO much noise and they were very loud.  Kate just stared at them at first...

Then she wasn't quite sure what to make of all the noise...

And then she was pretty sure she didn't like them...

Once we backed away from the monkey enclosure, she continued to watch them warily.  

I've got tons more pictures, but since I've already shared about a hundred, I'll stop and just share two more.  Here is a picture of my me, my mom, and my sister.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

And one of me and Kate on my first Mother's Day.