Weekend Collage

I decided to do a couple of collages to recap our weekend!  

Here is a summary of the first collage below:

Top-Left: On Saturday, we decided on the spur of the moment to make a trip to some outlets that are about an hour away from our house.  Turns out it was a good decision, because I found two skirts for work- one of which is a Clemson orange skirt. :) This picture was while we were shopping at the outlets. 

Top-Middle and Top-Right: Since Kate found her "stash" of food in our dining room on Friday, I cleaned out a cabinet and moved all her food into the kitchen.  I thought it would be safe- but she found it again!  And of course this time she walked all over the house with TWO cups of peaches. 

Middle-Left and Center: Later that night, we went to eat at Chipotle with Ken, Angela and Kristi.  Kate loved the guacamole.  I posted a video earlier today of her eating it and asking for "more".  You can see it here.

Middle-Right and Bottom Row: After we ate dinner, we walked around some of the shops that were in the area.  One of the stores was a party store so we stopped in to look for plates for Kate's upcoming party.  Kate located some little squishy soccer balls and walked all over the place holding these.  Can you see the theme of her wanting something in each hand when she's walking?  

These pictures are a little out of order, but that's okay.

Top-Left:  On Sunday, after Kate's short nap (and mine too), I took Kate outside on the swing.  She loved it and would have stayed out there a lot longer if I'd let her.  It was too hot for me though!

Top-Middle: Saturday afternoon Kate took a 4 hour nap!  I was pretty productive.  Sort of.  I baby-proofed the cabinets under our sink since that is where we keep all of our cleaning supplies.  It took me 30 minutes to install ONE of these things!

Top-Right: I pulled out my embroidery machine because I wanted to put a monogram on a cute dress that I found for Kate at a consignment shop.  The monogram itself turned out great.  However, I did not realize that when I was putting the image from my computer to my machine, it flipped the design.  So, the monogram went onto the dress up/down instead of side/side.  (See bottom-middle picture).  No good.  I'm definitely still trying to figure out my machine. At least it was a cheap dress.

Middle-Left: Kate's lunch on Saturday.  She normally loves green beans.  These were some of the Gerber pre-packaged green beans though, and I just couldn't get her to eat them.  So I mixed in some Cheerios, thinking I would trick her into eating them.  She picked out the Cheerios.  Kate-1 Mom-0.

Center: This was taken before we met some friends for dinner Friday evening.  I just thought it was cute.  Kate LOVES her Daddy!

Middle-Right: Sunday evening bath time.  Even in the bathtub, her favorite toy is a book. :)

Bottom-Left: Another swing picture from today after church.

Bottom-Middle: The messed-up monogram dress.

Bottom-Right: Kate was exhausted after church.  She didn't even last the 5 minute drive home, and didn't wake up when I carried her inside.

And that was our weekend!  Did YOU do anything fun this weekend?  Sometimes the weekends where you stay around your home are the best.  :)

"More", Please.

I've written about how Kate has gotten pretty good at signing "more" when she's eating.  We went to Chipotle for dinner last night with Ken, Angela and Kristi.  Angela had a little cup of guacamole and of course Kate had to have some.  After each bite she would sign "more", as if to say "I'm not done yet!".

Randoms

After work on Thursday we went to Lowe's to check out their swing sets.  Somebody has a birthday coming up. :)  While we were there, I saw a Kate-sized chair in PINK.  I just had to get a picture. 

I know that one day she will hate the camera, and hate having me take so many pictures of her, but I am loving that right now anytime she tries something new, the smile is automatic.

Friday night we met some friends for dinner. We met them at 6:45 which is right about the time Kate normally eats dinner each night.  As we were getting ready to go, Kate walked into our dining room and found her "stash" of food.  She pulled out a cup of peaches and walked all over the house with it, trying to get us to open it.  When we wouldn't, she tried to get into it herself.  Luckily she was unsuccessful.  She pitched a fit when I took it away from her so we could get in the car!

 

Sneak Peak

Kate turns ONE in about 2.5 weeks. Ahh!  We've done a pretty good job of getting her pictures made every few months or so, and this morning I met my friend Linsey for Kate's one year pictures.  It's a little early, but I wanted to go ahead and have them made so I can get some printed for her party.  Anyway, while Linsey was snapping away I just had to pull out my iPhone to get a few pictures myself.  So, here is a sneak peak of Kate's one year pictures. :)

Think she enjoyed it?  This was just a cupcake.  I can't wait to see how much she enjoys her cake!

Sunday Sunday

Sunday was definitely NOT a relaxing day.  It was great, but it was another a packed day.  BUSY!  We went to church Sunday morning, then to lunch with family and friends, then BACK to church for baptism, and then out to eat for dinner with Ken and Angela (Kevin's brother and his wife).  


After the baptisms, we let Kate and the other kids play around in the water while it was draining. She loved it.  Here are some pictures from the baptism of Kate with her Uncle Ken, with her Daddy and with her Papa. 

We went to Papas and Beer for dinner Sunday night and Kate LOVED the guacamole.  So much that it was the only thing she wanted to eat.  She would shake her head at anything else, but would open her mouth wide when she saw the green guacamole!  We're going to have to order it just for her the next time we go.

And I had to share these next two pictures just because I think they are so cute!  I painted Kate's toes Sunday afternoon.  She was totally calm and just watched me paint her toes.  I really couldn't believe that she just let me do it, but she did.

Such a Slacker

I promise this isn't going to turn into one of those blogs where all I do is put up a Monday post to recap our weekend.  Promise! We've been busy, busy, busy and I honestly just haven't felt like blogging when I have had some down time.  But, now I do so here is what we've been up to, and some cute pictures of Kate!

On Friday, we went to my home town for a surprise birthday party for an old friend.  My parent's watched Kate while we went to the party!  No pictures, but we had a good time and I'm pretty sure my mom and dad had fun playing with Kate. :)

Saturday Kate slept in.  I just love how she sleeps.  So adorable.  I can't even imagine how this is comfortable though!

Then, we did housework and yard work.  While I was cleaning, Kate pulled the box of baking soda off of the counter that I was using to clean.  This was the aftermath...

At one of my good friend's suggestion, I bought Kate some pasta pickups.  She loves them.  The ones she tried first were spinach and cheese, and she's definitely a fan.

 Saturday evening we went to some friend's house for dinner.  We had such a good time with them, and their kids were great with Kate.  Their little boy even shared his banana with Kate... he definitely knew the way to her heart! 

I'll post more about our weekend tomorrow evening, but we definitely had a good Saturday!

Birthdays, Boats, and Lemons

Yesterday was my father-in-law's birthday and today is my Dad's birthday.  So, happy birthday to both of you!

This past weekend we went to the lake to visit my parents and to celebrate my Dad's birthday.  The weather finally cleared up and we were able to go out on the pontoon boat Saturday afternoon.  Kate loved riding, but she REALLY loved to drive. 

We stopped at a nice place to eat lunch.  Also one of Kate's favorite parts of being on the boat.

We brought the dogs along for the ride, although it will probably be their last one.  We had a near disaster when Kristi was trying to get back on the front of the boat.  She was getting onto the boat on the front part where it was very shallow.  She had one leg on the boat and the other was still hanging off.  As she was pulling herself up, the dogs decided they wanted on too.  They ran full force, jumped, and hit her leg that was hanging off of the boat.  Her leg smashed into the metal siding around the outside.  I really thought her leg was broken.  There was a big dent in her shin and you really don't have any fat on your shin, so I thought it just had to be the bone that was broken.  Luckily it wasn't and she was okay.  It did swell up pretty big though.

We stayed around until about 3:30 and then decided to head home.  Kate needed a nap, so we decided to let her sleep on the way home.

We had church Sunday morning and then had a few Leadership and Children's meetings Sunday afternoon.  Afterward, we went to Salsarita's for dinner with Kevin's brother Ken and his wife, Angela.  Kate was playing with my camera case in the car, so I forgot to bring my camera inside the restaurant.  BUT I did have my cell phone, so I got a few pictures of Kate trying a lime and a lemon.

 Honestly, she didn't react to it as strongly as I thought she would.  She did make a face initially, but then just kept wanting to eat more and more of them!

Happy 11 Month Birthday!

Well Kate is 11 months old.  Actually, she was 11 months old on July 10th, but that's besides the point. She has grown so much and learned so many new things even in the last few weeks.

Walking
In the past 2 weeks, Kate has started walking really well.  It's crazy.  She would take a few steps here and there before, but then all of a sudden she just started walking.  Everywhere.  And not "sort of" walking, but full out walking.  Like from one end of the house to the other.
The whole walking thing definitely gave her a sense of independence.  When she was just crawling, she'd basically stay in the same room that we were in.  She wanted us to pretty much be in her sight.  Now, she'll just take off and she doesn't care where we are.

 Eating
Everything.  That pretty much sums up what Kate's eating.  We basically feed her whatever we are eating, as long as it doesn't have some of the "no-no" foods for now (nuts, shellfish, honey, strawberries, etc).  She loves real food and would much rather have that than baby food.  For lunch today she had rice & gravy, green beans, crowder peas, bread and of course a little peach cobbler.  Basically she just ate some of my food.  Sorry for Kevin because since Kate and I are sharing food, this really means he's not getting my leftovers anymore.  :)

Sleeping
There's really no need for me to update anything on this since her sleep schedule has been the same for a long time, but just so I remember- she's still sleeping well!  She normally goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 and will sleep until we wake her up at 7:30.  After her bottle in the morning, she will go back down and sleep until her Daddy gets her up to take her to her Nana's house.  She takes a nap when I get home from work, and then I usually have to wake her up for dinner and a bath.

Waving, Clapping & "More"
Kate pretty much has the waving thing down.  If you tell her to wave or to tell someone "hi" or "bye", she will usually wave.  In the past week, she's started clapping a lot.  She'll do it when you ask her to, or whenever she hears music.  She also has started signing "more" when she wants more food.  She definitely used that sign about 100 times at lunch today.  My girl likes to eat.

Clapping

Waving

Teeth
Kate has 7.5 teeth and they HURT.  She has her 4 bottom teeth, 3 top teeth, and 1 top tooth that has just broken the surface.  She has bitten me a couple of times by accident, and has TRIED to bite me a few times on purpose.  She definitely has a bit of a temper.
Also, now that she has teeth on both the top AND the bottom, she's started grinding them together.  It is so loud that you can hear it. It makes me shudder!  How do you get a 11 month old to quit!?  Kevin keeps saying "at least it's only her baby teeth!"  Well, true but it's still not good.

And now after that long summary of the developmental changes that Kate has made in the past month, here is just how much she has actually grown over the past 11 months!  Crazy. :)

           

           

            

 

 

I can't believe that next month I'll be using the very last sticker and taking her last monthly pictures.  Maybe I'll keep it up, but I'm pretty impressed that I was able to keep it up for 11 months so far.