Happy 10 Month Birthday!

Here I am, again, writing a monthly update post and this time it is double digits!  This is crazy-ness, I tell you!  What a fun month this has been with some BIG changes. My first Mother's day, Kate's first Memorial day, lots of family time, and the start of our first beach vacation.  But this post isn't about any of that stuff, it's about the little (or big) things that Kate is doing and I want to put them all down on paper screen so that I can remember them later.

Stats: 
Well, Kate went to the doctor for her 9 month checkup back on May 15th.  At the time she was around 21 lbs (86%) and i-can't-remember-how-many inches long (95%) so I'm guessing she's still somewhere around there.  They measure head circumference too but I don't remember the numbers- It was around the same percentiles. I guess that means she's pretty proportional, which is probably a good thing.

Sleeping:
Still great, like it has been for the past 7-8 months.  Yes, we realize how lucky we've been.  She has had a bit of a cold for the past 2 weeks and it bothers her some at night.  She's woken herself up 1-2 times coughing but will pretty much go back to sleep on her own.

Lately it seems like she gets tired earlier than she used to.  Normal bedtime used to be 8:30 and this was mostly for selfish reasons.  I don't get home from work until about 6, and Kate is usually napping when I get home.  She wakes up between 6:30 and 7 so that leave 1.5-2 hrs for me to feed her, bathe her and play!  The 8:30 bedtime works well for ME.  Lately she's been getting pretty tired by 7:30 even though she may have only been up from her nap for 30 min to an hour.  Maybe it's because of all of the developmental things she's going through or maybe this is going to be her new normal.  Who knows, but for the past week or so she's been going to bed between 7:30 and 8.  I miss my time with her!

Eating:
Well she WANTS anything and everything, but I'm a nervous Mama so she doesn't always get her way.  That's a good thing though, right?  She will eat and eat and eat and if you have something that you're eating, she'll want to eat some more.

Walking:
This is probably the biggest milestone that Kate reached this month!  She took her first steps around 9.5 months old.  Everyone kept saying that she was SO close to walking, but I really didn't think she actually was.  Sure she was standing really well on her own, but I really thought it would be a few more weeks or even months before she took steps.  Obviously she had other plans.  I think we're in trouble.  These two pictures were taken right after and while she was walking for the first time.  No video, but I did get a few pictures to remember the special night!  Can't you tell she was proud?

Getting Into Everything:

Kate already gets into everything (see the below picture of her getting into my shoes).  I've been told this gets worse when they start walking so let me re-iterate- we're in trouble.  Kate used to stay in whatever room we were in.  She would crawl around and explore, but wouldn't leave.  Not anymore.  I can turn around and she is GONE. 

Even when I'm standing right beside her, it doesn't take 2 seconds before she's doing something she's not supposed to. Just the other night I was unloading the dishwasher.  She pulled up and was standing beside the dishwasher, reaching up for something on the top rack.  She was too short and couldn't quite reach it but was trying with all she had.  I looked away to put up some bottles, and then looked back down and she had climbed up ON the dishwasher and was standing on the door, reaching for what she wanted that was on the top shelf.  Is she really supposed to be able to climb already?  I feel like this is WAY too early.

Disposition/Attitude:
For the most part, Kate is a happy, easy-going baby.  She smiles and laughs all the time.  I don't have much baby experience outside of her, but I don't think this is normal.  Maybe it is, but I feel lucky that she is this way regardless.  I love to hear her little laugh and it's so fun to find out the random things that make her smile.  Lately, she loves it when Kevin holds her and jumps up to touch the ceiling.  See, super random but she loves it!

She DOES have an attitude though! It doesn't come out too often but when it does, I have to try not to laugh at her.  And of course it mainly comes out when she doesn't get her way, or when I take away something that she's not supposed to have.  She'll cry out, shake her head back and forth, and try to head butt or bite me.  And then she will pitch a fit and cry like she just broke her arm.  I was SO surprised the first few times that she did this!  She doesn't go to daycare and she's the oldest of the 3 babies that are in the nursery on Sundays at church, so it's not like she picked it up from another kid.  She just KNOWS it.

Blinking:
For some reason, Kate has just realized what blinking is and that she can actually control it.  She'll "blink", which really means she closes her eyes really slowly and tightly and then opens them back up.  This is the funniest thing, except for the fact that she LOVES to do it when I'm trying to take her picture.

And now, pictures!  Look how much my little girl has changed in the past 10 months.  2 more months til the big O-N-E!  I hope these next 2 months slow down!

And here's the comparison from Month 1 through Month 10.

           

           

            

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

Beach Bloggin'

We finally made it to the beach, and Kate is having SO much fun.  Of course, we all are but this is an extra special vacation since it is her very first beach trip.  Everyone else is either in the hot tub, reading, napping or taking showers so I thought I'd take a few minutes to write about what we've been doing so far.

I've already posted a little bit, but I'll back up and start at the very beginning of our trip.  First, we rented a vehicle for the trip for a few reasons.  First, my car is older, has a lot of miles on it and the AC is making some noises.  We did NOT want to have to deal with car trouble (or no AC) while on vacation.  Kevin has a truck and there is a chance of rain all week so we didn't want to have to deal with THAT.  And, we got a really good deal on renting a small SUV.  So it worked out. So I thought.

I had to work on Friday but the plan was for Kevin to pick up the vehicle on Friday at 4, and meet me at home so we could load the car and get on the road ASAP.  We wanted to drive about 1/2 to the beach on Friday and leave the other 1/2 for Saturday morning.  I called him Friday when I left work and he told me that the rental car agency had given away our vehicle.  They didn't have any SUV's so they gave us a car.  I just knew there was no way all of our stuff would fit in a car.  Kate does not pack lightly.  The whole way home I was trying to think of what we could leave behind.  I made it home and instead of a rental car sitting in our driveway, there was a mini-van!  Kevin had tricked me.  So we didn't have any trouble fitting everything in.

 
Like I posted on Friday, we got held up by traffic and by Kate but we still made it 1/2 way there.  Kate was already asleep when we checked in but of course woke up to check out what was going on.  Oh, and she had to play with the A/C.

We are staying in the Morehead City / Atlantic Beach area of NC, which is right outside of the Outer Banks.  Our house is GREAT and the beach in front of our house is pretty much deserted so we basically have it all to ourselves.  Awesome.  We got here around lunchtime on Saturday and stopped to grab a bite to eat before check-in.  We unloaded our cars and headed straight to the beach.  My dad got his fishing gear out immediately and we all donned our swimsuits.  Perfect weather.

Monday was a fishing day for my dad and a beach day for the rest of us.

Oh yeah. Kate loved eating the sand.  After telling her "No" quite a few times, I think she got the idea that she wasn't really supposed to eat it.  She did get a few handfuls in.  She also liked putting her hands into the ocean and licking off the salt water.  Weirdo.

 We decided to go out to eat Sunday evening and went to McCurdy's.  Kate and I shared shrimp and grits. Kevin went with the fried fish and blackened shrimp.  It was all really good.

Vacation

I am going to try posting from my phone for the very first time. We'll see how this goes...

Today was a bitter sweet day, and I'll explain that in another post some other day, but after work we packed up our rented mini van and left for the beach!

We're going to Atlantic Beach, NC which is about 8 hrs away. Since its such a long drive, we didn't want to attempt it all in one day with our 9 month old. So we left today and the plan was to drive halfway. We were off to a good start until we got held up by two things...

Kate and traffic. About an hr after leaving Kate woke up ready to eat. We'd wanted to get a little further but what could we do. So we went ahead and stopped at Zaxby's for dinner. After getting back on the road, we hit construction. Thee times. Luckily it didn't set us too far back but was still frustrating.

And tomorrow, we are beach bound! Woohoo!

Milestone Day

What an exciting day in our household.  Kate took her first steps (that we know of)!  She had just woken up from her nap so I brought her into the living room and put her down on the floor.  I've been putting her down on her feet and just letting her stand on her own.  She loves it and is just SO proud of herself.  Well today when I did it and let go, she took 3 steps toward me!  Kevin had just left to go to his softball game so I RAN out the door to see if I could catch him before he got out of the driveway.  I barely missed him, but I wasn't sure if Kate would do it again anyway.  She did!  She consistently took 3-4 steps towards me and one time even took 7. Wow. I can't believe my 9 1/2 month old is walking. Crazy.

Here are a few cute pictures that I took Sunday after church...

Memorial Day Weekend- Part 2

Like I said in Part 1, we headed to my parent's lakehouse on Sunday after church to spend the rest of the long Memorial Day weekend.  It was after lunch when we finally made it to their house, but Kate is always up for some food, so she had her first taste of peaches.  It goes without saying that she loved them.  We seriously haven't found one thing that she doesn't like.  Wait- she doesn't like the Stage 3 Turkey & Pasta (or something like that).  I actually tried one of those things and they are pretty gross so I don't really blame her.

We got a quick family picture and then went to change into our bathing suits.

For the rest of the weekend, we did the typical lake stuff- rode on the boat, got in the lake, and ate tons of food.  And of course, we visited with family.  My aunt and uncle were down for a visit, and this was the first time they got to meet Kate, so we really enjoyed spending some time with them.  That's pretty much what we did all day Sunday and Monday, so here are some lake pictures...

Memorial Day Weekend- Part 1

What better way to start off a weekend than to recap the last one, right?  Well, I have WAY too many pictures to share all in one post so this is going to be a two-part post.

Last Friday evening we went to the mall to run errands, find Kevin some swim trunks for our upcoming vacation, and just ended up eating in the food court.  On Saturday, Kate and I went over to the church to help with some spring cleaning activities.  I helped, Kate played.  Her Papa was there and entertained her for a bit with a senior citizen walker.  Kate loved it.

And here's a short video of Kate in action with the walker.  She was surprisingly good at pushing this thing around!

Meanwhile, Kevin was back at home mulching some of the new areas of our yard.  Back during busy season, we bought a ton of lawn timbers on sale at Lowes (50% off!).  One of his projects has been to put the timbers around our house.  We finished laying all of the timbers last weekend, so this past Saturday he worked on spreading mulch in the newest areas.  He was still working when I got home so I changed clothes, put Kate down for a nap, and went out to help him.  It took a WHILE before we finished and we even ran out of mulch at the very end, but I think that this makes a huge improvement in our curb appeal!  Here are some before and after pictures of the front part of the house...

BEFORE:

And, AFTER....

We finished all of the yard work, cleaned up a bit, and then went to Mojo's for dinner.  While Kevin and I enjoyed our burgers, Kate relaxed with her bottle.  And by relaxed, I really mean relaxed.  She just leaned back in her high chair, propped up her bottle, and drank away while she watched us eat.  I guess all of that yard work really wore her out.

After church on Sunday, we went to my parents lake house for the rest of the Memorial Day weekend. I'll recap THAT part of the weekend tomorrow!  Happy Friday!