Stick Snatcher

Kate has come to love our dogs.  Kevin throws a ball for them in the yard each night, and Kate likes to watch them and will try to go get them. 

Our dogs are big.  Max is about 80lbs and Cooper is about 100lbs.  They're pretty gentle with Kate though.  Max pretty much stays out of her way.  Cooper on the other hand... Well, that's a different story.  He likes to walk RIGHT beside her when she's walking around.  He looks like he's trying to protect her, but I think it just gets on her nerves.  If she trips and falls down, he has to sniff her out to make sure she's okay.  He's so careful with her, but he's just all over her.  

Anyway, Kate and I were walking around the yard the other day and she picked up a small stick.  It was probably 6-8 inches long and about as thick as my pinky.  Our dogs LOVE sticks.  They basically eat them.  Since Cooper was RIGHT THERE with Kate when she picked up the stick, of course he noticed it.  Here is the progression of what happened...

Kate picks up the stick and starts walking....

Cooper is eyeing the stick...

Still eyeing the stick...

And now trying to take the stick...

But Kate won the first "battle"....

Round 2...

Cooper won this one. It's hard to really see the stick, but it's sticking out of his mouth...

And now he's eating it...

It broke and the big half fell to the ground, so Kate tried to get it back...

But Cooper was too quick for her. 

Don't worry.  We have plenty of sticks in our yard.  It only took Kate about 2 seconds to find another one.

Happy 13 Month Birthday

Kate is 13 months old today!!  I just couldn't stop with the monthly updates. :) Not promising that I'll do this every month, but it seems like Kate is doing new things every single day, and I don't want to forget them.  So, here we go...

I think this time I'm just going to list the "big" things that I want to remember.

Says Mama constantly.  Is starting to say "dog", but that's not what it sounds like. It sounds more like "guh", but she is definitely talking about dogs when she says it.  She can also say Papa, and starts to say "book", but it really doesn't sound like book.

Can point to her nose and hair, and also Mama's nose and hair. She loves playing with my hair and is surprisingly gentle with it.

Loves to dance when she hears music. She gets into it.  Especially if it's TobyMac.

Tries to "run" everywhere she goes.  Hasn't quite gotten the hang of it yet, so she takes a lot of tumbles.

LOVES the opening/intro to the TV show Rawhide.  She "sings" and dances when it comes on.

Loves my keys and wallet.  Definitely have to get her her own wallet and fill it with fake cards.

Wears a Size 4 diaper, and 18 month clothes.

Visited the eye doctor this month because her eyes still have a tendency to turn inward sometimes (ie- she goes cross eyed).  Even though the doctor didn't give us the all-clear, he still gave us some pretty good news.  For the next 6 months we're just going to keep an eye on it, and will try to pay attention to when her eyes are like this.  We'll try to see if her eyes do it only when she's tired, sick, etc.  Hopefully she will have the problem less and less, and we will not have to do any corrective measures in 6 months.  That's what we're praying for!

When she sees a door, she'll "knock, knock, knock" on the door.

She has TEN teeth!  She has her top 4 middle teeth, her bottom 4 middle teeth, and 2 of her top molars. I can feel another bottom tooth right at the surface too, so she'll soon have more teeth.  I'm kind of glad. It will make me less nervous when she's eating food.

Waves at EVERYBODY, and expects them to acknowledge her.

Likes to rock herself in her little rocking chair.

She is still a sleepy-head, at least on the weekends.  This past Saturday, she went to bed at 7pm and slept the next morning until 9am.  However, she has learned what the phrase "time to go to bed" means, and doesn't like it!  She'll cry until I get to her crib and give her a paci.  Then she just rolls over and closes her eyes.  It's like she wants to put up a fight until she sees her crib and realizes how tired she is.  She is also still good with naps.  I just lay her down and walk off and she will go to sleep on her own.

Can sign "more" and "all done".

I'm sure there are LOTS more things that I'll think of tomorrow that I want to add to this list, but this is what I've got for now!  Happy 13 months, baby Kate!

Weekend- Wrap Up

Saturday was game day again.  Last week, Kate wore her Clemson cheerleading outfit to support MY team.  I actually bid on a few Georgia outfits for Kate to give to Kevin for his birthday (last weekend), but lost out on ALL of them.  On Saturday (while he was cutting grass) I told him I was going to make him a surprise with my sewing machine.  I made Kate this little onesie...

I told myself that all future clothing items that I make for Kate will be Clemson.  So, happy birthday Kevin.

We ate dinner at home and then had Cherry Pie for dessert...

We spent Sunday afternoon hanging around the house.  I also FINALLY figured out the furniture arrangement in our formal-living-room-turned-playroom/office.  I ended up getting another storage/shelving system and think it looks good now.  Pictures on all that later. 

The weather has been GREAT today, so Kate and I spent a lot of time outside.  

This was the other shirt that I made for Kate earlier this week.  It was actually my very first attempt at applique, and it's definitely not perfect.  I'm glad I've had a chance to play around with my sewing/embroidery machine the past week though and I'm looking forward to trying out some new things!

Weekend Fun- So Far

It seems like we have inadvertently started a weekend tradition of eating pizza.  There is a new restaurant that has opened in our city that we've been to a few times, then Kevin wanted Giordano's pizza for his birthday, and last night we went to yet another pizza place that we used to visit fairly often, but hadn't been to in a long time.  They have the BEST chocolate chip pizza, and that's the main reason that we go.  Their food is good too, but the chocolate chip pizza makes the trip worth it.  Kate seemed to agree with us...

We didn't have any real plans this morning, so we mostly stayed around the house.  Kevin cut the grass, trimmed the bushes, etc.  Kate and I played around for a little while. 

And she pulled out her favorite toy- her drumsticks. She only gets to play with these when she's VERY supervised. 

Since I've already put so many pictures on this one post, I'll save the rest from today for a separate post. Besides, it's time to go watch some more college football. :) Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We sure are enjoying this one at home!

Labor Day Weekend Again

Okay. These past few posts have been a bit out of order, but I really wanted to post about Kate's first day of "school".  However, I don't want to miss out on any of my Labor Day weekend days!  So, let's back up to Sunday...

We haven't been to my parent's house in a while, and we thought that Sunday would be a good day to visit.  We decided just to make it a day trip.  It was just too much to pack up all of Kate's stuff for an overnight visit and we wanted to be at home on Monday anyway, so a day trip just worked best.  After church, we packed up the car and hit the road.

We tried to go out on the lake for a bit, but it didn't quite work out.  We got down there, put on our swimsuits, put on sunscreen, got on the boat, backed the boat away from the dock... and then looked at the sky.  Not good.  We never even made it out of our cove.  But I did get a few pictures in our 5 minute ride.

We spent the rest of the day and evening just hanging out.  Sometimes that's just the best thing you can do.  

By the end of the day, we had a VERY tired little girl.  I thought for certain that she would sleep the whole way home, but she managed to keep her eyes open for the whole ride.  Once she made it to her bed though, she was out for the count!  

And that's how we spent our Labor Day weekend.  Hope you all had just as much fun watching college football, relaxing with family, or whatever!

First Day of "School"

Kevin and I are so grateful, and thankful, that Kate gets to spend her week days with her Nana.  We love that she is being taken care of by family, but we also want her to have a little time socializing with other children, developing social skills and learning how to share.  So, we enrolled Kate in a 1 day a week Mother's Day Out program at a church that is very near to our house.  And as a plus, Kate's Nana can get a bit of a break during the week.  :)  Today was her first day!

I was definitely more excited than she was since she had no clue what was going on!  She did think that the sign was pretty interesting.

Kate goes to MDO on Wednesdays from 9am until 2pm and it is actually a very structured program.  We're excited about what she'll get to be a part of over the next year.  She's in a class with 2 teachers, and 5 other kids. 

We went to orientation last week, and she got to stay with her teacher for about an hour while us parents got all of the necessary paperwork and info.  Apparently she's a very social little girl.  When I went to pick her up after the orientation meeting was over, I learned that she really wanted to help comfort all of the other kids who were crying when their parents dropped them off.  She also earned the nickname "Little Greeter" because she would wave hello and by to everyone. And she did the very same thing again today.

Kevin will normally be dropping her off, but I really wanted to do it today since it was her first day.  We got there right at 9, and I dropped her off with no tears.  Her teachers said she did great today and had fun, but just wouldn't take a nap.  I wasn't surprised.  I'd actually put a note in her bag that said she probably wouldn't.  Normally for naps we put her down in her crib when she's still awake, give her a blanket and paci and then walk out.  She goes to sleep on her own, but she does have to have it quiet and she has to be by herself.  She just doesn't want to miss out, so of course she didn't want to go to sleep with 5 other kids and 2 teachers in the room!  She'll just have to get used to it.

Overall, it was a great first day and I'm sure she's going to enjoy all of the Wednesdays at MDO to come. 

Labor Day Weekend

We had another PACKED weekend; especially so since it was a 3 day weekend.  Friday night we celebrated Kevin's birthday with a few pizzas from Giordano's Pizza from Chicago.  This was his request instead of a typical birthday cake.  I'd never had one but it was really good!

Saturday was another big day in our household because college football is back!  I guess technically college football was back on Thursday, but neither of our teams played until Saturday.  For those that don't know, Kevin is a big Georgia fan and I have been a Clemson fan since birth.  :)

Luckily our games were at different times on Saturday.  Kevin watched the first quarter of the Georgia game on his computer (on ESPN3), before he realized that it actually WAS being shown on TV.   For the Clemson game we decided to grill wings and ribs, and have chips and dip.  Ken, Angela and Kristi came over to watch it with us and cheer Clemson on to a win over Auburn.  Kate got a Clemson cheerleading outfit for her birthday, so of course she wore it for the occasion.

And because I was just thinking about it, I thought it would be fun to go back and look at pictures from Kate's first game last year.  Wow. What a difference a year makes!