Thursday, February 23, 2012

9 months

 This baby is all over the place.  The day after she turned 8 months old she started pulling herself up on everything.  Now she will cruise on furniture or let go and just stand there.  I sure hope walking isn't on her agenda any time soon.

 She is really good at sleeping in her crib. Not nursing so well, I have heard about "nursing strikes" and I am going to prevail!  Can you even believe those cheeks?  They are legendary.  And delicious.
 I don't know what she was so concerned about while I was snapping these pictures, but she is so uncooperative we will take what we can get.  She is so busy it's hard to get her to sit for a picture.
 She claps, she waves, she motions for you to "come over here now and let me claw your face", she sings, she dances, and she loves her family.  Stranger anxiety is starting and if anyone looks at her she buries her head in my shoulder or looks away.
 She loves applesauce and veggies straws.
 Finally she is really loving Lewis, which he loves.  When he gets home she squeals and goes right over to him. She pulls on his legs until he picks her up and then she gives him lots of hugs.
She is our precious baby and we love watching her grow up and learn new things every day.
Oh and stats, hmmmm, I think I might have thrown them away but I think she was 16 lbs. 1 oz.

Cate's clothes

 Cate changes her clothes at least 4 times a day.  Here is an example, this is what she wore on Valentine's Day.  I didn't help her at all or encourage her to change.  She loves to go back and forth between clothes and pajamas.








She wanted me to include a picture of her rainbow toes.
  If we go somewhere she puts clothes on and as soon as we get home she puts pajamas on.  Today when we got home from the library she was in pajamas before I even got upstairs with the baby. (she is on her 4th change of clothes so far today)
She also says some of the cutest things-- she likes "down down baths" which is a bath with not a lot of water.  The opposite is obviously an "up up bath".  Anything in the past is lasterday. This girl certainly keeps us entertained and busy.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine's Day to the love of my life.  Not only is he a hunk of burning love, but he is also a terrific person which works out nicely for me. :)
He was on call Sunday (and two other days slash nights this week I am not a happy camper) which means he got basically no sleep-- thank you pellet guns-- but last night he was still willing to help me with the fussy baby who didn't sleep well and the pukey 9 year old.  He even made a middle of the night (I think it was around 3 am) to Walgreens to buy some ginger ale to help soothe her aching tummy.  It might not be romantic to you, but it melts my heart.  Even though he is dragging his sleep deprived self through residency he is still an actively involved father and husband.  Love you Lewis! XOXO

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

A's birthday

As I mentioned before, sweet Aiden Elizabeth turned 9 the other day.  It is pretty unbelievable to me that she is already so grown up, but me being sad about it isn't going to stop her so I'm just going to work on enjoying the ride and not being frustrated that she's halfway through her time at home with us.  Sniff.  She's so great. One thing about her is that she was born with such a strong personality.  Even if you only knew her as a little kid, you really know her.  I feel like my other kids have taken at least a couple of years to grow into themselves, but she came out with a strong sense of self and strong opinions.  Like not wanting to sleep.  Just last night Lewis and I were talking about how much stress getting her  to sleep caused us when she was a baby.  She just wouldn't sleep.  Naps were a nightmare and bedtime made me want to poke my own eyes out.  She was a great baby, she just hated to sleep.  I always just thought it was my fault, that I should have made her cry it out early on or that I did something wrong but three kids later I realize that it is just who she is/was.  And we love her to pieces. Once I had Brooks and saw that he could be sleep trained and then had Cate who just slept and slept all the time the guilt went away.  Although I think every parent worries about how they are messing up or have messed up their kids.  We're all just doing our best.
 The actual birthday day was really a fun day.  This year she decided to not have a party but I am going to take her to see Wicked next week instead.  I'm so excited about it, I know she will love it.  She has had the music memorized since she was 4. No really.
 We did pick up some pretty rainbow balloons on our evening of hunting for a cupcake.
 And we had a big pretty, yummy chocolate cake with toasted coconut and vanilla frosting the day after her birthday to make up for the cupcake fiasco.

 The best present was her new bike.  It is perfect and now with gears her rides with Lewis (running) will be much easier on her little legs.  She has been riding around the cul de sac nonstop since her birthday.
 We went on a family bike ride slash run to try out the new bike and had dinner at her choice, Genghis Grill.
 Yummy dinner and then they came and sang happy birthday, gave her s huge brownie and ice cream, and lit the fire on the grill for her!
 Cupcake fiasco details:  she decided that she wanted cupcakes from GiGi's instead of a cake for her birthday so before dinner we went over there to pick them out.  There was a super long line and lots of cupcakes so we decided to go eat and then come back.  Well, when we got back after dinner there was only ONE birthday surprise cupcake left.  The little girl in front of us said repeatedly "I want the birthday surprise".  A looked up at Lewis with sad slash mad eyes so we headed out of there in search of another cupcake.  By this time Costco was closed (their big chocolate cake was her second choice) so we tried several other bakeries and none were open.  It was only 6:30 or 7!  Finally we found some cakepops in a coffee shop and also got to enjoy some live music.  The had 2 red velvet cupcakes left and Lewis bought one and brought it home to put candles in.  A was such a good sport the whole time and we got to spend lots of quality family time in the car driving all over the place hunting for a cupcake. 
All in all I think it was a really great birthday and we're so proud of our A!

Christmas Day in the morning

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning.  We didn't wake the poor sleeping baby at that unbelievably early hour.

The kids loved their light up wheels scooters and Cate was excited about her Rapunzel doll and dress (as long as you don't mention "Mother knows best")

Glinda the good

Our WII broke so Santa pulled through with a new one.

I think they were excited!

Lewis might not have been AS excited about his one handed pooper scooper. But I must have gotten him a really nice one because it still looks brand new almost 2 months later.  Almost like it hasn't ever been used.  Hmmmm....

Thanks Great Grandma and Great Grandpa! She got right to coloring these and used them to decorate the space ship.

And thanks for the squinkies! They are a huge favorite around here.  My kids love squinkies.

When the baby finally woke up she was excited about eating paper. Sheesh! Babies!

The kids asked for a big box and they got this big box spaceship.

Cate loves her sock monkey, she had been stealing the baby's but is thrilled to now have her own. Don't worry, GGma and GGpa, we won't let our Auburn friends use it as a voodoo doll!