Katie's first Halloween (and some other stuff)

Kevin's birthday is on Halloween. So for one of his presents this year, I let him choose what Katie would be for her first one. He decided (even from last Halloween, when I had just found out that I was pregnant) that he wanted her to be a turtle. Try finding that costume in a 0-3 month size! Anyway, since I couldn't find one online or anywhere else in her size, I ended up having to make it. I think it turned out pretty cute. And since I hate being asked if she is a boy or a girl, I also made a special head bow for the occasion.



Another something special that is going on is that Katie can now sit up on her own without assistance for a good long time now. She has been able to do it for short periods for about the last couple weeks, but only today has she finally gotten a really good hold on it. She even catches herself when she is starting to fall. Here are a few from right before her bath tonight.




I can't believe how fast she is growing up. I never realized how brief childhood really is. It is so amazing how something born so tiny and helpless can grow up so much in just half a year. What an amazing year it has been so far!

Letter to Katie

Dear Katie,

You will be 5 months old in only a matter of hours. It seems so impossible that something so small could have such an amazingly big impact on my life, but you've managed to do just that. You are my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. Everything I do in my life is done with you first in my mind. I almost feel sorry for your future siblings. I don't know how I could love them as much as I do you.

You are getting so big (at least compared the the bread loaf sized baby we brought home). You weigh almost 14 pounds and are getting taller almost in front of my eyes. A lot of that is due to the fact that you love to stand and reach up high. You are still wearing size 0-3 month in clothes but you'll probably grow out of them within the next month or so. Your head is on the large size so I have had to start making your headbands. The baby ones just don't fit anymore! I have recently bought you your first 2 pairs of shoes (size 1) because winter is coming and you always take your socks off.

You are starting to explore the world around you. You love to play with toys and stare at your hands. You also find your tongue and all the tongues around you fascinating. You stick yours our quite a bit and squeak in delight when Mommy and Daddy stick theirs out at you. You also love to blow raspberries. You are slmost sitting up on your own. You can hold yourself up for almost a minute at a time. You put everything in your mouth, especially long sleeved shirts. You love to play on the floor and although I've seen you roll over several times, you end up on your belly and hate it. You almost always flip right back over. You love to talk and squeak too.

You love to eat. You are still breastfeeding mainly, but you love pears, sweet potatoes and applesauce. You don't like bananas. You get one bottle a day, which Daddy is only too happy to give you.

You have developed your "list" of people that are ok to be around and be left with. Mommy and Daddy are at the top, but you also seem to be especially close to your Grandma, Papa and Grammie, Uncles Anthony and Jon, Aunt Grace and TJ. You love to see them and are usually in a fairly good mood when you do. One of the highlights of watching you is seeing you with Grandma. I really enjoy it.

You now have a pretty normal routine. You wake up at around 6 to eat, fall back asleep, take 1 nap in the morning, 1 nap in the afternoon and one nap on the way home from work. You then eat half a container of baby food, play for a couple hours and then get ready for bed. You still love baths. You scoot to the edge of the seat and splash.

You have quite a little personality. You know what you like and what you don't and you let us know what you think. You love being held by "your people" and playing in your excersaucer. You are a major comfort baby, and your blanket and binky seem to be your favorite comfort items. We can never leave home without them. You hate being on your tummy and being jostled. We've also guessed that you hate these photo shoots I keep making you do, but as someone who only has 2 baby pictures, I know they will mean the world to you when you are older. You'll have to thank Aunt Suzy for putting up with your case of "baby diva" when that day comes.

My prayer for you is that you will continue to be a happy, healthy sweet baby (and if you stayed a mama's girl, that would be ok too). I pray that you will always have faith in God and that you will make that relationship a priority in your life. I pray that you will always have a love of learning and fascination by the world around you. I pray that as your mother, I can teach you how to become a strong, selfless, loving and compassionate person. I pray that your love for people like TJ is always there and that you are never afraid of people who may be different than you. I pray that as you grow up, your Daddy will be your marker for what a good man is and what to look for. I pray that you will rise above and learn from any trials that are handed to you. I pray that you will always see the glass as half full even when it's almost empty.

We are so thankful to have you in our lives, Katie. You bring so much joy and light to all those around you. These past 5 months have been the hardest, most exhausting, stressful and scary but they have also been the happiest, funnest, invigorating and wonderful of my life. You are amazing and I could not ask for anything more. I love you with all my heart.

Playing Katie

Katie has discovered toys! She likes them so much that she now gets bored without them. I even had to put her in the nursery yesterday at church because she was getting so noisy trying to entertain herself. We bought her an Excersaucer last week (I love KSL!) and she loves it. She can play in there for hours at a time. She even fell asleep in it. I was making dinner last week and when I came out to put her in her high chair, she was sound asleep.




Katie has also discovered her toes. She loves to grab them and play with them. She doesn't quite get them to her mouth, but it's sure fun to watch her try! This was at breakfast a few days ago.


Other news in the Gunnuscio family, Kev passed his 2nd out of five tests to get his MCSE Certification. He is trying to get that Cert by the end of the year so he will hopefully get a raise at the beginning of next year. We're really hoping for that. It would help us out a lot.

I am just working and taking care of Katie most days. Thursdays are my favorites because that's the day we get to go to my mom's house and just hang out. It's so great to see my family at least once a week. This past Saturday, we had my little brother's court of honor. My baby brother is now an Eagle Scout! I am so proud of him. I got to see some of my family that lives out of state and Katie got passed around like crazy. Of course, my siblings were the main ones doing the passing. It's fun to watch, especially my older brother. He turns to mush around her. And even Jon, in his cute awkwardness around her is really cute. I love it.

We are planning on doing our first family pictures on Sunday with the amazing talented Suzy and I am very excited for that. And if that weren't exciting enough, my mom and Grandmother will be coming over and we will be able to do a 4 generation picture. That is something I am really looking forward to and feel so blessed to be able to do.

Gotta run, Katie is hungry, but keep lookouts. I need to start posting more often.

Just some updates

Katie is growing up more and more every day. She had her 4 month check-up the other day. She weighed 12 pounds 7 ounces and was 23 inches long. According to our pediatrician, she still is small weight-wise, but is average when it comes to her height. We also got the ok to start her on oatmeal mixed with pears, peaches and/or sweet potatoes. So far we've just given her the pears mixed in and she is loving it. We'll start something else in a few weeks. She got her first cold this week and it's been pretty miserable. Luckily she's on the mend and should be back to normal by tomorrow.

She is smiling more and more and she has added talking to her favorite activities. Most mornings, I wake up to her babbling away instead of crying. She has also discovered the joy of toys and gets bored without them. She still hates tummy time but we can trick her into it by lying down and placing her on our chest. The other day she started doing push-ups and was holding herself up for a while. She is also loves to be on the floor and play with the cat. Gremlin and Katie are best buds. She pets him and he bats at her. I hope they'll be good friends for a long time.

We also have started to put her in the high chair when we eat. She seems to enjoy it. She waves around a spoon, (still one of her favorite toys) and talks up a storm.


She had her 3 month photo shoot last week by my amazing sister in law, Suzy. Here are a couple of my favorites. We don't have the prints yet, so the water mark is still there, but I'll post more as soon as I get them.





What a joy our baby girl is!

THE SPOOOOON!!!!

Over the last few weeks, Katie has discovered that we are eating something that she is not. She has also decided to let us know that our eating something that she can't have is unacceptable. She has begun picking up spoons and leaning toward our food when we eat. We have started adding rice cereal to the one bottle she gets a day and she seems to feel better about that. But she still seems to love just holding a spoon while we do it. These are a few from Dad's birthday on Friday.


Today we tried to thicken it a little more. She didn't like it much so most of it ended up on her bib. I'm thinking we'll have to hold off on that for a while. But the love of the spoon lives on.
At first she just held it, shocked that I had given it to her.
Then she started waving it around, squeeling. Then she tried to put it in her mouth.
As you can tell, her hand-eye coodenation isn't quite up to par. Oh how I love my baby girl! She is bringing so much light and happiness to us every day. I can't believe how quickly she is growing up!

Another week over...

And Katie has again made several big changes this week. She is now doing push-ups on blankets, almost rolling over (stupid arm gets in the way) and grinning more than ever. She is so close to giggling too. She grins so big and you can just feel all this joyous energy looking for some way to get out. For now she just lets it out with a "ahhhh" sound. I have also discovered that no matter how stressed out or upset I am, I can't hold onto it when she grins at me. Kevin has discovered this fact as well and now when I start getting short with him, he hides behind the baby.

Another big change...she is finally willing to take an occasional bottle even if I'm around!!! She still won't take formula, but I don't mind pumping. I can have a little bit of time to myself without worrying about being interuppted to feed a screaming baby. And Kevin loves being able to help a little more.

TJ is also doing awesome with her. He hasn't tried to hit her in over 2 weeks and he hasn't thrown anything at her at all this week. He is always wanting to kiss her and snuggle her, and she's doing better about taking it. He was crying because he hit his head this week and when I asked what would make hime fell better, he said "A baby". I laid Katie down in between us and within a minute, he was calm. He loves to help me burp her (by patting her bum) and thinks it's the funniest thing ever when she burps. If you can't tell, I love my job.



But as much as I love it, I must say that I totally get why my mom always looked forward to the end of Summer break. It'll be nice to have my mornings back.

Kev is still studying for his MCSE Certification and will be taking the second test at the end of this month. Keep him in your prayers. We really need him to get the raise that this Cert will bring.

Good morning, happy baby!

Katie is a morning baby. She's always grumpy in the evening hours and always happy and smiley in the morning. And this whole week, I've been happy in the morning too because Katie is FINALLY fully sleeping through the night. She goes to bed around 10:30, and this week I've had to wake her up around 7 so I could go to work.

So back to the smiles, she recognizes Kevin and I and we always get smiles. And yesterday, when I was tickling her chin, I got the first thing that resembled a giggle. She also has discovered her hands and now they are always in her mouth. She also has learned how to make spit bubbles and she's doing it all the time. She is such a little character. We're having a great time with her. Here are her smiles from a week ago that I just haven't had time to blog yet.