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.

Bathtime for Katie

I read in "What to Expect in the First Years" that creating a bed time routine is not only important for the parents, it's important for the baby as well. So as soon as Katie's belly button stump fell off, we implemented a routine that includes a bath. Not because she needs one every day, but it really does help her calm down and get ready to sleep. It's only happened a few times, but we can tell when she doesn't get one because she is more restless and wakes up a lot more. And she LOVES her bath. I let Kevin be the one to do it, because this is when she is the most fun. She grins and splashes and is so darn cute. It really helps them bond. Here are some pics from last night.



This bath chair was probably one of our best investments. It keeps her feeling safe and she's able to be in the water without one of us having to worry about dropping the slippery baby.






Then Daddy lotions her up. She likes this part too and she really gets slathered since we have hard water and we're battling cradle cap. Then we get her in her jammies, she gets fed and we put her down, drowsy but awake. This routine works for us wonderfully! Since she was a month old, she has been sleeping for a good 6 hour block, wakes up to eat and then falls asleep for another 3 hours. And now that her tummy is getting bigger, sometimes we go 7 or 8 hours for the long sleeping block and about 4 for the short one. We're so grateful to have such a good, sweet baby girl.

I've been meaning to do this since Katie was born

I have wanted to have a kinda online journal to catch these moments of Katie growing up since she was born, but I haven't had the time. I've also wanted to save things that happen in our family and help us grow together. Life in the mommy lane has made me put off a lot of things that I feel like I should do, but just can't seem to find the time.

So to catch up, Katie was born on May 12th. She was only 5 pounds and 10 ounces but now that she is 11 weeks old, she weighs almost 11 pounds. I can't believe how fast she is growing! She has discovered her hands just this past week and in always grinning at us. Al least when we can see her mouth, since most of the time her hands are covering it.

Kev is working to get his MCSE certification and working at Netwise. I am back at work with two wonderful boys and although they test my patience, I love them like crazy. We spend most of the time at my house since they moved this weekend and their house is full of boxes. I don't think they mind too much though, since we have cable. And Katie likes it better since she's got her little vibrating chair here.


So yeah, here is the start of my little blog. I hope to be able to keep up with it, at least once a week. Keep reading!