What's Katie Been Up To Lately? (part 2)

Too much to put in just 1 post so here's some more that Katie is doing these days...

~She likes to climb in the kitchen cabinets and play with our tuperware.  Santa brought her a kitchen set and some tuperware all of her own!

~I love our snack time after school.  She sits with me on the couch and cuddles while she eats her snack out of her new snack trap.  Then she goes down for her afternoon nap while I pick up and get dinner ready.
~She's walking great and even runs pretty good (unless she's sleepy.)   When she's really sleepy she starts losing her balance and falling a lot.  LOL  She loves for Daddy to chase her.  When I call her to come to me she thinks it's a game too.  She stares at me and smiles then when I go to get her, she runs away laughing.

~She crawls up our stairs really good.  Sometimes she'll crawl 1 stair at a time then turn her head to look at me because she's waiting for me to "get her" and tickle her.  I tickle her a little bit then she laughs and quickly crawls up another step to "get away" and on and on all the way to the top of the stairs.

~She has 8 teeth now... 4 on top and 4 on bottom.  We started brushing her teeth after her 1st birthday.  She likes it sometimes but mostly if she's sitting in front of a mirror watching.

~I started blowdrying her hair every now and then.  She loves the hair dryer.  Especially if she's watching in a mirror.  She laughs at herself when she's watching.

~She likes to help me put her lotion on after her bath and rubs her tummy.  I've even seen her lift her shirt a few times and pat her belly too.  LOL

~We say our bedtime prayers every night and when I tell her "Let's say our prayers" she puts her hands together (if she's in the right mood) to get ready for our prayers.

~She loves "Old MacDonald" and "Itsy Bitsy Spider".  Sometimes she tries to copy the motions for "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and she sings "Old MacDonald" with us.

~She plays peek a boo and covers her face herself with her blankie.  She thinks it so funny when she pulls it off her face and we say "Peek A Boo.  I see you!"  Or when her face is covered we'll say "Where's Katie?"  Then when she uncovers her face we say "There she is!" and she giggles.

~She holds the telephone up to her ear and says "hello".

~She shakes her head all the time.  Sometimes just for fun and sometimes to say "no".

~She signs "all done."

~She knows that bows belong in her hair and holds her bows up to her head.  But she doesn't like to keep them in her hair.  She tries to take them out when I put them on her.

~She makes bubble noises (moving her finger over her lips while making sounds) and pats her mouth while making sounds.  It's fun to hear her explore with the sounds she can make.

~She loves Elmo!  She recognizes specific toys and will get what we ask her for with lots of her toys, especially Elmo, her Hippo, balls, books, Tigger, doggies (and she knows which one is Bailey and which one is Daisy), and juice.  If we have our DVD cabinet open she goes over to it, says Elmo and will look at DVDs until she finds an Elmo one (only if it's on top of either shelf.)

~Her vocabulary is growing like crazy.  Here are the things she's saying so far (along with her 1st words I've posted already)she says... Memaw, Papaw, Mimi, Pop, Elmo (she says "Melmo"), her hippo she got in the hospital when she was born (she says "Bop Bo"), Katie (she says "Day Dee"), book, ball, football, quack, neigh (she says "ay"), baby (everything is baby!), Bailey, Daisy, yum yum, thank you, cookie, yea (she says "ay" and claps)

I've already started a new list of things she's done for the first time in the last couple of weeks including more words, but I'll save those for a 15 month update coming soon.  She's actually almost 16 months already, but she had her 15 month checkup a couple of weeks ago so I have a new weight and stuff I'll share soon.
That's all I've got now.  I know it's a lot but this blog is her baby book so I try to keep up with everything here.   :)

What's Katie Been Up To Lately? (part 1)

Well, I had planned to post some video with these post, but I started typing this about 2 weeks ago and still haven't gotten the videos uploaded.  I'll post some of those as I can get them uploaded.  They just take so long to do.

Since I stopped the monthly updates after Katie's 1st birthday, I've kept a list of things she's started doing since then that I love.  She has changed so much since her 1st birthday.  It's so exciting to see her learning new things almost every day.

~Shortly after her 1st birthday she really started to recognize us when we pick her up from daycare. I like to stand at the door and peak in on her, but as soon as 1 baby notices me out there, they all look and Katie gets up running to me.

~She loves to hug.  When I say "Hug me!" she runs to me with her arms out wide and gives me a great big hug.  Makes my heart melt.  Earlier this week when I picked her up from daycare, she ran across the room to me with a big smile on her face and her arms stretched out wide then gave me a giant hug.  I love that little girl!

~They are adorable at daycare.  Her 12-18 month room has outside playtime every day, music, sign language, storytime, crafts... It's so cute to see all those tiny little people all gathered around their teachers listening to a story.  The one time I tried to pick Katie up in the middle of a story, she started crying.  She really wanted to hear the rest of the story.  So I try not to do that anymore.

~She moved to her forward facing carseat on her birthday weekend and she's so much fun in it.  I can see her now and she talks to me all the time in the car and sometimes sings with me. 

~She's figuring out the right way to use her toys and things... putting shapes in the shape sorter, knows what buttons to push to do different things on her toys, knows to turn her sippy cup around the right way, drinks from a sippy cup with a straw (sometimes), starting to use spoon and fork (or at least tries sometimes.)  I have to put the food on a spoon for her, but she knows to turn the spoon over to lick all the food off then hands it back to me for more.  I've been giving her a fork lately and letting her experiment on her own.  She was able to get the food on her fork all by herself at least once but usually just plays with it.

~She LOVES her pacifier!  Even more so since our stay in the icu where we let her keep it in her mouth 24/7 for 5 days because it was comforting to her.  We try to keep it out of sight when she plays, but if she sees it laying around it goes right into her mouth.  Sometimes she puts in in upside down and will leave it that way.  LOL

~Hugs the dogs and her stuffed animals and she's just recently really taken an interest in "lovies" (blankies to snuggle with.)  When she hugs a stuffed animal or "lovie", she holds it up by her face and says "awww."

~She still loves her baths.  I bathe her in the sink sometimes because it's just easier and she loves playing with the running water and sometimes leans over and tries to drink it.  She loves splashing and playing in her bath.

~She loves to bang on things and make lots of noise.

~She loves to be chased and tickled.  When I call her to me because she's heading down the hall out of sight or something, she looks at me and smiles and waits for me to come get her.  When I finally go get her she runs away and giggles.  :)

~She's still not much of a napper.  She typically sleeps 30 minutes and on a good day 1 hour at daycare during their 2 hour naptime.  I get on the webcam sometimes during nap (that's my lunch break) and usually I see lots of sleeping babies and Katie will be walking around.  She'll stand over one friend and look at her, then move to another friend to look at.  I'm sure she's wondering why they're all sleeping and not playing with her.  HaHa!  She comes home exhausted so I let her take a late afternoon nap while I cook dinner and relax a little then I just let her stay up late playing with me and Andy.  It works great for the 3 of us (for now anyway.)  She sleeps really well on weekends though when she's by herself in her room.  At least an hour but usually 2 or 3 hour naps.

December Pictures

December has been a very busy month.  We tried to go to Merry Mainstreet but it was way too cold so we let Katie see the reindeer and left.

We waited 2 1/2 hours for our Santa pictures.  The good part is that you get a time card and don't have to wait in line until your time.  So we only had to wait in line for about 20-30 minutes of that.  In the meantime, we looked at ATVs, rode a Merry Go Round, and just wandered the store a little bit.

When it was time to wait in line, Katie wanted no part in standing that.  Andy and I took turnes holding our spot in line while Katie walked around, looked at the huge fish, and tried to grab everything within her reach.  When we got close to Santa and she couldn't walk around anymore, she was pretty squirmy and not very happy.  So of coarse she tried to squirm out of Santa's arms too.  As soon as we were done with the picture and able to walk around some more she was fine.  Ha!

I had a little photo session with Katie in her silver tutu that Mimi bought her and her Santa dress.  I had planned for her to wear the Santa dress to the Christmas Eve church service, but as you all know, we didn't make it there.  I guess we'll have to wait until 2011 for Katie to help light the family candle on the candle Christmas tree.

SNOW!

Katie has gotten to see snow a couple of times already this winter.  In Amarillo it snowed while we were there for Thanksgiving.  She wasn't too sure about the snow then, but she was also very sleepy.  I made a snowman, Andy and Becky had a snowball fight, and Katie slept! 

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Christmas 08 (3 months old)

Thanksgiving 09 (14 months old)

It's already snowed here 3 times.  It usually doesn't snow until January or February so it's been fun to see snow a little early this year.  Katie liked the snow much better this last time it snowed a few days ago.

We got a decent amount of snow this time.

Christmas #3 with The Knapps

Our plan was to travel to Amarillo for New Years to do Christmas with Mimi, Pop, and Becky but since Katie doesn't need to travel or be out in the cold they came to us.  So last night we celebrate New Years Eve AND Christmas #3!

Daddy and Pop put her slide together after she went to bed...

but she was happy just playing in the box this morning.  Ha!

A Very Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas morning we were still in icu but Santa still came to visit us.  He brought Katie a stocking full of little toys that she could play with in her hospital bed.  Notice though, that the oxygen tubes are still out!

When the on call doctor came in to check on her he was pleased with how she was doing without the oxygen and discharged us from the hospital!  Praise the Lord!  He did another x ray on Christmas Eve and said she still has pneumonia in her lungs and that she will still have some for a couple of weeks.  He suggested we have another x ray done in about a month to make sure it's all gone. 

We didn't tell anyone we were coming home so we got to surprise the whole family at lunch.  It turned out to be a very Merry Christmas that we will never forget.  So Christmas #2 lasted for 2 days.  We opened presents in 3 sittings with her at Memaw and Papaw's house.  She still wasn't feeling great and slept a lot. 

Sunday we came back to Dallas and Monday was the 1st day she really acted like "herself" again.  We went in for a followup appointment with her doctor here and he said she sounds great and is ok to go back to school even, but Andy and I are going to keep her home next week anyway.  Her doctor here hadn't gotten her records from Alexandria yet so he said she was fine without seeing her x rays from just 4 days earlier.  I'm still not convinced that he even believes it was pneumonia.  They did x rays in the hospital to see the pneumonia and ran an rsv test that came back negative, ther Katie's doctor here still calls it Bronchiolitis (rsv) every time.  Hmmm, not sure what to think about that.

She finished her steroids, but is still doing nebulizer treatments and antibiotics.  She is totally acting normal now.  Yea!