There They Are!

Andy got a picture of Katie's teeth for me tonight. It's not the best picture, but we'll take what we can get. I was feeding her and she was mad that I didn't put her food in her mouth right away. So she's not very happy in the picture. But we got the teeth!She started her transition to her new class today and her teacher, Mrs. Brooke said she did great! I'm so proud of my baby girl growing up so big. :)

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!

Katie finally cut her 1st 2 teeth on Friday night! 11 months and 4 days old! I thought she was going to have her 1st birthday toothless. Ever since she was 3 months old everytime she drools a lot or wakes up crying during the night (which is rare), we would think, "she must be teething!" After she passed 9 months old, the age when Andy got his 1st tooth, we gave up on that.

Friday night she was really fussy and had a little fever. I thought she was just getting sick from being so exhausted from this week. But when I nursed her before putting her to bed at 8:25 (yes I noticed the time... this was a huge, long awaited moment!) she bit me. She's done this before but this time it felt different. It didn't hurt. Just felt "different." I immediately knew why and stuck my finger in her mouth to feel teeth poking through her bottom gums! I freaked out and called Andy to hurry up and get home. He was getting us snowcones from the awesome Snow Cone Lady in town!

Andy is giving me a hard time telling me he doesn't believe me because he hasn't seen them yet. They're still level with her gums so they're hard to see, but I HAVE seen them a few times. It's both of her bottom front teeth and yes, they have broken through the gums! I've tried to get a picture, but not surprisingly I haven't been able to get one. I'll post as soon as they're sticking up enough to get a picture.

Oh and the fever was from fluid in her ear. She got an antibiotic and is fine, fever's gone. She's not contageous and ready for daycare in the morning.

11 Months!

It's hard to believe Katie's 11 months old! She's growing, learning, and changing so much every day. She's getting way better at standing on her own, crawls super fast all over the place, and is so close to walking. She walks really well with just holding onto one of mine or Andy's fingers and we barely need to support her.

She's talking a lot more. She says "mama", "dada", "no no", "ba ba", and "uh oh" or usually "uh uh oh!" She's so cute! She loves to blow bubbles, make motor boat sounds, and just listen to herself. Especially when we're in loud places like restaurants, she yells like she wants to make sure she's heard. Sounds like her Daddy. Ha! We're still working on waiving Bye Bye and she does it sometimes but not consistently. We're also teaching her to blow kisses when she tells us night night. I think that one will take a while for her to do on her own.

She loves to look at herself in the mirror. We have a mirror in our hall right outside her bedroom. We look in it every time we pass by and she smiles and giggles then reaches for herself in the mirror.

She loves for me to read to her and always wants to hold the book herself. One of my favorite things she does is when she's playing, sees me, and crawls over with a huge smile, climbs up on me and gives me a giant hug! Totally melts my heart!

She loves, loves, loves dogs! Everytime she sees one, she laughs and squeals. I think Katie and Daisy are going to be best buds.She loves "helping" mommy and daddy in the kitchen.She's getting so much better eating solids and feeding herself. When she was learning to feed herself I always clapped after each bite she fed herself on her own. So the first few days she fed herself really well, she clapped after each bite. So cute. But she only did that for a couple of days so I didn't get any video. :(

She's still pretty picky but if she has foods she likes she feeds herself really well, although she does drop quite a bit in her lap. :) She still isn't a fan of fruit but loves vegetables and likes meat pretty good too. She loves any type of cracker foods... cheerios, cheezits, Gerber puff cereal things, Gerber cheeto things, graham crackers...Next week at daycare they will start transitioning her into the 1 year old classroom. They transistion for a month. Some of the new things she'll be doing in there is scheduled lunch and snack time with ALL solid foods, scheduled nap time (on a mat... not in a crib!), circle time, art time, sensory, music and movement, and outside playtime. I think it will be funny to see them try to get her to sleep on a mat. I told her teachers I think I need to start praying for her new teachers now. LOL If you read my Colorado post about spending the night with Andy's family, then you know why I think this will be so funny.

She's starting to have a little bit of separation anxiety. In the mornings she's really clingy and cries for a minute when I leave and clings to Andy when he drops her off at daycare. She's good once she sees her teacher. She loves her teacher. I think a lot of her clinginess is because she's so sleepy. She practically snores while I nurse her in the morning, and every morning I try to lay her back down in her crib to go back to sleep until Andy's ready to feed her and take her to daycare. As soon as I lay her down, she sits up, looks at me and grins, then stands and walks along her crib towards me with a huge smile on her face and starts "talking" to me! So she stays up and plays while Andy gets ready for work.

She loves music and dances when she hears any.

She loves cartoons too. Her favorites (or I guess I should really say my favorites since I'm the one who turns them on and she likes them too) are Elmo's World and Sid the Science Kid.

She knows to reach for us when we start to unbuckle her carseat and starts to sit up for us to help her out. And she's started reaching for people to hold her too.

She loves to climb on everything and loves for Daddy to flip her! He sits her in his lap, leans her back, and holds onto her hands while she flips all the way over onto her feet. No pictures or video of that either but I'm sure I'll get some up sooner or later.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Cutie Pie

Bad Hair DayFunny FeetBaby Blue EyesCutest smile ever!!!!

Back to School

We started back to school 2 weeks ago and it's been an adjustment for Katie. She slept until 8:00 or 9:00 in the summer and now she has to get up at 6:30. She started out not napping or eating well at daycare, but she's doing much better now. But she comes home exhausted! We've moved her bedtime up an hour and it's a challenge to get her in bed early but know it will be good for her.

Happier Note

I can't post about Chelsea and just leave it at that. I have to put some more positive stuff on here too. So...

I started back at work this week and Katie's back in daycare. It has gone really well. It's so much easier this time around to work and have Katie in daycare. She's happy there and loves it. We're working on her eating and sleeping habits. She slept much better today but isn't eating well. We're still transitioning to solid foods but we're finding that she's very picky and doesn't eat a whole lot of solids. She also doesn't like her milk too much. I guess it's just not the same when it's in a bottle or sippy cup.

I know she will get the hang of it soon. I'll have 11 month pictures to post soon. On Monday she'll be 11 months old already. I can't believe how quick it's gone by.

We love you Chelsea!

For those of you who read my blog and are not on Facebook...

My 16 year old dog, Chelsea died tonight. I had her for 12 years and she was a very loving, sweet dog. Last summer her vet found a tumor near her stomach but said with her age there wasn't really anything to do for it. She probably couldn't survive anestesia or any kind of surgery to test or remove it.

She did well with it for a whole year and started losing weight at the beginning of the summer. She lost a lot of weight fast but still seemed happy and acted fine. It was all in the last 2 weeks that it got really bad. She either developed a new tumor in her mouth or her vet said it could've been the same one from her stomach that grew all the way through her body and into her mouth.

Just in the last 2 weeks, that tumor in her mouth grew a lot and started bleeding. She seemed to lose more weight and wasn't eating well. We switched to canned food and she did ok with that but only for about 3 days before she wouldn't eat that well either.

She was losing strength I'm sure because of the weight loss. She had a hard time standing on the kitchen tile after sleeping for a long time.

I think the final breaking point was Saturday night when she started breathing heavy. (And the bleeding from her tumor in her mouth that started pretty consistently Friday night.)

With all of this we knew her time was coming very soon and took her to the vet yesterday (Monday.) He suggested we think about putting her down withing the next 2-3 days and said he would be surprised if she made it for 2 more weeks. I was on the fence about it. I knew it would be best to put her down, but I just could not find peace in that decision. I knew she needed to go and just prayed that it would happen naturally, peacefully, and very soon so she wouldn't suffer or go on like that for long. I decided this afternoon that I just could not put her down and would let her go on her own.

Tonight after work, Andy let her out to the bathroom and when we went to let her in she had died. She wasn't alone. Bailey and Daisy were out there with her. She was in the comfort of her home. Andy and I were home and there was no crying or anything so I know she went peacefully.

I'm so thankful it happened the way it did and that I was able to sit outside with her last night and pet her and love on her for a while. I haven't been able to do that since she started bleeding so much. I will miss her so much but am glad she's not uncomfortable anymore and that it didn't get really painful for her. (At least I don't think it did because she never cried or whimpered or anything like she was in any pain.)

I know most of you don't care to read all the details of all this but it's very theraputic for me to "journal" about it.

I love you Chelsea and will miss you!

Mommy's Little Helper

Katie's been up at school with me this week helping me get my classroom ready (or keeping me company while working on my classroom anyway.) She found some velcro laminated labels from my tubs and found a bookshelf to climb on. We've got her all set up there... pack n play, toys, bumbo seat and tray for lunch. I'm enjoying getting to bring her up with me while I get ready for work to start up again next week.She drinks her own sippy cup now every evening. She looks so comfy and relaxed when she lays down to drink.

She's also getting really good at feeding herself solids. We've been working on it for a few weeks and when she feeds a bite to herself I always clap and cheer for her. Last night she fed herself about 3 handfuls of Cheerios and after each bite, she clapped for herself. It was so cute. By the time I thought to get it on video she was done eating. Hopefully she'll do it again so I can get it on video.

Katie and Rose

Katie met a new friend last week at lunch. Baby Rose is 4 months old and precious. We had fun visiting with Dara and meeting Rose.

Dara, Rose, Katie, Me

Last weekend Aunt Jana and Lindsay babysat Katie so Andy and I could have a date night. It was nice to go to dinner and a movie with Andy and Katie, Jana, and Lindsay had lots of fun too.

She had fun chasing Sophie, the cat. I don't think Sophie thought it was too much fun though.We picked her up at about 10:30 and of coarse she woke up and played more when we got there and loaded the car. So it was really late before she got in bed for the night. A late night leads to a sleepy day. She slept for about 30 minutes in Andy's arms like this at Gattitown for lunch after church.

Nap Times with Daddy...

are the best!

Katie yawns,

Daddy yawns,

Now Katie's relaxed and ready to fall asleep.

Play Time

Katie had a play date with Miller today at the mall playground. Despite how crowded it was with kids way bigger than the maximum height requirement running and jumping from one play structure to another, we had a great time. Next time we'll just be more selective in the time we choose to go.Miller today at the mall playground. Despite how crowded it was with kids way bigger than the maximum height requirement running and jumping from one play structure to another, we had a great time. Next time we'll just be more selective in the time we choose to go.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Up, up, up climbs my little monkey!

Yay! She made it!

Jamie and Miller

All pooped out!

Hangin Out at Home

I already miss Colorado, but it's nice to be home.

Playing in the kitchen cabinets...

The time change from Colorado messed up all out time schedules. She wore herself out.