Fall Festival

A few weeks ago we went to our Fall Festival at our church. We missed the costume contest. We forgot about it until it was over, but Katie LOVED her costume. It's so soft and furry. She giggled when I put it on her.

It was so much fun to watch her walk all over the place. This was the 1st time I saw her climb stairs. Andy taught her a couple of weeks earlier but I wasn't home at the time and then I got sick and hadn't tried to let her climb them.

She couldn't really do the games although Andy helped her try. She enjoyed digging in the candy buckets though. Her favorite were Nerds because she liked to shake the boxes. Once she discovered those, she would dig through the buckets until she found a small box of candy.

She also got to go on the huge bounce house slide with Daddy and see a firetruck and meet some firemen.

Our Little Lamb

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More Birthday Celebrations

We got Katie's "big girl" car seats and the night after her birthday party she got to ride in it for the 1st time. She LOVED being in her new seat and being able to see Mommy and Daddy in the car. She talked to us the whole way to and from dinner.We went to Texas Roadhouse and let them know she had just turned 1 year old that week. They put her on a saddle and sang their song to her. She was so cute. She didn't know what to think of all these people around her singing to her.

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Happy Happy Birthday

Well, Katie's birthday party was very eventful to say the least. I decided to make her cake and thought it would be no big deal to ice the cake the morning of her party. That was way more of a challenge than I thought it would be. Thank goodness Andy's mom knew how to ice a cake smoothly and was there to help. Besides not knowing how to smooth the icing out, we ran out of icing about half way through. In the end, at 1:30 I woke Katie up from her nap for her 2:00 party. Cake was still in pieces all over the counter with icing everywhere and Andy's mom finished icing the cake and putting it together for me while I fed Katie. I think it turned out great. And now I know next year not to wait until the last minute to make her cake!I had a cold but luckily Katie had been fine all week long... until she woke up at 1:30. She looked terrible. Poor baby. Her eyes were so red. She wasn't fussy, but was very cuddly. She clearly did not feel good. She was such a good sport though. She enjoyed her cake and made a pretty big mess with it.She got lots of great gifts and helped me open most of them in her new rocking chair.Her Aunt Mary made the adorable dress and birthday bloomers. She made her a birthday bib to match the bloomers too but I don't know if I got a picture with that.She had fun playing with her new toys for a little while,then cuddled and slept for a while with Daddy, Memaw, and Mimi.After her party, I took her temperature and it was 100.2. She took a nap and woke up looking and feeling totally fine. Little stinker. Literally sick for her party and that's it. Ha! Despite her not feeling great I'm pretty sure she had a good time. And after her nap she stayed up late playing with her new toys.

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12 months!!!

Wow! I can't believe it's already been a year! One year ago on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 4:46pm our precious baby girl was born. She was 7 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long. Today she is 19 lbs 3.5 oz and 29 inches tall.

It's been such a wonderful year. We are so blessed to have a healthy baby girl. She has changed so much and it's so exciting to see her personality unfold as she learns about this new world around her.

Just in the last few weeks she seems to have grown up so much. She's figuring out how her toys work. Before she mostly picked them up, hit them, banged pieces together, etc but now she's beginning to know to put pieces together, push buttons, etc.

She seems to know what we're saying more than before. And I think she's saying things more intentionally. Her newest one is "ball." I'm not sure that's what she's saying. It's still just "ba" but she says it when she's holding a ball. Balls are her favorite toys at the moment.

She also loves chewing on socks! Her clean baby socks of coarse. At school they gave Katie a birthday hat with all her classmates names on it. They sang Happy Birthday to her and gave her a little birthday goody bag.After school we took her to Baskin Robbins for some birthday ice cream. She got cotton candy flavor and loved it!
This was the 1st time she's really noticed birds. Usually with just a few in the sky they're too small or too far away for her to really notice them. But at Baskin Robbins tonight there were TONS of birds. She was so fascinated by them. :)

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Go Cowboys!

Here are some pictures of Katie in her new Cowboys outfit and my new haircut.

We Have a Walker!

Katie's been taking 1-2 steps for the last week or 2 then she'll go down and crawl. But Friday night she started taking 3-5 steps on her own! I didn't catch her walking yesterday but I was sick and she was worn out and napped over 4 hours! So today I got some video. She still preferrs to crawl. It's much faster and easier, but she walked small distances several times today. I'm so proud of my big girl.

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Random

Katie's 1st real night gown. I loved the baby gowns with elastic around the bottom when she was a baby and found this "big girl" gown for her this week. I love it.I wasn't feeling well today, but Katie was so sweet and cuddled with me on the couch for a long time. We got a new gate for our living room. The space we needed one was about 2 inches bigger than most baby gates so we had rigged the gate we had with a block of wood between the gate and the wall. Then Andy found this one last week and surprised me with it. I'm so excited now to have a gate that fits and swings open rather than having to take the gate down completely or climb over it to get in and out of the living room. Katie likes the new gate too because it wobbles!

Daddy always has so much fun with Katie. If she is into gymnastics when she's older that will all be from playing with Daddy. This time, he got her to walk on her hands. If you listen closely you can hear her laughing.

I don't know if I've posted video yet of Katie gurgling but she makes this sound all the time. So cute. Enjoy!

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One Year Ago Today...

was a Friday and I was 37 weeks pregnant and huge! (I forgot how big I was with her!) I left school and called my doctor. I had been feeling Katie move but not as much as my doctor said I should. He told me to go to labor and delivery so they could check me and baby out.

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This happened 2 months earlier too and they had hooked me up to monitors, heard her moving, did a sonogram and saw her moving all over the place. I was retaining too much fluid so I couldn't feel her much. When they told me that I was just embarassed that I had even gone in.

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So I expected the same thing to happent his time. I went to the hospital with left over food from school in my car... really, I wasn't going to be there long. I called Andy and told him to go ahead and play his soccer game that night. I wouldn't be at the hospital long and I wasn't worried because I knew what they were going to tell me... same thing they said last time, and I would meet him at his game when I was done.

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Well, that didn't happen. Yes, Katie was fine and I was just retaining too much fluid still to feel her move much. But when they did the sonogram they saw the cord was around her neck. They said that really isn't a big deal. They deliver babies like that all the time with no problems but the combination of that and me not feeling her, they decided to admit me and monitor us. They figured if they sent me home, I would just worry and be back up there anyway. So no, "go home and get your things, then come back up and admit yourself." But rather, "you're not going home. We'll keep you here until Wednesday (when I would be 38 weeks pregnant) and we will induce!"

A moment that would change mine and Andy's life forever in such a wonderful way.

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It would've been helpful if I had my bags packed already. It wasn't easy explaining to Andy exactly what all I needed, but he got everything I needed together for me and our week long stay in the hospital. We were kind of "known" by all the nurses for having our 5 disc dvd player up there with all seasons of Friends and The Office. They would always stop and watch a little bit when they came to visit. LOL

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I was so excited but at the same time I think that's when the nervousness really set in. That was the point of reality that I had a full grown baby in my tummy and she had to come out! I was so thankful to have Andy, Friends, and The Office to help pass the time and keep my mind occupied! What a long 5 days of excitement and anticipation!

Can You Tell Me How to Get, How to Get to Sesame Street

Last weekend I took Katie to My Gym's open house to check it out and see what she thought of the place. She wasn't very interested in the place, but we got to meet Elmo. We loved watching Elmo's World this summer when I was home with her. Whatever she was playing with, she would stop and watch the tv when she heard Elmo. (Not the best Elmo costume. Notice the eyes and nose inside Elmo's mouth. Ha!)

More Katie

Playing with a turkey feather Daddy brought back from the hunting land.Bath Time in the sinkCrazy bath hairI love these pajamas. They look like little thermal underwear. We've started ordering kids meals for Katie. She had her 1st one the night she cut her 1st 2 teeth and has had a few since then. She never eats much of them though so this probably won't become a huge habit just yet. She's teething on everything! Her toes...The glider arm rest... shoes, toys, blankets, anything she can get in her mouth!

This isn't the best video but we got her talking a little bit, walking (with a little help from Daddy), flipping with Daddy, and playing in her pack n play when she was supposed to be sleeping! Silly girl! :)

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