Friday, November 30, 2007

update!

Sorry for not updating for a while. Here are a few pictures from the last week or so.

My friend from high school, Chris Pecore, was able to stop by our house for a visit as he was traveling through with his family for the holidays. I was able to meet his beautiful wife and sweet baby girl. Here is Kathryn with Adrianna. Kathryn wanted so bad to attack her with hugs and kisses...it was hard to keep her from smothering her!
Here is Kathryn sporting a cute dress from her Grammy.

And here she is in her new favorite position, standing. She is pulling up on anything and everything, and loves that she can reach about anything she wants now. The paci is crooked because she put it in herself. :)

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

bath time

During Kathryn's bath the other night, she started "drinking" the water. I know no other way to put it, but she dips her face in the water and takes a swig. Note: we started taping her after she had already started doing it on her own. We did not teach her to do this. Safety Note: This is a good example of why you should NEVER leave your child unsupervised in a tub (or around any water)!!! With that being said, enjoy the video!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

her special bear

Several weeks ago, I took this picture and meant to blog about it, but forgot. So, here is the long overdue picture and story.
Kathryn was playing in her room one day, and I got down a bear for her that my mom had gotten at the hospital the day she was born. (The bear you see in the corner of her crib.) It was the first time I really got it down for her to play with, because before that day it was just sitting on the shelf as a decoration. She loved playing with him, so when it was time for her nap, I laid her down in the crib and set the bear in the corner. When I went in to check on her a few minutes later, she had fallen asleep, but not before scooting herself all the way up into the corner so she could lay her head on her "new" bear and cuddle him while falling asleep. I thought it was too cute!!

Sweet friends

The other weekend when Kathryn and I went to Bridgewater for the weekend, we got the special blessing of hanging out with the Garcia family. Brooke and I have been friends since middle school! She is such a dear friend to me, and God has blessed us with such a special relationship over the years. She is such an example to me of trusting in God in the midst of anything, and it's so cool how we've remained so close to this day! I praise God for such a sweet sister in the Lord! It's been neat to see how we've grown up and changed over the years, too, to now having families of our own. Here are a few pictures of our time at the park.

Angel, Brooke's husband, was taking the picture. But this is the rest of us, Caleb and Nick in the back, Alisia, me, Kathryn, and Brooke in the front.




Kathryn loves to be upside down!!!

P.S. Thanks, Brooke, for letting me steal the pics off of your blog! :)

Sunday, November 11, 2007

more fall photos









Sweet friends

Last weekend Kathryn and I (Cristen) were up in Bridgewater taking care of my 2 younger siblings while mom was away. On Sunday afternoon, on our way home, we got to stop by and spend some time with some good friends of ours, the Rogers. I babysat the kids when they were younger (the youngest had just been born) for several years while I was in college, and got to be good friends with their mom.

This is the 3 kids. It was Christopher's birthday party celebration that day, and they always celebrate with an annual football game.
Here's the best picture I could snap with the three of them and Kathryn. It was way past Kathryn's naptime, so she got a little fussy and didn't want to sit still for pictures!

Grace loved Kathryn, and was so good with her! She loved carrying her all around, feeding her Cheerios, and playing with her. It's hard to believe Grace was just 12 months old when I started watching the kids!

Friday, November 09, 2007

all before breakfast...

So, first thing in the morning, as soon as Kathryn wakes up I change her diaper. About half the time she's dirty, as well as wet. The other half of the time she is, of course, just wet. What happens on those times is I change her, give her the morning bottle, then let her play for a while. During that play time, she almost always dirties her diaper. So, about 15 minutes after I just changed her, I am changing her again. But it is better for her to have a dirty diaper in one that's less full because it's not so wet.

So this morning was a just-wet morning. So, I changed her, fed her, and let her play. Of course 15 minutes later she crawled into the room with a familiar scent. So, away we went into her room to change her. I will save you the lovely details, but let's just say the diaper didn't do its job in containing that which it was supposed to contain. Ok, so now the task is to change her without letting it get all over her. Quite a task, if you've never attempted changing a dirty diaper with poo everywhere and a wiggly baby who's very interested in and curious about just what's down there anyway. So I got her mostly cleaned on the changing table, then got her down on the floor to avoid said poo everywhere. There we finished the cleanup. So, now I have a naked baby crawling around while I try to figure out how to get all the poo off of everything and where to put it all. As I'm working on her clothes, changing pads, etc. I am conscious of the fact that I still have a naked baby crawling around. She, of course, was totally ok with it. What baby doesn't like to be naked? I was completely aware of the fact that nakedness means no diaper, and no diaper can mean a mess. But, she had just done both duties for the morning, so surely she didn't have anything left, right? Plus, she's had a little diaper rash (I think due to strawberries), so air is good for diaper rashes, as it helps them to heal better.

Well, as I was in the bathroom washing out her clothes and other articles that she decided to include in this poo escapade, it happened. She was crawling through the hallway, and stopped with this funny look on her face. Yep, she peed on the floor. When she was done, of course, she was back on the move, which meant crawling through it and dragging it through the hallway. So, back to the bedroom to wipe her down completely. This time I put a diaper on her... Then on to the hallway to clean up the pee and wipe the floor. Then back to the bathroom to finish washing out her clothes. And now, I must go, so that I can start the laundry since, of course, I have lots of wet clothes that need to go in the wash. And all this before breakfast....

Monday, November 05, 2007

10 months old!!!

Today marks Kathryn's 10 month birthday! So, of course, that merits a post on the blog and some cute pictures!
This picture was taken during a fall photo shoot session I had with her the other day. Believe it or not, it was taken in our front yard (and the tree that those leaves came from isn't even halfway bare yet!).
Some of what Kathryn's life now looks like:
-She crawls everywhere now! She's very inquisitive, and loves to explore all around the house. Her favorite things are trashcans, toilets, and dirty laundry. Noticing a trend? Lots of baths!!
-She continues to wave bye-bye, although has stopped saying it as much. Every once in a while she'll say it, usually when there's no one around, just to entertain herself. Most of the time she waves with both hands.
-She loves to praise God by lifting up one or both hands high into the air. Whenever we say, "Praise Him!" she'll do it right along with us. I remind her that if we don't praise Him, the rocks are gonna start singin'! "From the mouths (or hands) of little babes..."
-She's learned her first sign language sign. She'll sign "more" for when she wants more food (or just wants to eat in general). Even though she doesn't sign it perfectly, she's got the idea! It's so cool to see her be able to communicate her needs to us without having to cry to tell us something. We hope that she'll continue to pick up more signs (if we can be faithful to sign to her!).
-She sings and talks all the time now. She also will randomly laugh out loud. Her sounds (which she repeats over and over again, if you can imagine it) include ba, ga, da, ma, la, ya, bwa, and the newest, schlash!
-She's just started showing an acknowledgment of music, and will dance by rocking back and forth or bouncing up and down when she hears it.
-She now tries to blow kisses. It usually consists of her putting her fist up to her mouth, but it only sometimes makes the blowing kisses motion. Other times, she gets distracted by it being there and chews on it instead!
-She constantly says a sorta "huh" sound to us whenever we say something to her. She'll go back and forth with you saying it over and over again. I'm not sure if she's doing it just to make noise or if she's trying to communicate back. Either way, it's funny.
-Last month I had finally decided to release trying to breastfeed and let her have formula instead of pumped milk. She's done much better with the formula and with the bottles. Thanks for the prayers in that whole ordeal!

Finally, here's a video I took of her this morning while eating breakfast. In it you can see some of her latest tricks, including bye-bye, dancing, and signing more. Enjoy!

Friday, November 02, 2007

our little panda bear

We weren't sure if we were going to dress Kathryn up for Halloween, but finally decided to. I found this cute little panda bear costume, and think she makes the cutest panda ever! Since pandas are my favorite animal (and her Uncle Randy's, too), I was very excited to find it! I found my panda bears from when I was little, and the one my roomies gave me in college in an attempt to replace "roadkill", so I took her picture with it, too.






Pandas play hard. She was very tired by the end of the night, and enjoyed hugging onto the panda on the way home.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

baby shower fun

This past weekend, we had lots of friends in town to celebrate the soon-to-come little baby girl of Naomi and Andrew. Although I didn't get any pictures of the actual shower, I did manage to snap a few before everyone left. This is part of the group on Sunday at lunch after church.


Dr. Uncle Francey-poo with Kathryn. Yes, ladies, he's single!