18 Months Old

Katie is now just shy of 18 months old!

She had a great Christmas, though she didn't think so at the time. While she loves playing with all of her new toys now, she hated opening them. She would hit the packages and ask me to open them, and then would leave the room! lol. She was such a cranky Christmas baby. Then I saw that night that her eye teeth and one tooth on the bottom had just popped out, and another bottom tooth was bulging. Poor baby must have been teething hard!

She seems to be going through a growth spurt right now. Her eating has picked up recently and she's sleeping a lot more as well.

Some things about this little toddler:

Her favorite thing is drawing. From the day we gave her a pen (yes, she used pens before we grabbed her some crayons!) she instinctively knew the correct way to perfectly hold it. She draws all the time, and I always show her how to draw a K, while saying "K for Katie!" The other day she grabbed me to get my attention, then drew a K!

Katie is really good with her hands. Her fine motor skills are well tuned and she is able to do a lot of things I didn't expect her to at this age. She loves bottles - ginger ale bottles, water bottles, anything that has a cap. She loves unscrewing the cap, popping it off, taking a big pretend gulp, then screwing the cap back on. I really want to get her a tea set, as her imagination has really taken off lately. She loves to grab her doll bowl and cup and pretend to eat and drink out of them, and hands them to me to do the same. I never thought about getting her a tea set before that, honestly never thought she'd be interested but now I see that she'd probably love it. I'm looking into getting her a nice set, but haven't decided on one yet. My ideal one, of course, would be an original 90's tea set of Beauty and the Beast, as the new ones are so flimsy and cheap.

Speaking of fine motor skills, Katie started last month (or maybe the month before?) refusing to eat with her hands. She now must eat properly with a spoon and fork, and wants a plate! (before, if food was in a plate, she'd dump the whole thing out, or she'd throw it. Now she wants to be a little lady!) I got her a few sets of utensils and I'm always surprised on what she can scoop or stab up. She's very accurate in getting each piece of food, whether it's chunky or difficult like thin spaghetti, and keeping it on the spoon or fork until she successfully gets it in her mouth.

Another thing she really enjoys is music. Any music, but especially daddy's music. Anything he plays on his phone sends her into instant dance craze mode. She will also turn any household item or toy into a drum to make her own music when there isn't any playing. She also sings all the time and really likes when we sing with her. It's so adorable to see her groove around and sing "oooooh, aaaaah, nananana, oooooh!"

Katie's first snow of the season.

My little summer baby apparently loves the winter! Well, she hates the cold and the wind, but she LOVES snow! She couldn't get enough of it this morning. I woke her up and told her to look out the window. She saw the snow falling and pointed at it, then asked "huh? huh? huh?" Which is her way of saying, "What's that, mommy??"

So I scooped her out of bed in her warm, snuggly footsie princess pajamas, wrapped a warm blanket around her, and headed outside. It was actually beautiful out - no wind, hardly cold despite the snowfall. Katie wanted all the snow! She first watched as Sophie did her annual snow dance - running around the yard as fast as she can in circles, jumping in the air, rolling around and trying to destroy all snow. Despite how Sophie hates the cold and hates rain, she loves winter when the snow falls.

After Sophie calmed down, Katie pointed to the sky, then I walked her over to the deck railing where about two inches of snow had built up. She slowly touched it at first, looked at me to make sure it was okay, then started grabbing, throwing, and playing with it. She enjoyed it a little too much, because she cried when I took her back in. We then went to the front porch so she could watch the snow fall without getting her hands frozen in the snow, which she enjoyed. When we finally went in so I could start breakfast (bacon and eggs with hot chocolate, the perfect snowy day meal!) I parked her in her highchair by the window. She read her princess book about winter as she watched the snow falling and sat there quietly for once all through breakfast prep.

She's now in her new zebra footsie pajamas and watching Blue's Clues while sipping her apple juice. I think she's having a good day! =)

Katie's Second Thanksgiving/Announcement

I know, I know - I totally abandoned this blog. It seems like so much happens so often, and yet it's so rare that I get enough time to sit down and document it in blog form. I keep everything up to date in her baby book, but I always enjoyed remembering the details from here (except the birth, I'd rather forget most of that! lol)

Today's Thanksgiving. Katie got all dressed up and ate out at Cracker Barrel for an early breakfast with all my SIL/BILs, where she spent most of the time coloring and drinking chocolate milk. After that, we headed to Thanksgiving dinner, where we made the big announcement:

We're expecting baby #2, and Katie will be a big sister! I'm due July 21st, 2013 and I'm 5 weeks and 5 days along. I'm feeling a million times better this time than last. I get the occasional queaziness, but it's not so violent. I'm just so tired all the time!

This baby will be another July baby - adding to the July birthdays of Katie and mine. DH is the lonely one out! We'll have a house full of rubies, and one awesome celebratory month!

We were trying for 10 months for this one. It was so exciting. I was running a few days late on my period, which wasn't a shocker as breastfeeding is still messing up all my cycles. But when I reviewed the days of all my other cycles, I realized that since getting my period, I had never had such a late cycle. Even so, I figured that Katie nursed more often and caused me to either skip a cycle or delayed ovulation. It honestly never occured to me that I was pregnant. I finally took a test because I couldn't stand the idea, the building hope, and the awful nervousness in my belly from not knowing. I still 100% expecting a BFN on that test. I even went to the store, didn't tell DH so he wouldn't know that I was wasting more money on tests I kept throwing away and being upset over, and I took it while he was at work. Didn't see a reason why not to, that way I wouldn't be sad while he was home.

Well, was I ever shocked! It still doesn't seem real, but I love it. I have an early ultrasound next week to take a peek. Since this is Katie's blog, I'll be updating over on my TTC/Pregnancy blog.

15 Months Old

Katie Belle is now a 15 month old! She loves to give hugs, find her nose, get her hair done, practice walking, races up stairs whenever she's allowed (and begs to when the door is locked), and still prefers doggies and babies to anything else.

She's beginning to become confused though. I ask her if she's a little girl or a baby, and she insists that she is still a baby. Then I show her a mirror and I ask her if that's a baby, and she says no, and  looks confused! Poor Katie, she doesn't understand that she's aging. We've been saying babies for those who are under a year and little girls for older, so she definitely knows that "baby" doesn't quite fit the Katie image anymore, but she still wants it to!

Katie is so close to walking. She has great balance, can get in the standing position and stand for quite a while all by herself, and can walk just with holding one of my fingers. It's no longer about balance, but about fear. I've seen her take steps when she's holding onto silly things that don't support her, so I know she can do it. She's just afraid to go freestyle yet! That's fine with me, though my back cries when she makes me walk with her over and over and over.

She also loves to parrot now. She'll say things that I'll say. Her biggest thing right now is saying "woah!" whenever she falls, because (I realized after she started doing it), I say it whenever she falls. Whenever she even lightly taps her head now, she'll look at me and say one quick "ow" before moving on, like it didn't actually hurt but she knows the sound effects usually are appropriate at this time. She loves her shoes - but she doesn't like me to put them on her. She takes them off, then tries to put them on herself. She loves to have one toy that can fit into another, or something she can put together. One of her favorite things is my wooden spoon and a plastic cup. She likes to put the spoon into the cup, stir it around, take the spoon out, then try and put it back in and stir. (My little baker!)

Katie so enjoys to eat. It doesn't matter what, she wants to try EVERYTHING. Ever since we went on the cruise, she things everything is at her disposal to eat. She's constantly pointing at things at the store that she wants to try, even if she doesn't know what they are. She loves trying new food. She went from being a picky eater to a "just feed me!" eater.

I'm trying to expand upon Katie's tv likes. So far, she likes to watch Blues Clues and only Blues Clues. I tried so many other kid shows and they just don't take. I tried Disney movies as well, and while she'll watch about 15 minutes of it just fine, she is done with it after that. (It can take us a week to get through a movie!) But she could watch a marathon of Blues Clues, even though she's seen them over and over and over again in her lifetime. If it's what she wants, she gets it though. I have no problems with Blue's Clues! I just assumed that she'd be into at least one other show by now. I'd like to introduce her again to Leap Frog, as they're so educational and catchy! But, everything is set at her pace, so we'll see. Her favorite character, however, has shifted. Instead of adoring Steve, Mailbox is the star to her. She loves Mail Time! Though she still giggles along with Steve's silly jokes.

Things that Katie hates: Pants, socks, hats, naps, carseats, long car rides (as in, anything more than two minutes), doctor visits, high chairs, Veggie Tales (she screams at the opening, weird child!).

DISNEY CRUISE!

We got back from our Disney Cruise yesterday, and wow - it was really one of the best weeks ever! Katie enjoyed it so much, as we all did. She loved every minute of it - every meal, activity, play time, pool splashing, and character meet. We got thousands of great pictures to capture the moments as they fled by.

Katie also grew up on that trip. She learned new words, gained better balance, became more independant, learned to eat so many new things, and even won her first competition (a diaper dash, where she won the first round, then finals, then took her prize and did a victory lap with it in her hand!)

There were too many fun events to list. I'd love to try, but everything rushes out at once and so much is forgotten until I go through it again with the pictures (I'm so glad I took so many or else everything would be so jumbled in my mind!) Katie may not remember the trip later, but she'll get to see a play by play in the photo album, as every event we went to gained quite a few pictures! (when I say a few thousand photos, I'm not exaggerating!)

Now that we're home, it's bittersweet. It's nice to be able to sleep in a bit and not constantly have somewhere to rush off to, but Katie seems so lost now. She doesn't understand where her second home went, as she thought she was going to live there from now on! She doesn't know where Mickey is, where all the food is (she pointed at everything in the grocery store and demanded to immediately try it, like she did in the buffet lines!) and where all the babies and fun has gone. It's sad to see, she seems so disappointed to be back home in reality! I can understand why, I feel sad to not still be on the ship as well, as I had a blast too. It was truly a magical trip! I'm so glad we were able to go on it and share in all the experiences. Settling back into reality is a little hard, but I'm slowly getting back into routine with Katie. I promised her that we'll go back one day, but I don't think that means much to her as I know she wants to be there again right now! She seems so bored to play in her room now, instead of in the Oceaneers Club, or in a baby race, or at Toddler Time, or even the buffet lines. Poor Katie just doesn't understand what happened and why we had to go home!

I'll share some of my favorite pictures of us enjoying our week, since I can't post nearly what I have (facebook has over 800 photos!)

13 1/2 months old

I can't believe how big Katie is getting! Her face seems to have changed so much in the last few months, transforming from baby to naughty toddler! She has four teeth coming in now so she's been a handful, but for the last three days she's put herself to sleep for either naptime or bedtime - a wonderful improvement! While awake, she spends most of the day doing a bear crawl, standing, dancing, reading, and chasing doggies.

She took some pictures of herself today! (and some of them I took!)

Katie's 1 Year Check Up!

Katie's doctor appointment day was such an off day. We had a rough time getting to the doctors with a flat tire, Katie's poopslosion at the doctor's office and I having no diapers or wipes in my bag (for ONCE - literally the FIRST time they weren't with me!), she was fussy and cranky because she seemed to recognize the office, and I was having a hard time breathing with the pulled muscle that happened last night.

But, Katie is perfectly healthy. She's slowly going down the percentile chart in weight and staying consistant with her height while following her arc perfectly. The doctor was happy with her stats and said she's growing really well. She was happy and shocked to hear that Katie is still breastfed many times a day as well.

She's now 22.5 lbs (though she feels so much heavier!) and 30.5 inches tall. She's now in the 75% tile for both, so she's very balanced!

Today, Katie is 1 year, 1 month and 1 day old!

About my nap fighting, dog loving, wild racer, faux Mohawk social butterfly...

Katie is becoming, more and more, a fierce nap hater. She was so tired today that her eyes were red and heavy but she still insisted on staying awake for a little more play time. I had to persuade her by naptime nursing and making up a song that consisted only of the lines "nursey nursey, Katie. Nursey nursey, baby" because Katie's favorite words are nurse, Katie and baby. That doesn't include the word doggie, but I wasn't going to try and fit that in there! Lol. Saying doggie to Katie is like saying "play" - it gets her excited and ready to go. But singing those three words to her softly while holding her in my arms as she nursed finally did the trick and lulled her to sleep. I know I won't be able to hang on to nap time for too long, but I so enjoy getting those few moments to myself to either play catch up or do what I want.

Katie is always on her feet now. Normal crawling just won't do, now she hear crawls with her butt hiked up in the air and her feet waddling. She loves the view when she's standing. She looks around like it's a whole new world and giggles. I know walking isn't in the distant future anymore, but I sure hope it holds off for a little while longer! She's already a little wild baby with her race crawling and enjoyment of getting into trouble. She's definitely her daddy's daughter!

Her hair is getting more wild as well. It stands straight up like a faux Mohawk now, and breaks hair ties. I have to use two at a time now until I get her stronger ones. Brushing her hair only makes it worse. I was so pleased to get rid of her cradle cap finally the other day - its been there for a while but I never took the time to soak her scalp in oil and brush and brush. Luckily for me she didn't mind it and sat there for the half hour it took me to brush it out. It looks so much nicer now!

Katie is a little social butterfly. She actually gets sad now when someone doesn't save hi to her back - and she waves hi to every person she sees! She adores playing with other babies as well, almost as much as she likes to point out doggies she sees.

Katie is whispering in her sleep, which means she's probably about to wake up. I'll have to update later!

KatieKate at 12 months and 3 weeks

It's amazing to watch Katie. Every single week, she learns multitudes of new things. She's in a constant stage of changing, growing and learning. This week she learned how to balance herself and stand. Before she was always so wobbly, but now as long as she has a hand on something steady, she can stand for long periods at a time. If she holds on to me, she can take steps as well. Slow down, Katie! I'm not prepared to have her walking yet! She's also putting words together. Instead of just waving and saying bye bye, she now says "bye bye, daddy" and "up, mama". She says "hi, Steve" and "bye Blue." I had no idea she was ready to start making small sentences until she just started to one day and day by day, she learns how to put different ones together. Katie is down to one half nap a day now. It's always under an hour long and usually happens between 2-3. She wakes up to start her day around 9 am, has her midday nap, and goes to sleep around 10-11. Previously, she was going to bed every night by 9:30, but I messed up her good sleeping schedule a few days in a row so we have to make it back to there. Katie is eating like crazy. She'll eat just about anything! I made coconut custard pie and tried a slice in front of her - of course she wanted to try it too! She's a little eating machine. But she's still reluctant to drink out of her sippy. She loves to chew on it and carry it, but she doesn't like juice and she doesn't want her teether giving her any liquids! At least she loves to drink out of a straw, which I suppose is more important anyway. She's getting better at playing by herself. Before, she needed me to sit beside her and entertain, but now she has an imagination and sits and plays with her toys alone. Or, she goes off to explore, which is her favorite thing to do. If possible, she enjoys Blue's Clues even more now. Mailbox is her new favorite character, and she's understanding that it's interactive, so she speaks back to the questions. She always, without fail, says bye to Steve at the end of every episode, and dances at mail time. She sometimes points out a clue, or giggles when the clue is right on the screen. Katie loves to have her hair done. I never thought she'd like it, I figured I'd have to coerce her into getting her hair put up and out of her eyes. Instead, she sits very still and smiles as I gather her crazy curly hair and put it into pigtails. Once I'm done, she likes to pat each pigtail a few times and giggles. She likes to feel her hair being brushed as well. I know there was more to write, but I can't think of it. Katie is currently resting by my side in a peaceful nap, so I should probably get ahead of the game and start getting things done. I have a large Minnie Mouse head pillow with a pajama pocket in the dryer right now that I know she's going to love, so I'm going to go get that out for an after nap surprise, and maybe begin my series of apple pies.

Katie - 12 1/2 months

Katie has been changing so much the last few weeks! She went from baby to naughty toddler overnight! She speed races across rooms, loves to be chased, refuses to play with her many, many toys but can find anything that she isn't supposed to have and finds it fascinating, and she's a crazy teether. The two teeth on either side of her top front teeth are coming in, and she can't decide if she hates naps or wants to do lots and lots of sleeping. Yesterday she took a two hour nap, then fell asleep at 9:30. She didn't wake up until 10:30 this morning! With her sleepiness and crankiness combined, I think she's going through another growth spurt.

Katie has been taking an interest in food. She may not look Italian, but she eats like one! Her favorite foods are spaghetti, stuffed shells and chicken parm. For breakfast she usually eats eggs, pancakes, grits or oatmeal and for lunch she'll eat some kind of veggie (like broccoli heads, which she eats the best) or fruit like bananas. She's beginning to eat everything now.

I'm still struggling to get her to drink. She LOVES her sippy cup, where when she sees it she demands to have it that very second. But she still doesn't enjoy drinking from it, or drinking anything. I'm working on diluted apple juice right now, and she makes a "too sweet" face every time she tastes it. She'll drink ice water out of a straw, but that's it so far.

Katie's climbing abilities are getting much better. She's always climbing over me, climbing on the bed, her toys, over dogs, etc. Before she struggled to figure out how to crawl up something but she definitely knows now. She's standing with help more often now, but I'm hoping walking is still a while a way as she's so hard to catch already!

Katie Belle's First Birthday Party

Katie had her birthday party on Saturday! We had it here at the house so I could decorate everything (I had thought about the park, but that left me with little ability to pretty things up the way I wanted to!) and we had about 30 people come to it (over double what I originally intended!)

I fully expected Katie to have meltdowns and cry at the party, but she didn't. She loved crawling around with the other babies, opening gifts and tasting some cake. She acted like a little hostess, greeting everyone with hellos and smiles.

All boys were in attendance, so the fact that the theme was Blues Clues and the color scheme was blue and green came in handy! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and Katie loved the Blue stuff. I'm a little sad to have to tear it down now when everytime she goes downstairs, she starts giggling!

Here's some pictures of her on her big day!