I'm 6 months!!!

Well, we made it 1/2 year!!! Tomorrow marks Kate's 6 month birthday. So hard to believe how much life has changed in 6 short months. If I ever thought time went quick BEFORE children...the Lord has sure put me in my place since then :) Not much to say new today, other than that on this, her 6 month birthday, my prayer is that God give Joe and I the guidance we need to love her and teach her as tenderly, graciously, and patiently as He does, even in these early months and years of her precious life. Thank you Lord for your gift of Kate!

Beautiful weekend...and snotty noses

What a beautiful weekend! Friday and Saturday were nothing short of absolutely glorious. Got Kate into a little "Springy" outfit...I am OBSESSED with these little crawler skirts/leggings from the BabyGap (see above). They are SO CUTE!!!!! We've got 'em in a couple different colors, her fat little legs are just too cute in those things. Luckily Kate, Casey, and myself were able to get out Friday after lunch and meet Will and Kelly for a quick little spin around the neighborhood before our noses got the best of us this weekend. Not a fun weekend to be stuck indoors with runny and snotty noses. It started with me on Friday then by Saturday evening I had passed the fun on to Kate. Poor little thing. She sounds terrible and her little nose is green and boogery every time she wakes up. She didn't nap very well yesterday at all. Turns out I think she may have been getting too much sleep at night. I got her up a little earlier this morning (around 7am instead of 7:45ish) and she napped MUCH better. But of course it could have had to do with the fact that she just plain isn't feel well :( We cooked a shrimp boil for dinner tonight in honor of the warm weather...something about shrimp boil always gets me in a summer mood. Kate was pretty fussy tonight and tired acting...all through her bath and even some while eating dinner (quite unusual). Then fell asleep on Papa's shoulder before we could even get her into bed.

Another Video....

Sorry to be boring and post another video, but these are just such fun to make I have to share. These are some pics I pulled together of all her little smiles and giggles...some of my favs. This precious song I absolutely cannot take any credit for - it is totally on loan from a friend at work. Thanks David!

Meanwhile this week, Kate is on a roll with her veggies. She has not shown to be a picky eater...yet. The past few days we've been doing carrots and she loves them! But ugh, messy! She's also gotten to where she loves that nasty rice cereal. We've started doing some oatmeal in the mornings to help keep things 'moving' in her little tummy. She likes that too! I think we are going to have a motor mouth on our hands. She's already talking up a storm and loves to see our response to what she has to say. She's got the "Gs" down..."geh, gee, ga, goo." It's quite entertaining, particularly when she's getting her diaper changed or when we walk out of a room and she's looking for us. The house is filled with lots of little screams, squeals, and giggles...and every once in a while, a fake cough :)

Even though we are blessed with a baby who LOVES her sleep, I still find myself quite tired at the end of the day. I have a new-found appreciation for moms who work full-time or who don't have the way under-estimated help of a hands-on dad and/or plugged-in grandparents. And I only have ONE baby! We already discuss expanding our little family, and quite frankly, the thought just overwhelms me still at this point. I know, yes, she's still young, but it's exhausting to even entertain the thought. But I must say, the older she does get, the more and more I can realistically see doing this thing again. Fun to think about her with future siblings/playmates. Anyway...how did I get on this sidenote?? This will surely be much further down the road...but how much?? That will be the question.

ANYWAY, maybe the reason I stay tired is because I'm rising these days (at least on days I work) about 5:45 am just to get it all done and spend some time with my little punkin (who gets up around 7:30ish) before heading out the door for a long one at work. And yes, I know this pales in comparison to what some full-time parents are doing just to get their little ones off to daycare/school and themselves off to work, but I am NOT an early riser, nor an early bed-goer, so this 5:45am thing is quite new to me. I like the job...it provides a good balance for me being part-time 3 days a week. But still hard to leave her on those days. At least we always know she's in good hands with our precious nanny Kathryn, such a blessing. Oh, this crazy life. But oh so wonderful :)

Picture Projects

Joe got me a new computer for my birthday this year---I have REALLY been enjoying it. Here's some of what I've been working on lately. Forgive me...these are old pics. But I'm attempting to play catch-up for all these months I've missed on the blog.

What a whirlwind...from arriving at the hospital (SO much anxiety with a first baby!!) to meeting Kate for the first time, to FINALLY bringing her home. Such precious, precious days but also quite frightening. Pulling out of the hospital parking lot with our first newborn is a feeling I will NEVER forget...complete and sheer panic!! A whole lot of "What in the world have we done??!?!" mixed in with a few small tinges of joy, being perfectly honest. When people tell you that nothing can possibly prepare you, they are R.I.G.H.T. But within a few weeks we finally began to settle into a bit of a routine with this new little person, and now, could not POSSIBLY imagine life without her, and we can't seem to figure out what we ever talked about before she came along. Yep, a lot has changed in the past 5 & 1/2 months. Thankful for my wonderful husband and healthy baby girl. Thankful for the precious moments and memories thus far. Thankful to God for it all.

Too Tired....

Ugh...too tired tonight to post any new pics, but just thought I'd mention a few things. We had a great day today. Got out and about a little with Kate...Babies r Us (to buy a gift for a friend) and the Apple store to get my new computer 'fixed up.' Kate really started 'talking' today...or at least TRYING! The sounds she's making and the movements she's doing with her mouth are nothing short of hilarious. It's like she looks at you and can't understand why you're not returning her conversation, that she's totally getting what she's trying to say, but doesn't see why you're not responding. Her little personality has really started developing here lately! So much fun to watch...and have a front row seat. She's also rolling all over the place. Let's see....what else....oh! And we officially started baby food today! Kate got a little helping of some squash at lunch today. She gave me some pretty funny faces, but overall I think she liked it. We'll try it again tomorrow and see what she thinks.

Joe and I met some friends for dinner tonight in Aiken at a little Italian restaurant called"Casa Bella" while Nana and Papa watched Kate for us. If you've never been there, it was pretty well fabulous. More to come later....

Morning, Kate!

Happy little morning baby....lucky for us she almost always wakes up in a good mood!

Meant to mention that this past weekend we attended my precious nephew Will's baptism. He did SO good while they sprinkled that water on his little head!!! Such a big boy! Big day for the family. Here is a pic of our 2 little families just afterward.

Rice Cereal is Gross

Kate woke up 30 minutes early this morning...which never makes for a good start to the day. She rarely does this, but when she does it seems to throw our whole morning (sometimes our whole day) off. She usually will lay in her crib and stare at us on the monitor making silly faces and giggles until we eventually go in to get her, but this morning she laid there and fussed. She also fussed all the way through her cereal this morning. I feel like we've been working on this rice cereal thing for a while now, and she still doesn't seem to quite 'get it.' Still thrusting it out of her mouth, it gets EVERYWHERE, and she just gets mad. And if you're lucky, she'll put both hands into her mouth for ya, then get mad when you try to stop her, and start fussing even MORE. Ugh. But yet, if she doesn't get the cereal, she seems like she's hungry all day. May have to try baby food this weekend and see if that goes any better for us.

Puppies and Babies

I love my dog Casey. But sometimes she just flat gets on my nerves. She's been with Joe and I since the very beginning...we got her almost 4 months to the day of the day we got married. I'll never forget going to see her for the 1st time...Joe and I had been talking about the possibility of getting a puppy. He was probably a little closer to ready than I was. I had to be talked into it. One night I got home from work around 5pm and he asked if I wanted to go grab a bite to eat real quick. I was a little confused when we pulled into this strange neighborhood and starting making all kinds of twists and turns down different streets. He never would tell me where we were going until we pulled into their driveway. He told me he had gotten in touch with this family that had a litter of lab puppies and, "Let's just go in and look. Looking won't hurt anything." Of course, from the moment I laid eyes on her I was hooked. He sure knew how to work me over...even that early into our marriage. She was the tiniest little chocolate lab puppy I had ever seen, only 3 weeks old. And so clumsy, rolling all over the floor. We immediately went home and knew she was ours, made the call to let the family know, and began the waiting period (she couldn't be taken away from her mama until she was 6 weeks old, at least) until we could bring her home. We brought her home the week of Thanksgiving in 2005. Those were some long, sleepless nights. She yelped and barked and cried all night for what came to be months. I remember the very 1st night telling Joe, "I think we have made a terrible mistake. I have got to get some sleep!!!!" Funny, but I think I can recall saying those same words to him our 2nd week home with Kate. The sleep deprivation as a new parent was like a slap in the face...I was not prepared. Turns out I wasn't prepared for lots of things. Anyway, poor Joe laid on the living room floor with a weepy, homesick Casey that 1st night home, while I laid in the bed pondering what to do with her. Such a good Daddy, even then. Joe and I would actually take turns getting up at night with her, we were so adamant that she trained early so we worked hard to help her get there. Those were some rough, sleep deprived days. It's so funny looking back now when we talk about it and how many parallels we've found between bringing that puppy home for the 1st time and welcoming a newborn into our little family.

Now I do love this dog to death, but like I said sometimes she just drives me nuts. She likes to bark in the house, scratch the floors, can't stand to be outside by herself, pulls me on the leash when she walks, and (worst of all!!!) has horrible gas. BUT...................she's family and I wouldn't trade her for the world. Kate has just reached a point here in the past 2 weeks or so where she's really tracking Casey and what she does. She loves to watch her, and I think in her own little way Casey loves her too.

Another beautiful day today...Joe and I got to take our 2 girls out for a little spin around the neighborhood, to both their delights'. Turns out Kate LOVES to go for walks in the stroller. Later this evening Nana and Papa came by to watch Kate for us while we went out and grabbed a bite to eat. Hopefully they'll be back to do it again, seeing that Kate had the blowout of the century while we were away. She timed that one just right.

Spring??

Today was a great day. I really hate to complain about things that cannot be changed, but this winter has been pretty miserable. So cold, so rainy. The snow was a nice treat, but really...I would have preferred sunshine and 70 degrees at that point. I don't even think my poor baby (born 9/29/09) has even seen much of the outdoors at all if any. So looking forward to getting her into some fresh air and seeing what she thinks of it. Today was so beautiful...still a little cool, but I was able to get her in the stroller and push her around outside for a few moments. She seemed to enjoy it! Can't wait to take her to the ocean.

Torticollis...and the rest of the story.

For those of you who don't know, Kate has had a condition known as Torticollis (also known as 'wryneck') since birth. It's simple really -- probably something she developed from being cramped so tight in mommy's tummy and from being carried so low for so long. It causes her neck to pull to one side (to her left). So if you've noticed in her pictures (much like the one above with her Grammy and Grandpa), in almost all shots she pretty strongly favors that left side. We've been visiting physical therapy since she was about 3 weeks old to try to correct the problem, and were told by PT that the problem would probably have resolved by now. Unfortunately we are still working to fix the problem, doing her daily stretches and turns to try to get the muscle to where it should be. It's been a frustrating thing for Joe and I, really, as we had hoped she would have been straight by now (no pun intended). But we constantly try to remind ourselves how truly blessed we are that we have a beautiful, healthy baby, torticollis or not, and that if this is the worst of our problems, then we're doing pretty darn good. So at last week's PT visit (we've been going on a weekly basis for the past couple weeks) she informed us that Kate really had failed to make the progress she had hoped for, and recommended that we get an Xray or possibly check into a vision problem that could be causing her to favor one side. So with that, I went home and scheduled an appointment with the pediatric orthopedist we had seen when Kate was 10 weeks old. We visited him then to get her hips checked out -- apparently one fun aspect that can accompany torticollis is hip dysplasia. He assured us at that visit that her hips were perfectly fine and there was essentially no need to worry - we would come back at around 6 months of age and do an Xray to be sure her hips were ok, and that her torticollis should resolve on its own with time, particularly once she begins to hold her head up and sit and stand on her own. Kind of a different story than what we were getting from PT. So we went this morning for that follow-up appointment with the peds orthopedist where we had an Xray (after waiting in the doctor's office for over an hour with a VERY tired Kate who was also slowly getting closer and closer to feeding time). He examined Kate --much to her dismay; don't think I have ever heard my baby scream quite like that, not even during shots-- and once again assured us that she seems to be fine, and reinforced the importance of Joe and I pressing on with her exercises. In the next 6 months we should see tremendous progress. So with that, we'll continue doing her daily exercises and PT visits until we start to see some progress and kick this torticollis thing to the curb. Now from what I've read and what we've been told this seems to be a pretty benign and even common condition in babies, but I've learned that when something ----ANYTHING---is wrong regarding my own baby, it can, at times, seem like the most debilitating, hugely over-exaggerated illness overcoming her little body which thus fuels some crazy mommy urge in me to correct the problem at all costs. But then I come back down to earth and remind myself of the precious, PRECIOUS gift from God of having a beautiful, otherwise healthy and thriving little girl, who just so happens to lean to the left a little bit :)

Hello Blogging World!

Well, after some consideration, we have decided to join the blogging world! A little late in the game, nonetheless (seeing that Kate is already 5 months old, almost to the day!), but better late than never! Ours will be primarily about Kate, obviously, and hopefully a great way to keep in touch with friends and relatives out of town, while at the same time chronicling her childhood. Is it just me or is this terribly time consuming??