Birthday Party!

Katilyn had a great first birthday party yesterday. She seemed to have a lot of fun.

First she got to eat lunch.


Then it was time to open presents!







She loved having Daddy throw her down into her new bean bag chair.


Then it was time for cake! She didn't eat a whole lot, but did taste the frosting a few times.




Here is the cake I made for the party.


Kaitlyn was very lucky to have both sets of her Grandparents at her party. Here she is with my parents and then Paul's parents.



My sister, brother-in-law, and niece were there too!


And of course her Mommy & Daddy!


Kaitlyn had so much fun and got so tired she fell asleep in the middle of the floor!


We had a great time celebrating our little sweetie. It's hard to believe how much she has grown. This morning I was working in the nursery at church and was amazed at all the new things she can do in there now. She crawled into the play house and was opening and closing the windows playing peekaboo with the other kids. She was climbing up the slide, and opening the microwave and cupboards of the play kitchen.

I am so happy to be her Mommy, and can't wait to see what the next year with her will bring.

1 Year

Today is Kaitlyn's First Birthday! It's so hard to believe that my little sweetie is growing up.

This morning I read through the account I wrote of her birth (here), and it brought tears to my eyes. I remember it all so well, and it is still hard to believe that I was part of such an amazing miracle.

Yes, it's been a difficult year. And a wonderful year.

I love you so much Kaitlyn. I hope you have a fun day.

Here she is, one picture from every month...

4th of July

To celebrate the holiday we went to a picnic with friends from church. We had a good time, though Kaitlyn was kinda fussy due to teething. She did get to enjoy watching the other little kids play, eating cheerios, and swinging!

Playing Ball with Daddy

11 Months!

This month we celebrated our first Father's Day. Kaitlyn loves her Daddy!

I love this picture of Kaitlyn because it shows her 3 teeth! Then about 3 days after Father's Day Kaitlyn got 2 more top teeth, so she now has 5 teeth. We have had a few rough weeks of teething, crying, and trouble sleeping this month. And I don't think we're done yet, as a few more look like they may be coming soon.


Kaitlyn loves to play! And she has learned some new things this month. She has a set of cups that nest inside of each other. She loves to chew on them and bang them on things. But last week she was holding two of them and starting putting one inside the other! We quickly found a few more of the cups from around the room and she went to work on stacking them. She often tried them the wrong way, but kept working hard to put them together and take them apart. Paul started playing too, and would hold one of the big cups and let her put the smaller ones inside. We were so proud of her for figuring out how they work!


Also this week Kaitlyn has started a game of handing a toy to me and then taking it back. She thinks it is hilarious and giggles while we do it. It is a fun game.


Another new thing this month was climbing stairs! Since we don't have any stairs in our apartment, Kaitlyn hasn't been around them. When we were at a friend's house we let her give their stairs a try. I thought she might climb one or two, but she took off and climbed the whole way up! A few days later we were at another friend's house and she climbed another whole flight of stairs. I guess she knows how now!

We let Kaitlyn try sitting in the grass again this month, and it went a little better than last time. She wouldn't put her arms down though, ha ha.


This month Kaitlyn has started standing on her own. She will let go of the furniture for a few minutes and then will usually sit down carefully. She also loves to make funny faces and noises.


Here is a video of Kaitlyn laughing. I was getting out a new garbage bag to put in the trash can and gave it a shake to open it up...and Kaitlyn starting laughing! So of course I shook it again and again. I don't know why it was so funny, but it sure was. Unfortunately I couldn't hold the camera still while I shook the bag, but the laugh is the important part!



Today I finally did something I've been meaning to do for months. Before Kaitlyn was born I sewed a cross stitch picture for her wall with her name on it. Today I finally took it out of the frame and sewed on her birth date and weight. It only took me 11 months to spend the 15 minutes it took to finish it! It's nice to finally have that checked off my to do list.

I can't believe Kaitlyn's birthday is only a month away!

First Swim!

Today I decided it was time for Kaitlyn's first swim adventure. So I put her in a swim diaper and her swimming suit. I was a little worried that the suit would already be too small, but hooray it fits!


Then we walked to the swimming pool of our apartment complex. Kaitlyn LOVES to ride on Daddy's shoulders. She always has big smiles and giggles.


There is a tiny baby pool next to the regular size pool, and I took Kaitlyn in. And.....she started crying. I tried to play with her a bit, and she kept crying. So we got out and sat next to the pool for a few minutes. There were two kids in the big pool and she watched them play for a few minutes. Then she started looking carefully at the baby pool. I started splashing the water with my hand and she started giggling. Soon she was back in the water and happy. She sat on the step in the water. She stood up holding onto my hands. She splashed with her hands. And she jumped up and down. It was a success!



It was sure fun to watch her splash herself in the face and jump around. I hope we will be going to the little pool a few more times this summer. We at least have to use up our small package of swim diapers!

10 Months!

As always, Kaitlyn is as busy as ever. She can get into everything, including taking things out of the garbage can and pulling things off of the end tables. When the dishwasher is open she tries to grab the dishes inside. She is easily walking along the furniture, and walking from one thing to another. She is even letting go for a few seconds and standing on her own. She can crawl from one room to another so fast, that we can't take our eyes off of her for a second.

There are some things that I do enjoy about her growing mobility. Sometimes I go into another room to do something, and I can hear her breathing getting closer and closer until she peeks into the room to find me.

Our love of peekaboo has also expanded. Now Kaitlyn can crawl around a corner and when I say, "Where's Kaitlyn?" She will crawl back and peek around the corner and smile really big, and I say, "Peekaboo!" This game is particularly helpful when she is crawling somewhere that I can't see her. Often saying "Where's Kaitlyn?" will bring her back to where I can see her. But sometimes she thinks it's funny to crawl faster in the opposite direction, haha.

I also love it when she crawls a long way away from me and sits up. Then turns to look at me, smiles really big, then crawls straight back to me for a hug.

Another thing that warms my heart is when I get out of the car and am about to open the door to the backseat to get Kaitlyn out. Everytime she sees me through the window she smiles SO BIG. Like she hasn't seen me in ages, and so happy I'm there.

And here are some things that Kaitlyn loves! She loves going for walks in her stroller. She loves to look all around and see everything. What she doesn't like is when the stroller stops, and she lets us know by fussing, that we need to get going again.

Kaitlyn loves playing in the nursery at church, watching the other kids and exploring all the new toys. She also loves going to a play group with some of our friends every week. She loves to see new things!

Kaitlyn likes to talk! Well, we can't understand her yet, but she seems to know what she's talking about. Sometimes she looks so serious when she talks, I just can't help but wonder what she thinks she is saying!

Kaitlyn also loves to read books! We went to the library last week and checked out her first library books!

Kaitlyn loves her Daddy. She lights up when he walks into the room, and loves his tickles. Daddy can always get lots of giggles out of her.

Kaitlyn loves to look at babies and other kids. She even loves to look at pictures and videos of herself on my computer. She has this cute little squeal of excitement when she sees them. She can be playing on the floor with her toys while I am reading a friends' blog on my computer, and when I come across a picture of a baby I hear the squeal from across the room - she saw it!

Speaking of my computer, Kaitlyn loves to come over and type on my keyboard when I am trying to write an email or something. Sometimes she gets the settings on my computer changed, and it takes me awhile to figure out how to change them back. Sometimes she deletes things I have written too.

Kaitlyn loves to eat! She especially loves to feed herself. Last night she must have been really hungry because for dinner she ate peas, oatmeal, peaches, bread, cheese, puffs, and chicken! I was kinda just wondering how long she would keep eating if I kept offering her different things and she just kept eating. I think she was in the high chair for about an hour. Last week she did decide she hated vegetables, and no matter how I tried to mix them with oatmeal or applesauce, she knew they were there and would not eat them for anything. This week the veggies are going better and she is eating them, except for those carrots.

This month Kaitlyn got her 3rd tooth. This is her first tooth on the top! Some more should be coming soon.

This month we haven't taken as many pictures, but we seem to have a lot of pictures of Kaitlyn sleeping! So here is the sleeping collection.

Wherever I put her down in the pack n play, she always seems to wiggle around until her head is squished into the top or corner.


She loves to sit in her high chair. I guess it is a comfy spot.


We often talk about how cute she is when she is asleep.


Sometimes she finds some interesting positions to sleep in.



And sometimes in her pack n play she is NOT sleeping.




I don't know how we got so many sleeping pictures this month, but we did.

I can't believe there's only 2 months to go until her birthday!