Seriously?!

Katelyn is 10 months old.  I didn't think the time would go so fast.  I am already having to start thinking about her first birthday...well I don't have to, but I am...and nothing fancy...mostly just what kind of cake I should make her for that would make the biggest/cutest mess and blowing lessons so she can blow out her first candle instead of grabbing the flame and getting her first burn. It's not that far away and I can't believe it.  Life goes too fast sometimes and today some moms were talking about first hair cuts and when to register for Kindergarten, and other mom stuff I don't have to worry about yet but it made me think about how fast time has flown by and how time has never really seemed to go slow enough for me except the last month and an extra week of pregnancy that seemed to be longer than these last 10 months Katelyn's been here.  

Katelyn got her first tooth  this month.  Usually the front bottom two come in first.  Katelyn is a little vampire baby and her first two teeth were not any of the front teeth, but the top two next to the buck teeth. The ones on each side next to the canines and the top two front teeth.  Does that make sense?

They have just barely come in so I can't get any good pictures of her fangs yet.  I hope her two front teeth hurry up or she is going to have a goofy looking smile until they can catch up!

Dad has always said that I would be the first to know, and I sure was!  She bit down on me really well, but not how Dad was thinking.  She has been a very calm and nice eater and I have made sure to make her as happy and cozy as I can let her be so she has no reason to bite...yikes!

Katelyn is a million times better at not smacking the spoon away when I feed her the yummy fruits and meats and veggies.  Thank goodness, because it was not funny anymore.  The wall and the blinds still have some of those memories caked on :)

Katelyn is a pro at standing.  She can stand up all on her own in the middle of a room or outside, but she prefers to stand next to something or someone.  

She isn't walking yet...she still hangs on tight to move around until she remembers that crawling is the easier/sturdier/safer mode of transportation.  

She crawls elephant style and pounds her hands down and her legs follow.  She has two speeds...her exploring speed and her "SHE'S GONNA EAT ME!" speed.  She giggles up a storm with a good game of tag with extra tickles and smotherings of kisses.

This is her upset crying face.  The hands behind her head is a new thing she's been doing when she plays with toys and when she's sad...I don't know but look at those muscles :)

She likes closing doors, then screeching to have someone to open the door for her so she can close it again...and screech again...not my favorite.

Spying on the neighbors is always interesting...


She wants to eat whatever we are eating and will come to our feet and beg so pathetically for a bite.

She points with very good form :)

She scrunches up her nose and squints her eyes and snickers and she knows we love it and can't help but smile.

Her dad's whiskers tickle!

Her skin is still so so so soft!  We lotion her up after each bath and her skin is perfect.  Those little feet that struggle to balance, and her little bum so perfectly cushioned for all her falls, and her little round cheeks that are just the perfect plumpness.  She has such a beautiful tint of brown in her skin.  I love it!

In this last picture you can really tell how she is stretching out.  Those arms and legs hang out all over the place when we snuggle up and I can't believe it!  She is growing and changing and learning so fast.  I can't believe how old she looks in this picture.  She's an old baby now!

Her personality is making its entrance as she jabbers away and has a conversation with you or as she "wrestles" and crawls all over us or as she snuggles up letting us know she's sleepy or as she gets upset that she can't pick at the camera lens with her slimy fingers or as she lifts up my shirt when its milk time or as she squirms out of your lap because she wants to go play or as she sings/hollers as she plays on her own.  We love this little girl so much and can't even begin to imagine the new things she will learn and the millions of memories we will get to make with her. 

Still alive and kickin'

Katelyn has officially been outside my belly longer than she was cooking in there!  She just passed her 9 month birthday...ok it was a couple weeks ago but still!  She is quite the busy girl but she likes to make sure Mom or Dad are close by.  Some new/continuing talents, interests or anything else she does include:

• She eats her fruits and veggies great, but only when she has something in her hands to play with.  Otherwise, she will whack my hand/spoon and the food will make a nice mess anywhere from on me, the table, her, the floor, the walls, her eyes. . . who knows!  
• Sometimes she gets so focused on whatever is in her hands that she forgets to eat the food in her mouth.  She will barely open her mouth ready for another bite realizing that she can't open it very well without losing what's already in there.  Sometimes I don't realize this until I see that her cheeks are extra round.  She's our little hamster.
• She will purposefully put things under the couch and then swish her hand around under there to find what she put under there. . . or whatever she put under there last time.  Today it is her pacifier.  
• If we ever can't find something, we look under the couches because of the previous talent.
• She likes other babies that are her size or smaller.  She likes dolls too.  She isn't very gentle with them though and gets excited and whacks them in the face multiple times or uses them to hold on to as she stands up.  The dolls don't seem to mind, but the other babies do.

• She stands a lot and most of the time she is holding on with one or both hands.  She is now finding that she can just lean against her belly and stay standing.  Sometimes she will stand for a few seconds on her own and then squat down.  She's getting braver and braver but probably still a month or two away from walking.  Crawling is the safest option still.

• She often sits in a kneel/squat position like she's ready to stand, crawl, or sit.  Triple threat :)
• When she eats our face it seems more and more like she is giving kisses.  She is getting gentler and cuter with it.
• She can stink up a room, no problem.  Multiple times this last weekend she was being held and then handed off because they thought she was poopy.  I would take her off to change her poopy diaper only to find it was clean.  She learned how to toot from her uncles and papa...Papa, NO!
• She loves the stairs, the fridge, and the dishwasher.  Almost any time I open the fridge or the dishwasher and she hears me messing with dishes or things in the fridge, she drops what she's doing and crawls as fast as she can on over to see if she can get there before I close them up.  If she is fast enough she likes to climb on up!

What a pose!

• She loves books more than anything...well she likes us more, and then food, and then comes the books.  She can turn the pages of her board books and she seems to have a favorite page in the books that she will turn to.  Once she finds it, she will keep it open and take that book around with her as she explores.

• So many things that she goes after aren't really okay for her to play with so we take them away. She is almost always fine if we replace it.  Some time she will go after something and pause to look at us for approval or to see if we are going to take it away.  Once she realizes we're going to let her have whatever she's going for, she smiles really big and starts panting with excitement...funny girl.
• She is stinkin' cute in her sunglasses...thanks Aunt Kim!  She keeps them on pretty well too.  Yesterday she wore them while we shopped at Winco.  Others can't help but notice her cute shades!  I can't wait until it warms up for good and I get to put a suit on her round body and go swim!  

• Somedays are "cling to mom" days.  She will do whatever she can to make sure she plays by me as she will drag her toys over and then just lean on me as she plays, then climb on and over me, then lay her head on my leg when she's ready for a nap.  I love it most of the time, except when I want to clean or make dinner...Katelyn doesn't like it when I try to be productive around here either.
• She still waves and dances and it is still cute.
• Sometimes when she's sad she says mom.  We don't think she is meaning to talk to me, but I think we are counting it as her first word...maybe.
• In church, David takes Katelyn with him to his classes while I teach mine.  I think he is the only guy in Elders Quorum that has a baby.  Katelyn was getting tired and was all snuggled up with David in the back of the room.  She started talking saying,"da da da da da da da..." and everyone looked back at David.  He secretly liked the distraction Katelyn was and how cute his little girl was being for everyone to hear.
• I have been working on some signs with Katelyn while we eat.  She has started to do a clap-like motion and I am hoping she is signing "more" but I think she has picked up on clapping.  I am going to count it until she proves me wrong and I'm okay with that :)
• Some nights she sleeps all night long and it is wonderful.  Other nights she wakes up multiple times and it isn't so wonderful.  We haven't seen a pattern as to why she is waking up, so some days I get nap time too!
• She has always taken a bath in the sink until a couple weeks ago.  The first two or three baths in the tub were life threatening for her or something.  Our neighbors were probably suspicious, but somehow Katelyn survived.  We aren't sure why the big tub was so scary, but most days it isn't too scary anymore.
• Her skin color is beautiful!  I love it!  It is super soft too... irresistible!!!
• Katelyn is not discrete if she's watching you.  She will stare you down with her mouth wide open and maybe even drool if she's watching long enough.  She will lean to the side or forward or back if something gets in her way and stare until she's had enough.
• She is still our heavy duty girl.  She weighed in a couple weeks ago at 20 pounds.  It might have been 20 1/2 pounds I didn't write it down.  For her height she is 27 inches.  So she is still on the shorter side and on the heavier side of that short side.  
• She is a pro at eating cheerios or any scrap of whatever she finds on the floor.  She pinches it with her two fingers and gets it in her mouth REALLY fast.  I have fished way too many things out of her mouth that she wasn't supposed to eat.
• When she's done eating cheerios, she has learned to pick each one up and put it in her high chair or drop it off to the side that mom isn't on.  I think she is saving some for later explorations.
• She drinks a little at a time out of her sippy cup.  That is still a work in progress, but she is making progress.

• If I say, "Can I have it?" she will very hesitantly place whatever she has in my hand.  Once I say thank you, she is ready for me to give it back.  
• She likes having her toes painted...well maybe her mom likes having her toes painted :)

So that's our toothless little girl.  She doesn't slow down for anything and is always on the lookout for something to entertain her.  She is quite a bit of work, but very easy to love!  Everyone always mentions how soft her skin is and it must be from all the snuggles and kisses she gets...must be!

Geography Lessons

For Christmas I got a new puzzle of the world.  I was honestly excited for it!  Maybe it is the teacher in me, but I was excited to put it together.  I was determined to do it without using the box and for the most part we were successful.  David didn't think doing it without the box was very fun so he opted to hold Katelyn so she wouldn't eat our puzzle.

 The outside has the latitude and longitude numbers and letters so that was pretty simple.  The ocean seemed like it would be tricky, but there were facts about each country and each country was listed alphabetically so that helped with that a lot.  Then we did the countries and most of the countries are individual pieces.  The big countries are spread across multiple pieces and the tiny countries were sometimes combined into one piece. I knew which continent each country belonged to, but David had a hard time with that.  That's probably because of my geography class in college :)

This has got to be the cheesiest family picture with the completed puzzle, but as you can see, I was a little excited and David and Katelyn went along with it for me.  I loved doing it and had a hard time wanting to take a break.  Katelyn wanted to help quite a bit but we are such mean parents and just made her watch.  Maybe someday she will be able to really help without sucking on the pieces.

Who planned that?

This year's birthday was quite the celebration.  I had no idea everyone was so excited to celebrate ;)  I went home for a visit and brought David this time. . . and Katelyn too.  I am pretty sure that everyone would make us go back if we didn't bring baby Katelyn...or is her name Natalie?  Eddie and Emme were a little confused which baby she was.  So we arrived Friday night and Chad and Amber and kids, and Ben were already there.  Brooks and John brought their giant great dane friends Duke, Gus, and Daisy (I think I made up Daisy, but that's what we'll call her for now)  They were all there for this big birthday weekend I am sure.

Friday night we stayed up way too late playing Famous People and since Katelyn slept the whole car ride, she even stayed up with us!  We all got good laughs at Dad trying to act out Hootie and the Blowfish, and Brooks reading Johns special spelling of the artist Van Gogh as Vango...kinda like Rango the movie right?  Thanks to David, Rachel Ray is now Mexican.  And Will had some input on the game even though spelling some of the names is the toughest part!  Like Herkyalees?  And medl man? and vatasic 4?  We were all a lot lost a lot of the time, but luckily David didn't have to moon everyone this time to get them to guess Joe the Plumber.
We all went to bed and passed out until the sun came up and we must have had enough sleep by then so we headed out for a little tennis tournament.  Very official.  Ben slinky-ed his arm through the gate since we had misplaced the key and we were whacking away!  It was a bright sunny morning, perfect for tennis!

 Dad, you are a cheatin' fool :)  Stay on your side!

 This was probably one of those lucky hits that I was just staring at thinking the point was over!

John and Chad both beat me the first game and I couldn't lose for my birthday's sake, so I buckled down and made them sweat!  They think I was the one to beat since I am the only one with real tennis lesson experience.  I never got to play Ben though...he's tough to beat with his tricky hits.  Chad and John surprised me and made me work hard for those wins and whenever I thought I had them, they would pull out a lucky hit or ace me on a serve.  Dad claimed he beat me, two games out of three, but I remember how it went now.  We played three points..maybe..and David came back from his potty break and Dad called it quits before the first game was even over and put David in there.  I think he was a little scared or something ;)

We then ate some french toast and then headed off to Luke's Lift-A-Thon.  Holy Moly!  Luke raised quite a bit of money!  Some people said they would give hime 2-3 cents for every pound he lifted.  That doesn't seem like any donation at all, but they knew better.  Luke did 4 different lifts.  He lifted 250 in the bench press (not is personal best, but still WAY more than the little boys next to him lifting 70 pounds).  Then he squatted 495 pounds!  The bar was bending over his back and I thought his eyeballs were about to pop out!  He went for 500, but just barely couldn't get it!  He seriously had the whole weight room full of about 100 people watching him!  He is the one to beat in the squats!!!  In the power cling he lifted 295 for a new personal record and then topped it off with another personal best of 445 for the dead lift.  So he lifted a total of 1,485 pounds!!!!  That is insane!  It was pretty cool to watch though!  He raised about $700 for his football team.  That's my brother!

 The Ultimate Cheer Squad.  You would lift more too if we were cheering you on :)

 Sweaty friends...Luke and Forrest

 Then we all got ready for Abby's graduation.  She has grown up to be such a beautiful girl and I am so excited for her to go to college.  We all cheered our throats raw for her and made her proud!  As she walked in she was looking around for us among all the cheering people and finally found us.  She kept looking back at us just to make sure we were still there :)  We all can't believe she's all grown up and reminiscing about when we graduated all those years ago.  What a fun and exciting time in her life!

 We headed home and got some fruit and treats ready for the party.  Mom and Dad planned this party with 5 other families so it took the load off of them a lot and we didn't have too much to worry about.  It was nice to share the prep work with everyone!

Who knew that this party wasn't planned for me?  There were lots of people invited but I didn't know a lot of them.  None of the gifts or cards with money in them had my name on them.  Maybe they just got a little confused?  Obviously somebody didn't get the message that it was my birthday because the cake had a basketball, a football, some books, and some graduation hats, and I really only like basketball and there weren't even any candles for me to blow out.  There was good food and even better treats so I was okay with that.  Next year I will be sure to let everyone know so we don't have to worry about this confusion at the party again :)

 When she falls asleep on you, she slowly moves into positions like this or other similar uncomfy positions.

Saturday night the boys went off and played soccer and I was determined to get Katelyn down for some real sleep.  She wanted to stay up and paint nails with us instead and she tried her hardest but got more nail polish on her pajamas and smeared on the tile.  We'll have to practice.  Emme practiced on me and I ended up with three dark blue nails, two light blue nails and fingers, one orange nail, and one gold sparkley nail.  My toes got painted a mauve color and my toenails were lucky enough to get some of that mauve color too :)  Emme is quite the artist!

It was a wonderful birthday weekend even though all the parties, cakes, ceremonies and presents were for Abby.  I think she worked a little bit for them.  I think she got a total of maybe 10 hours of sleep over that weekend, and possibly 20 for the week.  I asked her if she would get to sleep in this week and she said, "Well I do have to work at 3 each day."  I guess that only means she gets to sleep in a little bit ;)

Sunday I was serenaded the ever-wonderful Happy Birthday song.  I have never heard it sound so tired.  I think we were all ready to crash and head back into hibernation for awhile.  We were all too excited to sleep and we don't see each other enough so we have to spend every ounce of energy together playing until we get delirious or someone decides to watch a movie.

Never a dull moment at home with the Bare clan even if we are all running off of a handful of hours of sleep!