What she's up to...

I don't feel like I have done a good update on Katelyn since she turned one, so here it goes!  I blame it on moving twice in the last 5 months :)  The video above is from a few months ago, but I though I would add it in.  It is kind of long, sorry.  Well, everything about this post is long, so good luck!

Happy Leap Day!  Katelyn is 18 months old today! And....on the last leap day, 4 years ago, David proposed to me....awww.  Now each of our versions of that engagement story are a little different depending on who you ask, but that was the day!

Back to Katelyn.  When she turned a year, one of the big things was her cake and that whole party we had for her.  But, I also stopped nursing her.  I was ready to be done, but she didn't like regular cow's milk, so that made me nervous.  She would actually spit it out.  I gave it a break for a couple weeks and she just drank water or juice and then one time at dinner, she seemed to want a drink from our cups of milk, so we let her and ever since she has absolutely loved it!  So much that often I have to bring out her milk after she has eaten some of her food or she will only drink milk.

She is still a fan of Peek-a-boo and that game seems to be the only way for some people to get a smile out of her sometimes.  She is still very conservative with her smiles.

She ALWAYS cheats when she plays :)

She likes being chased and gets sad when we stop.  The suspense is fun for her and makes her giddy when she hears heavy footsteps coming her way.
She also loves balls.  She is figuring out how to catch, but mostly just likes to throw and chase balls of any size around the house.
Animals are very fascinating to her.  It is a love hate thing where she doesn't want them to move towards her, but otherwise she gets excited and loves to watch them.
She is terrified when people knock on the door or ring the doorbell.  She panics every time and comes running to us for safety.  She gets really worked up each time and we don't know why since there hasn't been any traumatic events dealing with people at the door before.  Just the usual package delivery, maintenance people, friends, mail and such, but you would think there was a crazy person pounding on our door.

She loves parks.  She could play there all day and loves the slides and all the little things to play with there. 

She loves being involved with everything I do...and once David gets home, then she loves everything about him and can't get enough of him.  She sometimes will start helping and then stop to cheer and then continue helping.  She understands the majority of the simple things we say to her and will respond in a way that we know she understood.  Sometimes that means that she understands and does what we ask and can be a cute little helper, and other times she understands and runs and hides or will just turn her back to us so she hopes that we will forget (like putting pajamas on, taking a nap, giving up something she's not supposed to play with, come inside after playing or going for a walk, and things like that)

I think I mentioned this before, but a new Firehouse Subs opened up nearby and we enjoyed some yummy subs, but I love Katelyn's cheesy smile even more.  I have been over exaggerating the smiling for a camera routine and I am afraid that is the face she probably sees from me.  She mimics so much of what we do so much now that every time she does something odd, we think back to who she saw that from.  

Her babies and stuffed animals are coming to life.  They get fed all sorts of things and are taken care of.  She tries to put her clothes on them and lately, diapers too.   She checks them if they are stinky and sneaks some wipes to clean their faces and blow their noses.  She likes to help them do her "big girl" things.  She helps them sign words when she runs out of food to feed them (that she always eats/drinks after they don't).  She also helps them dance.

 She is done with cribs and has her own big girl bed now.  She is good about waking up and just coming out of the room to see what I am up to (she used to scream and get so mad when she would wake up in her crib when we weren't around).  Yesterday she came out from her nap with this awesome bedhead!  She had no idea and went on doing her "mom" thing with her bear and her crazy hair that had me giggling every time I looked at her.

 Here is her bear with her shirt on and a diaper too.

 She tries to feed him in his "high chair" that she helps him up to.  She sometimes gets frustrated because he won't stay sitting up when she tries to put food (shove food) in his mouth.  He can be so stubborn.

She is checking bear's diaper to see if it's stinky (tee-kee).

This mini baby got the bad end of the deal while eating peaches.  Katelyn doesn't put up with stubborn "kids".  The mini baby got a bath in the washing machine after snack.

 

Cute daddy-daughter picture that I love.

On Valentine's Day, we got together with some friends for a little party.  They did a little heart scavenger hunt, played with balloons and ate some treats.  Then they handed out Valentine's to each other and Katelyn was more interested to see what people had in their bags and wanted to dig through them.  She loves purses lately and one of the bags was the perfect purse and she really wanted it the whole time so she was a little side tracked.  Her friend Mallory likes to "pretend" she is Katelyn's mom, but she gets completely into it.  It is cute, but sometimes we have to remind her that she just needs to pretend, and not force it if Katelyn doesn't want to play pretend with her.  Katelyn loves holding hands with friends and with us too.  Once someone grabs her hand, they are almost instant friends.

Mallory was good at helping her find the hearts for the scavenger hunt.

Mallory making sure Katelyn eats all of her treats...

Mallory was helping Katelyn find hearts and would save them for Katelyn to find and protect them from the kids that were faster than Katelyn.  She felt Katelyn should give her a hug to say thank you, and Katelyn was fine with that.

Katelyn was done hugging, but Mallory wasn't quite, so she thought maybe she should pick Katelyn up.

  That night, since David was out of town for work, I babysat so that they could go out for the night and Katelyn could play with friends some more.  I figured I might as well instead of us staying home on our own.  Mallory and Katelyn were pretending to be in timeout because Katelyn wasn't listening to her "mom".  Katelyn thought the box was fun.

I wanted a picture and Katelyn wasn't looking at the camera so Momma Mallory helped her :)

Just warning you, this video is VERY long (19 minutes!) but I wanted to record the things Katelyn can say lately.  She gets shy and is quiet when people are around and we want her to say some of her words like she does all the time with us.  Feel free to watch it if you want, but it is mostly for our record because I will wonder down the road with our other kids and I think Katelyn will like this someday too.  She has a few more words she can say like up, no, hi, bye (buh-buh with a wave), stinky (tee-kee), poopy, thank you (tee-koo), movie (boo-me), puppy, kitty, bird, baby, whoa, uh-oh, and juice are the ones that come to mind.  She also does really well with her signs.  She regularly signs, more, eat, all done, thank you, apple, cracker, cold, hot, sandwich, milk, cheese, cookie, baby, bath, potty, drink, and probably a couple more.
In this video we go through names.  She only has a few down really good.  Sometimes she says some better, and she surprised me with a few she seemed to somewhat get compared to the usual.  The camera battery died at the end of the names.  The only other one that she really said well was Nick...sorry it isn't on camera, but she can say it really well!

Part of the nap time routine is spent her. It is perfectly warmed on the sunny days and is it my favorite spot. Katelyn doesn't seem to mind either and is always out dreaming away within a couple of minutes.

We had a fun little photo shoot and she was so giggly and ticklish.  I love these photos that show her fun personality.  She can be sassy and throw tantrums when she doesn't get her way, but these pictures show her fun silliness that I love. 

She's our little cutie and we can't get enough of her some days...and for the other days, that's why I am grateful she gets to go to nursery now and we have our date nights.  She is always happy to see us and throws herself at us for a big hug.  Her hugs are the best, and she even pats us on the back when she hugs.  It melts David every time!  She sure knows how to get us!

Yuck!

We have a problem here.  We have these creepy crawling bugs here. We only moved 15 minutes away from our old place, but the difference has to be that we are on the ground floor now instead of the 2nd floor.  These bugs I am seeing aren't the usual bugs and we haven't seen any other bugs in here. I have only seen three of them, but they are big (like 2 inches long!) and fast!  I panic a little each time I see one before I scope out something to smash them with. I looked them up to see what they were which was gross and just as terrifying when 20 pictures of this and other nasty bugs popped up on my screen.

Gross huh?!?

They are a long legged fast crawling centipede.  I am sure that isn't the official name for them, but I don't care about that.  We have some bug spray that we are going to spray along the doors and windows that worked for a hobo spider problem we had in Nampa.  I hope it works!  These things take my breath away and make me jump. And I have to do the messy clean up since David isn't home...and there is no way I am going to let them crawl around until he gets home to take care of them.  I didn't used to be such a wimp about these things, but I think once I got married I assumed it was the man's duty to take care of the nasty bees, bugs, spiders and anything creepy.  Maybe it helps the husband feel manlier and helps him to feel like he is protecting his sweet wife?  I don't know, but these things are gross!

This Valentine of Mine

This year David and I decided that I would take over everything for Valentine's Day, and then he would take our anniversary in May.  David doesn't like Valentine's Day in that there isn't any reason for it and it seems like someone (probably a girl) picked a day that everyone would show some extra love that day for those they cared about.  I admit, it is kind of out of the blue and seems made up, but since I am a girl, I thoroughly enjoy it. 

I was trying to come up with the perfect idea and I wanted to be able to get everything prepared early so I wouldn't be trying to move and celebrate the fun love of the holiday.  I put together 14 days of Valentine's and had a gift and a cute note to go with each day.  Some gifts were made from things we had, some were small, some were big.  David has a wishlist that he updates here and there on Amazon and I picked some things from there and thought of some of my own ideas for gifts.

Day 1: I put together an "I love you because..." frame that we can write little love notes to each other all the time.  This is an idea I got from Pinterest...I love that site!  It is going to go up right next to our front door.  I LOVE getting little notes from David.  He might tell you this was really a present for myself, but he likes getting love notes too, but he will only admit it to me :)

Day 2: A new wallet.  I have re-sewed his old one, he has taped it, it was still falling apart and we both knew it was time for a new one.
Day 3: I painted canvas for him.  I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it looked cute.  This was fun and I know it looks plain, but that's what I like about it.  These are the colors in our bedroom and it will go up on the wall with some wedding pictures.

Day 4:Hot Tomales...I was snacking on some and he was bummed they were all gone and he didn't get any, so I got him his own box.
Day 5: New tie for church
Day 6: Gum...we like gum around here.
Day 7: Lemon-heads...2nd favorite candy
Day 8:  Monopoly Deal...Katelyn loved getting in on the opening and it looks like she was either crying on David's shoulder, or wrestling with him and "mauling" him.  She looks happy, so I think it was wrestling!

Day 9: Fridge Magnets....We have been needing some fridge magnets, maybe not this many, but I decided to do one for all the family members.  I cut out foam board, scrapbook paper, and head shots of all the siblings, parents, grand kids and stuck a magnet on the back.  Katelyn loves to play with them.  She is repeating words I say lately and so she tries to say all the names with me.  Some are easier than others but she can fully say these ones: baby (Jake and Liam), Papa, Mama, Dad, Abby, and Emme, and I love watching her as she tries to say some of the harder ones where she can get a part of them, but gets confused and usually lets me know she gives up on that one and goes back to "baby" ...Christine, Brooks, Chelsea, Tricia, Tracie.  Grandma always makes her say "mama" and Peter always gets her version, "Pee-Pee" ...Sorry Peter, we are working on that still :)

Day 10: Butterfinger...#1 favorite candy bar
Day 11: Phase 10 the card game.... a classic.
Day 12: Free Desk!  A family in our ward had an old wood desk that they were ready to part with so I made the arrangements to have some people from my moving crew pick it up and drop it off.  David has been hoping that someday he could have a desk again and he is really hoping I my craftiness/sewing doesn't find it's way there :)
Day 13: Toaster.  This isn't any toaster. David is picky about his breakfasts and also doesn't like to spend much time makeing what he really wants, so he usually would just stop by McDonald's on his way to work.  That gets expensive and so David found a way to fix it with this monster of a toaster!  He put this on his wish list awhile ago and has been dreaming about it. 

He usually just buys things when he wants something, but I told him that he had to wait until after this round of holidays (Christmas, Valentine's, and his birthday in April) and it was like pure torture for him.  David loves it!  He can make his sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich with ease and he knows I love him for sure now :)
Day 14: I set up something that we were in desperate need of.  In Nampa, we had some friends that we would rotate with and watch each other's kids so we would get two dates a month.  It was so nice!  We finally feel really comfortable here and I set up a date night swap that we can rotate with and get some regular dates in again.  I also put together a list of a few dates for each specific month that we can choose from so that we have ideas to go off of and not just thinking about the usual dinner, movie, or tennis.  It will be so nice to get out together and have something fun in mind already.  We are also going to get a temple group together so we can get to the temple more regularly and often. 

This turned out to be perfect with our moving situation and also because David was out of town during the week staying at his hotel.  I sent him with a gift to open each night over skype while he was gone and then had some of the gifts at home for the weekends too.  He enjoyed it and I did too.  It was different, but even though he wasn't home to celebrate yesterday with me, (and Katelyn and I went and babysat for a friend and her husband...Katelyn was a big help) David felt loved all month and is now worried that he will have to plan something that is as good or better than this for our anniversary.  Perfect :)