So much to say!

This whole blogging thing is getting tricky!  I have too many things that I want to do, and somehow I always end up playing/snuggling/talking/feeding/kissing/changing/discovering with Katelyn!  So. . . .here goes a million posts that have been in the process for way too long.  Happy reading!

Katelyn Lately

She's growing up!  Here's a look at what Katelyn can do lately.

When she's on her tummy, she's really good at doing this beached whale thing. . . or flying with a jet pack.  She puts her arms to the side and just looks around.  She is sooo close to rolling over.  She can scoot around like this and turn in circles really slow.  

And as you can see, she is balding.  She has been since she was a month old.  She used to get comments from old guys saying that she had more hair than they did, but now she's looking more and more like them.  Her hair is really thick below the balding ring, and kind of thin on top.  Let's just hope this isn't a permanent hair growth pattern!

She is also really good at blowing bubbles.  She makes them in her mouth somehow and then pushes them out for everyone to be proud of.  Sometimes all of her lips will be covered with her bubbles.  In this picture, they have slid down from her lips and down her chin. . .cute huh?! 

 She loves being in her swing with something to play with.  She is at the stage where she will look something down, and then do everything she can to get it to her mouth to really figure it out.  None of her toys fit very far in her mouth and she gets frustrated and un-interested in them.
Here she is with one of her bears.  He didn't fit in her mouth enough, so she pushed him away and pinned him down.  She was officially done with him.

  She can sit on her own now!  She leans forward and rests on her hands most of the time.  She is figuring out her feet now and analyzes them very closely. She wants to put her feet in her mouth so sometimes she will fold in half to get to them.  As chubby as they are, babies sure are flexible!  I'm not that chubby, but I know I can't  reach my head to my feet without bending my legs. . . or even with bending my legs.   Go ahead and try it!

She is such a happy baby!  We love her smiles and goofy faces.  Here she is with her dad cheesing it up for us.
Katelyn doesn't have a very long neck, so anytime she wears clothes with collars on them the do this.  Her chubbiness makes the collar flip up.  Sometimes the collar is too long and it will flip up into her face.  She can pull it off and I guess it makes her look cooler with it "popped".

At night, we try to keep her up for a couple hours before we put her to sleep to make sure she is really tired and will sleep through the night.  Sometimes I have to play with her and entertain her.  One night she was just too tired and fell asleep sitting and leaning against my hands.  She didn't make it very long and I was planning to change her, feed her, and give her a bath before she was out. She loves her baths except when she splashes too much water in her face

 I got some new nail polish and may or may not have tried it out on Katelyn :)

Some other things about her, that I won't put pictures up. . . when she is eating, she will take a break and look at me and sometimes we'll have a little "conversation."  Right before she is ready to eat again, she will swing her arm around once like a lassoing cowboy or Indiana Jones with his whip. . . too funny!

Recently she will not eat when I am talking.  She likes to eat with peace and quiet.  No singing, no talking, no laughing, no noises from mom,  just eating.  I can make all the faces I want, but once I make a peep, she stops and stares me down until I have learned my lesson.  Then she will swing her arm around and start eating again.  Yes ma'am!

So that's our cute little girl!  We sure can't get enough of her and she doesn't seem to mind our kisses. . . her slobbery ones aren't too bad either!

Here Comes Christmas!

We had our ward Christmas party last week.  They did indeed use our little gingerbread houses that we made as the center pieces.  They didn't hide ours away, but we were expecting the worst.  We were glad to see that ours wasn't the best or the worst one there.  They all looked pretty good. . . as good as loads of frosting and candy can look.  We ate dinner, enjoyed some fondue, and then the show began.  We listened to some girls sing songs, a couple sing some songs, and then it was time for the big show.  

The primary kids act out the nativity each year.  I had never seen this done before so I was ready to be surprised.  They all came on stage with their wonderful costumes draped around them.  Some of them had parts to say and they were shy, but they did it.  They were so proud of themselves and their parents were too.  They would try to sneak two big thumbs up to their kid, but it wasn't very sneaky when the kid would do it right back as they were on stage drawing attention to them and the parents who started the whole thing.  Cute though!

Then we got to the part with the baby.  There was this part of the story that I didn't remember.  I never knew the sheep and the angels were so silly and having so much fun.    Good thing the bearded wise-woman was there to settle them down and put them back into place.  David got it on camera.

I guess I will have to listen better next time :)

When that was finished, Santa cam jingling in with his bells.  Some of the little kids were in awe. . . it isn't Christmas yet is it?!

I wanted to have a picture of Katelyn with Santa for the first time.  Santa is a flirt though and thought it would be funny to pull me in as I was about to hand her off.  He said he didn't want to wake her up.  She was sound asleep and din't mind the whole thing!  

It was fun to watch the different kids go sit with Santa.  The older babies and toddlers weren't big fans of their parents giving them away to some strange man.  They would start crying and reach out for their moms.  Santa was willing to give them up, but some of the moms REALLY wanted Santa to hold them for a picture, screaming or not.  The mom's would put their kid back up on his lap and say "Smile" but they didn't cooperate.  So they got a "I hate Santa" first Christmas picture.  Too funny!

The older kids saw that if they sat on his lap for a bit they would get a candy cane and a bag of candy.  So they all jumped in line.  They were a little shy once they were on his lap, but once they got their candy, they chowed down!

We are going to miss this ward, and the fun people in it.  Good fun and quite the Christmas party!

Boise Buddies

We are moving soon, and it's a bummer.  I know there are good things about moving, and I know it will be good once we move, but every time we start getting to really know people, we move on.  It is kind of annoying knowing that this isn't our last move either.  But we are expecting to stay at this next place for a little longer at least. This move will be our fourth in the 2 1/2 years we've been married.  

It is fun to look at all the places we've been though.  We have nothing but good memories.  We definitely haven't ever moved to get away from anyone.  We always meet fun people and that's what we miss the most when we move.  

Here are our friends Ryan and Ann.  We made ginger bread houses with them.  I volunteered to make one to decorate the tables as center pieces for the ward party and then they would be donated to the pediatrics unit at the hospital.  I invited Ryan and Ann over to make one with us.

Everyone thought they were just for fun, but then I told them what we were making them for.  This made everyone a little nervous.  It put pressure on them to make it look a little more presentable, which is tricky.  We are in no way design or construction experts.  This was Ann's first time making one, and the rest of us haven't ever made one that didn't fall over at least once while making it.

I would say it was a success!  Ryan and Ann's fell over once, and you wouldn't believe how many graham crackers and how much frosting is on the inside of their house to keep it up.  Ours is leaning, but standing strong. 

Here are the finished products!  How much more presentable can they get?!  

Ryan and Ann don't have any kids yet, and they love to snatch up a baby any time they can.  They approve of  Katelyn and she doesn't scowl at them anymore, so they must be friends now :)

These last three pictures make me laugh.  Each time we set the timer and had the camera take three quick shots. . . in hopes that we would get one of Katelyn not moving.  We decided to do some goofy faces and counted down with the timer and said ready, set, go!  I guess Ryan and Ann didn't realize how quick the three shots would be and didn't change much.  Katelyn looks like she's heading for their candies on their house.  David and I tried to be silly. 

 We will miss Ryan and Ann and all our friends here, but hopefully there will be nice people at our new place or we are coming back!

David Knows 'em All

When Katelyn was first born, David was determined to have the smartest baby in the world.  Soon after his multiple failed attempts to keep Katelyn's interest with the alphabet and numbers flash cards he got for her, he checked out every learning game from our public library.  There are games from toddler to 6th grade.  There were a lot!  The library would only allow 5 games out at a time, so he had to take a lot of trips to the library as he timed out the ones that were on hold.  He realized that all these games were old and so he dug out our old giant desktop because they work better with Windows 98 or whatever the old version of windows is.  

He had everything from Dr Seuss, Clifford, Arthur, Reader Rabbit, Carmen San Diego, . . . you name it!  He had to "test" each game to see if it was any good and worth Katelyn's time.  He admitted that he was really excited to play Oregon Trail again but the rest he said he just had to try out. . . even though he got to the 6th level in the Dr. Seuss game :)  I told him he can't start Katelyn on the computer games yet.  He wasn't too bummed, but once she has a little more coordination, he will be begging me to let her start.  He now know which games are best and which ones he approves of :)
David has also been putting together Katelyn's Cookies. . . a business that she will run someday.  He's just a tad excited for her future. . . it's cute.

Halloween

I know this was forever ago, but I just have to put it up!  I was at home the week before Halloween and they had their ward party.  I wasn't sure what Katelyn should dress up as so I started to look online at baby costumes.  I found one that I thought. . . we could make that!
So I convinced my mom to sew a little costume up really quick.   It only took her a little over an hour.  All I did was iron the fabric.

I loved it!  We tied off the ends and put a little white hat on her and ta-da!  We had a cute little tootsie roll!

My costume was about as cute as it was 15 years ago.  I also didn't get the memo that parents don't dress up much anymore.  Katelyn was cute so she saved me as more people would pay attention to her than me.

This is in 1995.  I am the witch here.   Same wig. . . just as gross.

  I scanned a bunch of old pictures while I was home and I like this one too.  I think someone was a clown and a pirate each year.  This is 1993 with Ben as the Indian, I'm a clown, and Nick is the pirate.

Halloween is such a goofy holiday, but it is the one day of the year that you can throw a wild costume together and be whatever you want!

Hi Mom!!! Hi Dad!!!

I think it is normal that when I visit at home, I never like to leave.  At the same time, the thought of living with my parents all the time isn't appealing.  It's funny how it works out like that.
Here's a video of Katelyn having a good talk with Grandma.  She's just too cute so I am putting the whole video up.

I love that we live close enough to visit, and this visit was great too.  I was able to sneak away a bit early to catch my sister and her husband, and their beastly dog Gus.  It's been too long since I've seen them!  They know so many card games. . . endless possibilities with them and card games, no joke. 
I was able to make it in time to watch Luke's football game.  He did awesome!  He is one of the linemen and you have to try so hard to focus on him to see him play because he isn't ever the one with the ball running or catching.  He sets up blocks and protects the quarterback.  He's so stinkin' strong and he "pancaked" a couple of guys. . . meaning he knocked them over flat on their backs!  He's not the usual chubby linemen, but he's one of the strongest and definitely the fastest, so the coaches like him up there on the line.  Apparently the coaches have told him not to touch the ball as he has "stone hands" so he just knocks people out of the way instead :)  Their team is doing really well and is two games away from the state champoinship game.  Football is ok to watch, but when there is somebody you know, it is so much more fun and he plays almost the whole game too!

A boy in the ward here is doing a service project to collect food for people in need.  He made up a list of what a family would need for a good Christmas dinner and then handed those out to those that wanted to help and fill a box.  So we decided to do two boxes and we went out all together to the store.  Dad turned it into a competition as we parked and he and Luke jumped out of the car and took off running into the store saying, "You snooze you lose!"  or something to that effect.  Us ladies were not about to be beat.  We are the real shoppers and we wouldn't go without a fight.  We got going and we had found so much of the list on the entrance aisle since it is the holiday season.  Dad and Luke didn't notice that aisle and they were walking in and out of all the aisles frantically because our cart had more in it so quick.  I know that some people would have a hard time believing this, but mom really does have a fast shopping mode!  Though some may have already guessed, the ladies creamed the men.  They had no chance.  Dad tried to make excuses, but they really didn't have a chance, even though they ran off and got a head start.

We finished off the night with brownie "surprise" and icecream.  Mom and Abby got a nasty surprise in theirs and nobody knows how it got inthere. . . I'm guessing the men had something to do with it. .. .sore losers ;)
I had pictures taken of Katelyn in her blessing dress.  I was pretty dissappointed how they turned out.  This dress has amazing little details and I think the lighting was too bright or something with the camera, but the dress was completely washed out.  It looks like she's wearing a plain white dress.  But the dress has beads and hand woven ribbon and little bows and they are all whited out!  Katelyn's face is cute of course, but there were even cuter faces that were caught.  The cuter faced shots didn't show the whole dress, so I chose the one that showed the whole thing to be printed, but it came out as a white blob.  I am bummed about it, but I will just have to do more pictures somewhere else or on my own.  I will post pictures of it once I get some good ones that do it justice.
The last time I went home I was going to take the dress with me since mom was finished with it.  Dad packed my car up and David unpacked the car and I never really thought about the dress.  When I came back, I mentioned that I hadn't seen the dress and we all got kind of nervous that it got lost.  I had David look around our apartment, and I looked all over the house.  I was backtracking in my head to the last time I saw it . . .. ta-daaaa!!!  I found it!  I was so relieved.  Before I found it I was joking around with Dad and we decided that Mom probably had it framed down in her craft room with spotlights shining on her beautiful work and she was pretending she didn't know where it was.  I better double check to make sure I still have it :)
I am too lucky to be so close to family.  I know my parents don't mind it one bit either.