Happy Halloween

We were really gung hoe on putting our little pumpkin inside a pumpkin this year for Halloween. She has been really good at holding her own head up so we thought we could just sit her down in it for a few seconds at least and get a cute picture. She had a different idea...I'm guessing it probably wasn't the most comfortable place to sit :o) This is the best we could do, but isn't she cute!

Her second outfit is a Lady Bug, courtesy of Grammy! She also gets to wear these as PJ's! In the picture below she is standing up on her own and leaning against the pillow. She sure loves to stand up! She just may skip the whole crawling thing and go straight to walking...haha! JK

She loves her Baby Bjorn (thanks Gma)! We have been taking walks around the block and she is really enjoying it. She is a big sleeper, but has been able to stay awake for the full mile twice around the block! She is growing up!

I have been trying to squeeze in more tummy time lately too, since she only really likes it for a few minutes at a time still. I got her to fall asleep on my belly twice and she slept for almost an hour like this! I loved it too - more cuddle time with Mommy!

She is out!

Next week Katelyn will be 3 months old! I will be sure to post more updates then!

The Star is back!!!

Katelyn's favorite musical star is back in the toy circuit! She loves the star that hangs over her head on the Baby Einstein mat. A few weeks ago the music quit playing and I checked online to see if I could buy a new star...I found a TON of comments from other mothers saying their stars broke too and to call the manufacturer and they would replace it for you for free...so that is what I did...and the star is back! Which means a ton of smiles from Katelyn! She is also starting to make all kinds of different noises...check it out!

Sky Top Orchard

One of our favorite Fall traditions is picking apples at Sky Top Orchard, so today we headed up with the Glenn's & Ciomperlik's to Sky Top Orchard for some good ole' apple picking. Unfortunately we discovered that the frost caused a "scarce" crop!! We hiked to the very back of the orchard and ending up finding about 6 edible plum size apples! Success!! We ended up eating those and buying 2 pecks of Pink Lady's and Fuji apples from the store. At least we got some good apples - along with some caramel apples, apple donuts, cider, etc. The best part was the photo opps...the leaves were beautiful and the sky was clear! Katelyn slept through the whole thing though, so we only got one pick of her awake, but it's a good one!

Zoom in on this one...she is sticking out her tongue!

We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant on the way home and was just sitting in the booth starring at us and smiling! She's one happy baby!

Andrew's Shower & Texas Visit

This past week we ventured to Texas with Katelyn for the first time. She did great in the car - pretty much slept the whole time. Once we arrived at my parents house, I think it hit her that she had been in the car for 18 hours and was in a strange place. She wasn't too happy at that point, but managed to get accustomed quickly. It was great for her to spend some good quality time with Grandma and Pops!

The main reason for our visit though was to celebrate Katelyn's new cousin - Andrew Luke! Here are some pictures from the shower honoring Cindy!


There was a great turn out! Andrew is one lucky kiddo and will be well dressed for the first year of his life after all the great clothes he got at the shower!

Cindy picked out a baby blue and white sear sucker material to be the main theme of her nursery. I got creative and made a pillow with taggies for Andrew - I surprised myself that it turned out kind of cute!

Katelyn got a change to meet her three cousins - Jonathan, Taylor & Channing! Katelyn really liked them each holding her. She was pretty cranky earlier in the shower, but did really well in her cousins arms!

Cindy holding Katelyn

Presley loved the cupcakes!

Channing & Katelyn
Taylor & Channing taking care of their new cousin!
Mom feeding Katelyn during the shower! I think she really liked this :o)

Granny getting a chance to hold Katelyn for the first time! She didn't last too long awake and happy, so we were glad to get a good picture of her and Granny. Right after this she started crying and I had to swaddle her up and put her to sleep! She sure loves her sleep still!

Grandma saying goodbye to her granddaughter!

Matt meeting his first niece! He was a natural!

4 Generations!

We got a chance to go by my Me-Maw's place before Cindy's shower. She was so happy to finally get to hold her first great granddaughter!

Cindy & Katelyn talking to Me-Maw

Pops playing Pat-A-Cake with Katelyn

I didn't have a whole lot of free time, but I did get a chance to see Susan and Janet (I forgot to take a picture with Janet & Makenzie - opps)! Susan is such a natural :o)

Grandma loved cuddling up with Katelyn

We also figured out that Katelyn really likes the word "Stinky"...we didn't think to start recording this video until she had been laughing for about 5 minutues...so it's not quite as dramatic as she was...but you get the idea! Too Cute!

Fall for Greenville

This weekend was Fall For Greenville, which is kind of like taste of Addison for those in Dallas. All the best restaurants come out and offer some of their best food in smaller portions. I actually ended up going twice. Once with the girls on Saturday and then again with Lex and Katelyn on Sunday. I can't even remember all the good food I had but it went something like this....crab cakes, sushi, pork busco (?), gourmet quesadilla, chocolate chip pecan pie, pumpkin pie gelato, shrimp and grits, and the rest I can't remember. The weather was great and nice to break in Katelyn's stroller for the first time outside of the neighborhood. When I take her places we usually just use the shopping cart to carry her in her car seat. All these FIRSTS to enjoy with a new baby! Can't wait for our first trip back to Texas....pics to come soon!

Planning for the future....

Every since Lex and I got married I have been searching for Christmas stockings. I never found any I really got excited about until recently. I was under a little more pressure this year because we needed to get Katelyn a stocking for her first Christmas. Since I hadn't found any I really liked, I was going to make them myself. Luckily though, I found these great ones from Pottery Barn Kids. Lex has said since I started searching 4 years ago that once I found some I liked we should get enough for our future family....


Here are the ones for our current family....Mom, Dad & Katelyn....

And here is the entire group for our future family.....

Yes, that is 8 stockings...3 for us now, 2 for our possible future children and 3 extras for their spouses!! Yes, you read correctly - their spouses! Lex really likes the idea of having all the stockings match (even 20+ years from now!!) I love it! Guess we'll be storing them for awhile, unless we some how end up with more than 3 kids :o)

2 Months

Today Katelyn is two months old! Looking back at pictures makes me realize how much she has grown and changed over these past few months. We are so happy and couldn't imagine life with out our little " baby duck" as Lex likes to call her. She brings so much joy to our lives and is smiling more and more each day.

She is starting to suck on her hand on purpose, her legs are getting stronger and can somewhat support her body when I am holding her up, her neck is getting very strong (still bobbles quite a bit, but getting stronger everyday), she loves when we change her diaper, loves bath time, but hates being transferred from the warm bath water to the towel. She has officially outgrown some of her clothes, which is really sad because some of them are just so darn cute. This weekend I washed all of her 3-6 month clothes. The three month clothes fit fairly well, still a little wide, but the length is pretty good. The 3-6 month clothes are all still way too big, which is good because we need them to last for a while!

She is also stretching out her nighttime sleep and eating times at night. Last night I would have to classify it as the first time she actually "slept through the night"! She has had some good 5-6 hour stretches between feedings before, but last night was a record. We fed her around 8:00, bathed her and had her asleep around 9:00. She did not wake up to eat until 5:00 AM! - that's 8 hours of sleep and 9 hours between feedings! WOW! She did wake up around 3:30ish, but cooed and grunted a little and then went back to sleep within a few minutes! I am so happy about this and really hope that it becomes a strong trend :o)

You would think though that I got a great nights rest, not quite. I still wake up to every little noise she makes and pretty much stay up until she goes back to sleep. At least I don't have to get out of bed to do it though. We love having a video monitor and highly recommend it to all new moms!

Here are a few pics of Katelyn at 2 months (or close to it)!

This morning, playing in her crib and staring at her mobile. It's so hard to catch those smiles on camera...I think this was a little early...but you can see it coming!

Official 2 month pose with Dotty the Giraffe. Again, hard to catch those smiles! You can see that her neck is getting much stronger now!

This is a pictures I took last week...I always try to post the happy pictures...but thought you'd like to see what she looks like when she gets tired...haha! It's a lot of work to keep that head up! So cute though!

On Friday night we went to dinner and I got Katelyn all decked out. Notice the cute KEDS and bow - thanks Grandma!

This morning having some tummy time on my lap. She still doesn't enjoy tummy time on the floor too much, but seems to like it a little better on my lap. Here she is sucking on her hand (and my leg)!