Kate's Birthday Celebration!

Let me tell you that Kate's first year flew by! To celebrate our bundle of joy we threw her one heck of a birthday party. She had a three-tiered cake with different flavors, which I didn't even get to taste - but heard it was really good. This was one fancy cake and it was worth every penny!




Kate had "monkey" cookies shipped from out of town for her big day.



She had a monkey pinata which was three to four times her size (well, maybe only twice her size), which looked more like a rodent than a monkey. I can go on and on about her birthday but I will let the pictures do the "talking."




It was a GREAT day. The day started off a little windy which worried us since the party was going to be outside, and neurotic me wants everything to be pretty and perfectly placed. But everything turned out really well! Kate had so many guests at her party including her loyal blog readers (and parents) Molly and Grayson. Her great-grandmother came in honor of the birthday girl from Mexico. Of course all of her family members were there including all of her cousins. We really enjoyed seeing all of our friends and family celebrate Kate's big day- so THANKS to everybody!







The kids had a FANTASTIC time. The little ones played with Kate's new birthday ride, whereas the older kiddos had a blast choosing from the assortment of goodies I spread out for them at the kid's table.





Everybody had so much fun watching the kids, including one adult, beat the s%!@ out of the pinata...poor thing was shredded to bits. But soon after the candy fell out from it nobody cared about the pinata anymore.



What was really great was seeing Kate smile and clap in delight when EVERYBODY was staring at her while singing Happy Birthday to her. I thought she was going to have a meltdown and start crying...(1) because who are all of these people? and (2) it was so close to bedtime. However, she was in a great mood! Sadly nobody got to see her open her presents because she was ready for bed after her birthday cake (and who wants to watch a one year old "open" their gifts?). So overall I would say the party was a big success! We all had so much fun and I am already thinking of the 2nd birthday party...

Happy 1st Birthday Kate!

I can't believe that this day has arrived...Kate's 1st Birthday! This sounds like such a cliche but it is so true - where did this year go?! One year ago today I gave birth to her at 9:23am and our lives have not been the same since. Most days we are exhausted and look forward to the end of the day when Kate goes to bed so that we have time for ourselves. This year has not been easy - who knew parenting was so tiring, draining, frustrating and SO enjoyable - our parents made it look so easy! We feel so blessed to have a happy (most of the time), healthy, and very energetic little girl.



So tomorrow is the Birthday Party....I capitalized it because this is going to be an event. Chris on several occasions has used the words "out of control" to describe the party. I am really not THAT out of control. But come on, it's Kate FIRST birthday party. Sure she won't remember it, but the first birthday party is for the parents....to celebrate, of course the child, but to say "We survived the first year!" So while Kate is at the sitter today I am preparing the house for the celebration. For those of you who can't make it be sure to check back for the birthday pictures. I am sure most of them will include tears and frowns from the birthday girl scared of all the people staring at her while she takes a bite out of the birthday cake or the scary pinata that is almost as big as me! Should make for a fun day tomorrow!

March Madness

Kate turns 1 in 9 days! What a year it has been...I never would have imagined that this tiny little person could make my day the way she does (who could resist that toothy grin?).

Nothing new to report other than Kate stands. Loves to stand. She has been doing this for a while now, however, she is getting pretty good at standing for longer periods of time and does it all of the time. Standing during bath time is what she does - no sitting still for this child! Needless to say bath time is a bit nerve-wrecking and takes some skill on my part. While I am trying to clean and rinse her with one hand, the other hand is holding on to her making sure she doesn't fall and hit her head. She loves it as you can tell by the picture.



So yeah, Kate gets into shit, um, I mean stuff, all of the time. She loves to get things out of anything she can...shelves, cabinets, baskets, toy containers, bags, her laundry hamper and the list goes on and on. Now if I can just teach her how to put it all back...which may take a long time because I am still teaching Chris, hmmm.



I am certain we have added baby locks to all of the cabinets but it looks like toilet locks are in order.


(no Kate, we don't lick the toilet...yuck!)

So other than that nothing to report other than Kate is fantastic and we feel so blessed to have this beautiful child in our lives. Stay tuned for birthday pics...

Where's Daddy?

Ok, first off, yes, this video is sideways and I am not computer savvy enough to figure out how to rotate it. But the video is really cute so just watch it with your head tilted!

In this video I am asking Kate to say "mama" since that is her new favorite word - and of course am her favorite parent! I kid, I kid. You can kind of hear her say it. Also I ask her where her daddy is and it looks like she turns and points away because he was out of town that day (hunting with Uncle Ryan). I then ask her when daddy is coming home and she starts clapping. Is her receptive language developing or what?! Ok, so maybe she just happened to turn the other way AND clap when I asked her specific questions and it was all a coincidence...but the proud mommy in me thinks not!

BUSTED...Caught in the Act!

So this is about Blake, and not Kate - even though this blog is about her life. Blake is a big part in Kate's life so it is only fair that he is mentioned too.





Last week I posted that I am no longer feeding Kate with a spoon. Don't get me wrong, I still do feed my child with a spoon to get her used to the idea and familiarize her that people eat food with utensils. But along with that I am cutting up her food so that she can feed herself, because frankly it is easier and she eats more. I think...no, I know, Blake must love this idea because he helps himself to the leftovers! He usually stands around waiting for a morsel (or more) to come falling to the floor so that he can sample (devour) Kate's dinner, or breakfast, or lunch, etc. Yesterday when she had enough of eating we were playing on the floor in the living room (so I couldn't really see what was going on in the background). I get up and see Blake helping himself! Of course I thought it was funny, and cute, so I grabbed the camera to take a shot.

Don't worry people I sanitized the high chair.

Kate loves Pizza!

I have been attempting to feed Kate at least 3 meals and 2 snacks, when we are together on full days which are weekends. During the weeknight I am lucky to get a spoonful or two of baby food in Kate's mouth. Most of the time the routine is something like this. I put her in her high chair which is ready to go with Cheerios or Kix on the tray. That way while I am preparing her meal, which consists of me opening a jar of baby food and putting some in a bowl, she has something to snack on. I then sit down and make the airplane sound or make funny faces to get her to open her mouth to get some food in. 99.9% of the time she pushes the spoon away or whines and screams turning her face from me. She also loves to grab the spoon from me which causes such a mess, but luckily Blake is around to lick it all up! So my new thing is to cut up chicken nuggets, 1/2 of a nugget, and put it on her tray because I have found that Kate is very independent (a nice word for stubborn) and likes to feed herself. This evening we went through the whole routine. Sit. Cheerios. Baby Food. Scream. Repeat. So I take her out of her highchair and she starts doing her thing when she spots me eating a piece of Pacific Veggie pizza from Domino's (PLUG - very delicious by the way). She starts doing her bouncing on the knees and clapping. I think, 'oh how cute', then she starts crying, so I pick her up and she grabs the pizza from me and starts sucking on it. I tried giving her a piece but NOOOOOOO, she wants to do it herself. So I put her in her highchair with her own piece of pizza and she totally loved it! She was actually taking little bites and tried an olive, spinach, a red pepper - see Grandma's she gets her veggies! So anyhow, our new thing is going to be me cutting up teeny pieces of food so she can feed herself, that way we are all happy.

She likes to move it, move it!

Ok, so I promised some videos of Kate walking with her sit-to-stand toy and here it is! She received this toy for Christmas and that morning when she tried it she had no control with it and fell on her face. Since then I haven't really let her play with it unless I am right behind her guiding her myself. Yesterday was the first time I finally let her walk by herself with it and you can see she has total control. It is really cute to see this tiny person walk around the house! Happy viewing!