Bye-Bye and La-La-La

Kate found her tongue this week and it is so fun to watch. She started saying da-da around 9 months but not that she found her tongue she can say la-la. And now she just goes around the house with her tongue hanging out all day saying la-la-la-la-la!

Kate finally is waving bye-bye this week too. It was really cute when we were in Target and the cashier said bye to her and she started waving to him. Now that she has it down she waves all the time.

Independence and T-R-O-U-B-L-E

We are having so much fun with Kate at this age. She is 10.5 months and full of some personality and just loves everybody. My sister-n-law said it best when she said that Kate makes you feel like you are so loved but then she goes to the next person and is just as happy to see them too! Its been fun watching her and how she is gaining independence since she can now get everywhere she wants to go and if she wants a toy then she goes and get that toy and plays with it. One awesome thing is that she can now find her paci in her bed. Yes, we are the parents that would get up every night and go in her room to give her paci back to her if she was crying and couldn't find it. But now we sleep very peacefully because she can do it herself!! (a small trick for this though is to put a million pacis in the bed with her!!)

This new found independence also gets her in trouble. What is it with babies and water bowls??
When Kate starts getting into everything she is not supposed to then we set up a barricade in our den with the ottoman. Kate is very good though and tries to find a way out most times.

But all in all she is a very good girl and is even becoming interested in household chores.

Oh the Fun We've Been Having!

Let me first introduce you to my family.
Left: my brother Michael, his wife Amy and my nephew Bryce.
Middle: my brother Jason, his wife Jennifer and my niece Hannah
Right: our family
Jason and Jennifer drove up from Texas to spend a week hanging out with us. We started the weekend off by playing outside in the pool. Then we all packed up and headed to Atlanta to celebrate Bryce turning one! Kate had a blast playing with all the balloons Aunt Amy had out.
Uncle Michael hung a swing in their front yard that was tons of fun. The way it was hung allows you to send your kids FLYING through the air. I wish they had an adult swing like that!

My dad thought it would be fun to squirt water in the kids mouths. They loved it and kept coming back for more. It was so cute when they would crawl up to my dad and just open their mouth for him to squirt water in it.
We all went for a walk one afternoon and here are Hannah and Kate taking it easy in Bryce's red wagon. My sweet dad hauled them around the entire neighborhood.
Bryce has some really fun toys. Kate loved his alphabet toys most of all. She constantly made a dash for the dishwasher to play with all the letters every chance she got.
We thought it would be cute to get the cousins in the bath tub together...it was only cute for about 5 minutes and then the crying started!! This is a great picture for you to see that Kate takes after Jason....she is soooo tan!!We tried going to the water park one day but got rained out so we ended up inside in the pool. We did try again the next day to got to the water park and got some really cute pictures that I will post later.
After all our fun in Atlanta we headed home. Jason and Jennifer, my parents and I headed to the zoo one afternoon which was a lot of fun.

Kate is learning new things everyday. One of her new favorite things to do is climb inside our tv cabinet. She will sit for forever just playing with all her toys under there. It is really cute to watch.

And finally we had a girls night out without babies which was TONS of fun!! Jennifer, my mom, and I headed to Sips N Strokes. We had a great time and ended up with some great paintings. Thanks mom for the fun night out.

Key Largo

Where do I even begin? We just got back from a wonderful and very relaxing vacation and we even had Kate with us! Beth and Jeff Boyer and ourselves traveled down to Key Largo for the week and had a blast. First let me give you a little background so you will better understand our trip. Nine years ago Beth's uncle, David moved to Key Largo. The house he bought is one of three homes on this absolutely beautiful property that Romi and David Harum developed (pictured in a bit with Kate). The third house belongs to Alan who was a fighter pilot with Beth's uncle, David. What really makes being down there fun is that it is like a big family. We actually stayed in the bottom of Romi and David Harum's home. It was a perfect set up because even while Kate napped we just set up a monitor and were still able to spend time outside. We have been traveling down there to visit for the past nine years. We have so many great memories there and this trip was great because we were able to make new ones with Kate.

So let the trip begin! Kate did really well on all the flights. Not a lot of crying but she was EVERYWHERE and into EVERYTHING! It was funny because the first thing she grabbed when on the plane was the throw up bag! Luckily we had no need for it. While on the plane Kate made many friends. She constantly wanted to lean into the aisle and smile at everyone or look over the seats at everyone behind her. I am just glad everyone thought she was so cute because a lot of people hate being on airplanes with kids.

Jeff, Beth, myself and Jason one night after eating an amazing lobster dinner! The lobster was caught by Romi Harum and they were no small lobster either!

Here is Romi and David Harum with Kate. Kate just loved them! The Harum's are wonderful people and are like family. They are very gracious and generous and so much fun. David is an amazing architect...I wish I could show you some homes he has done, you would be blown away. And like I said above, Romi still goes lobstering and caught all the lobster we at for dinner that night.
It is soooo beautiful down there! Here are just some pictures of Kate and her playing in the water.

Kate kept pulling her hat off but the sun was so bright and hot that she really needed something to shade her little face and head. So Alan's girlfriend Ileana took her and came back with this bandanna on her head. It was actually a perfect solution and I thought she looked really cute. We set up Kate's little high chair outside on the patio and that is where she ate all of her meals!
Ileana played with Kate in the water hose and she LOVED it.
One night Alan and Ileana offered to watch Kate and let us go out to dinner. So Jeff, Beth, Jason and I gladly accepted a nice night out to dinner without a baby. We ate at this restaurant where you can sit and eat on the beach and watch the sunset! We had a wonderful time out. When we got back that night we found out that really Kate had the most fun. Alan, Ileana, Uncle David and Romi all were out playing with her and dancing with her...I wish I had pictures because it sounded like Kate really had a great time.

We are home now and missing Key Largo!!!!

How I've Grown

Yesterday I was trying to vacuum so I put Kate in her swing for a moment. I hadn't put her in the swing in months so I was shocked by how big she looked in it. Here is a picture of her in the swing when she was a week old.
And here she is at 9 months! They grow so fast!
Sorry for not posting this past week. I was in charge of registration for over 450 kids at VBS at my church and I could barely think last week much less post on our blog. And this week we are headed to the Florida Keys so I won't be posting until we get back. It's our first plane trip with Kate so hopefully it will be a good experience.

Oh, to be a kid again...

We headed back down to the River this weekend. Because of all the rain this past week there was so much debris in the river. This meant that skiing was pretty much out of the question, so we made our own fun. Jason was the funniest, as he went down the slide and played in all the blow up toys.
We had a blast playing and Kate got spoiled by Libby and Jack.

Memorial Day Fun

First let me say that today I realized that Memorial Day to me means an extra day off work or a three day vacation but to so many others it is a day to remember their loved ones who fought and served our country. So I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to those who serve and to the families who support and stand behind them.

This weekend we went down to the River. The Eastis Family is like my second family. Beth is one of my best friends and her parents and her extended family are like my own. They have a place at the Warrior River and we used to spend every extra second we had down there in college. You never go down there without enjoying GREAT food and fellowship - I have so many wonderful memories from this place. Today we took Kate down to the river for the first time.

It was a beautiful day but I think the sound of the motor and the refreshing breeze put Kate to sleep on her first boat ride!
Here is my sweet friend Beth holding Kate.
And here is her Dad, Jack, with Kate. Jack can cook up some mean BBQ.
We had such a wonderful day and can't wait to go down there again with Kate. In a few more years she will be able to learn how to ski herself.

Update about Kate:

She is standing really well by herself! Just in a few days she has gotten really good where she will be standing on her own and then rebalances herself and remain standing. Its so fun to see her grow and develop into a little person. Below is a video I tried to get of her doing this.

*does anyone know how to flip a video? or can I not video long ways anymore?

Kiss The Baby

At the Beach With A 9 Month Old

Kate and I are down in Destin again and this time we are with my sister-n-law Amy and my nephew Bryce. We had a very easy trip down (we drove at night while both kiddos were sleeping) and we have been having a blast at the beach. You will have to check out Amy's blog to hear the jackhammering that was going on in the condo RIGHT ABOVE us...thankfully that is all done with. Out of all the condos that could be undergoing construction it had to be the one above a condo with two kids under the age of one that NEED their naps!

My friend Shea gave me the great idea of getting a baby pool for the Kate and Bryce to play in while at the beach. It keeps them occupied and having fun without crawling everywhere in the sand. Kate played like this for hours the first day. The second day she was much more interested in what was outside the baby pool. Here she is sitting and playing nicely in the pool.

Then Kate found the sand and it was all over with.

So why not? I just took her out and let her have at it. She was covered in sand and she ate the sand...yuck! But she was having a blast.Now that she is crawling and pulling up she is everywhere. She has also been standing a lot on her own these past few days which is super exciting!Then the sweetest was when she fell asleep on my chest out at the beach. And for the first time in two days I was actually able to just sit and enjoy the beach!!!!!

I am going to have a post of picture of Kate in her diaper to show you her tan. Her little arms and legs are brown and her creases are stark white...its pretty funny. I am putting 50 SPF on her and reapplying it and she is MUCH more tan now then I will probably be all summer. Its really quite depressing actually that my 9 month child has a better tan than me!!

Want to know what we are up to?

Check out my sister-n-law, Amy's blog to see what Kate and I are up to this week. Later I will post about our trip but until then Amy is the one on the ball this week with updates!