Kate's First Christmas

We had a wonderful first Christmas with our little girl! Despite a new tooth trying to poke through, she was a real sweetheart during all of our traveling. Here's a few photos of us this holiday season:

A family picture we took in front of our Christmas tree:

A pic of Kate taken at our Sunday School Christmas party:

Posing in her Christmas dress (a gift from grandma & grandpa):

With Josh's dad and stepmom at his aunt & uncle's ranch in Brownwood:

With my mom, dad, and brother at my parents' new house in Elkhart (would have been a great pic if Kate wasn't trying to eat her dress):

With Great Mammaw and Kate's new teddy bear:

With Great Grandma:

Here's Kate opening presents...as expected, she was more interested in eating the wrapping paper than checking out the gifts.

She also loved getting in the boxes...

Just a cute close-up:

Here she is back at home, enjoying her present from grandma & grandpa . . . a swing for our backyard!

Spitting Image?

Since she was born, everyone has commented that Kate looks just like her daddy. Here's a baby photo of Josh and one of Kate that we took when she turned 6 months. You be the judge...

7 Months Old!

Today is Kate's 7 month birthday. Being with her is so much fun these days. She is interacting more and more, laughing at our silliness, and developing a real personality. Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving, which we enjoyed spending with my folks at their new farm house in Elkhart (East Texas).

Here we are all bundled up in the cold country weather (I don't know what Josh was trying to prove wearing shorts)...

My mom enjoying her grandbaby:

This is a funny face that Kate started making during the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a combination of sticking out her bottom lip to pout and droopy the dog:

Viva Las Vegas

For our first real outing without Kate, my parents babysitted while Josh and I went to his office's end-of-year party at the Bob Bullock TX State History Museum. The party was "Las Vegas" themed, and they hired an Elvis impersonator who was terribly cheesey--but I guess you'd be hard-pressed to find an Elvis impersonator who wasn't. I had a blast singing along to all the Elvis songs, and Josh had to explain to his coworkers why his 29-year old wife knows the lyrics to practically every Elvis song ever recorded. (When I was a wee lass, my parents put their old 8-track player in my room and the only tapes they gave me were Elvis and the Monkees, so guess what got played over and over and over...) We of course had to take a picture with the King, or pseudo-King.

Babies, Babies, Everywhere

I'm pretty behind on blogging, so I'm going to try to play catch up with several posts. About three weeks ago, our friend Kendal had a baby shower and another friend, Charis, and her baby boy Colt came in town for the shower. I was happy to have them, as well as Sunee and Adelaide, over for lunch. Here's a group picture of us moms (and one mom-to be):

We attempted to get a photo of the three kiddos, but of course it was like herding cats to get them to sit still & smile at the camera. Here's video of the photo shoot fiasco:

6 Months Old

It's so hard to believe that our little baby is now half a year old! She turned 6 months on Nov. 3rd, but I've been neglectful in my blogging. The stats: she weighed 18 lbs., 2 oz. and measured 26 1/4 inches long at her 6 month well check. 75-90th percentile. We're blessed with a healthy, happy baby. Here's some pictures of the not-so-little cutie pie.

Kate's First Halloween

Our very own pumpkin patch . . .

After dressing Kate up, we took the opportunity to meet some of our neighbors. We figured Halloween is a good night, since everyone is home and ready to answer the door. It was really nice getting to know the folks on our street. Plus, it was fun showing Kate off!

"a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord-orgasbord"

Kate and I enjoyed the wonderful weather we've been having by window shopping this afternoon with my friend Sunee and her daughter Adelaide (who is 6 weeks older than Kate). When we got home, this is what we found in the backyard:

Seems our dog Toby has discovered that there's all sorts of tasty treats in the trash can in our garage and that he can sneak these goodies through the doggie door to the backyard.

Caught like a rat...or should I say, Templeton?

Colonel Sanders, I think you've got a critic:

Pumpkin Patch

This weekend we visited a pumpkin patch at a local church. Kate was very intrigued by all those big orange things. We picked out a pumpkin and plan to carve it next week to help celebrate her first Halloween.

Comedy Hour

Kate smiles, squeals, and makes happy noises, but she has yet to let out a real belly laugh. I know she'll do it eventually, but hearing other people's babies the same age or younger belt out laughter just makes me want to hear it from our own little sweet pea. So, my mission these days is to give Kate plenty of opportunities to launch into hysterics. Here's video of me tickling her with an elephant puppet to earn some giggles.

Another tooth!

This morning while playing with Kate, I noticed more white than usual poking through her bottom gums. I looked, and sure enough--there's a second tooth coming in! It's right next to the first one (bottom, center). It's no wonder she chews on everything in sight!

On another topic, although Kate still pretty much hates tummy time, she is getting better at it. She doesn't push up very high--I think she's learned she has more balance by keeping her arms spread out (see picture below). But, at least she's going for longer stretches without having a meltdown. She's also turning over from her back to her tummy a lot now. It still surprises me to put her down one way and look back and see her flipped!

A tooth!

As I posted a couple of weeks ago, we have been wondering if Kate is teething. All the telltale signs were there: fussiness, chewing on everything in sight, drooling, etc.--but as a first-time mom I just wasn't sure if I was reading too much into things. Well, turns out our instincts were right. Kate has a tooth coming in! I felt a little ridge on her gums yesterday, and when I took a peek there was a little white sliver poking out. It made me stop for a moment and realize just how quickly she's growing up. It seems like her development has gone into hyper-drive over the last few weeks: sitting up, rolling over, eating solids, and now a tooth! I've always heard parents talk about kids "growing up so fast," but I suppose you never really appreciate how true that is until you observe it first hand.

New Milestones

Kate is now able to sit up by herself! She is still pretty wobbly, but she's getting better at it everyday. We usually keep the boppy pillow around her to avoid crashing into the ground, but pretty soon she won't need the extra support. Here she is playing with some toys:

She loves to chew on links:

The other big milestone that just happened last night is that Kate rolled over from her back to her tummy! She was on her playmat on her back, and I turned around to do something on the computer. When I looked back, she had rolled over. Wow! Our little munchkin is growing up. She'll be mobile before we know it.

First Solid Food

Today is Kate's 5 month birthday! We decided to try her first "solid" food, rice cereal with breast milk, to see how she'd take to it. Josh happened to be working from home today and was able to take pictures of this adventure. Kate ate from the spoon pretty well. It took her a few tries to understand what to do with it, and of course most of the food wound up on her face, but she kept opening her mouth for more and finished the bowl off (about 1 teaspoon cereal and 2 tablespoons milk). I think she was actually more enthralled with the green "frog" bowl than the food ... nevertheless, it was definitely a success.

Thirty, Flirty and Thriving*

Josh turned 30 yesterday, and we had some friends over this weekend to celebrate. Josh seems to be taking this milestone in stride...probably much better than I will when it is my turn next year. They say 30 is the new 20. I think Josh would agree with that, except when he comes home from flag football complaining about aches he's never felt before. :-) Having now known Josh for half his life, I can say that being 30 and a new dad really becomes him. Besides, I think graying temples are cute!

*from the movie "13 Going On 30," in case you were wondering

Jumping Baby

We bought a used doorway jumper for Kate, and she seems to really enjoy it. I've saved quite a bit of money by purchasing baby toys (exersaucer, playgym, bike trailer, and now a jumper) off of craig's list. Baby items are used for such a short period of time, it makes sense to me to buy second hand and let someone else pay the high retail cost. Here's a pic & video of Kate jumping away.

Teething?

Kate's been having a rough time as of late. She caught her first cold (probably from the church nursery), and on top of that I think she might be teething. I'm really not sure if she is actually teething or if I'm just trying to ascribe a reason for her extra fussiness. She seems to have a love-hate relationship with the cold teether ring that I've given her, as well as the teether on her exersaucer. She chews on them voraciously and then gets really mad at the same time. Puzzling.

0 to 3 Months in 55 Seconds

Continuing the blog catch up theme, here's a slide show of some of our favorite pictures from Kate's first 3 months:

Blog Catch Up: Kate's Arrival

After 42 weeks of waiting and 14 hours of labor, Kate Maley finally made her entrance into the world at 10:01 p.m. on May 3, 2007. 7 lbs, 15 oz and 19 inches long. Josh snapped this photo of her at 10 minutes old. You can still see the stethoscope marks on her tummy.

More newborn pics:

Proud Grandparents:

And Baby makes 3:

Better late than never...

Although we're both pretty tech savvy, it has taken us a while to catch on to this whole blogging thing. It's like the favorite pastime of all our new-parent friends, and--frankly--it's a disease. It's Blogging Fever. Why else would parents of infants be staying up to all hours of the night, posting pictures and videos and journaling their baby's every waking moment? Well, apparently the fever is contagious, because it is 11:39 p.m., the house is quiet, Kate is peacefully asleep, and instead of getting a good night's rest I am frantically typing away in a dark room lit only by the iridescent glow of the computer screen.

Kate is now 4 months old, so I'll try to post a few pictures of her early days to catch us up to date, for historical purposes and because she's so darn cute! For our far-removed friends and relatives, we hope you enjoy this blog and that it helps you share in the experiences of life with baby Kate.