8-Month Birthday

Today Kate is 8 months old! Where does the time go?? Here's a little bit of info about what our sweetie pie is up to these days:

• She's getting really good at drinking out of a sippy cup, but WAY prefers to slosh and slurp out of a big person cup. She gets so excited when we let her do it, but the water usually gushes out of her mouth & down her face.
• Recently graduated to 3 "solid" meals a day. None of the portions are very big by baby standards...but she does seem to eat more food at dinnertime. So far she appears to prefer veggies over fruits. Right now her fav veggies are sweet potatoes, carrots, and green peas, and her fav fruits are prunes by far (but you gotta go easy on those prunes). She also likes avocados, but I've discovered that they give her constipation...I've thought about pairing the prunes & avocados to balance each other out. :-) Definite dislikes are butternut squash and home-prepared bananas (but she'll eat the awful Gerber bananas. Weirdo.)
• Points and prods with her index finger
• Can stand holding onto the couch with our support
• Is getting much better at tummy time and is pushing up on knees every once in a while
• Has learned how to screech at the top of her lungs and is, much to our dismay, proficient at it. Although sometimes it is a sign of distress, often it is just a vocal experiment. We hope this phase passes soon...
• Lastly, she still enjoys being outside and going for walks and is more than willing to brave the winter chill to do so.

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.