Virginia Beach visit

After Christmas, Justin, Katelyn, Frank and I headed to Virginia Beach to visit Justin's brother Shon and his family. We had a great time catching up with them. They have 6 kids (5 nieces and a nephew) who have grown up so much since we last saw them two years ago. It was a wonderful trip and we need to do it more often - although next time we're going in the summer! :) 

Katelyn ready for her first airplane trip. She did great on all 3 flights!

Jamisyn and Katelyn

Justin and Katelyn

Abigayl, Katelyn and Jamisyn

Adorable.

Sock monkeys!

Katelyn with Aunt Traci

Katelyn, Justin and Papa Frank in the airport

Our niece Karlee is a very good photographer and works at a photography studio in the mall in Virginia Beach. We took Katelyn for her to take some pictures and they turned out great!

Katelyn's First Christmas

We had a great Christmas celebration this year, and I'm pretty sure that Katelyn thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas!

We thought about going somewhere to get Katelyn's picture taken with Santa, but decided we could avoid the crowds and fake a Santa picture at home. We got lazy, though, and did it at the last minute when Katelyn was really not in a great mood. And Justin forgot his Santa hat. Oh well. This one is a classic:

And this one could be framed if I ever get the urge to do some sort of "yearly photo with Santa" project!

We celebrated Christmas with Mom's side of the family on Dec 23, then went to my aunt and uncle's house on the 25th. It was a great celebration with both sides of the family! Christmas night we opened gifts with Frank. Justin, Katelyn and I all got tons of wonderful gifts from our generous family!

The best gifts are the ones that can be chewed... which was all of them for Katelyn!

Cooper LOVED this squeaky bone. He squeaked it for probably an hour before he killed it. The funniest part is that each dog got a different color, but the other dogs didn't like them as much, and Cooper knew which was his and ignored the others!

Kelsey prefers edible gifts and is really good at opening them!

Cooper was a good model for me to play with my new camera lens that Frank gave me for Christmas!

Visit to Atlanta

Justin, Katelyn and I went to Atlanta over the weekend to visit his brother Shad and his family. We had a great time and enjoyed seeing family we haven't seen in a long time!

Shad's fiance Devon bought Katelyn some ADORABLE outfits and accessories, so we dressed her up for a fashion show. She looks like a little diva!

Katelyn got to meet her 3 cousins, Parker, Pation and Preston:

And her Aunt Devon:

Pation was so comfortable with her!

She looks like such a big girl in this picture!

Katelyn had a big weekend meeting new people and she was a trooper. She hardly fussed all weekend, but she was exhausted. She fell asleep in the most awkward position, but I guess she was comfortable!

 She also got to meet her Aunt Tami Jo at her (and my) first Lacrosse game:

We had a wonderful time and need to go back to visit again soon!

Katelyn is 2 months old!

Actually, Katelyn is two months and one week old, but it's taken me a week to blog about it! We went for her two month check up last Friday and she is growing and healthy!

Weight: 12 lb, 9 oz (94th percentile)
Length: 23.5 in (96th percentile)

We have settled into a little bit of a routine, although her nap/wake schedule still hasn't fallen into a rhythm. She's been sleeping very well at night, so I figure she can do whatever she wants to during the day if she'll keep sleeping at night! She started sleeping 6 hours straight around 6 weeks, and the past two nights she has slept almost 8 hours straight! After I feed her, I can put her back in the crib awake and she falls right to sleep on her own. So I have no complaints about sleep!

Katelyn loves smiling at us, and especially loves smiling at herself in the mirror on her activity mat! She is getting better and better at lifting her head during tummy time, and seems to really enjoy it. We've been reading to her, but she doesn't have much patience for that yet! She also likes to put weight on her legs - I think she'll be an early walker if she keeps that up!

Justin got her to roll over one night from belly to back - here is the video to prove it!

We are taking monthly pictures in a rocking chair that was mine when I was a baby. I know this seems like overkill since I'm taking weekly pictures too, but I think it's fun! Katelyn wasn't really into it this month, but we still ended up with a couple good pictures despite her not being in a great mood.

This is the one that I think she would choose, because it shows how she felt about the whole picture-taking process!

Here is the a month picture in the chair, for comparison. She's definitely more alert now, although equally excited about being propped precariously in a chair!

Katelyn is so much fun and we love her more and more each day, even though it doesn't seem possible to love her any more!

Getting Crafty (or just being cheap!)

I decided last week that Katelyn needs a warm hat, so I've been on the lookout for one. I thought surely I'd find something at Merry Marketplace, but there was nothing. I really want one of those cute crocheted hats, but something knit would do. After minimal effort at buying one, I decided to take matters into my own hands. A few years ago I decided I wanted to learn to knit. I had a kit that I'm pretty sure Jessica gave me for Christmas, then I went and bought a second kit. Naturally, since I try to be organized but don't ever throw anything away, I have a box labeled "knitting" in Katelyn's closet. I looked to see if I had yarn and needles to get started, and I found an almost finished baby bonnet! I'd completely forgotten that I started it! I was hoping way-back-when to make something homemade and meaningful for my friends' babies. Obviously that didn't happen, but I'm glad I found it in time to use it for my own baby! I re-taught myself how to knit and finished up the bonnet!

Even though it was plenty cute, it wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I looked at the other kit that had a gray hat with a sparkly white rim. That sounded good to me, so I got started on it! The pattern was for an adult head, so I modified it with no real method to the madness, so I ended up with a hat (with a lot of mistakes) that didn't cover her ears. 

'

Knowing how much bigger it needed to be, I tried again and this one turned out great! I'm really proud of it! For the record, this is the kind of picture you get when you stop a sleeping baby's swing in order to put a hat on her and take a picture: 

The other "crafty/cheap" thing I did today was hem my own jeans. I've been meaning to get them hemmed for, like, a year. They don't look perfect, but I'm pretty sure they look better than having them rolled up, and it's done and was free! Yay!

And I don't think this classifies as "crafty", but definitely "cheap"...

This happens to be the same costume that one of my dogs wore on past Halloweens. Whatever works, right?! It's still super-cute! :) 

One week commitment to healthy eating

Justin and I went to the Happy Mexican last night. I LOVE going out for Mexican, but I hate the way I feel the next day. After a couple (small) margaritas and most of the basket of chips, plus cheese dip and fajitas, my body hates me today. Couple that with the fact that I gained back 3 pounds that I recently shed and it's time to do something. I don't really struggle with my weight, and this isn't about that, but I do struggle with eating healthy. I want to view food as fuel to support my active lifestyle, rather than as something to turn to when I'm bored! Also, I've always thought that if I'd get in the habit of eating right, my tastes would learn to appreciate it - the sweetness of fruit rather than sugar, for example.

I've been inspired by the 100 Days of Real Food blog, but cannot commit to 100 days of real food. I don't want it badly enough! They had to go to an extreme in order to be interesting enough to make a full-time job out of the blog. But I am going to commit to ONE WEEK of following some rules that they inspired:

1. No sugar or artificial sweeteners. I'm allowing small amounts of "real" sweetener like honey or maple syrup, but not much. This will be tough on Halloween! Really tough!
2. Only "real" drinks, mostly water. Coffee or tea without sweetener is ok. Milk and juice are ok. Gallons of Crystal Light - not ok. Coffee with Splenda and loads of Vanilla Caramel Creamer - not ok.
3. Eat at least two fruits or vegetables at every meal. I tried this for a few days and it was tough. That reminds me - I need to add a fruit to my breakfast that I just finished. Better grab an apple! Hopefully this rule will get me in the habit of eating more fruits and vegetables, and hopefully substituting them for less healthy options.
4. No fried foods. This doesn't need an explanation but it could be hard, depending on what fried food opportunities I have this week. I better avoid eating Mexican...

For the record, I don't believe our eating habits should be all or nothing - NO sugar or NO white flour. I think everything is ok in moderation. However, the fact that I polished off a bag of candy corn last night after our Mexican dinner proves that I don't do moderation well, so I'm taking a one week all or nothing approach as a kick in the butt!

To make this blog post more interesting, here are a couple recent pictures of Katelyn! :)

Another Pinterest Project... Another Holiday Onesie

Hopefully soon I'll attempt a interest project that isn't a holiday onesie, but there are so many cute ideas and Katelyn NEEDS cute onesies, right? :)

Here's a Pinterest inspired (ok, it wasn't so much inspired as directly copied) onesie that I finished over the weekend. I love how it turned out and can't wait until it is time for her to wear it!

Another recent project that was inspired by all the insanely organized people on Pinterest was an overhaul of my spice cabinet. I've been cooking a lot more while on maternity leave, and I've been frustrated by how much time I spend looking for spices. I didn't take a "before" picture, unfortunately, but here is the "after". Everything is in matching jars where I can see the labels.  I made shelves out of scrap wood, then bought the jars at Dollar Tree and printed the labels on the computer. It's so much nicer to be able to see everything! 

Pinterest Project - Turkey Onesie

This is the first of (hopefully) many Pinterest projects that I want to try during the remainder of my maternity leave (only 5 more weeks). I repin all kinds of great ideas that I never try, so now I want to try them, and I'll even try to remember to blog about them. 

I made this onesie for Katelyn and I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out. I'm actually thrilled with everything except that it is crooked! I had trouble appliqueing on the cotton part - I think I'm supposed to use some sort of paper to make it more firm. It kept pulling the jersey material into the machine and I think that's how it ended up crooked. I'll figure that out before I try another applique onesie, but I definitely think it is do-able and plan to make more. I see cute Christmas onesies in my future... It does make me want an embroidery machine, because wouldn't it be cute with her name under the turkey? Hmm...

Look forward to more Pinterest Projects to come! :) 

Pumpkin Patch

We took Katelyn to the "pumpkin patch" this afternoon! I fully understand that a 5 week old baby cannot appreciate a pumpkin patch, but hopefully one day she'll appreciate the pictures. I also know that this isn't really a pumpkin patch, but I'm a city girl and it's close enough!

 This is the first time we've seen Katelyn suck her thumb. It's not exactly the traditional way of thumb-sucking, but it works!

Clearly she is excited about this outing. 

Big yawn. Maybe if it was a REAL pumpkin patch she'd be more interested :) 

Katelyn and Justin with the pumpkin that we chose

Katelyn may not be old enough to appreciate Fall fun, but Justin and I do and we had a good time taking pictures and picking out the "perfect" pumpkin!