2013 New Year's Resolutions

I realize January is half over, but it should say something about my resolve that I'm still committed enough about my resolutions to blog about them! I always have a lot of resolutions/goals for a new year, even though they are often the same goals that I had the previous year. This year I divided them into catchy categories - Faith, Family and Fitness. Here goes...

Faith:

• Complete the Highpoint Priority Time Challenge (Priority time 5 days/week or more) - I've been successful on this so far! It's a small amount of Bible reading each day, plus I'm keeping a journal to try to get something out of what I read. Past years I've tried resolving to read the Bible every day, or read the Bible in a year, but I just read without processing the scriptures or thinking about personal application, so it's just a "checking the box" activity. So far this is going well for me. 
• Join a Sunday School class or small group to develop friendships with other couples - haven't done this yet...
• Pray morning and night (first thing in the morning and last thing before bed) - I had actually forgotten about this one, since I really did write these goals out before the new year. Oops. 

Family:

• Eat a healthy, home-cooked dinner at least 3 times per week. Eat with Justin at the kitchen table. -  We're doing ok. Katelyn can sit in the highchair now, so that helps with the family dinner at the kitchen table. But we have a long way to go. It's SO tempting to eat in front of the TV!
• Read a bedtime story to Katelyn every night - This sounds easy, right? That's what I would have thought before I had a baby. But that means I have to start the bedtime story before she is so hungry and exhausted that she can't sit and happily listen to a story. But not so early that I don't get playtime with her. And that time changes. Every day. And the line between happy, playful baby and exhausted, crying baby is really fine and hard to identify until you've crossed it. We're not doing too well on this one either. 
• Maintain our finances in an organized way and follow a budget - Ha! We have some work to do here!

Fitness and Health:

• Run 20 miles/week - Believe it or not, I haven't come close to doing this. And 20 miles/week really isn't that much for me. 
• Lift weights twice/week - Oops. Haven't started this one yet. 
• Prioritize eating a real-food, plant based diet - I'm still prioritizing it. I REALLY want to do this. Really. But it's SO HARD!!! Maybe this will be my year. 

It sounds like I'm failing miserably, but I'm optimistic that I'll be able to make some of these resolutions into reality this year. I'm looking forward to trying, anyway!

4 Months Old!

Katelyn is 4 months old! I cannot believe she is already 4 months. I think the last 4 months I was pregnant felt like the longest 4 months of my adult life, and these past months have been the fastest. I cannot believe how much joy she has already brought into our lives.

We had her 4 month appointment yesterday and here are her stats:
Length: 25.75 inches (96 percentile)
Weight: 14 lbs, 14 oz (77 percentile)
Head circumference: 41 cm (65 percentile)

She already has an active and independent personality. She loves grabbing our fingers and using us to help her pull up into a sitting and, more often, standing position. She LOVES trying to stand and has a triumphant look on her face every time we pull her up. She rarely cries, but as the pediatrician was examining her she started crying. Rather than lying on the table, he suggested I hold her... still crying. Finally, Justin suggested I let her stand. I held her in a standing position and she happily let him finish the exam! She also enjoys the bouncer and Exersaucer, as well as sitting in the Bumbo. And we enjoy having so many places to put her!

Like most babies her age, she loves putting anything and everything in her mouth. Her favorite toys to chew are her hands, followed closely by my hands. She really doesn't care for a pacifier most of the time, and hasn't found her thumb, specifically, but sometimes I think she's going to fit her whole hand in her mouth! She'll chew on anything - fingers, toys, even clothes:

Katelyn doesn't love tummy time, but she's pretty good at it. She's rolling over from her back to her belly fairly regularly, but then she cries to be flipped back over. This happened 4 times one night. That was fun...

Here is her 4 month rocking chair picture: 

We love her more and more every day!

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!