26 December 2011

Happy Holidays!!



Merry Christmas! It was this time last year I started the blog. I have been behind over the past month, and will try and do better!









We got to spend lots of quality time with both friends and family over the past couple months. Sometimes this even meant she got to open gifts early! We are lucky enough to have some friends with small kids, so Cate got to play with some little ones and stay entertained. We also got to go see Santa Cow at Chick-fil-a!!













Christmas Eve day, we went to the Aldersgate Christmas Eve candlelight service.  Cate was being a little rambunctious, and we banished ourselves to a room in the church where they were televising the service. We were the only ones in there, except another family with a one year old, so Cate had free reign of the room. Later that night we headed into DC for a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner with friends.















Cate had a blast opening gifts on Christmas morning. Some she stole out of the bags before she was supposed to, and she has already fallen in love with several of her new gifts.





Cate still loves daycare, and soon will be moving into the toddler classroom. Right now she is the oldest in her room, and likes to take care of the other babies. She is frequently seen high-fiving the teachers, kissing babies on heads, and checking other diapers to make sure they are clean. These skill carry-over at home too...when we saw a friend's 11-month old recently, she tried to push her in her car, and kept taking the baby her bottle whenever she dropped it. You should have seen them chasing each other!

Apparently, the teachers love to spoil her. When pondering why she thinks I am taking her for a walk when I come to pick her up, the teachers commented "Well, we do take her out for a walk everyday. She expects it." They teach her so much! She can do sign language for more, milk, please, and water (kind of).  She also picks up some signs that aren't really official (apparently I wag my finger when I say "dirty" and "no"!).  Her vocal skills are also improving, now saying mama, dada, aqua, wa-wa (water), ba-ba (bottle), hi, bye-bye, up, ight (light), buh (book), and nana (banana).

Everyday, we are more impressed as Cate moves from being a baby to a little girl. She finally let us put sunglasses on her (once summer was over, naturally!).   She loves to go grab socks and shoes and sit down for you to put them on.  She helps you put her jacket on (especially with the promise of going outside!). If you give her a towel and tell her it is dirty, she will take it to the dirty clothes hamper. You can tell her to put something away, and she will put her toys, socks, shoes, etc back (of course, this is after she took everything out to begin with).   She for some reason loves to play with post-it-notes and wipes!

03 November 2011

November Already...

Where has time gone? I feel like Cate just turned one, and already another month has passed. Look how studious she is now!


At Cate's one-year appointment (about a week after her birthday) she weighed in at 19lbs 20z and 28 inches...I could swear she weighs more than that, but she definitely makes a good arm weight!

We have been enjoying football season, making two UNC games and all the Navy home games. We would have hoped for better results from both teams, but we still have fun! We also did family photos this month (finally). I am sure you will see more of those later.













Cate was an ewok for Halloween at daycare...well, more like a furry-bellied baby since she refused the hood. I got to go with her and walk around collecting candy.  We just handed out candy to the two sets of trick-or-treaters we got that night, but Cate enjoyed running around in her ghost leg warmers and my witch hat.

02 October 2011

Happy Birthday, Cate!



Cate's birthday weekend started with a party at daycare on Friday. Erick got to leave work early and go to take pictures of Cate and her friends eating cupcakes












On Saturday, we celebrated at the Navy tailgate with Auntie Jen, Uncle Phil, and some other friends.  Cate was all dressed up and we had MORE cupcakes.  She also tried to tackle a 5-year-old boy playing football a couple times...girls rule!


On Sunday Erick had a half marathon in the morning (he did very well!), so we opened gifts around lunch time.  Cate, of course, tried to chew on several of the packages, but eventually got the hang of opening her gifts.  As would be expected, she liked the box the biggest gift came in more than the gift itself!















I just can't believe how quickly Cate is growing up! She has finally learned to crawl down the steps between the kitchen and the living room...yay!! She also has other new little skills, like closing doors (sometimes with you in the room, or sometimes to keep you out). She gets into and rearranges all the cabinets (well, now Erick has childproofed all but one kitchen cabinet, which we have deemed to be Cate's).  She can even get herself down off the couch or bed, although her landing isn't that steady, so we still provide a little guidance.

Cate has about half a new tooth on the bottom, and one about to break through, so soon the top and bottom will be equal.  She still eats like a champ!

04 September 2011

Earthquakes, hurricanes, and football, oh my!

After two weeks filled with fun stuff like an earthquake and a hurricane, football season is here.  Hooray for football!  The day after turning 11 months old, Cate went to her first game at Navy yesterday (her only other game was Army Navy when she was only 2 months old in Philly).  She had a great time, much too busy to take more than one nap or even stop to take a bottle! We hung out with friends, including a couple kids who are about 2 and 4 years old, so Cate had a great time.













This next weekend Cate will get to go to her first UNC game, so look forward to some more pics in Carolina Blue!  In the meantime, Cate continues to walk everywhere she can.  She is also starting to "help" me clean.  First she took a baby wipe and started wiping down the changing table, then today she used her washcloth to wipe down the floor...too cute!
So, back to Mother Nature.  Cate apparently was thrilled with the daycare emergency plan daycare for the earthquake.  Never mind the earth shaking, getting to be with all the other babies in a crib and go outside an extra time...that is her idea of fun!  The teachers said she was super excited, laughing and throwing her arms in the air.  We got lucky with the hurricane, experiencing only a flicker of the power.  The top of one tree came down, but luckily just missed the roof.

21 August 2011

Walking!

Cate has quickly progressed from just taking a couple steps to full on walking! Last Sunday she just decided to stand up and take off.  So 10 1/2 months, we'll say, and she's off!









I don't think I mentioned that Cate is up to six teeth, four on top, still just two on bottom.  She will use them to eat just about anything,  although apparently Chipolte is a little too spicy for her!

Today we had a family outing to the Potomac National Minor League baseball game.  It is nice and relaxed with lots of other kids (and dogs) running around for Cate to watch. She seemed to have a good time, bouncing up and down to the music over the announcing system.  She even did a little walking around, but she is still trying to figure out this shoe thing.  She crashed in the car on the way home.












Right now she is fighting off her first persistent diaper rash...sadly (for me!) we have had to keep her in disposables for the last few days until we get it treated.  I miss her cute little cloth-diapered heiny!!

07 August 2011

Two Steps!



Two steps could refer to a couple different things - including the area between the kitchen and living room that Cate keeps trying to dive off of - but in this case I am talking about Cate's progress walking.  A day after turning  ten months old, she took two steps on her own (at home and daycare, so we didn't just imagine it!).  Now I am not sure if we can call it walking yet, and she has taken at most three or four steps at at time, but we are getting there!

We, naturally, think she is the smartest baby ever.  Some of you have already seen her engineering mind at work...if you can't reach a book, find something to stand on and go for it!

She is also very adept at signing "more"...whether it be to get more food, read more books, or get more attention.  She also tries to sign water - it's not perfect, but not bad for a baby.  She points A LOT; I guess she hasn't quite figured out it isn't polite to point!




Cate will also eat anything.  She apparently becomes quite distraught at daycare if the other kids are eating something I haven't approved for consumption, and they usually give in and give it to her.  I can't say I blame them, she is quite persistent! And, yes, I do have a brush for this poor child, but her hair is always a mess (just like her mama's!)

15 July 2011

Nine (and a half) months!

I have been remiss in posting a blog post, even missing out on the post-vacation post! Cate had her 9 month visit and weighed in at 17lbs 6oz and 26.5 inches.  She is eating more solids everyday...I am still trying to stick to the healthy, age-appropriate foods, but daycare is giving her all the fun stuff like beef ravioli, grilled cheese sandwiches and even cupcakes (my fault, I guess, since I brought them in for the teachers!!).  I don't think Cate has found a food she doesn't like.

Cate stands on her own for at least 10 seconds now, and loves to use a bin we got with hand-me-down clothes to use as her walker.  She cruises around the living room easily - she will definitely be walking in no time!  She still crawls easily up the steps, but we haven't allowed to her to try and master going down stairs.  She has a hard time deciding whether to walk or crawl, and we can't bear to watch her tumble head-over-heels!!


We still spend time in the pool on the weekends - Cate is certainly a water baby! She also likes to try and help Daddy play video games.  She still makes time to help with chores, though...like folding laundry!



For those of you with Facebook, we did enter her in the Gerber photo contest...you have to install a Facebook application, but you can vote daily!

Unrelated to Cate (except for a new place for her to explore), but just as exciting...Erick finished the shower in the extension and it looks great!!