Cate - 10 Months!

Just as I was about to write that with the maturity that 10 months has brought and Cate doesn't seem as cranky all the time, the crying commences. Good times.

10 months has just seemed to fly by -- it won't be too long before I'm planning her first birthday party. (Oh, who are we kidding? I have the first draft of the invitations -- which are going to be darrrrrliiiing -- on my scrapbook table. Too bad I haven't done any scrapbooking since Rikki & Doug's wedding albums last Christmas :-( But, the invites are in a near completion mode...just need to change out the color on one thing and take a pic of Cate in her Halloween costume. Then they'll be good to go!)

Cate officially has 3 teeth - two lower and the upper right. We're anxiously awaiting the upper left as she has been in a bit of pain with the teething...and drooling like a St. Bernard. Not to mention the WORST diaper rash that has plagued her for weeks. Just when we think it's getting better...it will flare up again. Knock on wood, she seems to be sleeping for longer stretches at night, but that is not to be confused with sleeping through the night and letting Mommy get much sleep as a result.

She is in full cruise mode. She loves to be on her feet and moving around. At daycare this week, she really started taking off with a pushing-type walker. She is quick, too, so it won't be too long before we are having to take turns running after her.

In the past month, she weened herself off of baby food. Won't eat it. She had started refusing some baby food at 9 months, but there were times we could still do a meal or so of the gooey stuff. She also prefers to self-feed, so Kennedy is often the benefactor of Cate's misses. She is eating a good variety of fruits, veggies, and other items. She especially loves sweet potatoes, vanilla wafers (which she insists on shoving the entire cookie in her mouth at once), squash, pasta, turkey, and lima beans.

The water continues to be fun time. She squirms a TON in the bathtub. She loves taking baths with her big sister. Elizabeth says "Cate is a wild woman in the bath!"

Here is her latest quilt picture. Click on the image for it to be larger.

Milestones...

Teething sucks!

But a cute hat from an awesome aunt for whom you are named makes getting 2 teeth in one day a wee bit better!

Mommy capturing you standing up on your own (5 days after when you did it for the first time), not too shabby!


Good on you, Baby Cate!

Cate - 9 months!

Three quarters of a year is behind us - holy crap! Cate continues to eat more and more table food. Shockingly, she is in a lower percentile with her weight I recently learned at her 9 month checkup (she went down to the 50-75th percentile in weight as she currently weighs 20 lbs, 6 oz.). She's in the 90th percentile in height (27-3/4").

Cate is somewhat less cranky of an evening when I'm not yet home...somewhat. We still reserve the right to refer to her as "Cranky Cate" though!

Elizabeth is a fabulous big sister and Cate wants to be in her presence.

Cate is not only pulling up, but starting to cruise...she still loves the pool, but now with it being an end to summer (boo hoo!), baths will have to be it! Still no teeth, but keep thinking they will be coming at any point...

Here's her quilt picture (click on the image to view it larger):

Old Navy = Grammar Morons

WVU fans may have remembered the NIT printing gaff...

Old Navy has upped the ante. While they didn't go the classic misspelling of "West Virginia"...they screwed the pooch royally...and to multiple institutions when someone in their graphics department skipped out on the grammar lesson that reviewed contractions.

Old Navy has printed up a series of shirts with "Lets [plural] Go XYZ" times 15 schools: WVU, Univ. of Washington, Univ. of Kentucky, UCLA, Univ. of Iowa, USC, Univ. of Illinois, Michigan, Univ. of Oregon, Univ. of Texas, Minnesota, Univ. of Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, and Washington State Univ. (at least those are the ones still listed on their website as of 3PM on Thursday!)

Maybe because the shirts are for the 'little women' they didn't think it mattered??? Who knows! Awful gaff...

According to the LA Times, Old Navy is scrambling to reprint the shirts. Geek Dad posted earlier today that the apostrophe had been added to the description of the shirt, but the image is still showing the error...same is true as of 3 PM...

Good grief!

Awesome Craft Project

With a little help from her Mama, Elizabeth made the coolest craft ever! Seriously. Even Daddy thought they were cool -- and that's saying something because he's put up with me making a whole bunch of randomness over the last 10+ years...

What Mama did:

• Create the stencil on Freezer Paper using the Cricut Machine
• Note: To do this, you'll want to put the freezer paper on the cutting mat with the matte side of the paper down. When designing/cutting, you'll want to flip the image so that it prints backwards. I used the Sesame Street font for the stencil.
  
• Then iron the pre-washed shirt on the hottest setting (no steam)
• Then iron the stencil with the waxy-side down onto the shirt
• Put a couple of layers of paper towels between the front and the back of the t-shirts/onesie to prevent bleeding from the front to the back
• Organized the fabric paint in ice cube trays and set out the paint brushes (because I'm THAT anal-retentive)

What Elizabeth did:

• An awesome job painting her shirt, Alex's shirt, and Cate's onesie -- just used fabric paint...completely her designs
  
• Directing Mama to make the L's in "Elizabeth" and "Alex" into light sabers...
• Helped peel off the stencil after the paint was just dry to the touch

We think they are pretty awesome - you be the judge (double click on the image to make it larger, if you'd like):


Yes, that's a "flying WV" on the tail end of the H. Let's Goooooo Mountaineers!

Cate - 8 Months!

Gracious sakes where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday Cate was happy as a clam when being fed baby food. Oh, yeah, it was only yesterday. This that has fallen by the way-side though as she is preferring to feed herself nibblets of apples, peaches, pasta, and potatoes. Will soon be trying carrots, avocado, sweet potatoes, and fish. If she has trouble picking the food off her tray, no worries, she'll scoot it over to the edge and suck it off the tray! (The pic to the right was taken on Thursday, 8 months-4 days, when Cate consumed her first "table food." She was concentrating sooooo hard to pick the pasta up...this was before she figured out how to scoot it over to suck it up!)

She's crawling quite well but for the last couple of weeks has been preferring to pull herself up. She's getting so bold with this skill that earlier this week she didn't think she needed to hold on...Daddy says she lasted for about 2 seconds before literally did a nose dive onto the hard wood floor. (I was driving home from work when this happened.) Fortunately, Elizabeth was able to help Reid in the clean up of Cate's bloody nose by helping to entertain her baby sister and helping to supply Daddy in wipes.

Elizabeth remains Cate's favorite person to see. She pretty much squeals upon site of E. And, so far so good on the reorganization of the playroom (doesn't hurt that with the Star Wars wall decals have E feeling that it is now a Star Wars Playroom - and that she has been able to see that anything/everything that is in Cate's path is going in Cate's mouth!).

Cate continues to love playing in the pool, which is also great since Elizabeth is swimming more and more like a fish each day. (Truly amazing how much better of a swimmer E became with the week at "Camp Grandma"! She's now swimming on her back some. She is impressed with herself for being able to jump off the diving board backwards. What I think is most impressive is when she jumps off the diving board and swims the length of the pool!)

It's amazing how quickly Cate is going from tiny little baby to coming up on a toddler! You will have to click on the quilt picture below to view it larger...

Cate's First Baseball Game

Cate was cute & good at her first baseball game. The Pirates were not - on either account. They lost to the Padres 5-15. Most of the crowd left during the 7th inning stretch. We stayed until the end, though - hoping they would be able to raise the Jolly Roger...E cheered through the last out...

Best App Ever

To sum it up: Best. App. Ever.

Seriously.

If you're like me, well me a few days ago, you have about 12 different store-related cards on your keyring. They didn't weigh me down, just made my already bulky keychain even bulkier. I lost my Barnes & Noble card eons ago - they always have to look me up by my phone number. For the longest time, until Reid could remember what phone number (an old cell #) that we had our Kroger card tied to, we were using separate rewards cards when we went to Kroger...and, as a result, not getting the biggest discount on gas at the pump based on our monthly spending. Until recently I also had all of my cards on a ring that easily opened to add more, which inevitably lead to them spilling out into my purse, onto the floor, you get the picture.

Well, there's an app to fix this problem. Best of all, it's a freebie! Key Ring App (Alleluia!)

That's right, sports fans, all of your rewards cards can now easily be stored on your phone.

You're welcome.

Cate - More Milestones

Every day with Cate is a new adventure! Last night, she reached another milestone...you can read about it by viewing the text messages between Reid & me. My messages are in the blue, his are in yellow. Enjoy!

Chat with you more tomorrow. Sweet dreams.
Think of me when you are actually getting sleep...
11:55 PM, Jul 7


Love you, mean it
11:55 PM, Jul 7

Great. Xoxoo
11:56 PM, Jul 7

Cate has determined it is time to wake up for the day...jealous???
4:35 AM, Jul 8

*Editor's Note - it was actually 4:11 AM when she woke...silly me, I thought it wasn't going to be for the day...


On a good note, she pulled herself up to a standing position...on a bad one, it was in the bassinet, which I have since had to dismantle as quietly as possible in the dark...
4:42 AM, Jul 8


Back to sleep...my alarm set to go off only in 1 hr, 17 min, but REALLY, who's counting???
5:29 AM, Jul 8

:(
6:01 AM, Jul 8



My alarm just went off and I saw this. So sorry. :(
6:01 AM, Jul 8

Cate - 7 months

Cate is changing so much every day...I hesitate to say 'filling out' as I have washed up the 6-12 month clothing that Elizabeth wore and already switched out the 3-6 month items with the larger ones. Yesterday when I put a 6-9 month onesie that Elizabeth had worn, it ripped near the snaps. I don't believe it was the age of the onesie that caused it to rip as it barely snapped before she stretched 'riiiiiippppppp'! Gracious sakes! The girl loves to eat.

Her cry when she gets tired or hungry these days is rather amusing - other than the obvious (that it's a cry!) She makes a spitting car sound "Brrrrrr Whaaaaaa Brrrrrr Whaaaaaa." Pretty funny sounding way of crying.

She has done quite well with eating the fruits and veggies with her rice cereal. I'm also most pleased that she doesn't require the food to be heated up...will even do the fruit/veggies right from the refrigerator. (Unlike when she is taking a bottle and that had better be at the same temperature that breast milk comes when she is nursing - otherwise she won't take the bottle!)

When I last spoke with Kristin, she requested the 6 month pictures of E & C side-by-side for better comparison of how similar the girls look, so I'm obliging...as well as the latest installment of Cate's quilt picture (you should be able to click on both pictures to view them larger):