8 Things about Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn's been tagged to share 8 things about herself. So here goes...

(1) I'm crawling now! I love exploring all the nooks and crannies of my house. I'm especially intrigued by cords, floor lamps, and anything else that Mommy doesn't want me to touch.

(2) I am fascinated by our dog Kasha. She's the greatest thing ever! If she's nearby, I have to touch her. If she walks away, I try to follow her. I love grabbing her ears and tail, although Mommy and Daddy usually stop me and tell me to be "gentle" with her, whatever that means.

(3) My favorite song of all time is "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider." I really like the part at the end where the resilient spider finds a way to climb back up that water spout. I get so excited that I squeal in delight every single time...no matter how many times Mommy sings it.

(4) One of my favorite toys is my very own remote control. I like it for two reasons: (1) I never get to play with the real ones, so this is the next best thing and (2) it plays "Itsy-Bitsy Spider."

(5) I'm a rock-n-roll fan, just like my Daddy. When I'm fussy in the car, a little Van Halen or Tom Petty calms me down pretty quickly. When Daddy plays his electric guitar, I clap along. Sometimes he even lets me strum the strings!

(6) But I enjoy other kinds of music too, especially classical music. I love, love, LOVE my Baby Beethoven video. No matter what I'm doing or what kind of mood I'm in, I drop everything when I hear the music start and am riveted for a good 20 minutes. I wish I could watch it everyday, but my Mommy insists on saving it for "special times."

(7) I love it when Mommy and Daddy read books to me. I insist on turning all the pages myself. I'm always sad when storytime comes to an end because I know naptime is right around the corner. Lately, I've tried to postpone naptime by crying when the books are put away. So far, it hasn't worked.

(8) I'm a very sound sleeper. I can sleep through just about anything...smoke detectors blaring right outside my room, takeoff/landing on a plane, doorbells, loud thunderstorms. This makes Mommy very happy!

Get Ready, Set....

...but we're not quite to the "Go" stage yet. She's SO close!

When she gets tired of practicing her crawl stance, she likes to take a break by lounging on her side for a few minutes. It looks like she's getting ready to do some leg lifts. It cracks us up! If we only had baby leg warmers!

A New Friend

Yesterday, I got to spend some time with Anne, a dear friend since college, who is visiting Nashville for a few days. We haven't seen each other in about a year and a half, and in that time, we each had a baby! It was really special having Ryan and Kaitlyn meet for the first time. Ryan is 14 months old and spent most of his time running around and checking out Kaitlyn's toys. Since she's still not very mobile, Kaitlyn was content to watch his energetic motions with fascination. It gives me a glimpse of what life will be like for us in a few months! There was a little incident involving a toy cell phone that they both wanted, but it was resolved without too many tears. And somehow, Anne and I managed to have a little adult conversation in between all the madness. I'm learning that moms have an amazing ability to multitask!

In other Kaitlyn news, she has become a rocking maniac. She rocks when she's in her Exersaucer and somehow manages to move it all the way across the floor. She loves rocking back and forth in my lap or when I'm holding her in a standing position. Yesterday, we put her in her jumper for the first time (the kind that hangs in the doorway). She was in heaven as she was bouncing around to her heart's content.

Kaitlyn's still just thinking about crawling. She gets up on all fours many times throughout the day but hasn't figured out how to coordinate the arms and legs into any meaningful forward motion. She still scoots around Army style to get wherever she wants to go. But that's just fine with me! She's pretty easy to supervise right now :)

Rock-n-Roll Baby

Christmas Celebrations, Part 3

After Christmas, we drove to Memphis to be with Jeff's family. With nine adults, two babies, and two dogs, it was a full house for several days! But it was a very special time since we're rarely all under the same roof. And it was doubly special for Mimi and Papa Greg because it was the first time that they had both of their grandchildren together.

Mimi and Kaitlyn

Noah and Kaitlyn got lots of clothes, toys, and books. They also got their very first pair of Robeez.

We tried to get them to model their new shoes, but Kaitlyn was more interested in her new remote control, and Noah was apparently trying to eat her shoulder.

It's always fun getting the cousins together. They keep getting more and more aware of each other. They always seem more interested in what the other one has. Should make things interesting as they get older!

We were blessed to have Aunt Gayle join us for Christmas this year. She was great with the babies, and she gave the dogs lots of love and attention. Poor Kasha and Chloe...they used to be the center of attention before the babies came along. Now they spend most of their time chasing each other around outside.

With so many people together in one house, it nice to have fun activities to do. So Jess bought a puzzle with a travel theme (sure to go over big in our travel-loving family!) Jeff got things started, and then the rest of the family got hooked. We finished the whole thing in less than 24 hours. It was actually a challenging puzzle since the whole bottom row of locations wasn't even pictured on the box. Try working part of a puzzle with no picture to reference! We were very proud of our completed puzzle, so we had to take a picture :)


Thanks to Jess for taking most of these pictures!