Pulling Up

In the past few days, Kaitlyn has learned to pull up to a standing position. She's having lots of fun exploring previously out-of-reach items. But unfortunately what goes up must come down, so we're still working on the fine art of sitting down from standing. That's the tricky part! Right now, her "method" involves landing on her butt with a thump...which usually startles her and causes a brief crying episode. But I'm sure she'll get the hang of it soon enough.

Baby Blessing

Last night, our church celebrated the arrival of 34 new babies in 2007. If you do the math, then Otter Creek averages a new baby every 10.7 days! Our church has a special passion for its children's ministry, and we feel so blessed that Kaitlyn will grow up in a nurturing, vibrant church community. During the Baby Blessing, the parents and congregation were all charged to do everything within their power to teach these babies to love and trust God. Then the elders prayed over the babies. It was neat to look around the stage and see some of our daughter's future friends--people who will help her see God and will influence her (hopefully in a good way!) in the years to come.

Jeff, Kaitlyn and I are standing behind the two girls in the white dresses.

A family picture after the ceremony.

9 month pictures

It's very difficult to get an energetic crawler to sit still for pictures. But here are the best ones from our recent photo shoot.

Sleeping like a baby

I took this picture during one of Kaitlyn's naps yesterday. She was sitting up and then decided to just lay down and go to sleep. It looks like such an uncomfortable sleeping position! But she obviously doesn't seem to mind. It was a nice 2+ hour nap!

Happy Valentine's Day

Off the charts...again

We had Kaitlyn's 9 month checkup today. She's a growing girl! She now weighs 25 lb, 5 oz. and is 30 " long, which means that she's off the charts again in weight/height....just like her mom was at that age.

Favorite Pastimes

Here are some of Kaitlyn's favorite things to do lately.

Opening drawers. The ones in her room are easy to open and close, so she enjoys playing with them and trying to empty out the contents. If she's really motivated, she'll get up on her knees so that she can reach more things...until she tries to close the drawer with her fingers still inside. The tears are usually not far behind. Mean drawers!

Emptying the toy basket. She's not satisfied until she takes a perfectly contained basket of toys and removes each toy one by one.

Pulling up on the window. She tries really hard to push herself up to a standing position using the window sill. She also enjoys just looking outside.

Playing in the laundry basket. Obviously she has to have some help getting inside, but once she's there, she has great fun playing peek-a-boo and pulling up on the sides.

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 :)