Happy Little Girl

Who looks like she's ready to crawl any second! Yikes! :)

24 Weeks

Katelyn is doing more & more sitting up. She can't get there on her own and often doesn't even want to let you sit her up. She'd much rather stand! I'm somewhat afraid that she's going to skip the crawling and go straight to walking!

Her sleep is still not stellar, but we're surviving. She has taken some good naps and does really pretty well at night - most nights. Good naps are 45 minutes to an 1 hour. A typical night is 4-5 hours, a snack, then 4-5 more hours. Some people have recommended a "dream feed" around 10pm when we typically go to bed, but I'm too terrified to wake her up!

We still haven't been able to get her to take a bottle, but we are still trying.

Big Brother & Little Sister

We went to Target this morning to get Brendan's 2 1/2 year old pictures taken. He was such a good boy for his pictures. We then got some pictures of Brendan with Katelyn. I found Big Brother & Little Sister shirts at Carter's that are so cute. I can't wait for our pictures to come in!

While we were getting pictures taken, Katelyn actually sat on her own for a couple minutes! She can't get herself to a sitting position, but if put there, she can now stay for a little while.

Here are some pictures from later in the day at the park.

Feeding herself

Katelyn has decided that the best way to eat is to feed herself. She grabs the spoon from me and shoves it into her mouth. She ends up making a huge mess, but she's happy and the food gets in her mouth, so who cares!

23 Weeks

I think that I've discovered part of Katelyn's night-time sleep issues. I think that she is sensitive to chocolate just like her father. If Chris eats chocolate, he can be awake for hours during the night. Katelyn seems to do the same thing - she can be awake for up to 3 hours in the middle of the night. Sometimes she acts tired, other times, she seems ready to play. So, I'm attempting to not eat chocolate. Not easy or fun for me!

Still not quite sitting up on her own, but again, so so close.

Our other issue that has developed is that Katelyn is refusing to take a bottle. Around 8 weeks or so, we introduced the bottle and Katelyn did very well with it. Once I quit my job, we really didn't keep up with giving her a bottle periodically. Mamaw has watched Katelyn a few times, very briefly, and in general hasn't been able to get her to take one either. So our mission for this week is to convince Katelyn that bottles aren't completely evil. (She cries and arches her back when the bottle touches her lips...it would be funny, if I wasn't so desperate to be able to leave her for more than 2 hours. Yes, she still eats basically every two hours, except at night.)

First Hair Cut!

Katelyn had her first hair cut today. We were all tired of her getting hair in her eyes, and I'm sure that she was too! My mom played hairstylist, while I played photographer. Katelyn did such a good job and really held pretty still for the process.

Before in her "cape".


Getting a trim.





After. Much better!

A bit of a pickle

I forgot about this when I did the zoo post from last weekend. We went to lunch at Shapiro's again after our visit to the zoo. Chris was holding Katelyn while he ate and Katelyn decided she was hungry too!

Squash!

No, not the sport...the vegetable!

Katelyn's been more interested in watching us eat and grabbing at our food lately, so I thought that we'd give some solids a try.

After lots of discussions during our breastfeeding support group, we are going to try some veggies first, then add cereal later.

Day 1 actually went pretty well...until she realized that she was strapped into the highchair that is! Therefore, I only have some before pictures, as the screams were impressive and it wasn't because she was being fed vegetables! (She really seems to have something against 5 point harnesses - hates her carseat for the most part too.) She ate probably 1/2 a tablespoon and I think did very well with it. She didn't push it out of her mouth or let it dribble out...just swallowed it like she knew exactly what to do.


Day 2 we went with the bumbo seat. She did very well again and ate maybe a tablespoon...then decided that she just wanted to eat the bib. :)

22 Weeks

There's been some further improvement in the sleep department. I'm also going to eliminate caffiene from my diet to see if she is sensitive to it. (Chris is very sensitive, in that if he has chocolate before bed, he will often be awake in the middle of the night for a couple hours. This is similar to what Katelyn will do some nights - she will fight going back to sleep for up to almost 3 hours - very painful for Mommy.)

No true sitting up yet, but oh so close. And she wants to do it so badly too. When she lays down, she does her crunches and gets her head up off the floor, bed, etc.

We're also struggling with getting Katelyn to take a bottle. She did take one fairly well when I initially went back to work, but we got lazy and hadn't been giving her one and she's forgotten how to take one. So we're going to work on that and may start some veggies this week.

Ready for school!

My mom and I thought that Katelyn looked like a little girl all ready for school is this outfit, so we had to get her picture. Katelyn enjoyed the opportunity to "dance" up on the countertop. Her little legs never seem to stop moving!

Zoo- Behind the Scenes with the Cheetahs & Dolphins!

Again this year, we got to take a behind the scenes tour at the zoo with my parents and Uncle Rob & Aunt Jenny. We got to watch the trainers bring out the two male cheetahs. These boys were hand-raised/bottle fed and have been on many shows, including David Letterman.





Then we got to go into the Cheetah housing and see the female cheetahs up close before they went out into their habitat. These cheetahs were raised by their mothers and NOT tame. It was pretty cool to see them up so close though!

Then we got to watch the dolphins do some tricks up close and give them some fish too!



Katelyn didn't get to pet the dolphins, but she did get to be held by our tour guide, Sally. I think that they both enjoyed it! :)
Brendan loved giving the dolphins the fish.


"Giving high 5's"

Brendan's 2 1/2!

and very much has a mind of his own. If he doesn't want to sit nicely for a pictures, he's not going to! He also refused to put down his two favorite things...his milk cup and "de do", i.e. his blanket.
He is becoming a very good big boy though. He talks up a storm, when he's not watching his favorite shows on PBS Kids. He is a wonderful big brother to Katelyn and often gets her to laugh & smile.
He can count at least to 10 reliably, and sometimes into the "teens". He knows how to sing the alphabet song and even reliably recognizes some letters, such as B, I, E, T. He has finally sorted out the difference between yellow & orange. His favorite things, after milk & "de do" are trains. We have a Thomas & a Percy engine that are played with daily.
Not sure on height as he hasn't been to the doctor since his 2 year appointment, but he's 27-28 pounds based on our bathroom scale. He's still a string bean in some 18 month clothes, but needing some of the length in 24 month clothes.

Indiana State Fair

Since Brendan is so into trains lately, we thought that it would be especially fun to ride the train to the Fair this year.

He got two previews of the train, as it was leaving the Fishers train station - one on Monday evening after having dinner at Megan & Allen & Gavin's house. He was definitely enthralled, although a little startled at how loud the horn was. He jumped a mile in my arms and buried his ears in his blanket. He kept asking "Where'd that blue engine go?" Katelyn didn't seem scared at all!

On Wednesday evening, we met up with Uncle Rob & Aunt Jenny for ice cream (& to see Baby Bobby's room!) and were in Fishers in time to see the train leave again. This time Katelyn was scared and cried...I felt bad. :( Brendan was still scared, but of course wanted to see it and kept talking about it too!

It was super hot & humid today, so we didn't think that we'd get to stay too long. We headed straight for the "Little Hands on the Farm" portion of the fair.


Brendan enjoyed looking at & petting the animals in the barn and of course the tractors!

Then we went over to the "Little Hands on the Farm" where he got to pretend to be a farmer. He really got into it!
Getting some eggs from the chickens...he calls eggs "apples" for some reason.
Then he fed some grain to the pigs & cows.

Harvested some vegetables from the garden.
Drove a tractor

Got some wool from a sheep
Milked a cow. Then they took all their goods to the market where they "sold" them and got some "Farm money" which they could use to buy some actual snacks to eat. Too cute!

Then we went to the FFA barn and got to feed some animals. He loved this too!


He thought that the pigs were super cute! He kept saying "Hi little piggies!"
Getting back on the train to go home
I'm riding a train!