Our First Christmas

I know I'm WAY overdue on getting pictures posted. We've had quite the busy last few weeks. We had our own family Christmas at our house on Tuesday, Dec. 23rd. Then we drove up to Iowa. Everyone in Matt's extended family kept passing along the stomach flu the whole time we were there and I ended up getting it the night we drove back home. The week we were there I had pink eye which I then passed on to Matt when we got home. He then had a major upper respiratory infection this week which took 2 doctor visits before he finally got some antibiotics and is thankfully starting to feel better. Thank goodness Kaitlynn has amazingly not picked up anything. Unless you want to count her screaming half of the night for the past few nights because she has another tooth on top coming in.

Anyway- On to the pictures...

Check out that adorable toosh in the Christmas PJ's Grammy Sewing got her. Too cute!
Playing with Grandma's tree in my pretty dress. I'm all ready to go to the Christmas Eve service.
We got to have Christmas morning with my family and Uncle Ryan and Aunt Sarah were there too.
Opening her very first stocking with Uncle Ryan.
Keep in mind it was early!
Yum! This package tastes delicious.
She made it about an hour before it was nap time!


On Christmas afternoon we drove out to the farm and spent some time with my family.
I love Great Grandad Clouse
Cheezin' with Great Grandma Clouse
See Spencer...this is how you bang the cups together!
Staring at her crazy Uncle Mark before he went out to do chores.

We went on Friday afternoon to pick up Annie at the airport. We hadn't seen her since July.
Check out my shirt and my new "small" stroller from Grandma and Grandpa Hardie!
Waiting patiently for Aunt Annie
She was quite excited to see her favorite little niece! Especially because we told her we couldn't come over until later that evening!
I love Aunt Annie!
Catchin' up on the news with Grandma and Grandpa Hardie
Checking out her gifts from Great Grandma Wiese's house. Kaitlynn and I stayed at home hoping we wouldn't get the flu. She was definitely spoiled!
Trying on Daddy's new "ear muffs" for shooting practiceThis was just two weeks ago with Aunt Annie and she didn't know how to take a step. Now she can push this toy and take a few steps even without help. That is until it stretches out too far!
Uncle Randy, Aunt Julie and Jenna came over to visit a while one evening. It was great to see them for a while especially since we had to miss Grandma Wiese's house.

Even with all of the illnesses we did have a wonderful time with our families and especially with our precious baby! She is now 9 1/2 months old and is learning new things every day. I'm now having to ask her babysitter every night "What did she do today?" Just in the past 2 days she has climbed up 2 steps and began to take a nose dive off of them, climbed up and sat on the fireplace ledge, twisted and got herself unbuckled from the bouncy seat, and the best is yesterday she took a bath in the dog's water bowl and invited all of the other kids to join her in the spashing fun! Kathy had to dry ALL of their clothes because they were soaked! Oh the fun is just beginning!

Dinner with the Girls!

Alright, I know this is completely out of order but this blog is being difficult at the moment so I'll have to fix it later. There are some pictures of us attempting to take a picture of Kaitlynn's babysitter, Kathy and all of the kids. You can see it went well. Ha ha! There is also a picture of Kaitlynn and I that is supposed to go down with our dinner date with the girls.

Thursday night Kaitlynn and I met Lindsey, Dana and Courtney for dinner at Corner Cafe. Kaitlynn was a little grouchy because it was close to her bed time but we had a good time catching up a little bit! We've decided we need to make this a monthly event.

Here are the big girls sitting beside each other! in their high chairs.

They both had more fun with the gift bag then their gifts!
Hmmm...what is it?Kaitlynn loves her tag blanket so much that she thought Courtney should have one too!

Here are some Thanksgiving pictures. Better late then never!

Birthday dinner for Grammy and Kaitlynn's first official time in a restaurant high chair!
She takes the best pictures with Grandpa Hardie!
Here she is with Great Grandma Wiese during her 2nd Thanksgiving meal.
Playing with the "big" girls!
Her favorite event of the evening was untying Great Grandpa Wiese's shoes!
First bath in a sink. She had a great time splashing!
Yummy! My first Thanksgiving meal in the same high chair my mommy used.
Hanging out with Uncle Ryan

This is a funny story from Monday evening! We don't have a gate put on our steps yet so Matt tried to block Kaitlynn in the living room by setting up the regular baby gate between the entertainment center and love seat. We have never actually used this gate for a baby but rather to contain our dog in the kitchen. All we have to do is lean it up against the wall and he's scared to death to go by it. As you can see from the following picture Kaitlynn is apparently MUCH braver then the dog! She knocked it down and then proceded to crawl right over the top. Apparently we will need a gate that is securely hooked into the wall!
When this picture was taken the gate was still knocked down on the floor and Tucker was panicked! He layed nicely to let Kaitlynn pet and cuddle with him for a little while!

Christmas Photo Shoot

Last week I attempted to do a little photo shoot with Kaitlynn right before she went to bed. This obviously wasn't the ideal time but I did end up getting a couple of cute shots for our Christmas cards. Her spitting up is getting bad again so as you can tell the white fur lasted all of 5 min. before it had a lovely orange stain. Oh well! I cropped the pictures and made them black and white so you can't see it.

She is now waving all the time but still prefers to "army crawl" everywhere. She is getting on her knees a little bit more but then goes right back down to her tummy. I have some cute pictures from Thanksgiving last week that I'll have to put up when I have more time.