11 Months, Ugly Sweaters and House Painting

Ms. Kaitlynn is now 11 months old. I am so excited for this next month because she really seems to be doing new things each day! I've of course started planning her birthday party and we are looking forward to that special day, too!

Last night we went over to Lindsey and Todd's house for an Ugly Sweater party to celebrate Todd's birthday. We didn't get to stay too long because Kaitlynn and Daddy both have early bed times now but we had a good time seeing everyone.

Courtney let Kaitlynn borrow a sweater for the evening. She's such a nice friend!
Check out Courtney's adorable hair bow! She even showed us how she can take a few steps all on her own...adorable!
Here's the birthday boy in his monogrammed golfing vest.
"Aunt" Lindsey even had a cute puppet to entertain the girls with. Although, their favorite activity of the night was chewing on the ice cubes!
Yum Yum!
I always think it's funny that as soon as they sit down they each grab the other girl's toy and put it in their mouth. Kaitlynn has her ball and Courtney has our rattle!
So sweet! Matt was holding her while I made a bottle the other night and when I came back in the living room this is how I found them.
I still want to do something different on this wall , such as a new picture or something but I haven't found annything yet. That darn phone jack is just not in a good place!
I also painted the wall our fireplace is on in the living room the same tan color as on the one kitchen wall. I know I took a picture of that but I can't find it on the computer for some reason. I'll add it later if I find it. Thanks again to all of our family that helped out with painting and with watching Kaitlynn while I painted. We couldn't have done it without you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We were lucky this year to get to spend Valentine's Day with Grammy and Grandpa Sewing. Matt had to work that day and Grandpa went to do a ride along with him. That left us girls to spend the day together! When Kaitlynn and I got up we had sweet cards and flowers waiting for us from Matt. I got pink tulips (my favorite!) and he got Kaitlynn an adorable little plant for her room and a Snow White card.

After Kaitlynn opened her little gift from us, which was a Leap Frog farm animal magnetic thing for the fridge, Grammy made us blueberry pancakes. Kaitlynn thought those were delicious!

Hee hee! I just love her cheesy smiles!
As you can see she LOVED the pancakes. Notice her left had is always full of food just in case of an emergency! (If you look really closely you can even see some hair sticking up on her head. It may only be a little but to me it has grown a TON!)

That afternoon I painted our living room wall while Kaitlynn played with Grammy. We obviously had to take down the big mirror above the fireplace so that I could paint and she had a great time playing with that other little girl she could see!

Doesn't she just look too cute in that little skirt!
On Sunday, Grammy discovered that Miss Kaitlynn can walk pretty well know with her little push toy. Just a couple of weeks ago she could only go a couple of steps. Now she's truckin' all over the place! Here are a couple of videos of her showing off her new skills. It won't be long until she's doing it on her own.

Cute Videos

Here a couple of adorable videos that I took yesterday and tonight. You can definitely see her new cheezy smile! We are just having so much fun with her every day. Although, as she's learning new things she is also quickly learning how to get into trouble! For example: I've now learned to not leave her in a room by herself for any amount of time. In a matter of 2 minutes she managed to crawl to the other side of her room, pull up on a little table and somehow got down a little bracelet her nurse made her at the hospital. It had Kaitlynn Nicole spelled out in little beads. Let's just say that there are only 4 letters left! I'm pretty sure she ate some, Tucker also helped himself to a few and the rest may have fallen down the heat register!







Here are the letters I made for Joanne and Jarred's new baby, Olivia! She's due on May 3rd and I can't wait for her to be born! It's not the best picture but I think they turned out pretty cute.

10 1/2 Months

Alright...I know I am way overdue on updating this. I'll give you a brief update on what all Kaitlynn has been doing lately and I think you'll see how busy we've been!

10 1/2 Months old:
-Crawling EVERYWHERE!
-Pulling up to stand on anything that she possibly can

-Waving Bye Bye
-Clapping
-She talks and chatters all the time (I wonder who she gets that from!?!)

-After a lot of hard work (and sleepless nights!) the last couple of weeks she now has 6 teeth
4 on top and 2 on the bottom

-2 weeks ago while Grammy and Grandpa Sewing were visiting she broke out in an awful rash and was so uncomfortable we almost took her to the emergency room that Friday night. Thankfully after a small dose of Benadryl she was able to settle down and sleep all night

-She loves it when Daddy hangs her upside down and getting tickled!

-She is "dancing" every time she hears music and sometimes the music must just be playing in her head! It's really more of a head bop! I need to try to get it on video...pretty darn cute!

-Last week she had her first official ear infection after a couple of pretty scary days of fevers. I guess we should be thankful that it took 10 months before she had one.

-Grandma and Grandpa Hardie, Ryan and Sarah came to visit last weekend. They helped us paint our kitchen. We're still getting used to the color but we do love it! During all the commotion of painting, etc. the gate across the top of our steps didn't get put back on and Ms. Kaitlynn managed to roll ALL the way down. Thankfully, other than a little bump on her head she was ok. I think it "hurt" mommy and daddy more then her!


Here she is with Grandpa Ken. She loves him but he has to take off his hat and glasses when he holds her. Otherwise she just stares at him the whole time!
Doesn't she look cute in Uncle Ryan's hat?? It's the Cubs of corse!
This was right before Grandma and Grandpa left to go back to Iowa. You can kind of see the new kitchen color behind them. I'll have to post pictures of that later.
A few weeks ago all 3 of my favorite people were snuggling on the couch together!

One night we went over to Dana and Dan's house. This was the first time that the girls were big enough to kind of interact together. They had a fun time playing with Courtney's new kitchen!
Ms. Kaitlynn was a little grouchy that evening so we let her have her pacifier. Then the game of the night was Courtney following her around trying to get the pacifier. This happened to be one of the attempts that worked!!
Too cute!
Kaitlynn loved to taste all of Courtney's fun books and toys. They were delicious!

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!