Spring is in the Air!

Spring has officially arrived, at least according to the calendar.  We've been surprised that even here in North Carolina winter proved herself formidable.  These days, we are alternating temperatures between low-30's and wet and mid-70's and sunny!  We are all ready for the warm weather to settle in.

The good news is that we've been able to make a decent amount of progress on our garden.  We plan to move to a different house mid-summer so it seemed that the only way not to miss out on the gardening season entirely was to make our garden portable!  Handy as ever, Brian built us a couple of beautiful garden boxes on wheels.  They are 3'x4' and we hope they will allow for a fair bit of home-grown produce this summer since we are utilizing the square foot gardening method.  At the very least, we will have a fun "pet" to take care of (Kate: Mom, can I have a pet fish?  Me: Your pet is our garden!) and we will learn a lot.

This past weekend we finished preparing our boxes.  Brian added a bit of additional height to them and the girls dug up worms from the yard and added them in.  I'm not really sure whether that was necessary, but it seemed like a good idea at the time and they certainly enjoyed doing it!  Brian added grids (because what's a square foot garden without visible grids?!) and Kate and I planted the first few squares with sugar snap peas and two varieties of lettuce.  Next weekend we hope to build the trellises for our peas, pole beans, and pickling cucumbers.

 This morning the girls filled up some little cups with soil so that we could bring them inside to warm up and start some tomatoes.  We are quite late to be starting tomatoes, but hope that since the growing season is longer here we'll be okay.  We're winging it!

The garden boxes, basking in the morning sun!

Kate's Words

I'll update you all on Kate's birthday, our Christmas holiday and Cancun vaction soon, but today, on the occasion of Kate's ONE YEAR doctor visit, I decided to make a list of all her words. For those of you who have been keeping up with the videos on facebook, you already know that Kate has been talking since she was about six months old. Her first words were "uh oh" and "bye bye." Next came "Dada" and "Mama," and then "button." It's been full speed ahead since then! Here is my list, which is probably not complete, but you'll get the idea...These are all words that she not only says, but knows the meaning of.

hair dryer
Christmas tree
bless you
thank you
peek-a-boo
all gone
all done
yes
walk
crawl
boot
hat
ball
dog
Buddy
dad, dada, daddy
mom, mama
car
eat
socks
coat
help
up
what is this/that?
where is it/are they?
there it is!
two
uh oh
bye bye
button
ear
hair
hot
eye
good girl
wow
yum
kiss
clock
spatula
burp
boobie
poop
toot
peepee
bottle
water
TooDoo (grandpa)

Animal noises:
cow: moo
sheep: baa
dog: ruff ruff
fish: glug glug (Brian would point out that fish don't actually make a sound)
lion: roar
owl: whooo
monkey: oo oo ee ee
goat: maa maa

Here is some proof (just a little):

I'm telling you all this not so that I can earn bragging rights (though bragging rights are always nice...), but because it has been so much fun watching Kate learn and grow and I'd like to share that with you. She has such a desire to explore, figure out, and learn names for new things...she surprises us every single day!!!

Has it been a year already?!

Here's Kate, picking out birthday presents for herself ...

Do Not Feed the Animals

One of my very favorite things about Kate is her spunky little personality. It's undeniable, she's one very spirited girl!

Well, last night I had a run-in with that spirit. When I went to pick Kate up after her bedtime stories with Brian, she reached out angrily and grabbed my hand, put it up to her mouth and tried to BITE ME!

Imagine that.

Of course in that moment I let out a giggle, not thinking about the message I was sending, but rather how pleased I was that this little being is turning into an actual PERSON with her own

A G E N D A !

It warms my heart every day to look at the little girl Brian and I created and see how she reflects both of us in her own way. What a special experience it is to watch a child grow!!

Oh, Canada...

For all of you who have been eagerly waiting and wondering, Halifax was a blast. I am blessed to have such a wonderful sister, brother-in-law and niece. They truly never disappoint. Ba is always a very gracious hostess and I will admit that she's been known to spoil Kate and me a bit. We spent 9 days with them (we extended our trip because we weren't ready to leave!) all of which were filled with good company, yummy food, warm fires, and cute kiddos. It was really fun to watch Kate and her cousin interact now that they are both a little bit older. They mostly just parallel play, but it's still entertaining. Oh and Anna's favorite thing to do was to snatch whatever toy Kate happened to have in her possession at any given moment. Thankfully, Kate has not become possessive of toys yet! It was also a treat to feel my next little niece or nephew kicking and squirming around in Ba's belly. Another baby to love! I can't wait to meet him/her.

Kate just loves her Uncle Ryan (Auntie Ba, too!)

Anna tries on her mommy's Crocs

Kate plays the guitar with Uncle Ryan

The cousins play together

Posing nicely for a quick shot! (Thank you, remote control.)

Riding together in the Chariot (before Kate learned that it was not a safe place to be!)

Me and Kate on a beautiful Halifax fall afternoon

Anna gives Kate kisses!

Another fleeting moment of camera-cooperation

As you can see, a good time was had by all. We're planning our next trip up for February, right around Ba's due-date -- can't wait! In the meantime, we're excitedly anticipating their visit for the Christmas holiday!!

Still no crawling, but LOTS of talking!

We are fast-approaching the ten month mark and Kate is still my little immobile sweetheart!! She does a lot of rocking in a seated position, crawls her hands out diagonally to the side, spins herself around in circles while on her belly, but still has yet to put two and two together. We leave for Halifax next week and I'm hoping that a week with her cousin Anna will inspire Kate to try a little harder!! Here's a picture from our last trip up in June...hopefully the kids will have a little more interest in each other now, otherwise I fear it's going to be a rough road for little Kate!

On the bright side of the things, she is doing LOTS of talking and pointing. A few of her favorite things to point at are the fan (as in "Kate, where's the fan?"), trees, windows, Daddy and Mommy. She can also say, "button," "tree," and "all done." Here's a little video...

Another favorite pass time is peek-a-boo! She's really very good at it, and starts most mornings playing this game with the sheets on our bed. Here she is playing in the laundry basket!

One very exciting thing has occurred since my last post and deserves to be mentioned here. Our dear friends Aaron and Jenny Stevens received their adoption referral. Sometime in December (hopefully!) they will be welcoming their beautiful little son Tesfahun (which means "be my hope") into their lives and hearts. As I'm sure you know, the road to adoption is long and trying and Aaron and Jenny are elated to finally be so close to meeting their first child!!! They will be traveling to Ethiopia to pick him up as soon as all the legal legwork is complete. Praise God! (I do have a picture of this cute little guy, but for legal reasons it can not be posted online until the adoption is complete...)

This past weekend was Homecoming at Gordon and after a valiant battle with a horrible stomach bug, I was able to join Brian and Kate for a very fun weekend. We met up with all our friends at Gordon (congrats to the newly-engaged Erin and Eric!!) and spent the afternoon together, catching up and watching Kate and Sydney in all their baby cuteness. It's always such a good time when we can meet up as a big group and pick up where we left off back in '05/'06 when we all went our separate ways!

A big thanks to Bridget and Steve Hunt for their hospitality, too! It was such a treat to spend a weekend away with great friends and an awesome place (and baby-friendly!) to stay!

Our Daughter the Eater AND Sleeper!

Kate wasn't the biggest fan of solids in the world when we first introduced them at six months. In fact, it's only been in the last couple weeks that she's really become an eater...and now I'm having trouble keeping up with her! She loves her rice cereal (particularly if I mix it with breast milk), fruit, meat & veggie dinners, and, of course, cheerios...or Purely O's as the organic brand calls them. Right now I'm trying to get her comfortable with finger foods. She has mastered cheerios (finally realized the crucial last step, which is letting-go once it gets to her mouth!), but struggles with anything wet or sticky. More often than not, chunks of banana, apples, potato, avocado, carrot and the like are tossed over the side of the tray rather than into her mouth. Here is a video of her cheerio success.

Last night Brian decided that Kate owed him some bedtime stories for a change. She loves her daddy, so of course she was more than happy to oblige.

About a week ago I made a concerted effort to stop any nighttime feeding. We had a few rough nights (okay, I'll admit I gave in a couple times...) but last night Kate slept through the night for the second time ever!! 10.5 consecutive hours! Of course Brian and I went to bed later than usual so we weren't even able to take full advantage of it, but my fingers and toes are crossed that we'll be experiencing many consecutive nights of successful slumber! Here's our happy sleeper first thing this morning.

In an effort to get her more interested in standing and moving about, I've been propping Kate up against furniture around the house. She seems to really enjoy it and I can only hope that before too long she'll initiate it herself and start trying to pull up on things. Everyone says I should enjoy this time of immobility because it gets a lot harder once they're motoring around, but I do think it will be a welcomed change.