She's so Smart!

Well, I don't think it's a coincidence anymore! Tonight when Kate was done with dinner and I signed and said 'all done' for her, she said, "Ah dahh!" That's gotta be real! :) My smarty pants!

Not much to report here, other than Kate has a cold again. But really, is that anything new?

Big girl!

Kate took one step closer to crawling today! She is now able to get up on her knees (getting her belly off the floor) and rock! Prior to today she hasn't been able to do that! What a big girl.

The other thing she did today was at dinner, who knows if it was just a coincidence, but when she was finished I signed "all done" for her, and as usual I said "Kate is all done!" And she repeated, "Ah dahh" like she was trying to say all done! Who knows?

A Picture

It's been a while since I've had a new picture up of Kate, so I thought I'd post quick.

I survived my first week of work! It went really well. Kate and I seem to be adjusting fine. We are enjoying a nice Saturday together though! She is getting very close to crawling. She can scoot around a bit, but she mainly goes backwards. I think it's only a matter of time until she'll be a mover & shaker!

Kate is Better!

I just wanted to make a quick post that Kate is better. No more traces of the screaming or puking! The other thing I thought that could be causing the problem was that around the same time as all this stuff happened, I started her on Trivisol vitamins. I did notice initially that it makes her cough when I give it to her, but I let her wash it down with some juice or food. So maybe that is having a negative feedback as well. I'd really like to have her on those vitamins to try to help keep her healthy for daycare, so I think that will be the first thing I reintroduce after a few days to see if she can handle it. Then cheerios (if all is well) followed by graham crackers. We will see!

I have a couple cute stories relayed to me from daycare. Apparently Kate scooted herself over to the kitchen today (which was a surprise to me, she's never done that here!), and was having a great time sliding herself all over the floor. They said she was cracking herself up - she thought it was hilarious! So cute! Also, for a while now, Kate's best friend at daycare has been a little girl named Jaelyn. Jaelyn is one month older than Kate. They've been developmentally similar so they had fun playing together. Well, now, Jaelyn is very mobile and leaves Kate in the dust, leaving her to find a new best friend. So now Kate's best friend is a little girl named Cameron. She is four months old, so Kate has a captive audience when Cameron is around. Kathy and Jennifer (the girls that keep Kate) said that when Kate sees Cameron coming to join her on the floor, she starts waving her arms and kicking her legs in excitement! I told them about how Kate has been grabbing Jeff's and my faces, and pulling us in for a kiss. They said Kate did that to Cameron yesterday! haha. One more story, as we have seen with Bailey, Kate is big on "tough love" apparently... They other day they looked over and Kate had a fist full of Cameron's hair (she has SUPER long hair for a baby!) and was shaking it, having a great time! Poor Cameron!

First Day of Work, and a Wheat Problem?

Well I survived my first day back to work! Kate did too. :) I was actually fine all day and didn't cry once. I think it helped SO much that she had already been going to daycare, so it wasn't a big deal for me to drop her off. It was a little sad to pick her up at 6:00, and put her to bed at 7:00... It's sad to think that's all the time I'm going to get to see her during the week. I'm sure once I'm in the swing of things at work the days will be shorter though. It was a good day - I think I'm really going to enjoy it. (As long as I have to be working, that is!)

As for Kate, we sort of have a new problem/adventure going on with her. She has started spitting up pretty big amounts again (after having stopped completely at 6 months.) When I picked Kate up this evening, they told me that she projectile vomited 2-3 times today. Poor baby. We discussed what had been going on with Kate over the weekend - that she had been eating Cheerios and Graham Crackers for the first time. Then, last night when I put Kate to bed, she SCREAMED. She did NOT want to be in bed. If I was holding her she was fine, but when I laid her back down, she screamed again. Anyone who knows Kate knows that this is not normal for her at all. She's normally super easy to get to bed. Then she woke up screaming again around 5 this morning, which again, she hasn't done since she was about 8 weeks old. (Of course she chose to have a night like this my last night before going back to work!) So the girls who keep Kate said that she screamed today as well when they laid her down for her naps. They suggested that it could possibly be a wheat problem?! Which makes a lot of sense... She had eaten a ton of Cheerios and Graham crackers over the weekend, and had spit up / mildly vomited a ton as well. I looked up wheat allergy in infants and sure enough some of the symptoms are abdominal cramps, nausea, and vomiting. So that could totally explain her screaming if she had abdominal cramping and/or nausea. Poor dear. So I'm going to cut out wheat for a couple weeks, see what happens, then reintroduce and see if it comes back.

DaDa

Kate said "DaDa" to Jeff for the first time tonight! She's been saying it for a week or two now, but never to or in front of Jeff. We met some friends at Chilis or dinner tonight, and after we were done eating, I had Kate playing in my lap, facing me. I turned her around and she saw Jeff across the table, lit up and said "DaDa!" It was SO cute!! I love that she can say DaDa now, after saying Mama so long ago!

Cupcake Disaster

So I decided on a cupcake theme for Kate's first birthday party. I bought a really cool Wilton cake pan to make a giant cupcake. Adorable, right?


I love it. I knew there would be a learning curve when it comes to making this cake, so I decided to start NOW with test cakes to make sure I can do it perfectly by the time Kate's birthday comes. So, without further ado, my first test cake.



HA!!!! It was a total disaster. The cake is so deep that it took almost an hour to bake, and by the time it was physically done, it was so burnt to a crisp! It was nasty. So, to be fair, I didn't really even try to do the frosting right, but I could tell that it would be very difficult to make the frosting look like the model cupcake. I don't know how to do it in those perfect swirls?? So I'm thinking about giving up. I'll probably try another test cake here or there, but there's a girl at our church who does amazing cake decorating, so I might just have her do it for me!