Little Pumpkin

Katherine has been very excited about Halloween. She doesn't really know what Halloween is, but she loves dressing up in her duck costume (the first week that she had it, she insisted on sleeping with it every night, and this week every day that she's gotten dressed she requests to wear "duck").

This weekend, we got to celebrate Halloween with our Pittsburgh family:

She also runs around the house with her pumpkin that she got on a trip to the pumpkin patch with Aunt Mary and Uncle Dave. The pint-sized pumpkin is perfect for her, and she uses her whole body to pick it up, calling it "bum" because she can't quite say pumpkin. :-)

Here are some other sweet moments from our little pumpkin:

Shopping for our family Halloween party, Katherine insisted on hugging the pumpkin in the cart

"Don't you dare try to take away my pumpkins....."

"Kat in Boots" -- Katherine was very proud to wear Mama's shoes after work today.

Sleeping Like a Big Girl

Katherine's transition to her "big girl" bed has gone relatively well. We have a 2 step system set up in her room, so she can never fall more than 6 inches, and always falls onto something soft (either a second toddler mattress, or the carpeted floor).

The first night was a challenging transition, but when we finally left Katherine to fall asleep on her own, she did a great job. Sometimes when we go in to check on her she is sleeping in the middle of her floor, and we lovingly scoop her up and put her in bed. Usually, though, she's sleeping peacefully on the top level of her bed.

Although she is usually good at going to sleep quickly, Katherine has recently discovered that she has some freedom in her room, and walks around to explore and play a bit. Here you can see her sleeping with a pile of her favorite books:

Sweet dreams to all! :-)

Jumping around...

Mommy and Daddy are very excited to move our bedroom to the first floor. This gives us extra space for guests, and also allows us to have a master bedroom with a bathroom/laundry room attached to it. We renovated our dressers to match, and we've mostly made the move. This Tuesday we finally moved our bed downstairs as well!

The move must have inspired Katherine, and she seems to be looking forward to changing her sleeping arrangements too. The day after we moved our bed, Katherine started jumping out of her crib...

Although we haven't watched her do it, she doesn't seem to get hurt at all, as she has now done it 3 times and seems to do it every time she wakes up (sometimes without even talking or crying first, so we don't even know that she's awake).

Tonight we'll be taking the front rail of her crib off, and putting a spare crib mattress on the floor as a "landing pad." We'll certainly report how the transition goes, and hopefully we'll all sleep tight tonight!


Here's a completely unrelated picture from an Origami photo shoot taken at work. Katherine was thrilled to ride in the stroller until our photographer pulled the camera out. She started screaming as soon as we started taking pictures, so we didn't get any great marketing shots, but this one is a fun picture anyways:

Little Traveler

This weekend we'll all be in San Antonio for Aunt Mary Beth's wedding shower! Daddy and Katherine went down a week early to make the most of the time with our Texas family. They were lucky to be joined by Oma, and the whole crew is having a blast.

Here are some of Katherine's highlights:

Cruising in the Cozy Coupe at Aunt Mary Beth's:

A trip to Six Flags amusement park:

Katherine's already a shoe shopping expert with her Aunt Mary Beth!

Making a splash in the back yard:

Visiting Grandpa Elizando:

Just lounging (on the giant bear, of course!)

Mommy's been missing them terribly, but I've found the best coping method is keeping busy. :-) I've been working around the house on projects that are usually next to impossible to get done with a toddler around. So far I've painted the basement, reorganized all of the family's clothes, thrown a garage sale, cleaned out our built in china cabinet in the kitchen, and a couple other odds and ends.

With Daddy's help when we all return, we hope to officially move our master bedroom to the first floor "dining room" which will leave some extra space upstairs for guests and play space. It's hard to believe that Marie's arrival will be less than 2 months away! We're into the home stretch and busy getting ready to welcome our new little one. :-)

Mommy can't wait to join Katherine and Daddy this weekend so we can relax and celebrate some great times together!

18 Months

Katherine has officially passed the 1 and a half year milestone! Here are some of our favorite Katherine moments, and our favorite Katherine pictures:

Katherine LOVES playing outside. Whether it's a trip to the park, playing on slides, going for walks, or just running back and forth on our front sidewalk sharing hugs and kisses with Mommy and Daddy, she's a happy girl. :-)

One of Katherine's favorite books right now is "I Love you Through and Through." When she wants to read it, she says, "bum-bum!" because the book starts off "I love your top side, and your bottom side."

Here's Katherine on her first moonwalk at Mommy's company picnic. The bouncing there seemed to inspire her, and she now loves to jump ALL the time. Often when we come to get her from her crib, she'll be bouncing up and down shouting "ribbit ribbit ribbit!"

Katherine insists on doing everything all by herself. Here you can see she insists on feeding herself at mealtime, which can often turn out pretty messy. She also always asks for 2 spoons (luckily she can't count any higher yet). ;-)

On Tuesday we had a good trip to the doctor's. We were a bit more prepared than last time, and we actually weighed Katherine ahead of time (22lbs), and measured her in her sleep (31.5in). She still screamed through the whole exam, but the experience was at least shorter, and a tiny bit easier. Luckily when she goes back at 2 we don't have to give her any shots!!

Happy Birthday Luke! Happy Birthday Andrew!

Boy oh Boy have things been busy lately! Seriously! Two boys had wonderful birthdays recently! We are very sorry for such a late post, but 'tis how things are these days. Lots going on, with Uncle Ted's sister getting married soon (12/01/12) and her shower coming up, Marie is coming in just a couple months(!!!), traveling for Aunt Julie's work, and just trying to keep on top of everyday chores... like building patios and creating a whole new bedroom to live in! 

Well enough with our pitiful excuses and on with the pictures I say!

Andrew, Ben, and Elijah are eagerly awaiting their Mario themed cake! WaHoo!

Luke for his 4th birthday decided to have a Pirates themed party and is onlooking a home run of a cake!

Katherine has been loving fruits lately, including some very special watermelon! Grambie was quite daring holding her with food in her hands!

Achoo! Just kidding of course!

Katherine was having quite a blast with the sand pit! We are still finding sand...

She had so much fun, the boys decided to join her!

Happy Birthday, Andrew and Luke!! We hope this year is Super Mario, Home Run fun!!!

Happy Birthday Aunt Mary Beth!

Yesterday was Aunt Mary Beth's 30th birthday! We were very blessed to be able to celebrate with Aunt Mary Beth, Uncle Casey, Oma and Opa down in Texas last week. We threw a little party and had an excellent time.

After our Texas visit we took a looooooooooooooooooong road trip back to Pittsburgh. Katherine did very well in the car, but was VERY happy to be home.

We were extra blessed because Aunt Mary Beth is visiting Pittsburgh this weekend (she's doing recruiting for work next week at CMU), so we get to celebrate with her on both ends of her birthday!

Katherine is so thankful for her fun, joyful Godmother. Happy birthday Mary Beth-- may your year be filled with happiness!