christmas celebrations

Kaitlin was a good girl this year and got to celebrate Christmas in many different places.

12/24 morning we woke up to find that Santa visited our house a little early. I guess he heard we were leaving town that day.

Santa brought me a new DSLR camera so the following pictures were me messing around with the new camera.

On our way to Iowa Kaitlin was a happy camper for the first part of the trip. 

12/24 celebrating at Great Grandma/Grandpa Lamar's house.

Kaitlin loved this little rocking chair.

Great Grandma Lamar sitting with Mason.

 Kelly and Mason. Notice he's in his 3rd or 4th outfit of the night.

Awesome white elephant gifts!

12/25 Christmas morning Kaitlin and Gavin both woke up (with their blankies in tow) to find that Santa had visited.

 Helping Gavin unwrap the train that Kaitlin got him.

 Sitting on the wooden stool that says "Kaitlin" that grandma/grandpa got her.

 Grandma multi-tasking - feeding Kaitlin and holding Mason.

Celebrating at my Uncle's house on Christmas day.

Kaitlin checking out the doggy. She loved petting/hugging him.

12/26 Celebrating at Grandma/Grandpa Albertson's

Kaitlin helping Jake "clean" up the wrapping paper.

Jake teaching Kaitlin how to pop bubble wrap.

new york city

In mid-December, Bryan and I took a quick trip to New York City. Bryan had never been before so my parent's came up to watch Kaitlin. We almost didn't get out there due to weather but I think our flight was the only Chicago to NYC flight that got out that day.

Visited the set of the Today Show.

 Jessica Alba was a guest that morning.

 Matt was wearing a lot of makeup when you saw him up close. And Al is shorter than we thought.

 The tree was huge with lots of lights.

A view of the skating rink built out of legos.

  Bryant Park

  Had to take a photo in front of the train store.

It was my third time to NYC but my first to see the Statue of Liberty. We didn't get to go up to the crown (and not sure I could have made it up all those stairs) but we did get a good view from the pedestal.

A view of NYC skyline from the Statue of Liberty. The NYC skyline really makes the Chicago skyline look very small.

A replica of the actual size of the Statue of Liberty's face.

I'm sitting on a replica of the Statue of Liberty's foot.



28 weeks

Today I'm 28 weeks along. I can't believe baby #2 will be here in approximately 3 months. Oh how time flies. Now I haven't been great about taking belly photos (and I really wasn't great taking photos when I was pregnant with Kaitlin). So the first two photos below I'm 28 weeks and the last two photos I was 25 and 31 weeks with Kaitlin.

28 weeks (baby #2)

25 weeks (Kaitlin)

31 weeks (Kaitlin)

I will be back soon playing some catch up on the last few weeks with some new photos.

xmas photos & cards

For a few reasons we decided this year we weren't going to send out holiday cards. One we were late in doing so and second we'll be sending out baby announcements in a few months (crazy, huh!). But before I realized we were going to be late, I decided to try to take some photos of Miss K for the card. Here are a few good (and bad) photos. She wasn't very cooperative this particular morning and Bryan was out of town so it was hard to get her to sit still AND also try to snap the photo.

Take note of the pouty face. The nanny finally arrived and tried to get her to laugh. She still wasn't having it.

Then Miss K was all smiles once she made a dash for our bedroom and was "hiding" behind our curtains (which she's not really supposed to be doing).

utensils

Miss K is now becoming Miss Independent. She's learning how to master the fork & the spoon.

13 month milestones

It's hard to believe that 13 months has come and gone already. I don't have any more monthly onsies to take Kaitlin's pictures but I'll try to add recent photos when I remember. And speaking of recent photos, need to collect some from Thanksgiving weekend from friends & family since I didn't once take out the camera. But I did want to post some  recent milestones for future reference.

Has started to climb on everything. It started off with her trying to climb onto you while sitting on the floor. Then today she started trying to climb on her activity table and her little people house. I'm just waiting for her to try to figure out how to climb out of her crib. I'm hoping the sleep sack we keep her in helps contain her in the crib for as long as possible.

Starting to transition into one nap a day. This started just this week after returning from Iowa from the Thanksgiving holiday. Kaitlin has started sleeping longer at night (7 pm - 6:30ish am) and then going down for a nap with the nanny at noon. She'll sleep until 3 or 4 pm, if Will doesn't start crying earlier; otherwise she wakes around 2 pm. I think transitioning to one nap a day will make it easier to get out of the house to do things.

No more bottles. We have successfully moved over to sippy cups! She seems to really like the Munchkin brand from Target. All the bottles have been packed up for at least the next 6 months or so. Yippy!

Follows more directions. In the past few weeks Kaitlin has started to really follow more directions and shows that she understands more of what you say/what you're asking her. 
A few examples:
- She knows where her baby dolls are when you ask
- When you tell her to say bye bye she waves without you doing it first
- She gives you kisses (and most of the time they are with an open mouth)

Becoming more independent. Kaitlin has started to figure out how to put on her own socks (she's not successful yet but yesterdays they go on her feet). She also has started to to feed herself with a spoon. She understands that you have to "refill" the spoon with food and then attempts to put it into her mouth. Most of the time the food ends up anywhere but in her mouth.

7 teeth. Her 7th tooth is popping through.