Kate's Valentine Weekend

On Friday Kate received her very first Valentine's Day card in the mail from her Great Grandpa and Grandma Elliott. She enjoyed reading their Valentine message munching on the card. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

"Do you like my hearts?"

Kate loves being tossed up in the air by her daddy. So much fun!!!

On Saturday my parents watched Kate for us so Will and I could have an early Valentine's date. We went to our favorite Thai food place and had a wonderful lunch. Kate was very excited to go over to Gramma and Papa's house on Saturday. The anticipation was almost too much to handle. :-)

Kate loves her Papa!

Natural born musician

Kate has discovered our piano! Every time we walk by the piano she reaches for it and gets excited to bang on the keys. I think she will take after her daddy and become an amazing piano player.

Jumping Baby = Happy Baby

Kate Happenings

Kate fell asleep when we went for a walk after dinner. This was the second time she has ever fallen asleep in her stroller! I had to take a picture of her in her cute and cozy polar bear outfit.
Kate has discovered that tags are way more exciting than toys. She loves to crumble and chomp on any tag she can grab.

Kate is getting really good at sitting up on her own for longer periods of time. We still like to surround her with support since she does topple over occasionally but I think her independence will be here soon!

Will and I both agree that Kate is the happiest baby we have ever seen. This video is proof... :-)

Univited Guests

Around 10:30 last night our indoor cat started to cry at our sliding glass door in our bedroom. Usually when she cries it means that there is something outside our door that is frightening her. Well, as it turns out, raccoons are back in our neighborhood. We turned on our backyard light to find a raccoon staring down our cat through the glass. The raccoon started to back away when the light came on so we calmed our cat down and when back to sleep. About 45 minutes later she started to cry again...this time the raccoon brought 2 of his friends. We tried to shoo them away and went back to bed only to be woken by our cat another time to find another raccoon at our door. We were furious with our cat and the raccoons so we did our best to block the sliding glass door so they couldn't interact anymore. Finally by midnight we were all able to get some peaceful rest!

Sleepy Girl

Kate did not get her afternoon nap yesterday so while we were getting ready to go out for dinner Kate tried to take a quick little nap on my shoulder.

One-hour Postal Swim

Today my sister and niece came over to watch Kate while I went to swim practice. It was a special day at practice since our swim team is entered in a nation-wide One-hour Postal Swim challenge to get as many swimmers as possible to swim as many yards as possible in one hour. Last year our team logged over 1.4 million yards and won the competition. The challenge goes for the entire month of January so I was cutting it close to participate. Well, I swam for an entire hour without stopping and logged 4,240 yards (about 170 laps). It was very exhausting, but Kate greatly enjoyed her time with her auntie and cousin. Will had the day off from work so he helped count laps for me. What a sweetie!


One of Kate's new favorite activities is to suck on my sweatshirt strings. Mmm...yum!

6-month Checkup Stats

Today was Kate's 6-month checkup. She weighed in at 19lbs 10oz which puts her in the 95th percentile and measured 26" long which is slightly above average. Aside from getting weighed and measured she also received her first round of the H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccinations. She was a true champion even though she screamed pretty loud when she was pricked with the needles. Once we got home, Kate enjoyed her first taste of butternut squash that I had pureed this morning. She finished her first and second servings! Below are a few pictures from this afternoon.

Our new addtion...

A new addition to the family arrived today in an enclosed trailer from Vermont. After waiting 6 weeks, we are now the proud owners of a 1951 Volkswagen convertible. Now many of you might be wondering why Will would get another VW when he already has 2, but this new Volkswagen will actually be taking the place of his 1956 convertible. Will is replacing his 1956 with this 1951 because, in the Volkswagen world, the 1951 is a much rarer find a very desirable to own. The previous owners of the car drove all the way from Burlington, Vermont to personally drop off the car. They even braved a crazy sand storm in New Mexico to get it here.

It doesn't look like much yet, but the car is actually in really great shape for being so old. Hopefully in 10 years this rusty car will be a beautiful show piece. The car will eventually be a two-tone color of dark brown and tan...very vintage!

Here is a picture of the proud father. Two thumbs up!

And, of course, I had to add a picture of Kate. She was excited to see the convertible too. :-)

Happy 6 months!

Kate turns 6 months today! We can't believe how fast the time has flown by and how much Kate has changed and developed in such a short amount of time. We are currently enjoying helping Kate explore solid foods. So far she has tried rice cereal, carrots, and banana. She seems to like the carrots if it is mixed in with the cereal but she wasn't too excited about the banana. I hope to expand her food options next week...I'll let you know how it goes. Below is a picture of Kate after enjoying her dinner of carrots.

Kate is starting to develop an addicting habit of looking at Volkswagen websites just like her daddy. "Oooo, split windows!" :-)
I can't get enough of her adorable smile!

Notice the muscular biceps...or maybe that is chub.

Kate's new favorite activity is to reach for the bird that is attached to her Jumperoo. Sometimes she enjoys just jumping to touch it and other times she grabs a hold of it and tries to jam it in her mouth.

Kate will hopefully someday enjoy playing the piano like her daddy since she sure enjoys listening to him play.

Here we come solid foods!

Kate had her first taste of solid food today...rice cereal! She loved it! She was a little uninterested the first bite but after the initial taste she was grabbing for the spoon and wanting more. She seemed to have no problem swallowing the food too...almost all stayed in her mouth!

Here is video from her very first taste of solid foods. It is a bit long, but the cutest part is in the first 30 seconds.

Kate's Baby Dedication

Today we had Kate dedicated at church to publicly commit to raising her in a Christian home and asked the congregation to help us in doing so. Our prayer for Kate is that she will love God and accept him as her Lord and Savior. It was a wonderful day...we were blessed to have a lot of family join us. Kate's Dedushka and Grammalene drove all the way from Fresno for the occasion along with all of my grandparents. After church everyone came over to our house for some yummy lunch. Kate was very well behaved all day long...she was so exhausted by the end of the day that she took a 2.5 hour long nap after everyone went home.
Our pastor, Jamie Crook, performed the dedication which was pretty special since he married us 5.5 years ago. :-)

Kate enjoyed spending some time with her Dedushka before chruch began. Notice the cute dress and sweater her Gramma bought her.

Cute pictures

Here are some pictures from yesterday for everyone that needs their weekly Kate fix. :-)

Kate Kisses

Recently Kate has discovered that she likes giving me kisses. Basically she opens her mouth real wide and sucks on the side of my cheek. There have been a few times I thought she would leave a mark, but thankfully I have pulled her off on time. It is quite a slobbery experience but also very sweet. I am the only one she tires to kiss so I feel very special and loved.


Annie, our cat, is very jealous of Kate, especially when Will is playing with her. Annie is constantly begging for attention...sometimes she is so desperate she will approach Kate to see if Kate will pet her. Kate grabbed onto Annie's ear once, but that doesn't seem to keep her too far away. We try to give Annie some attention, but the truth is that Kate is so much cuter and not nearly as hairy! :-)

Jumperoo-tastic!

Kate has been enjoying hours of fun in her new "Jumperoo" apparatus. She loves to play all the toys and jump to the music. It has been a great piece of equipment to have around since I can get some household chores done while she is being entertained. The only problem with the Jumperoo is that it is quite large so it takes up a lot of space and is difficult to move from room to room...small price to pay for such a great toy!

Go Ducks!

On New Year's Day, we spent the afternoon at my parents house cheering on the Oregon Ducks as they played Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. (We are Duck fans since my brother attended U of O for his first 2 years of college, though my Dad will always remain only a Cal fan.) Unfortunately the Ducks lost 17-26 but we still had a fun time cheering them on. I tried to dress Kate up in the most green/yellow outfit she owned to show her team spirit.
Kate enjoyed wearing her Uncle Daniel's Oregon hat. It is just a bit big.

Kate enjoyed playing with Gramma's Oregon beads. She was very fascinated by them and she never even tried to put them in her mouth!

During halftime I took Kate out on my parent's trampoline. She seemed to really enjoy it...I guess it is kind of a bigger version of her Johnny Jump Up.My mom prepared a whole spread of food for the family including these Oregon cupcakes. Yum!

My niece, Chloe, was enjoying her cupcake.