Milestones

Milestone #1: After 20 months of either being nursed, rocked or danced to sleep, Kate now puts herself to bed. This is a HUGE deal in our house since she has been very reliant upon us to get her to sleep. Now all we need to do is read her some books, cuddle for a few minutes, put her in her crib and close the door. She cried for the first week of us doing this, but no more than 20 minutes. Now, after 2 weeks, she quietly goes in her crib and falls fast asleep. God certainly answers prayers!!!! Milestone #2: Kate can tackle the park almost 100% on her own! She can climb up most structures and go down big slides all on her own. We can thank her cousin Drew for showing her how it is done. :-) It is so nice to be able to just watch her play instead of having to do all the climbing with her. Milestone #3: Kate loves to play pretend! She is always putting shoes and clothes on her dolls. She also likes to use a wipe and diaper when the dolls go poo poo. Kate has greatly enjoyed pretending with her kitchen...we are always having hot cups of tea. We even "go to the park" with her stuffed animals in which she pushes her play stroller to and from the front door and then sits them on her slides. Milestone #4: Kate's vocabulary is growing so big everyday. Her favorite 2 phrases right now are "oh well" and "green light." She loves to repeat most of what we say and it is becoming easier to understand her words. She is a VERY talkative little girl. Milestone #5: Time outs. After debating how and when to start discipline, the other week we started to put Kate in time outs. Thankfully it is not a very common occurrence since threatening her with a time out works most of the time. The few times she has gone to time out she has cooperatively gone to the corner and stayed there until I tell her she can leave. Usually she is very sad to be in the corner and requires a cuddle afterwards. Everyday Kate amazes me with all the new things she is learning. She certainly has a mind of her own and expresses her opinion frequently, but she is such a beautiful person. I have so many people tell me how cute she is and how much fun they have playing with her. God has blessed us with such an amazing daughter!

Papa's hat

This afternoon Kate and I headed to my parents house for a lunch/park date with Papa. One of the things that caught Kate's attention was Papa's hat. She just had to try it on! "Yo yo, what up dog?"

I unfortunately did not get any pictures of Kate playing with Papa or our time at the park, but we had a wonderful afternoon. Thanks Dad!

Creative Playtime

For the past month, every Tuesday morning Kate and I head out to our Creative Playtime class through the City of Davis. The class is 2 hours long in which the kids get free playtime for an hour and then after cleanup we have snack, story time, circle time and then park time. Kate enjoys her time here and loves playing with all the fun things that surround her. Below are some pictures from today. One of Kate's favorite things to do is organize the little animal figurines. Sometimes we build a zoo with blocks for the animals but today we piled them in the barn. Next, Kate found the ponies and brushed all their hair...she is such a girl!

Play dough time!

This kitchen is a bit too tall for Kate but it didn't stop her from washing the plate in the sink.

Kate loves to hold the "baby" and take her all around the classroom. The doll also likes to walk the balance beam with Kate but unfortunately that picture didn't turn out.

Puppet show! Well, sort of....Kate likes to pull all the puppets off the stand and look them over. I was surprised she actually let me put these two puppets on her hand.

Kate has a huge fascination with helicopters. The other week we saw a helicopter at Daddy's hospital. It was getting ready to take off and the noise was pretty loud so Kate didn't want to see it lift off the ground. However, ever since that day she talks about going "up, up, up" in the helicopter with Mama, Dada, Bebe, Chee chee, Papa, and Gramma.

Kate found all the baby dolls and arranged them on the chair...she is quite the organizer.

Park time! Kate loves going down the slide all by herself.

Toys are brought out during park time and so the kids get to share wheelbarrows, strollers, balls, and cars.

Kate especially loves it when she gets lucky enough to get a baby and a stroller. Frequently this has posed a huge problem when it is time to clean-up. Kate usually throws a fit when I tell her we need to take the baby inside.

We have 2 more weeks left of playtime. It has been a lot of fun!

Block belly

The other day Kate decided to stuff as many of her mega-blocks in her shirt. She was able to get quite a few in there. She was so proud of herself that she had to show Daddy.

Kate and Elmo

Kate wanted Elmo to wear one of her winter hats. Of course Kate had to wear Chloe's old hat while Elmo wore her new one. She is a very goofy girl!

Kate and Drew

Will's cousin, Lilli, and her two boys, Drew and AJ have moved back to California after being in Indiana for 4 years. They are currently staying just a few blocks away from us at her parent's house while her husband finishes up his last rotation for optometry school in Chicago. Over the past week we have had the opportunity to hang out. Drew and Kate have now become good friends and they love to play together. Drew is 3 years old so he shows Kate around while Kate just follows what he does. Thanks to Drew's Dedushka, he has a very cool playhouse that Kate loves to go in and out of.

"Momma, can you put down the camera and help me reach the hoop?"

Exploring the backyard

Rocking away!

Cute little AJ is 10.5 months old. He was trying to get in on the fun with Drew and Kate. He actually climbed up on Kate a few times and whacked her on the head. Kate didn't seem to mind....she just stared at me like "Momma, what am I supposed to do?" Drew wanted to ride the rocking horse with Kate...Kate wasn't too sure about that.

We are so thankful to have Lilli and her family back in town. It is so fun to watch the kids play together and it is great to finally have a stay-at-home mom nearby. :-)

Tahoe Winter Wonderland!

We just got back from a wonderful 4-day trip to our family cabin in South Lake Tahoe. The first two days were just family time with Will, Kate and me. Kate spent most of her time playing with the cabin's doll house. Will and I enjoyed reading and relaxing...it actually felt like vacation! The weather was a beautiful 50 degrees and sunny. The last two days were joined with our bible study. We had total of 11 people (including 4 kids) at the cabin. We had so much fun hanging out with our friends! While I was napping Kate decided to pile all the doll house pieces on me.

My cuddle-bug!

"Oh! Snow!" Kate was very excited to walk in the snow. She had a lot of fun playing in the snow as long as she didn't have to touch it.

First breakfast with our friends.

We were trying to get a picture of all four girls but Kate refused to sit down and stop crying. She wanted to slide down the hill with Mommy more.

Kate and Rusty

Kate and Hazel

On Sunday, a huge snow storm hit Tahoe. There was tons of fresh snow! Thankfully it was really light snow so we didn't need to use chains to drive out.

Kate loved swinging with her friends.

Kate and Abby

Yesterday we had the pleasure of watching Kate's friend, Abby, for the afternoon. The girls got along great! Abby was very thrilled to play with all of Kate's balls and Kate was just thrilled to have a playmate!
Kate helped Abby eat her snack...she loved the raisins!

Story time! Here are just a few silly pictures from today...

Kate asked me to put all her barrettes in her hair. I think we might start a new fashion trend.

Kate got mad at me for taking her picture since she wanted to hold the camera and see the pictures of "Keet!"