It's getting closer.

That's right. Caitlyn's first birthday is June 1st. As one of my business associates put it: "The days are long, but the years are short."

Caitlyn's zooming right along the milestone chart. She's doing all of the things little girls 2 months older than her like to do.

She eats food very messily. But she does eat real food. She loves food that happens to be on my plate, and that I'm eating. Here's her first meatball:

I think she likes it. Or she likes posing for the camera. You decide:

As most kids do, she likes bubbles.

I hope she doesn't really eat them. That'll make the threat of washing her mouth out with soap less of a threat.

She does like her (my?) Caterpillar dump truck with Legos:

And why sit, when you can stand?

She does enjoy playing with others. Even her cousin:

She also enjoys playing with her mother's shoe. And mine. I found a little man from her castle in my shoe this morning. Fortunately, I found it before I put my foot in.

She does like to help around the house, which we're going to foster and develop. Just today she picked up an unnoticeable sliver of paper which was in the floor. Apparently, she does that at the sitter's house, too. We're hoping for an OCD for keeping things clean.

She also helps her mom with the laundry. She picks up clothes out of the basket:

And hands them to Kacey, whether she's ready for them or not.

Such a good helper!

Sometimes she'll just stand and stare out the window for long periods of time.

Well, not really, I was out there mowing. I can't wait to teach her how to do that. And how to fix things around the house. And basically all the chores I hate doing.

She has also figured out how to crawl up on things, like the cushiony chair which we have set at the window for the dog. She also can get down now, which is getting less scary by the day as she figures out better where to set her feet and how to catch herself.

Random cute shot:

She even wears the dog out:

This shot is pre-dive tackle:

Post dive tackle:

She's growing up fast, but she sure is cute.


We're looking forward to visiting with a bunch of friends and family at her birthday party. Let me know if I didn't send you an invite, and you want/can come to Columbia on May the 30th at noon. Sorry, Alisa, I figured you can really only handle one long trip with your boys a year, and we expect you there at Thanksgiving.


-jordan

Caitlyn finally did it!!

That's right she took her first steps today. I was in the floor with her and she took two steps toward me then fell into my lap. Unfortunately she was tired and screamed at the fall, it was just before nap time. Also Jordan is out of town working. I called him and his response was "oh no."
I knew it was just a matter of days. Well we'll keep practicing and maybe by her party she'll be walking.

Where has the year gone

It doesn't seem possible that we are planning Caitlyn's first birthday party, but we are. I guess when you look at all she as learned so far it is. I never would guessed it would go by so quickly.

We went in earlier this month for our weight recheck and well She's just going to be skinny. She is 29 in long (90%) and 16 lb 4 oz (10%). The doctor said if she stays there or decreases on the parentage charts we may have to do bloodwork. We think she's fine. She's healthy and she's always eating. She eats four or five times a day and she eats everything, as you can tell by the pics below. She just never sits still, even in her sleep. Besides I was never on those charts, my sister was always at the bottom and I'm pretty sure Alisa was never on the charts either. So it runs in the family. Oh well we'll see at her next appt in June.

On to other wonderful Caitlyn news. She has unfortunately learned a new word. One Jordan keeps telling my nephew is a bad word in our house. That's right she learned "no". It was cute when she shook her head no because she thinks it's funny and doesn't understand the meaning but actually saying the word, not so good. Of all the words she hears, she repeats the one she hears the most, go figure. Maybe we should focus on another word.

Well that's pretty much it at our end of the world. I'm going to go work on the invitations. Oh and of course the cute pics.

Our first spaghetti dinner

and of course the bowl is on her head

She's really good at climbing on us when we are in the floor


and Jordan has found a new exercise program

That program works great, we have both been losing weight.

10 Months.

Well, she's almost a year old. She's been hitting every milestone about 2 months early, but she's still merely making noises, instead of really talking. She does "ma-ma-ma..." and some other noises like that. We've been teaching her a little sign language for certain things she wants like "up, please", "eat, please", "drink, please", etc.. We think she did "up" today, so I picked her up and she was happy. Hooray for communication! She has, to this point, signed "please" a couple of times, and she's also clapping on her own. Sometimes with prompting, sometimes without. It's pretty cute.

We're gearing up for her first birthday party, which will probably be here before we have everything ready. Of course, we'll probably have ridiculously messy cake pictures and fun present opening pictures...maybe not in that order.

Kacey's parents visit pretty regularly, and my parents came in last weekend. She has a lot of fun playing with all of them. (pictures to follow)

She's still zooming (crawling) around the house, following Kacey and I whenever we go into another room.

Now, some way cute pictures:

She had fun playing with Grandma:

And Grandpa:

I figured we should get some from her perspective:

She finally convinced Grandpa to put down the camera and let her take a real picture:

She loves to explore, and she's learning to love to read:

I said to Kacey as we were talking about the books on the shelf, "You know what she should read..." She got it out on her own.

And apparently wanted to read it:
She was so proud of herself:
Afterwards she got out a book that Kacey got for her so that she can understand why I'm always griping at the TV during the football season. Well, really it just explains the game. I'll still have to teach her about salary caps and bad coaching choices:

She only has her pacifier (plug) while she's in bed, but often she tosses it out anyway:

I've titled this piece "Consequences of Actions":

And here are some more cute ones:


This one really made me laugh:


Only a couple more months until she's one year old. Yikes!


-jordan

Nothing New I think

So I noticed that we haven't posted in a while, but there really isn't much going on. Caitlyn did have her 9 month appt today. She's still tall, 28 in (80%). However she's only 15 lb oz (10%). So we are going to really push the proteins. That will be fun since she hates the meat dinners. Maybe we should restrict her activity. She rarely sits still any more. This past weekend she started standing on her own in the middle of the room. She's much better at getting up holding on to some thing and letting go but she's trying it by herself. We are pretty sure she will be walking before her first birthday.

Of course like always we have been taking really cute pics of our kid, so here they are....

(captions by Jordan)

She can apparently find her own music:

And play it:

Poor George:


Who's happy?

Yep. She can stand for a few seconds at a time now.

And read:

Well, maybe not:

She does like to play with my pants.

I think they're both cute:

Happy Valentines Day.....

to all of you who celebrate it. Caitlyn had her first Valentine's party and cards. Our daycare got together with a friend of hers who also runs an in-home daycare and they had a party. I was told that she didn't cry but she sat by herself and watched the other kids. Not surprising to me since the other kids were older and that is what she does when Trev or Alex are around. I think it's because they are so interesting. It was surprising how much candy she received. I was silly and bought all of the kids bubbles thinking that who doesn't like bubbles. Besides most of the children were 1 year old or younger and don't have teeth or very few, so I wasn't thinking candy was a good idea. Oh well, I now have quite a bit of candy.

Caitlyn is sooooo big that we broke down and got a new car seat. Since she is not a year old however it's a convertible. So she can still be rear facing for 3 1/2 more months and then it faces forward. Plus it's good for up to 40 lbs. So she'll be in it for a while.

old car seat

new car seat
and just for fun here she is as a Teddy Bear

She keeps developing

Ok so we haven't been keeping up with the blog lately. sorry. it's hard to do when the little girl is mobile. I don't remember if we mentioned this last time of not but I'm thinking not. She is crawling every where. So now she can get into quite a bit of stuff if you're not watching. We decided to move the mattress in the crib down a bit too. She's getting to that age and sure enough when we heard her crying after a nap and went in to see her this is what we found.



We are very glad we moved the mattress before she figured that out. So now we have to watch her about every second because she doesn't realize that some things will fall over on her when she pulls on them. It has however helped kick our butts into making sure this place stays clean. Let's see other big news, well Caitlyn loves to feed herself. We are giving her finger foods that melt in her mouth and she's great with them. That's really all the news on our end. Here are some other cute pics of the kid.



Watching the NFC championship game with dad



Peeking over the couch



she's still curious about the camera