Happy Thanksgiving

We are enjoying the holiday from Chicago and we hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving day and is having a great weekend. Brian and I are so thankful for many things; our great families, wonderful friends, and especially our little girl who has transformed our lives. Kate by the way LOVED her first Thanksgiving meal. She had sweet potatoes, turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and her favorite of the night - stuffing. We think she is the cutest turkey ever!

NY Helpers

This weekend Gammie and Pop Pop came for a little visit. We are having such an awesome time. Kate has warmed right up to them once again, and they have even taught her to clap on command. In St. Louis and Minnesota we used to take Wa and Linda to all the touristy places, but while in Michigan we seem to work them to the bone. We find tons of projects that need their assistance, and certainly appreciate all their help. I'm starting to feel a little guilty we haven't made it up north together yet, but maybe next time as the home improvement projects are getting a little smaller. It is such fun to have them, and we will certainly be sorry to see them go tomorrow.

Mommy's Helper

Kate loves to do everything and anything her Dad or I am doing. She loves to drink from our glasses like a big girl. If I'm washing dishes or cooking, she pulls on my leg to be picked up to "supervise". If I'm putting away dishes, she's there banging on the dishwasher. If I'm folding clothes, she's pulling them out of the dryer. If I'm putting away groceries, she's pulling them out. She is quite the cutie and makes all of these tasks much much more enjoyable, even if they now take a little longer.

Kate's 10 Month Pictures

Below you will find Kate's 10 month pictures. 10 Months! Yes 10 Months. It's truly hard to believe that I am the Mom of a 10 month old, but boy has it been fun. Kate is starting to stand unassisted for long periods of time, is cruising along the furniture, and can even take a few clumsy steps with only one hand being held. Walking may be around the corner, but we are certainly not encouraging it. She is busy enough already. Kate loves climbing it might be a result of Gymboree, but nonetheless we have to watch her ALL the time. She knows exactly where she is not suppossed to go and bolts for those spots everytime we turn our head. Kate has a great laugh and we get to enjoy it often. She is becoming much better at entertaining herself with her ever growing amount of toys. Kate is eating all table food now, and loves yogurt and cheese. She has been a pretty tough teether, but with the top ones finally cutting through things and sleeping have been much better. My favorite is that Kate gives wonderful kisses, hugs, and adorable pats on the back. We hope you enjoy her 10 Month Pictures below.

CLICK HERE for Kate's 10 Month Pictures!

Exciting News!

Katie is engaged! Ben proposed to my sister last night in the Signature Room, at the top of the John Hancock Building. She was very surprised. We are all very excited to add Ben to our family and to plan another wedding of course. Check out her blog for the whole story and some pictures.

CLICK HERE for Ben and Katie's Blog!

The Best $3 I have ever spent

Kate has really started to enjoy books. We have been reading to her consistently from birth, and she has always had her favorites, Peekaboo Baby and Where's Spot. Now Kate loves to grab the books, turn the pages, and look at the pictures. It is so cute and successfully entertains her for a few minutes.


Kate is also learning concepts like up and down, open and close, and in and out. These new concepts have resulted in a fascination with doors, as well as an affinity for emptying things; like a toy box or laundry basket of nicely folded clothes or a kitchen cupboard.

At a Mom-2-Mom sale I bought an extra play mat for Kate for our 2nd floor for $3. It turns into a little tunnel after they outgrow the mat part. The tunnel has been so worth it. Kate loves it! She is spatially fascinated by it, and I am so pleased with my $3 purchase. She cracks up anytime we play with it, as you can see in the video below.

CLICK HERE for Video of Kate Laughing in the Tunnel!

The Party Girl

Kate, Brian, and I made it back to Chicago two weekends ago for our cousin Tommy's baptism. It was a great ceremony and wonderful to all be together as a family. They had a party out at a banquet hall later that night and we all had such fun!



Kate was quite the party girl. She was dancing up a storm which you can see from the video below. I'm not really surprised that we ended up with a fun-loving kid, I think it's just the extent to which she is active and fun that was unexpected.

CLICK HERE for Video of Kate Dancing!

Trick or Treat

Friday was Kate's first Halloween and our first Halloween with child. It was probably the most fun Halloween of my life! The weather was just gorgeous and Kate had an absolute blast. We went to the wonderful home of a family from church. They had an amazing spread of food, a bonfire, and we went trick or treating in their neighborhood. Kate loved hanging out with the kids and all the action of the night. I swear she thinks she's at least 10 already. For Halloween here in Michigan a siren goes off at 6, and all the kids can start trick or treating (another goes off at 8 to end the festivities.) Many of the houses really go all out with decorations, and almost everyone sits in their driveway with a fire going, socializing, and handing out treats. Parents with kids go for a trick or treating stroll with adult beverages in hand. I mean almost everyone had a drink with them. It was a little bit of an odd site for a residential area, but yet very fun. It was kind of like a family tail-gate party if such a thing is possible. I think the neat part was everyone in the community out and visiting with each other. Brian and I really enjoyed the wonderful company for the night, and, of course, seeing our little girl so happy.

Our Little Pumpkin

Two Saturday's ago we took Kate to the Haley's farm (a wonderful couple from church) to pick out pumpkins. They have a great property not far from us and insisted on giving us pumpkins as well as tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions. They also grow awesome sweet corn that we get to sample in the summer.

Video of Kate at 9 Months

Kate has been such fun and changing so fast it has been difficult to document all her developments, but below is some video of a few of them.

CLICK HERE for Video of Kate in Her Walker!

CLICK HERE for Video of Kate Eating and Clapping!

CLICK HERE for Video of Kate in her Car!

CLICK HERE for Video of Kate and the Green Veggies!

Kate's 9 Month Pictures

Our little girl turned 9 Months last week! Kate went to the pediatrician on Monday and weighs 20 lbs 14 oz (75% for weight), and is in the 50% for height. She is doing very well and is such a joy. She feeds herself little pieces of food, claps when excited or proud, loves climbing the stairs, loves puzzles, has cut her first teeth, motors from room to room, waves hello, and cruises along the furniture. She is very social with other adults and kids. Kate is happiest outside of the house, so I find lots of activities for us. She is good at home though too, and Kate loves playing with all of her toys. Her favorite is her fisher price zoo, and she loves taking all her toys out of the basket and sitting in the mess of course! One of my favorite things is how excited she gets when her Daddy comes home. She has a grin from ear to ear and squeals with such zeal. Hope you enjoy her 9 month pictures.

CLICK HERE for Kate's 9 Month Pictures

Kate's First Halloween Party

Though it's still two weeks away, we had our first Halloween party of the season. It was at our community rec center, and we were able to dress Kate in her little bear costume. She loved trick or treating which involved selecting candy from the dishes and dropping it in her little pumpkin. She certainly thought she was hot stuff.

They had several moon bounce houses and Kate was more than happy to try them out.

There was also a DJ and Kate loved dancing with all the kids. She was bopping her head, waving her arms, and jumping when I put her on the floor.

Fall Visit

Brian has a conference this week in Chicago, so we arrived Sunday for a few days. Kate was an angel in the car. She slept for the first three hours and then played in her seat for the next three. I was pleasantly surprised because she has been screaming from her car seat on most of our trips. We had a great night yesterday and a great day today, with a few more to come.

Last week Kate's first two teeth poked through. She was extremely fussy and very tough at night. Then last Friday I saw them breaking through. It felt great to know why she wasn't herself. Her pearly whites have come in nicely and I think we are actually getting two more. It is fun to see this next stage, but I will certainly miss her gummy smile!

Mom 2 Mom Madness

This past weekend I went to two Mom 2 Mom sales and got tons of stuff for Kate. We got some toasty winter sleepers, some toys, some hair accessories, a few adorable dresses, and a winter snowsuit. It was fun and so productive. There was also something exhilarating about the conquest of finding the items among the 150+ tables.
The irony of buying Kate new toys is that her favorite toy of late is actually the refrigerator. Whenever we open it she makes a beeline right for it. I don't know if it's the lights, the colors of all the food, or the novelty of the few seconds she can glance in, but she loves it. It brings such a smile to her face. She lately tries to climb in it and has made it to the first ledge. (Of course we are right behind her.)

The Bear Fans and the Little Bear

My Dad and brother came in for a quick visit this weekend and to attend the Bears Lions game. (We won't mention anything about any other Chicago teams as the wounds are still a little too fresh.) They arrived Saturday evening, got to spend time this morning with the Little Bear, Kate, enjoyed the football game with Brian today, and we all had dinner together at Greektown in downtown Detroit this evening. The Bears fans are now on their way back to Chicago. It was awesome to see them, even for the short visit. Thanks so much guys and thanks for bringing Kate's new wheels!