Kate Holmes Seal of Approval

Kate is a little thumb sucker. I know the whole pacy vs. thumb sucking is a heated issue for some. I'm not really a strong proponent either way, but I do love that my little girl sucks her thumb. Perhaps it's the fact that when I put her down at night, I don't have to keep going back in there to search for her pacy in the dark to give to her so she can soothe herself back to sleep. Or the fact that when she's sleepy or fussy, I pick her up and she sticks that thumb in her mouth and lays her head on my shoulder. But one reason I really love it is the Kate Holmes seal of approval. Every night we give Kate her multivitamin. It's a liquid, and it smells just like vitamin. You would think Kate would hate the taste, but she's never really protested it. As a matter of fact, she actually likes it. Every night after her bath, we dry her off, put on lotion, a diaper, and pjs. Kate also gets her multivitamin at this time. It's a nightly routine that Kate stills cries through at times...she just doesn't like being taken out of the warm bathwater into the cold air! But whether she's upset or happy, once you give her the multivitamin, that thumb goes straight into her mouth and she sucks away like a pro. It has become her seal of approval. Now that she is eating solids, too, she sticks her thumb in her mouth and sucks away once she's tasted something she really likes, such as the banana she tasted for the first time the other night. I love it. It's such a precious little things she does, and I wanted to write it down so I'd always remember (and yes, I am going to write it in her baby book, too!).

Christmas Traditions

I love hearing about different family Christmas traditions. Being married for a little over 3 years, it's been fun beginning our own traditions. Now that we have kid in the home, it's going to be especially fun making Christmas traditions for our little family. One tradition Trey and I started our first Christmas together as a dating couple was buying an ornament together. We now have 6 ornaments from our 6 years together. Every year I look forward to pulling out the ornaments, putting them in order, and reminiscing about our memories for each ornament and why we chose that particular ornament. Today, I'd like to share with you our special ornaments.

2006: We bought this first ornament at the Dallas-Symphony Orchestra. Someone gave Trey tickets to the DSO Christmas concert, so he took me there on a fancy date. This was our first Christmas together, just a few months after we first met in August at SWBTS. I've tried to find a picture on my computer of that date, but I can't find any.

2007: This was our second Christmas together, and we were engaged for this Christmas. For this year we bought a glass-blown fish ornament. The reason we bought this ornament is because we used to always make fish faces at each other. We did our fish faces differently. I will include a fish face picture to illustrate.

2008: Our first Christmas as a married couple!!! I must say, our Christmas tree looked a little pitiful this first year (Charlie Brown Christmas? Yes, please!) because we literally had only 4 ornaments total (someone had given us one for a wedding gift). When I said something about this at work, though, a few people pitched in and gave us some more ornaments. So we had maybe...10 ornaments that year?

2009: This Christmas was both rough and beautiful. We lost Burke (my sister-in-law's husband) in a car accident a week before Thanksgiving, then Trey and I had a miscarriage three weeks later. It was certainly a painful Christmas, but it was also so beautiful knowing the Lord and experiencing Him through this loss and tragedy. We had our ornament made in memory of our unborn child. We named him Bennett (we were too early to know the gender), which means "Little Blessed One." How much more blessed can you be than to go straight to be with the Father in Heaven?

2010: I was in the 2nd trimester with Kate for this Christmas! Oh how the Lord restores us from the ashes. After the heartbreak of our miscarriage, it took us a while to get pregnant again. But this, our 5th Christmas together, was one of celebration. God had granted us new life! We found out "it" was a girl (Kate!!) the week before Christmas. What a joy it was to know our daughter was being fashioned in my womb while we celebrated Christ's birth that year.

2011: And now we come to this year, our 6th Christmas together. We have a "baby's first ornament" for Kate, but we wanted to keep that separate since we will give it to her someday (a long, long, time from now!) when she moves out to start her adult life :). I made this ornament in MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and we decided it would be our ornament for this year. It's a simple little ornament with Kate's cute little baby face inside. I'm going to cut up one of her birth announcements into little strips and put it in the back, too. (thanks for the idea, Jenny Graves!). This Christmas is our first as parents. What better ornament than one of our precious baby girl!

First Solid Food - 6 Months Old!

Today Kate turned 6 months old. Can you believe it? I can't. My friend Rachel just gave birth to her sweet baby girl Noa this past Sunday, and all I can think is...we were there only 6 months ago, and look how much has changed already! Right before our eyes Kate is growing quickly. I am so excited to see these changes in her, but I'm also so sad to see how quickly this time passes. I am cherishing every moment I can.

This past month has been a fun one - I am loving this age! Kate has been working hard on crawling, and she figured out the army crawl yesterday. Yikes! I'm not pushing the "mobile" thing...I do enjoy my little girl being stationary. But I guess it's inevitable, so I need to start baby-proofing! She also had her first sickness - croup and double eye infection. She had her first Thanksgiving, rode on the horse for the first time with her daddy, and today had her first solid food. Up until this point Kate has been exclusively breastfed, so this was her first taste of anything other than momma's milk. I roasted and pureed a butternut squash for her. At first she didn't quite know what to think about the food, but after a while she really seemed to enjoy it. Trey and I, of course, had so much fun feeding her and seeing how she reacted. Here are some pictures of her eating solids for the first time and a couple just because she's so dang cute.

Before the first bite...not sure what's about to happen

First bite in, and thinking hard about it...

 Trying to figure out what just happened :)

 Another bite

I think she likes it!

Bring on the solid food...and the bibs!!

Having fun on the floor!

This pic cracks me up. I was trying to snap a quick one when she smiled, so I was making all sorts of funny noises to get her attention. Of course, that always gets the dogs riled up. Right when I snapped this pic, Dapple jumped up to see what all the excitement was about.

What a cutie-pie. I love my little cupKate!

First Thanksgiving

Hurray for our first Thanksgiving with the sweetest little blessing from the Lord. Trey and I stayed in Canton for Thanksgiving for a number of reasons, but one main reason was to celebrate our first Thanksgiving as our tiny little family. I am so glad we chose to do this. The few days Trey had off turned into such a restful, joyful time for us. We all got sick, too, which made me doubly thankful we didn't travel! Sickness aside, though, it was a wonderful time. Some of the highlights include watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with Trey and Kate while I worked on our Thanksgiving meal, eating Thanksgiving dinner with Trey on our china, and napping the day away with my loves. We all got dressed for our Thanksgiving meal, but the rest of the day was spent in pajamas. It was delightful! Here are a couple pics of Kate on Thanksgiving day.

Another highlight for our Thanksgiving holiday was taking Kate out to our horse, Pasquale. She and I sat in the warm car most of the time, watching Trey ride and enjoying the heat. But she did get on the horse with dad for a little while, and she rather enjoyed it!

Have You Ever?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you just sit there, taking in your life and trying to comprehend some of the blessings in it? The other night, Trey and I were snuggling on the couch getting ready to watch a movie. Kate was fast asleep in her crib. While we sat there waiting for the laptop to boot up, Trey scrolled through his phone looking at all the pics we have of Kate. As I watched him do this, my heart swelled with love for this man I have chosen to journey through life with. He is my best friend. How am I so blessed that I would have such a man of godliness and integrity to be my life partner? Then I thought about the fact that we have a child in the other room. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. This beautiful baby girl, sleeping deeply all snuggled up in her crib, is our daughter. I had to get up, walk in her room, and just stare at her for a while.

Ouchy

That is a word I've thought a lot lately. Last Thursday, in spite of my many desperate attempts to postpone or cancel, Trey took me to Baylor to have my tonsils removed. Overall, I would say my recovery hasn't been nearly as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard. I think it's also been put in perspective because I had a baby earlier this year...nothing compares to that pain and recovery! But it definitely hasn't felt good, either! I'm currently laying here with cold packs on my throat, enjoying some downtime while my baby girl is sleeping.

We have had some wonderful help with Kate over the past week, and we really couldn't have done this without the help from friends and family. Trey's mom stayed with us through Sunday, then his sister Lee helped me Monday and Tuesday. My friend Cammi came out yesterday, and a lady from church helped last Sunday night. It's funny how much this wipes you of energy. I told Trey I only have energy for one big task a day...and it takes me forever. Of course, Kate is a big task in and of herself, but with the help, I've been able to manage. Today has been my first day without help at all. And I am already tired :) With that being said, I'm going to close my eyes for a little while longer while baby girl sleeps. Perhaps a more interesting post will come later, my friends! But I wanted to take this moment to say a big THANK YOU to all friends and famliy for your help, and for those who couldn't be here, for your encouragement and prayers! ...and your excellent advice, Natalie Pippin :)

G is for Galaxies

If you're wondering what this is all about, visit here to start at the beginning!

G: G is for Galaxies, 10/29/11

This past Saturday night, after putting Kate to bed, we ventured out for our G date. It was my turn to plan, and I went with G is for "galaxies," or "star-gazing." I found the Astronomical Society of East Texas online, and they happened to have a Star Party this past Saturday. Astronomy societies have star parties all over so that they can get the public involved in astronomy and allow them the opportunity to see what it's like to view the skies up-close and personal.

The great thing about this date is that it was free...or, at least it was intended to be free. After leaving our house with Kate all snug in her bed, we both decided we had the munchies, so we drove through McDonald's. Hey, that's what dates are for, right? We headed to Tyler, which is about 45 minutes away, and arrived at the Tyler Junior College about 9PM. We walked right up and the first thing we got to see was Jupiter. They had their telescopes already set up, and we could just walk up and take a look. Jupiter was very clear, and we could see the rings around the planet as well as its four moons in orbit. It looked something like this, except we no color.
We also got to see the Andromeda Galaxy, which was more like a little blur since it's so far away. So cool, though, to imagine what it must be like. And even cooler to know that my God created all this.

Unfortunately there was too much light pollution (yes, that's what it's really called) to be able to see much else, but we did get some lessons on the constellations and different stars. We also talked with the guys about coming to Canton sometime so we could invite our friends, and they are going to come! I absolutely cannot wait. I love astronomy, and it is really dark out here so we should be able to see a whole lot!

It was fun to take a little jaunt out and do something we've never done before together.