Kate Dancing

Here's a brief video of Kate dancing today; she loves pop music and gets so excited and starts dancing whenever she hears it. Of course, go figure that when I want to video her, she only does it a bit. Oh well. Ignore my voice in the background; I hate how I sound when I'm recorded! As a side note, today was my due date with her; who knew she'd be born just one day later?

Completed New Year's Resolution #2!

I am so excited; with Dan's paycheck yesterday, we completed our second New Year's Resolution, which was to pay off my small student loan (I only have two). Woohoo! We are so excited; when we started doing Dave Ramsey's plan in August 2007, we had 115,000 (yes, you read that right) in debt. Granted, 65,000 was in student loans, which is better debt than others, although no debt is good, per se, but we had 27,000 in credit card debt (luckily 0%, but still) and 23,000 in car payments. We are now down to about 55,000 in student loans, and that is our only debt (which is still a lot, but compared to what we started with....) We paid off the credit cards six days (yes, days) before Kate was born in February 2010, and then we paid off our car with Dan's January 15th, 2011 paycheck, which means we now have no consumer debt, and we're down to just student loans (and as of yesterday, one less student loan!) I'm so thrilled that we can check off two of our New Year's Resolutions already, and it's only mid-February!

In Kate news, we had a blast at music class yesterday. She loves to "dance," which for her means sitting on the floor and shaking her butt and back. It's so cute; now she's added her hands, too; she'll put her hands up and kind of wobble back and forth (in a controlled manner). It's so cute; all the moms think she's just adorable (she's the youngest one in her class, so everyone loves having a "baby" in there).

Now we've just been cleaning like mad in preparation for my mom's visit tomorrow, and Kate's first birthday party on Saturday. Can't wait!

Kate's first Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day got off to a wonderful start. We were invited to a Valentine's Day party at the home of one of the girls Kate takes music class with, and since their house is in Deerfield, we stopped at my grandparents' first and brought them some pastries from Panera as a little V-Day treat. We hung out there for a little over an hour, which was fun.

Then we headed to the party. It was so cute; she had a bunch of Valentine's Day crafts and cookies to make/decorate (I of course had to help Kate!), and the kids seemed to have a great time. Kate always is so happy around other kids; I'm so glad I don't have to put her in daycare, but yet she still has lots of opportunities to play with other children.

Here are some shots from the party:


Before Dan left for work and we left for Deerfield this morning


A half-cry because I told her she couldn't play with something breakable








Playing kitchen with Meghan, the "hostess" of the party


Playing kitchen with 2.5 year old Taras.


They played together very nicely, except there was a slight altercation, because, as you may remember, Kate does not take too kindly to things being in the oven, and Taras was very insistent that this "cake" needed to bake. It was a tense couple of seconds, but luckily I was able to distract Kate quite easily.




All the kids with the Valentine's they made. From L-R: Kate (obviously!), Sarah (the music teacher's daughter), Taras, Meghan, Keanan and Klaire. The first four kids are in music class together; the last two are neighbors.


So hard to get a good picture with everyone looking at the camera!


Kate and her Valentine that "she" (i.e., I) made.


More interested in Valentine's than the camera...

Baby & Me (again)

Kate & I had a great time at Baby & Me today. She absolutely loves the music and songs we sing, and she loves doing the read-along. Today, we were reading a book together about animals and the sounds they make, and she pointed at the panther and said, "Kitty!" Well, yes, that is a kitty, but not like the one that sleeps on our bed! And during the free playtime afterward, she really seemed to have a great time playing with the toys the library provided, and she's so nice with all the other kids. I mean, yeah, sometimes she'll try to take a toy someone else has (which is developmentally appropriate, from what I've read, although you still want to teach them it's not the right thing to do), but I'll say to her, "No, sweetie, that is Mary or Amelia or Ainsley's toy; why don't you play with this one instead?" and she happily obliges; no temper tantrum or anything. (Keeping my fingers crossed that continues as she gets older!) Then, we got home and she slept for almost two hours; I was in heaven! I was able to do some work AND housework; perfect!

After she woke up, we went to lunch with Tracy and Rori, and Kate always loves seeing them. Kate sits in high chairs now instead of her little infant carseat when we're in restaurants, and I can't believe that just a year ago, she wasn't even born yet, and now she's sitting in highchairs and feeding herself crackers and little pieces of fruit. Where does time go?

Here she is before Baby & Me in one of her new Valentine's outfits from Nana:


A close-up of the shirt; so pretty! And is she a baby Dan or what?




Plotting her escape...


Mama's little helper... although I must say, her help is more of a hindrance ;)

Baby & Me

On Friday, Kate and I started a Baby & Me program at Sun Prairie Library. It's a 10-week program for babies birth to 15 months, and she had so much fun. There were about 10 other babies in there, evenly split between boys and girls, and most were around Kate's age (the youngest, though, was 10 weeks; it's crazy how little he looked compared to Kate!)

Kate sat so nicely and "sang" along with all the songs, and when we did the read along, she didn't even try to eat the book (what an improvement from when we used to do Book Baby when she was 8 months old!) Afterward, we had free time, and she loved playing with the toys the library provided. She of course gravitated immediately towards the musical instruments (bells, tambourine) and began playing with those. And she's so nice with the other kids too; she always acts so happy that there are other little people around!


Kate found this ribbon and put it on her head; she's so funny.


A close-up of her shirt; I thought it was appropriate seeing as it's now February


Such a beautiful baby!


Here she is on Friday night. She & Dan went to Radio Shack while I went to the gym. I'll give you one guess as to who this coat is from....

Staying warm and cozy

On Wednesday the 2nd (my mom's birthday), we stayed in most of the day due to the blizzard warnings (although most of the bad weather was on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, so we were actually able to go to the gym as a family on Wednesday night). I love this outfit Kate is wearing; I got it on clearance ($5.00!!) back when she was only about a month old, and I can't believe now she's big enough to wear it. She looks so good in red; such a pretty baby.




Trying to escape yet again...








What? I'm not getting into stuff I'm not supposed to...


Ok guys, I'm ready to go to the gym!

Kate & Addy

On Thursday, we went to lunch with Meghan and Addy. Little Adelaide is such a doll; she is just adorable! And it's so fun to see a "little" baby again; Kate looks like she's practically a toddler next to Addy! We went to Sprecher's to eat, which is always delicious, and then we hung out at their house afterward. I wish I had gotten a picture of the two of them together; it was so cute to see. Little Addy was playing on her activity mat, and Kate reached out and held her hand. (Awww!) Next time I will be sure to get some photos (so I guess the title of this blog post is a bit misleading... sorry about that!)

Anyway, here is the outfit she was wearing when we went out; I love this outfit, and again, it is so appropriate for February.




She always tries to arch herself off the chair now; it's hard to get a good picture of her sometimes!


She coordinates quite nicely with the chair and the pillow