Changing diapers, changing our home, changing our lives!

Wow! Just when I thought I would have a chance to post blogs during Katie's nap times and bedtimes....not so much! Hahaha! I now find myself busy following her around the house as she is an avid crawler, exploring the world from her point of view, and discovering everything around her. A lot has changed in the last few months. We've had to baby proof our home, Katie is finally doing much better sleeping through the night (YAY!), and she now has 4 teeth...4!!!! Two front teeth on the bottom and two front teeth on the top (still making their way down). She absolutely adores our dog Riley and he is very patient, kind, gentle, and understanding of the love and attention she wants to give (grabbing his ears and tail, "gently" pulling handfuls of hair off him, climbing over him to reach a toy, laughing hysterically when she lays on him and he sneezes. Katie LOVES to laugh and smile. Almost everyone we meet, she shares her smile with, and it's a pretty contagious smile too! She loves to "wash" windows with her lips and tongue, loves having play dates with friends, and going to story time at the library. She went to drinking from only bottles in early November and loves to eat sweet potatoes, bananas with apples, mac n cheese, and pears...all baby food style. We've recently introduced puffs to her and she favors the banana and sweet potato flavors. When we think of it, her Daddy and I are practicing having her walk while we hold her up and she holds onto our hands. We may be needing a chiropractic visit (ahem...and massage!) or two pretty soon! :)

Welcome to our Catholic Faith!

Katie was Baptized on Saturday, August 17th at our church. One of our favorite priests generously came out of retirement when we kindly asked him to Baptize our daughter. Uncle E.J. flew in from San Diego, California to be her Godather and Aunt Kristin drove from S.C. with her family to be the Godmother. Brad's Aunt Lorna was one of the readers and one of my best friends Tracy was the other reader. The ceremony was perfect and we had a nice luncheon celebration at our house following Katie's Baptism. We're very excited to her our daughter Baptized and look forward to teaching her, supporting her, and watching her learn and grow as a Catholic and helping her learn about God.

Jaws!

So Miss Kaitlyn has 2 new teeth! Her bottom front left one came in on August 6th and the right one came in on August 8th! This girl LOVES to chew on anything she can get (we'll let) into her mouth! Gramma nicknamed her "Jaws" after Kaitlyn left bite marks on Gramma's hand while she chomped away! Her first tooth did require some pain relieving medicine after the other teething toys, my hand, cold wash cloths, and clod toys didn't do the trick. However, she took it like a pro for the 2nd tooth and only required my hand and teether toys to chomp on. Yay Kaitlyn! :)

 

First tooth making an appearance 8/6/13

It's time to Rock and Roll...over!

 I finally captured her rolling skills (on 7/18/13...almost 5 months old) in separate pictures. It kind of reminds me of a flip book,...where if you flip the pages really quick, you'll see the actions "come to life". I figured if you scroll down the page fast enough...that counts...right? She starts on her back towards the right side of the playmat...then quickly rolls over to her tummy, rolling on her right side. Hangs out there for a couple of minutes until she's ready to tuck her arm and roll to her back again n the same direction...then repeats until she finds herself on the carpet...not the playmat. She then squirms, slightly scoots, and wiggles her way back to her playmat. By the way, she had no help from me at all. I just sat back, held the camera phone ready to go, and cheered her on! :)

 

Video Out Takes

 

 

So, of course, capturing these precious moments in our daughter's life isn't as simple as I thought it would be. Sometimes Kaitlyn is a fan of the camera and satisfies my goal in about a minute. Other times, I find myself recording her milestones for 3-4 minutes, and then trying again for a shorter time frame. So, my Mom had a great idea of posting the out takes on our blog for those family and friends who don't mind sitting in front of the the computer watching as Kaitlyn decides when she is finally ready to "talk" or "sing" or roll over for the camera. :) I'm going to try to post some of the longer videos....hopefully it works. Enjoy!

 

 

Well, I tried to upload a couple of videos, but will need the help of my techy husband Brad to guide me. Check back soon to see if we are successful! :)

 

 

1st time at the pool!

Brad actually gets credit for this great idea of going to our neighborhood pool on the 4th of July. It was perfect! No one was there, the weather was beautiful, and we were able to share this quality family time together, uninterrupted. We bought Katie (well, Mommy lovingly insisted) a new bathing suit from Target (bikini style) and Mommy bought a one piece "Mommy" style bathing suit to wear as well. We all had a great time, taking pictures, splashing around, swimming, and enjoying the July evening as the sun was going down. Definitely going to have more pool days! Katie was just over 4 months old when we went.

 

 

 

1st Time at the Beach!

 

Katie's 1st trip to the beach! We went to St. Augustine Beach for Memorial Day weekend. We were there for our friends' daughter's high school graduation. The weather was beautiful, everyone was enjoying the atmosphere, and Katie loved checking out the ocean and the sand for the first time. May 25th (1 day shy of being 3 months old) was the actual day she was in the water and on the sand. We brought her bouncy seat so she napped in the afternoon as well. Nana came along but she stayed at the hotel during the day to relax and work on crafty projects she brought along. Then, Nana graciously babysat Katie that evening while Brad and I rejoined our friends to enjoy the evening festivities. A great time was had by all!

 

Brad and I purchased our first beach umbrella so we can make more trips to the beach early on a Saturday or Sunday morning before it gets too hot to be out there. Loking forward to using it soon!

 

 

 

Milestones

Hi y'all! It's naptime in the Kepner house (for baby Katie and our dog Riley, at least). I had to come into Brad's office room in our house because apparently my typing is too loud and wakes up Katie...only needed to learn that lesson once!

So I decided to kind of backtrack and fill you in on how the past 4 months have been going. Katie has been such an amazing and beautiful blessing to our family! I was joking around with a few friends the other day when we were discussing the reasoning behind our time frame for having kids. I chimed in "if I would have known how much love, joy, and smiles Katie brings to our hearts and home....I wouldn't have waited so long!". Actually, I'm very glad we did wait...and I'm glad Brad respected my preference to wait until after I turned 30 to get started on adding to our family.

The first day we brought Katie home, Brad and I were like "sooo....what now?". hat first night at home was my first emotional meltdown...from only getting 4 hours of sleep in a 3 day time span....to realizing we didn't have the help from a nurse 24/7 and we were the nurses now! We slept on the couch for the first week, at my request, because I sleep lighter on the couch and didn't want to miss a beat with Katie. Our family room quickly turned into our bedroom. I took the couch and Brad took the recliner. He was truly a good sport....doing what it took to make his wife and daughter comfortable in our home. I remember when he finally talked me into moving our bedroom and I reluctantly agreed. I remember how nervous I was to hold Katie, or to rotate her while in my arms. I "made" Brad take her from me, turn her around, and hand her back to me because I was sooo scared to drop her and lose m balance, or hurt her. That lasted about 2 weeks, then I was told I needed to start learning how to turn around around myself. :)  Even walking across the tile floor made me nervous, as I held Katie just a snug tighter, to keep a good grip on her.



As the days turned into week, weeks have turned into 4 months, here are some of her milestones so far...(they're kind of out of order....typing them as I read them from her Baby Book)...

Friday, April 5th: Katie gave both of us a beautiful smile as Brad held her in his arms.

Thursday, April 18th: Katie locked eye with me and gave a BIG smile....I had happy tears running down my cheek as I smiled BIG back at her and held onto our special moment for as long as it lasted.

9 weeks old: Started sticking out her tongue when others did it first and started standing on laps with help.

10 weeks old: Gave Mommy a raspberry on her arm.

3 months old: "Talking" and "singing" as Mommy and/or Daddy initiated.

Wednesday, June 19th: Katie gave us a good belly laugh that night as she was getting her diaper changed. I have no idea what prompted it but I will never forget that beautiful laugh!

Wednesday, February 27: While laying on her playmat, Katie held her head up half way by herself, then with help on April 22.

on Monday, June 17: Rolled over to you right side while laying in your crib. Mommy and daddy saw it happen on the baby monitor as we had just put you to sleep for an evening nap. Mommy ran in, congratulated you, and turned you back over. Then we watched on the monitor, and as you prepared to do it again, Mommy ran into your room to watch you do it in person. Daddy got a kick out of the first time because Mommy was freaking out with excitement in the family room, but had to celebrate quietly so you wouldn't be startled.

June 1st: Slept through the night for the first time. This lasted about 2 weeks, until you discovered that you could roll over, ... you haven't slept through the night since because now you roll over in your sleep and it wakes you up.

Saturday, May 25th: Went to te beach and felt the sand and ocean for the first time. We sat you in the shallow water and Mommy held you up as Daddy took pictures.

Thursday, July 4th: Went to our community pool and went in it for the first time. It was perfect because everyone was celebrating else where, so we had the pool to ourselves!

At about 3 months you started teething....drooling like crazy....and wanting to put anything and everything in your mouth. On July 4th you managed to bend your legs towards your face and put your toes in your mouth! Our flexible little girl!

Well Katie just woke up....I'll have to finish this later. :)................And I'm back!

It has been the most amazing 4 months! I'm going to practice posting pictures now.

Our Growing Girl!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time flies when you're having fun! She will be 4 months old this month....4!!!! It feels like just yesterday Brad and I were at the hospital welcoming our sweet Baby Girl into this world! Here are a few pictures I posted for comparison. I will try to post them each month. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Memories!

Well it has been just over 2 weeks since my first post, so I will have to figure out how to get on here more often. This blogging thing has fierce competition with my time spent (addiction to) on facebook! My next step is to figure out how to post pictures.

As for an update on Kaitlyn (or Katie, or Kate, or K.J., or Princess...whatever you want to call her :) she is 3 1/2 months old now and is doing great! Brad and I are finally starting to figure out the three cries she has...one for hunger, one for "I'm done with this activity now", and one for sleepy time. Her newest talent is standing on our lap while we hold her up. She's making eye contact more and her little laughs and giggles are begining to make small appearances here and there...other than that, she just looks like the is laughing and you have her voice on mute. She does have a big beautiful smile though! She loves attention and loves to be the center of attetion and recieves compliments everywhere we go! We recently bought her a bouncy seat and she LOVES it! Of course she loves it more than the swing (with a detachable bouncy seat) that costs about 5 times more than the new bouncy seat. Oh well....her happiness and good health is our ultimate goal!

Alright, time to try to post some pictures! :)

Welcome! After visiting my cousin Cara's blogspot often and keeping up with her family through her blog, I decided it was time to start one for our family.  :)  So here we go!

I have never really had a blog before. I've had diaries, journals, myspace, facebook....so here's to something new! I hope to keep it updated as often as possible...so check back frequently to see what we're up to and the milestones that are posted as the days, weeks, months, and years pass. Hopefully I will be able to figure out how to post pictures too and do a milestones chart. Who knows, maybe I'll even convince Brad to contribute to this (since he still protests facebook) and I'll use the "do it for Kaitlyn" reasoning. :)  :)

Cheers!
Jeanie