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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving (a little late)!

We had a nice Thanksgiving at E.J.'s step dads mother's house (that's a mouthful!). After lunch we took advantage of our time off and left Thanksgiving afternoon for Fort Worth - not to do anything in particular than just get away and spend some time together...good enough reason for me!

When we do stay at a hotel, we often choose Omni Hotels because we always have a great experience. Although we aren't staying in hotels too often, we are at a level in Omni rewards program that we can get a free room upgrade. E. J. arranged the room ahead of time and when we checked in we found out they upgraded up two rooms and into a luxury suite (that's their name for it, not mine - but they mean it!).

The room was amazing and a great surprise! It had a 180 degree view of the city, a doorbell, an entryway, 2 bathrooms, a dining area, living room, and office area. It was about 1300 sq. feet and a treat to say the least.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Right after we checked into our room)

Checking out the room service menu

Pre-Thanksgiving dinner

Post-Thanksgiving dinner

Freshened up after dinner
Kathryn hanging out in the room (we had to remind her not to get used to hotel rooms this size as the norm for our getaways ;) )

Somebody looks a little tired after a full day

The next day we headed to the Stockyards to do some exploring!

We to bundle the little Bug up for the day. Thanks to my mom, we used her snowsuit jacket to bundle her up to the point that she couldn't move ;)

I've official become a mom. I was so concerned about packing for Kathryn, I totally forgot a jacket for myself. Luckily the 30 and 40 degree weather warmed up a bit and along with a beautiful sunny day, my sweatshirt did the trick and I ended up being just fine. Although, for the record E. J. offered me his jacket a bunch of times ;).

Rodeo clown!

Out little jail bird

Freshening up before we went out to dinner in a "big girl" bath. By the way, check out the shower. One of the most amazing showers I've ever been in -it had four jets on top of the shower head!

In the lobby before dinner

After two fun nights is was already time to pack up to head back home.
Patiently waiting as we packed up
This has been her "thing" lately - a smile that requires every muscle in her face!
Waiting to head home (in her sweater vest!)

I hope you and your family enjoyed an amazing Thanksgiving, too!

6 month checkup

On Wednesday, we had Kathryn's 6 month checkup (a few weeks late, but it was convenient since I had the day off from work). Unfortunately, it didn't work out as planned because our doctor had to cancel, however, we were still able to get in because Kathryn was still coughing.

Waiting for the doctor...
As we suspected, she has a plain-old cold. She's still coughing occasionally and sounds congested in her chest, but all in all, she's doing well.

6 (and a half) month stats:

Weight: 18.5 lb (75th percentile). After 6 months of being off the charts, she has leveled out for a bit :)

Height: 27 1/4 inches (85th percentile).

Back at home playing in the playpen and making silly faces
Wednesday was also a big day because K tried out "real food" for the first time. I pureed her some fresh carrots...and it was a success! (more to come at a later date about homemade baby food!).
Yummy!
Another first was using her high-chair! It was most definitely needed because she's now able to get herself out of her Bumbo if she wanted to and it's an easier clean-up for us with her in a confined space :)

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Not much time...

...but I wanted to sneak just a couple pictures from our weekend. Poor Kathryn is still sick and woke up last night with a cough and chattering little gums (broke my heart). She was bundled up, the heat was on, and her humidifier blasting, but it wasn't enough to make her feel like herself again. She's slowly getting better.

She appeared to be feeling well Saturday afternoon, so we went for a walk to get some fresh air.
Checking out our horse's, which put a huge smile on her face.
You'd never know this is a face of a sick little girl :(. Poor thing!
Okay, back to writing my paper. I swear, I'm almost done. It won't be finished tonight, but I anticipate being done tomorrow! It's been a busy weekend with a sick little girl.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Recap!

It has certainly been a busy week-and-a-half since I last updated, hence the amount of time it's been since my last post.


I have mostly been consumed with school (ugh). I took my comprehensive exam for grad school two weeks ago...and PASSED!! What a relief! The exam consisted of 6 hours of typing like a mad woman (2 days, 3 hours at a time). It was such a great feeling to get word that my three committee members approved!


Today I gave a presentation about my internship and an overview of my experience in the graduate program. It went really well and my graduate advisor said I did a great job, phew! I also had to turn in my portfolio which consisted of a number of things, including my published pieces. Here she is :)



Now I just have one paper to finish and I should be DONE! I promised myself it would be done by the end of this week and I'm hoping I can hold myself to that goal!


Last Wednesday was our 3 year wedding anniversary! Wow! How has it already been 3 years?To celebrate we took advantage of Lyle Lovett being in town. Perfect timing, Lyle!


It was a bit of a crazy night: Got home, bathed Kathryn and got her in her pj's, drove back into town and dropped off K at our friends' house (first time she's stayed with a babysitter!), and ate a quick dinner as we drove to the concert.
So romantic - Chicken Express! Greasy deliciousness
(Too much food though, I couldn't even eat half of it).



It was such a great concert and we're so glad we can now say we've seen him live! Fun night! His set lasted 2.5 hours! We were really feeling it though because by the time we got out of there, picked up Kathryn and got home, it was midnight. Needless to say it confirmed that we're getting old ;).


The only picture I took of us that night...right before we crashed at 12:30 a.m..
We were pooped, can you tell? ;)

On to some other updates:
A random picture. Love this one. She looks like she's got a major 'tude going on.

Now that our pumpkins are starting to rot, it was only necessary that E. J. shot them.


I made these cute little pumpkin spice cakes this weekend for a Thanksgiving get-together we had at work today. I got the pan at the Williams Sonoma outlet (I never get sick of that store) and was so excited to use the pan and the recipe it came with! Yummy!

This past Saturday evening, Kathryn was definitely not acting like herself. She is not normally a fussy baby, but she just wasn't happy playing or doing much of anything. Her nose started getting stuffy, but she slept through the night just fine.


She was pretty snotty Sunday morning but the suction bulb to extract boogies came in very useful (by the way, my journalism degree is coming in quite useful as I write about extracting boogies).


As the day went on, she continued to be fussy and even took 2, 2+ hour naps during the day (rare for her). Since you're not really supposed to give babies her age any medication, E.J. went out and found this great Vicks waterless vaporizer that just plugs into the wall and makes her room smell like a Vicks sauna.
Poor little sick girl :(

I think she also timed getting sick for the first time perfectly since I had saved preparing for today's presentation until the last minute.


Snuggling with dad before bed. She looks happy here, but those rosy red cheeks were an indicator that she would not be so happy later when she was trying to fall asleep.

So with the combination of her humidifier (thank, Ryan - it's coming in super handy!) and the Vicks vaporizer, she woke up only a little congested...but of course, smiley :).

Tonight was a bit of a repeat from last night. We took her temperature in her tushy (again, my journalism skills are definitely coming in handy) and it was an even 100. We called the doctor's office and within a minute of me leaving a message with the message service, we got a call from the doctor. He said you subtract a degree from the tushy temperature ;) and confirmed that everything we were doing was all we could do for now.


Kathryn feel asleep in E.J.'s arms tonight. Such a sweet girl! Here's hoping she feels better in the morning.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

6 Months!

Here we are again - another month has come and gone and now Kathryn is 6 months old today! Can't believe it!

When we got home today, it was time for K to have her big birthday dinner :)
After a messy dinner, it was time to freshen up and take her monthly "chair pictures".
After dinner we celebrated K's "1/2" birthday with a 1/2 birthday cake (literally!)!
Happy birthday, Kathryn! We love you sweet girl!

Some 6 month Kathryn facts:

*She's definitely much more vocal and active - rolling around all over the place and "talking" up a storm!
*K grabs for ANYTHING in her sight...time to start baby-proofing!
*K is enjoying her rice cereal and now eating it at a much thicker consistency. We have her 6 month appointment in a few weeks, so we will probably get the "go-ahead" to start eating some more flavorful foods.
* Still a champ sleeper! In by bed 8 p.m. and wakes up at 7 a.m.

On an unrelated note, my Aunt Debbie got her this cute little outfit. Leggings, skirt, and a matching sweatshirt...fall is here! LOVE IT!