Saturday, January 31, 2009

Another Wild and Crazy Saturday Night...

Since becoming parents, Jeff and I have really been livin' it up on the weekends. Tonight's event was putting together Kaitlyn's "Galloping Jumperoo." She's still a little bit small for it, but actually seemed to enjoy it. She'll learn to actually jump in it eventually, I'm sure. :) Tomorrow we're going to Walmart, and maybe Bed, Bath and Beyond if we have time...pretty nice little Sunday.

Some things you may not know about Kaitlyn:

1. She is proud of the rolls on her thighs.
2. She doesn't like bottles unless they are the exact right temperature (fabulous!)
3. She loves the Hokey Pokey.
4. Her friend Paige has a pair of Big Girl Jeans, and she just HAD to have some too. Girls...
5. She loves riding in the front carrier facing out so she can see what's going on.
6. She loves Riley, and has just started to really notice him.
7. She just started grabbing at her toys and "examining" them in the past few days.
8. She thinks it's funny when Mommy says, "Nom nom nom."
9. She also thinks it's funny when Daddy gives raspberries on her tummy.
10. She can roll from her tummy to her back, and is starting to go from her back to her side (but the rolling is a ways off still, we think).
11. She's starting to squeal.
12. She likes to be swaddled when she sleeps.
13. She catnaps during the day, much to her parents' delight (or not).
14. One of her favorite times is at night, getting ready for bed. She LOVES changing out of her clothes and into her jammies.
15. She's very content during the day, and cranky in the evenings.
16. She is VERY into her hands right now. They are in her mouth a lot, and she sucks on them loudly:)
17. She is just growing out of her 3 month clothes.

Our beautiful girl :)
The new addition:



Playing with toys:


I think this is a goofy picture. It doesn't really look like her for some reason.
Notice the rolls. This picture really doesn't do them justice:

Doin' the Hokey Pokey with Dad:


Big Girl Jeans:


Happy Saturday!



Friday, January 23, 2009

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Big Saturday Night...

Jeff and I are sitting here, about to watch the rest of The Dark Night, (we started the other night and fell asleep - surprise), and Kaitlyn is sleeping soundly for the time being. We may actually get to enjoy some Jeff and Lisa time if she doesn't wake up. In general, she's been going down for the night around 10:30 or so. No matter what time we've tried to get her to go to sleep, it always ends up being final around that time (final = no more going back in to pick her up/put her back down:)). We are determined to make this earlier, and tonight may be a success with 9:30. Cross your fingers that nothing comes over the monitor any time soon; it's been 10 minutes! Other than that, things are just moving along as usual around here. Jeff gets Monday off from school, but had to do quite a bit of homework to do today. He finished, though, so nothing to do tomorrow! :)
Kaitlyn weighed in at 13 lbs., 3 oz. on Thursday. What a chunker! I took her in to have her weighed because I was paranoid that she wasn't getting enough to eat (one of the many "joys" of the breastfeeding rollercoaster...) Apparently, she's getting enough. :) She continues, of course, to be the light of our lives, and we couldn't be any luckier. She is smiling up a storm, which makes us laugh every single time without fail, and she's interacting more each day. I know that every parent says this constantly, but it is so incredibly amazing how quickly she changes. Here are some pictures!

We got Kaitlyn a "Bumbo" chair last week. It helps her sit up on her own and has a little tray to put toys on. I'm assuming the chicken was cracking some pretty funny jokes, because this is what Kaitlyn did for about five minutes:




This picture is for Gina. It would be much better if it wasn't the college years, but I didn't want to wait for the cycle to start over. (Don't worry, I moved Kaitlyn shortly after this picture was taken...:))

Standing with Daddy (doesn't she look older?!)







Our friends, Jason and Hitomi, had their little girl in December. Her name is Reina :) She's about 3 weeks old in this picture:




A hat from Mollie :)




We didn't end up watching The Dark Night. We watched three episodes of The Real World, and now we are going to bed. (Kaitlyn stayed asleep - yay!)



















Sunday, January 11, 2009

A Few More Pictures...

The Collins family (minus Riley):

Tracie was here from Texas for a few days over the holidays. This was her first time meeting Kaitlyn!
At the "Gowey Christmas," my cousins Kayla and Amanda had fun dancing to the singing snowmen - pretty cute :)

Not much of an update. Jeff is back in school now until June 8th. We are both counting down the days!


Tuesday, January 6, 2009

It Works!

Okay, I seem to be able to get pictures on here again, so here are some I wanted to include a few weeks ago...

This was during all of the snow. Riley LOVES snow, and wants to be out in it 24/7. This is seriously all he did for about two days:





Look at those cheeks!






Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy 2009!

I have been trying to update our blog for the past couple of weeks, and can't get pictures to upload for some reason. It just stalls after it says that it's "100%." If anyone who uses Blogger has any advice, it would be appreciated! :) They finally worked this time, but it took for.ever. Things are going well in the Collins household. I am still off work until mid-February, and Boeing gives Jeff about a week and a half off during the holidays. We have been enjoying some good family time. :) We have been very busy, of course, with something to do almost every day. We had a wonderful first Christmas with Kaitlyn. Christmas Eve was spent at Jeff's dad's house in Kent (Grandpa Rick and Grandma Sue), Christmas morning at Gma Bonnie's and Gpa Roger's, and the rest of Christmas at Gma Debbie's and Gpa Dave's. It was very laid back and relaxing, which was perfect! Kaitlyn got her 2 month shots on the 23rd, and apparently wasn't feeling well from them, so it was an interesting few evenings after that. She was a little crankster, but is now back to her sweet self. :) I felt so bad that she obviously wasn't feeling well. At her two month appointment, Kaitlyn weighed in at 11 lbs., 15oz., and 24 inches long (however, I think the length is a bit off - the girl was pulling her legs down so much that her head wasn't touching the top of the measuring thingy), which puts her around the 80th percentile for weight and 95th for height (if the 24 inches was correct). She's doing great! She has been very good to her mommy and daddy, sleeping 7-9 hours each night. We are currently working on getting her to nap well somewhere besides on a person. I have been trying this for a while with not much luck (her record in her crib is 35 min. at a time, and that was a really good day - it's usually 20 min.), but I will be on a mission next week when our schedule is back to "normal." It's really hard when we are always going somewhere and not staying home. Our biggest reason for wanting this to happen is that she will be going to day care three days a week when I go back to work, and we don't want her to have to be held all the time because they won't be able to do that! She is smiling all the time now, which is the best thing ever; we can't get enough of it. She is finding her voice and making new sounds all the time.
The other night, we left Kaitlyn with Great Uncle Mike, Great Aunt Debbie, and cousin Caiti while we went downtown for Happy Hour. This was about the fourth time we have left her for a few hours, and it's getting a little easier for me. It's definitely much easier for Jeff since he goes to work, but I am still working on it. :) She takes a bottle at home just fine, but has had trouble with it every time we've left her. So, not only is she starving, but this means that she cries and cries for whoever has her. We don't want that for her or for her babysitters, obviously, so we are going to have to keep working with the bottle. It was fun to walk around downtown while the lights are still up. We went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for appetizers and a drink, then to Benihana for the same thing. :) We enjoyed it so much that we went back the next day with Kaitlyn for some shopping and lunch. For New Year's Eve, Jeff, Kaitlyn, Riley, and I hung out at home with pizza and ice cream. We had a LOST (tv series) marathon on DVD, and enjoyed a quiet night at home until the fireworks started. We live in an unincorporated county, so they are legal. Kaitlyn is obviously a pretty heavy sleeper when she gets going because the boys down the street were setting off what must have been m-80's pretty much right outside her window, and not a peep. The explosions were coming through her monitor they were so loud. I thought for sure she was going to wake up after a particularly hard time going to sleep. I felt so "old" because I was ready to go out and give those "pesky teenagers" a piece of my mind if she woke up...
Whew! There you go. Jeff's on baby duty, so the update got a little long...Here are some pictures!





Worn out from the Christmas festivities...


Uncle Rob showing her the tree





Kaitlyn watched everything Grandpa did :)
A teddy bear from Gma Bonnie and Gpa Roger:

The fam "all dressed up" :)

In her dress from Grandma Bonnie:


Kaitlyn next to her gift from Mom and Dad: A Galloping Jumperoo to use in a couple of months. She looks pretty excited, huh!

I'm a dork, so I took a picture of her first Christmas tag from us :)


I have more pictures that I wanted to post, but it's not working! I'll try again later...