Seattle Children's Museum

Jeff was out of town for work all last week (Sunday to late Friday evening), so we decided to do a little family day on Saturday. :) Now that Kaitlyn is walking, "kid outings" are a lot more doable. We went downtown to the Children's Museum and all had a blast. It was SO much fun letting Kaitlyn just wander around and do her thing; such a different phase of parenthood! :) She was all over the place, as she has been since starting to walk (steadily, that is), and really enjoyed herself. Of course, I took way too many pictures, and this is just some of them, believe it or not.

Watching the big fountain outside:

Heading home for an overdue nap :) (Out of order, of course)

Doing some grocery shopping:

Our little firewoman :)

Onto the next thing...

In the dingy with Dada:

We found a slide that she could actually go down by herself: not too fast, but enough so that she could actually get to the bottom without hitting her head. :)

We can't wait to go back!

New Project

I'm having fun. :-) (Oh, and it's supposed to be a monkey ;-) )

Just Some Pictures (okay, a lot)

Kaitlyn continues to enjoy putting socks on. Including Dada's:

Getting huge! I'm starting to wonder what that belly will look like in a month...

The original idea was to have Kaitlyn hold the sign. Don't know what I was thinking (keep in mind this is supposed to be a "belly picture").

K and I went over to Mollie's new house up in Marysville with some of the girls on Monday. Their house is so nice, and of course Mollie has it decorated perfectly (wanna come do my house, Molls?) I really admire her for her decorating ability! :)

Kaitlyn was enjoying looking out the window into the backyard where Mollie's husband, Jayson, was working. I love how she's resting her little chin on her arm and gazing...melts Mama's heart. :)

Some of the girls: Paige, Kaitlyn, Payton, and newborn baby Campbell:

This cracks me up! I asked Paige to say "cheese," and this is what I got: (she does actually give smiles when you say this, but I thought I'd share this one :))

Now that Kaitlyn is walking all over the place, she loves to carry things with her. Goin' shopping!

We have given up on the spoon for a bit and introduce the fork. Much easier!

My Aunt Ellen is an amazing knitter. She made these adorable little "elf" shoes for Kaitlyn. She's so talented!! I believe that they are "felted" as well (my limited craft knowledge is showing here).

The Belly

So, I feel like a complete slacker with this pregnancy...I blame it on having a little one to take care of. :) This is the ONLY belly picture we have taken this time, and it's from a couple of weeks ago. I need to get another one, but this will do for now. :) I've had a few requests to get one up, so here it is!


Overall, this pregnancy has been smooth like the first one. Nothing too crazy to report, which is good, and I feel great for being over 30 weeks along. It will be nice to be able to put socks on without grunting and to wear normal clothes, but I am really trying to soak this up, as it will most likely be the last time I get to have a little one in my tummy. I may be more laid back about this one, but I still can't get enough of feeling our little bean doing gymnastics in my belly. Austen (I'm sure everyone's figured out that this is her name:)) does seem to move around more in the middle of the night than Kaitlyn ever did, so that makes me a bit nervous! "They" say that their awake times in the womb are many times consistent with how they will be in the outside world, so...we may be in for it. I hardly ever felt Kaitlyn in the middle of the night, and she was a great sleeper from the start. Oy.
We have now been telling Kaitlyn that Mama's ever-expanding belly is "Baby Austen." She lifts up my shirt and says "Aw-tee" whenever she gets the chance. I'm sure we are completely confusing the poor thing, but it's pretty darn cute! She has no idea what's ahead. ;)
That's about it...we can't believe that we only have a little over 8 weeks to go until the due date (April 3rd) - this has absolutely flown by!

Pictures

Kaitlyn has been into "arranging" things lately. She'll get pretty focused for up to about 30 minutes on a task that she's given herself. One of the latest is stacking her toys on the back of her chair. Notice her day care disheveled hair. :)

Getting more:

We officially have a walker. :) She gets better and more independent at it every day. She gets so proud of herself when she does it...pretty cute :)

She continues to enjoy reading to herself. This is another thing that she can sit and do by herself for pretty long periods of time. Of course, this makes her teacher mommy proud. ;)

She is such a happy kid! Overall, she is very laid-back and flexible. Now that I've said this, of course, the big tantrums will start tomorrow. :) She has definitely started minor ones, especially when she's tired.

Reaching for toys that fell from her chair. I tried to get a picture of just her feet hanging in the air, but this was the best I got:

Our little tornado :)

Yet another one of her "projects." She loves to put on socks, pants, shirts, etc. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of it yet. Here are her socks on the tips of her shoes :)

Playing blocks with Dada:

Kaitlyn is doing a lot of mimicking these days - I love it! Here she is filling the bath cup with water, just like we do when we rinse her off:

Helping Dada with Riley's bath:

This last weekend, we went up to Crystal Mountain again to Jeff's dad's cabin (Grandpa Rick and Grandma Sue). They were nice enough to let us use it for a little getaway as a family of three before Austen arrives. :) We had a great time relaxing and spending time with Kaitlyn. It did make it harder to come back to work this morning, though!

She loves to get a wipey and "clean" everything. She'll go around wiping down surfaces, her sippy, her face, you name it.

Happy girl after a long nap:

She LOVES this stool. She'll push it around the kitchen all day if you let her. Picking it up was the big deal this weekend:

Playing with her Little People (I've been busy on Craigslist:)):