Tidbits

~Kate's new vocabulary includes:
*sit down, get down, lay down
*baby's sleeping
*what happened?
*oooohhh mannnn (like as in after she spilled her cereal or can't get her food on her spoon!)
*my turn, Kate's turn
*snowman, Santa Claus
*lots of new animals like elephant, horsey, pig, bunny, chicken, kitty, birdie, lion
*triangle, star, heart (she can name these correctly)
*SO many more...this girl is outta control

Aunt Melissa taught her this!


~Today she pointed to all the parts on my face and named them just for fun...including eyes, nose, mouth (mouf), ears, chin, cheeks, hair (I didn't know she knew cheeks and chin?!)

~She eats all the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms then asks for more.

~She has gone on the potty once every day so far that she's been in the 2 year old room at daycare.

~She LOVES football! She's gone to quite a few high school games this year and loves it!! On the way to daycare we pass a field and she always says "yeaaaa football!"

~Her tantrums are NOT improving.



~She spent the night at Grandma and Pappy's Thursday night. (Dustin and I went to a Steelers game!) That was the FIRST time EVER away from her mama!!

Kate woke up from her nap while I was typing this post and this girl cracks me up. I went up to get her and she did something that made me laugh and she says "funny! funny!" Then she pointed at the radio and said "music on." Who even knew she knew how to say that? Then we went to go down stairs and she pointed and said "stairs, step, step, two, three, four." What happened while she was sleeping?!?

I tried sponge curlers in Kate's hair overnight! I couldn't get a good picture and I think these make it look worse than it did. Everyone at daycare thought it was so adorable!! I was thinking about doing it for her Christmas pics but I'm not sure yet. I think it looks kinda silly.




We went to Chuck E. Cheese's the other day for a birthday party. Kate had a blast! Her surprised face is the face she made every time the ride stopped.

Babies, blessings, and binkies

So Kate loves babies!! "Hug, hug" is what I hear every 2 seconds when we are with a baby along with Kate's outstretched arms awaiting a hug from the unsuspecting baby. This is Baby Cora. (sorry I didn't get the best pictures)

She is my good friend Monique's new little baby. She is one month old. She is adorable and sleeps all the time. Kate can't get enough of this cute little girl.
Here she is giving her hugs and kisses.


She likes to give her pillows, books, and toys. The cutest thing ever was when Cora started crying and Kate looked at me and said "uh oh, binky" and went and got Cora's binky and gave it to her. Then she found a stuffed animal lamb and gave it to her too. It was so cute. She's not even around babies much so it was just an instinct. She is getting ready to be a big sister someday! Well in January I will be going part time at the daycare and babysitting baby Cora 2 days a week. I'm so excited to not have to send Kate to daycare 5 days a week! (Although Kate is now in my room full-time. Which is either good or bad...we'll see in time! I love her being there so I can spend time with her but it's stressful since she's a little moody at times and I don't want her to be the naughty kid in class!) Anyways...yeaaaa for blessings. What a blessing it is to have the opportunity to work and take care of Kate at the same time! And I'm so excited to be able to help out a friend too.

On a random note...
Some of my friends are starting to get rid of their child's binky...mine has decided that one binky is just not enough!

Does it get any cuter than this??

Picture Overload!

We've been doing lots of fun things lately so I've been taking lots of pictures. We had a fun but busy weekend with family. Football games, shopping, halloween party, Dustin's birthday party, late night fun listening to a band at a bar (well, too late so it wasn't fun for me anymore!)...

Mommy and Kate before church on Sunday.

Aunt Deenie bought Kate this Elmo cheerleading outfit. She was all ready for football games on Sunday.

Her new Elmo backpack from Grandma

Kate the witch...We went to a Halloween party on Saturday.

Sword fighting with Daddy


Kate enjoying her first M&M

Kate and I went to a pumpkin patch with Aunt Mellisa last week. The pumpkins were pretty deformed and ugly but we had a fun time!

HELP! Hair Emergency!

What am I supposed to do with Kate's hair?? We really want to grow her bangs out. But what do I do in the meantime? And even when they are grown out, her hair is so fine that it will probably just be hanging in her face anyways.

So if I want her to not have bangs, do I have to wear her hair in a ponytail until she's 5?? I really like her hair when her bangs are swept to the side but they don't really stay.


I even tried gel! It works pretty good for a while. When I'm at home with her I just push her hair out the way a lot but since she's at daycare it's just a pain. So I need help!! What do you do with your kids or what do you think would look best on Kate??!??

random picture sampler

Being a working woman and mother is testing my ability to do many things at once! So blogging gets pushed to the back! Here are some random pictures I've taken over the last few weeks.

We went to a high school football game with Dustin's family. It was lots of fun and Kate had a blast. She loved pointing to the field and saying "foofall!" She didn't even mind the cold or rain!



Kate loves her family. Here she is with her pappys and her Uncle Justin. She learned how to say Justin this week and while we were at his house she would walk around looking for him yelling "Justin, Justin!"




Kate on her new potty chair!

Cute or just silly?? Kate insisted on wearing her hat on Sunday because Daddy put his hat on. My brother said she looked silly and made me take it off her!!



This poor girl was so tired tonight that she fell asleep on the kitchen floor while I was making dinner. I would have NEVER thought that was possible.

Bullies, cars and thirsty babies

I haven't even taken one picture of Kate (or anything for that matter) since the last post. I've had nothing exciting to report or blog about. Life is going good. Work is going much better for me. Kate walks right up to the door at day care and tries to push it open to get in. She doesn't even cry anymore! She has turned into a little bit of a bully but we're working on that. I was peeking my head in the door yesterday to see how she was and I saw a little girl take a toy from Kate. So Kate did was most toddlers would do (right??!) and hit her repeatedly over the head with it! Oops!! I am soooo happy though that Kate is back to her silly, happy self at home. She's my favorite person in the whole world!! Anyways, I took a few pics today so I thought I'd share.


I bought Kate this car at a yard sale today. It seems like one of those things that every kid has to have. She loved it! Here she is cleaning it off just like Mommy did and Daddy pushing her in the garage when he got home from work.



I love watching how sweet Kate is with her babies. She loves to give them hugs and kisses, feed them and give them something to drink. I often find cracker crumbs in their mouths! Here she is making sure baby doesn't get thirsty.

Where is my baby?? This adorable little girl is definitely not a baby anymore! Her hair is getting so long and is always in her face so we're trying the ponytail!


Things are going better at the daycare. Kate doesn't always cry when I drop her off and she doesn't have her binky stuffed in her mouth all day long anymore. She's even started eating their food and sleeping for an hour and a half...it's a start. I'm not loving my job but I know this will really help our family so I'm gonna stick it out and hope it gets better. It's a tough job for just above minimum wage. Anyways...if Kate's happy we can all be happy.

Kate is getting ready for football season. Go Steelers!!

What's your name?

Update after week 1

So we just finished up week 1 at the daycare and I thought I'd update you. Well I'll keep it short because I was taught that if I didn't have anything nice to say then I shouldn't say it at all! Overall, it wasn't good. I had an alright time with my kids. They seemed to warm up to me by the end of the week and started to listen. I feel pretty comfortable around them. My teacher side and my mom side worked well together to make it through the first week. So it was pretty good for me. However, Kate HATED almost every minute of it. She wouldn't eat or sleep and cried most of the day. In her defense, she is also getting 6-8 teeth all at the same time...her molars and her eye teeth. She had a fever of 100-102 every day and was just miserable. She falls asleep on the way home and is miserable until I put her to bed. By Friday, she cried as soon as I stepped into her daycare room in the morning. Needless to say, I'm not terribly excited to start a new week of this but let's just hope it will get better. (figure it can't get any worse!!) Cross your fingers. I'll keep you posted!
Here's Kate at a wedding reception on Saturday night. This girl had some serious sleep to catch up on this weekend!

GREAT NEWS! (i think...)

So as some of you may know, Dustin has been the one working and I've been staying home with Kate. It's been really great. I really love being a stay-at-home mom and I love all our time together. Well, it's been a bit of a financial struggle to enjoy this time together. So it was time for me to look for a job. Long story short: I GOT A JOB! I will be working at a daycare full-time and Kate will be attending the daycare (free of charge) full-time.

This answer to our prayers is bitter-sweet. I'm so excited to be able to make money for our family without paying an arm and a leg for childcare and allow Dustin to work less and focus on school. But I'm really going to miss Kate!! I mean REALLY REALLY miss Kate! There may be lots of crying. (on my part!)

I think Kate will really enjoy having kids to play with. I will be the head teacher in the 2 year old room. Unfortunately my degree and experience gets me just above minimum wage but with no childcare costs it's great. So, this is the start of yet another phase in our lives. I feel like this is such a blessing. It was exactly what I was looking for for right now.