Christmas and such

This is our Christmas Picture. We try to get one each year.




Katie had a fun Christmas. She really liked opening presents, which she figured out after the first one. She even wanted to sit on our laps to help us open our presents. It was cute.

I made the pajamas she has on. She wanted to wear them all day. The doll house behind her was filled with mini Star Wars characters. She really likes them. They're kind of like dolls, right?

She got lots of presents, but the highlights are a stroller from the Evans Grandparents, and a laptop from the Bowman Grandparents. These are probably her favorite presents right now.

She was pretty worn out when the Holidays were over. I think it was on Tuesday, Jan 2nd, that I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere, and she shook her head violently no. She had had enough of visiting. She just wanted to stay home. Of course, she also threw up for most of the afternoon and night, so maybe it was because she was sick. She got over the flu, or whatever it is, but now she has a loud croupy cough. She really scared me last night. She was wheezing really bad, and her cough sounded awful. We brought her into bed with us, because I knew I wouldn't sleep if I thought she couldn't breathe, and I couldn't see or touch her. I still didn't sleep, (surely it had nothing to do with Ryan snoring and Katie wheezing) but at least she seemed to do better. Medicine and some Vicks helped her breathe better.

After she has been in bed with us for about 2 hours, she was flailing about, and her arms and head were hitting me. She started whining, and I asked her if she wanted to go back to her bed. She did, so we all got to sleep the rest of the night.







Ryan occasionally wears caps, and this is one that Katie seems to like. We thought she looked so adorable, plus she posed for it. :)

What a cutie!

Walking on Sunshine

Well, this is a compilation of Katie from crawling to walking to running. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I find it so hard to believe that she was just starting to walk in May! That was only 6 months ago! In some ways it seems like she has been walking for so long now. I think my favorite part is when she is twirling, and then almost falls over because she is dizzy. It just cracks me up every time.

This movie is 4 minutes long, so be patient while it downloads.

If you click the play button, then push pause while the gray bar shows that it is downloading, and wait until the bar fills the whole length, it won't stutter while you watch it. (I think)

Animals

I was in the kitchen, using the faucet, which is a single handle style. I pushed down on the handle, like I always have, and it kind of made a snapping noise. NOW the handle doesn't turn the water off. You have to push down on the stem with the faucet turned to a 90 degree angle and the stars have to be aligned, and... no it isn't really that hard to turn off the water, but it just doesn't work like it should. Whereas I used to just push the handle down, now I have to concentrate and twist and push at the same time. We are working on getting it fixed, but until then, I forget that the faucet is broken until I hear water running, and realize that I didn't get it turned off all the way. Bother.

Katie can now jump. Not really high or anything, but she has the concept down. She can also say, "pleeessssse", "There you are!", "Thank you", "Who is that?", "Here I am", and "Peek-A-Boo!" (as shown in the picture below). She loves to hide behind doors and wait for us to find her. A couple of times it almost scares me because I don't hear her, and she won't answer me, because that would give her location away.
She also has the other words already in her vocabulary. Funnily enough, she hasn't quite figured out words like water, or drink, or hungry. Maybe she has, but I haven't heard them in a context I understand.

She has been terrified of sitting on her potty chair. When we first got it (4 months ago) I put her on it, and it scared her and she screams anytime I try to even suggest that she sit on it. All that to say that yesterday, in the morning, she still objected, even though there was candy involved. Throughout the day, we put one of her dolls on it, and then Katie sat on it! She had all her clothes on, but still, I felt that was real progress. Then, she agreed to take off her diaper and sit on her potty. Very exciting! I'm realizing how funny it is that I'm excited about such trivial things. Oh well.




I have a friend that loaned me a Baby Einstein DVD of animals, and Katie absolutely loves it! She just sat through the whole 1/2 hour watching it. It has 3 animals for each part of the video. The first part is "Animals in my house". As we were watching it, it introduces cat, dogs, and I would assume, birds, but no, it chooses mice. Now, wouldn't most homes NOT have mice?
One, for cleanliness factors, and Two, because there was a cat living there?



The other day, Katie and I opened the garage door and saw a plastic-looking snake on the driveway. Of course, it wasn't fake, and started moving. I was worried because I didn't know what kind of snake it was, or what to do with it. As Katie and I were watching it, Josh rode by on his scooter. We called him over, and he kept Katie away from the snake while I found a bucket to put it in. By the time we got the snake to a house that had raised snakes in the past, we had about 12 kids running around trying to see the snake, and then, after it had been determined to be safe, catch it also. Poor snake.


In my quest to be more economical, I decided to buy a pork shoulder roast, with the bone-in. I figured I would be putting it in the crockpot, so it was a good buy to get the roast with the bone-in, because it was cheaper. I picked a fairly large-sized one, with what looked like lots of fat on it. Looking back at the purchase, I'm not sure why I got one with lots of fat on it. I knew I would just be cutting the fat off before I cooked it. Well, I get it home, and open the package. I went to put it in the crockpot, and realize the fat feels kinda weird. Like leather. Oh wait. It probably IS leather. Like the pig's skin. Ugh!

So, not wanting to be squeamish I try to cut the skin off. Which isn't very easy, let me tell you. I finally got it off, seriously after at least 30 minutes, and put it in the crockpot. And guess what? Yep, it was too big. So I pulled it out AGAIN, and try to cut through the bone with my knife. I'm sure you are laughing at this point, but I was pretty frustrated. Cutting through a bone isn't as easy as it looks like. Well, it might be if you had a good knife. But, I didn't. After 10 minutes of that, I realize that this is a SHOULDER roast. Oh, so I can cut through the joint, right? Well, it mostly worked. The hardest part was when I realized it was a shoulder, and I could actually visualize where it would be on the pig. You know, the foot would go down here, and the rest of it's body goes here... That was about the clincher. I like meat, but I do NOT want to associate it with animals. They should be distinctly different things, and never remind me of the other.
After this distraction, I ended up with it scrunched into the crockpot, with a heavy glass bowl overturned on top, holding the lid down until it cooked enough to settle in the pot. Not my finest hour and a half, I can tell you. All this to say that I am planning on spending the 20 cents more a pound for a roast without a bone-in.

I just clicked on the "More Shortcuts" link on the blogger page, and noticed the bottom shortcut is for the Hindi transliteration feature. What? Are there that many people out there that need to have the feature? For those that aren't sure what transliteration means, this is a quote from the page:
"Note that this is not the same as translation -- it is the sound of the words that are converted from one alphabet to the other, not their meaning. For example, typing "hamesha" transliterates into Hindi as:
End Quote. I mean, it goes into how to use the on screen keyboard and everything. I was just blown away. Apparently there is a whole "feature" out there that needs a shortcut, and I'm fairly positive I will NEVER use it.

Just some notes

Katie hums, says uh huh, and sounds like she is talking all the time now. She says Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, sometimes Grandpa, she asks for music whenever she is eating, says outside, banana, Hannah, Abby, Bekah, tries to say Josh, Joe, Ben, Than (Nathaniel), and Junior. She likes to smell flowers, and points at airplanes in the sky. She meows and ruffs.
She can identify her eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, ears, earrings, arms, legs, feet, hands, hair, etc.
Her top front tooth finally came in, and it has almost caught up to the rest of them. She looks so different with teeth!

Finances and Organization

Katie is looking so grown up lately. Especially with this cute hat on. These are just some pictures I took while we were trying on her different hats. My head held most of the unused hats when Katie wasn't using them.

Ryan wrecked on his scooter Friday night (the 12th). Nothing too bad, but it kinda scared me. Luckily, I saw him walking around, and he seemed fine, maybe a little tired, and THEN he told me he had crashed. If I had just gotten a call about it, I probably would have freaked out. Hard to imagine, I'm sure. :) So, his wrist is sprained, and he has some bruises and scrapes. The bike looks worse than he does. The back basket thing is cracked, and there are scratches all down the side of the scooter. Oh well. At least it is all cosmetic. Here are some pictures.






I am attending a Organization class called House of Order. Marie C. Ricks is the presenter, and I'm really enjoying it. She goes a little overboard, at least with some things that I wouldn't do, but she has lots of great ideas. It can be a little overwhelming if I think of all the stuff that I want to reorganize, but I'm trying to take it slow. It is just exciting to think of having a house that can be very organized, and having my life feel more organized, as a result. My favorite part is just listening to her talk. She is very motivating, and brings her religion into it. She frequently tells us how we need to have a "House of Order" so the Spirit can dwell in our homes, and in our hearts.

Ryan and I are also attending a "Financial Peace University" class. Ryan's work is sponsoring it, and it is 13 weeks long! Dave Ramsey is the author, and we watch DVD's of his presentation. He is funny, and has lots of good advice. Again, it is a lot of common sense, but it is good to be reminded. Ryan and I appreciate how he slips other advice in there also. He has good morals, and incorporates that into his presentation. "Don't lie! Always tell the truth" was the last one we noticed.

I am also jogging/walking 3 days a week with my friend Rebecca, and sometimes my sister-in-law (also friend) Naomi. Naomi sprained her ankle, so she is taking a break at the moment. We are on the program called Couch-To-5K Run Program. The idea is that you can get from no activity to running a 5K in 9 weeks. I really enjoy it. We start at 6:00 AM so we don't have to bring kids. It really starts my day off well. Ryan, Katie, and I all eat breakfast together, I have energy throughout the day, and my day starts 2 hours earlier than usual, so I get more done.
This added to the Belly Dancing class I take on Tuesdays and Thursdays keeps me pretty busy. I really enjoy it all though. I get more done, the more I have to do.



Katie was actually riding the scooter with Ryan's help, but I didn't grab the camera fast enough. Ryan was trying to get her back on at this point.



Apparently Katie wasn't too excited to have someone ELSE slide down the slide.



This is Rebekah, Katie, and Hannah. Rebekah and Hannah are Dennis and Naomi's daughters, and they live across the street, so we play with them alot.