Katy's missing her Nanna & Papa

We had to say goodbye to my parents yesterday morning. My mom had been here since Feb.15th, and my dad arrived one week later, on the 22nd. Katy obviously loved spending time with her Nanna & Papa... they were both often the recipients of her huge smile when she'd spot them. I dropped them off *extremely* early at the airport yesterday, so when Katy got up later that morning and I brought her out to the livingroom, it really seemed like she was looking around searching for them.

As always, my parents visit was very productive! My mom helped us finish off decorating our guestroom... adding curtains etc. It looks great! She also washed all our windows, which has become her "special" job when she visits. :) My dad only had this past weekend with us, but he kept busy cleaning up and beautifying our front and back lawns, which was desparately needed. My dad's birthday is coming up on March 10th, so Saturday night we were able to take him out for an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. It was a great meal, and Katy cooperated by sleeping through the entire thing!

Thank-you both for all your help around the house! It's also great to watch you interacting with Katy... you are so good with her, and she obviously loves having you here! Hope we will see you again soon. Love you lots!

Our 5th Anniversary

In Capitola, staying in our Portofino room at the Inn at Depot Hill
Our anniversary dinner at The Shadowbrook Restaurant

We were given these yummy truffles for dessert as an anniversary gift
Our 5th anniversary was last Friday, Feb. 23rd. We kept to our annual tradition of returning to The Inn at Depot Hill, where we spent the first 3 nights of our honeymoon in the Portofino room, a gorgeous room that makes you feel as if you were in Italy. We have gone back every year to celebrate our anniversary, and this year we managed to go again for two nights, thanks to Katy's Nanna. My mom took wonderful care of our little girl and gave Benji and I the chance to just be together and enjoy each other's company. My dad arrived mid-way through our time in Capitola, so he was able to help take care of Katy too. Thank-you!!

We were so grateful for this gift to us... although I was afraid I'd be desparate to return to my baby after one night, I was really able to just relax and enjoy our time together, knowing Katy was in the best of hands. It was SO good to reconnect with my hubby of 5! years. Amazing to be there remembering just a year ago we were there and I was 3+ mths pregnant, still just getting over the remainder of morning sickness. In past years we visited Depot Hill with a twinge of sadness, expecting that we would have had a baby on the way, but instead in the midst of what would be 3 miscarriages. But this year there was no sadness, knowing we'd been blessed with a beautiful baby girl who was waiting for us at home.

We definitely enjoyed our two nights... fireplace in our room, private hot tub out on our garden terrace, gourmet breakfasts served to our room, strolling around Capitola, enjoying clam chowder and a veggie burger at our favourite spot along the beach, playing cribbage in a coffeeshop, wine tasting one night at the Shadowbrook followed by our anniversary dinner back there the following evening. It was a wonderful, romantic two nights, spent with the man that is a devoted husband & father, and my best friend. Benji, I know I don't say it enough, but I love you very much! Thanks for loving me so well, and for always taking such good care of your girls. Happy 5th anniversary... looking forward to the next 5 with you.

Katy's 6 mnth update...

So now that Katy is 6 mnths old, she is up to all sorts of new tricks! I already mentioned in my last post she is now eating food... she has taken to food like a duck to water. I was just telling Benji that earlier today I was feeding her carrots, and she kept crying. At first I was wondering if they were too cold or she just didn't want them this time, but I soon realized it was because I wasn't feeding her fast enough between spoonfuls! So she was getting mad with me using the spoon to get extra carrot off of her chin etc, rather than IMMEDIATELY giving her more! :) We are now giving her something twice a day - as of now it has been bananas in the morning, and carrots in the afternoon. We also tried applesauce the other day - NO GO! Katy did NOT want anything to do with it. Really now, can we blame her? Cooked mushy apples?? As Jackson would say, "Ucky!" Like mother, like daughter... NO COOKED FRUIT!!

Katy is also *this* close to sitting on her own. She can do it for a bit, but sometimes starts to fall over to the side. She can, of course, roll over whichever way as she pleases. She has become quite the chatterbox, as anybody who has seen her in the last month or two can attest to. And I think we have an early-to-bed, early-to-rise girl on our hands! As of the day Katy turned exactly 6mnths old, she has been sleeping through the entire night, in her own crib. Some of you may remember we tried her crib out awhile back, but I ended up keeping her in with us for awhile longer. It was mainly just nice for me... since then if she needed feeding I could just reach over and pull her in with me from her cosleeper. But as you know, after we returned from Canada we stopped the night feedings altogether. She was doing pretty well, but still usually waking up at 4:30 or 5am for awhile. Decided to see if moving her to her own room might help her sleep... who can blame anybody for waking up with daddy snoring in such close proximity??

So Katy has now had a full week in her own crib at night, and she has done beautifully! If we are home, she is in bed between 6-7pm, and wakes up usually just after 6am! We usually here her over the monitor chatting away, and then starting to cry out if I don't go get her for breakfast. So I bring her back to bed with me so she can eat and I can snooze a bit more. When she is done eating, if we are still lying there, she will lay there in between us, talking non-stop and reaching out and touching our faces. You can just tell she's saying, "Time to get up guys!"

Yesterday, since she is doing so well in her crib, decided it was time to pack up Katy's cosleeper... a little odd and a little sad not to have it and her next to me by our bed anymore... my little girl is all grown-up! :) Time to put it away until the next baby... and no! that won't be any time soon!

Katy is 6 mnths old... Here comes FOOD!

Katy turned 6mnths old yesterday (Feb.18th).
It is hard to believe 6 mnths has already flown by... the tiny newborn we brought home from the hospital is all grown up, and ready for food! Nanna has barely been able to wait to give Katy little tastes of this and that, so Saturday (Ok, one day early) we tried out some banana. The pictures don't do justice to the hilarious faces she made... but fortunately we also have it on video. She was definitely interested, and by the next day already seemed to have the idea of the spoon. Next up... we plan to try some carrots today. While we may do some cereal at some point, we're mainly just going to gradually introduce veggies and some fruits, ones that are high in iron for her. We're also just planning to make our own baby food. A friend gave us these neat trays that look like ice-cube trays, so you can mix up whatever and then freeze it in baby-size portions. Then, you just pop out a cube, thaw, and you're all set! And no, we didn't really let her eat the banana whole, but she did have fun sucking on it!

Visiting with Nanna...

So my mom, Katy's Nanna, arrived late Thursday night for a 10 day visit, and to give us some Katy-sitting while I worked a couple of days, and to allow Benji and I to go away for our anniversary later this week. It was a stressful day of flying for my mom, as she had standby vouchers with Alaska Airlines. When we planned this trip back in January, we did not realize how overbooked the flights would get because the Thursday was heading into a long weekend (today is President's Day). So although there were plenty of seats from Calgary to Seattle, it was looking like she was going to be stranded in Seattle, possible for the entire weekend! But finally, she somehow made it on to a flight and arrived in San Jose at 11pm Thursday, much to all of our relief!

Benji and I worked Friday, so Nanna & Katy had a day together. Nanna took Katy to a neighbourhood park where Katy experienced a swing for the very first time! I went back with them Saturday, as it was beautiful (75 degrees!) and I of course had to get some pics of Katy on the swing, and happily playing with woodchips at the little toddler park.

As you can see, Katy quite enjoyed herself at the park, and loved watching the other little kids who were running around. She has definitely been having a good time with her Nanna, although she likes to put on a show and make her Mommy feel guilty when I show up!! :)

Our Valentine's Day

I know this is a little late, but I have been meaning to post about our Valentine's Day. But better a bit late than never right? My Valentine's started a day early, when as I pulled out of our driveway to head with Katy to our nursing support group, I noticed a box on our front porch which looked suspiciously like flowers. As Katy was all strapped into her carseat, I just quickly put the box inside the house but didn't open it until we arrived home. It was two dozen beautiful tulips from my sweet husband! I absolutely love tulips. Benji had them delivered to our house a day early since I was going to be covering for another chiropractor on V-day.

So on Valentine's Day, I was going to work and Benji was staying home with Katy. As I was getting ready I noticed a pretty gift bag sitting out, and inside was a beautiful card and a TON of all sorts of delicious milk chocolate and truffles. Yummy! I then gave Benji his gift bag... only "gadget boys" will appreciate his present, as it was this fancy alarm clock/20 kinds of white noise/Ipod player/radio from Sharper Image. We had actually first noticed one in our hotel where we stayed during our Christmas in LA, and Benji had been quite impressed by it. Those of you who know Benji know that his Video Ipod are ALWAYS connected to him and ALWAYS in use, so this will be put to good use. And he was ready to kill his old alarm clock, as it periodically was not bothering to go off in the morning.

Off I went to work after our gift exchange. My lunch break ended up being a good 3 hrs, so I came home and suggested we could go out for lunch, all 3 of us. If you live in this area, you know that restaurants are CRAZY busy and ridiculously overpriced for dinner on V-day, so we weren't going to attempt to do that, but lunch sounded like a nice idea. And so it was... we had a wonderful Italian lunch including champagne and dessert for a total of $35! Katy was very good... played with the sugars for awhile and then went to sleep for the last half of our meal.

Then I returned to work just for a couple of hours. When I came home, we got Katy to bed and then enjoyed smoked salmon, cheese and crackers with some more champagne. All in all, a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Oops!!

For those of you who read my last blog post and were a little alarmed at Katy's weight... no worries! My ever-so-observant sister Lauren pointed out that I had put it as 8lbs12oz, when in fact I meant to put 13lbs12oz. While she is on the light side, she is not quite *that* tiny anymore! I think she weighed that by about 3 wk old! LOL I have made the correction now in the original post.

recent Katy pics and the week's update...

Katy happy in her big-girl stroller at church...

Out on a family walk...
Katy loves to stomp on her bath cushion as the water is draining...
Acting as supervisor while we do yardwork... "you missed a weed Mommy!"
Hanging out in her Sunday school class (it's 3 to 18mnths so the other kids are all walking)...

Sorry it's taken me so long to update with some pics... Blogger has been acting up on me, so I start trying to post and end up fighting with it... and then Katy needs me so I end up not getting back to it. Our poor girl has had her first real bout with being sick. She caught a nasty sounding cough on Feb.2nd, and a bit of a runny nose. I pulled out my stethoscope and listened to her chest last weekend, but thankfully her lungs sounded clear. Since her 6mnth checkup was only one week away, I decided last Monday to call and see if the doctor had an earlier opening. He happened to have something first thing last Tuesday morning (Feb. 6th), so in we went for 8:30 am. He confirmed her lungs were completely clear, and thought she looked great. So, she's had this bit of a cold, but besides being awoken occasionally because of coughing, she's still been pretty happy most of the time. Katy weighed in at 13lbs12oz (4oz more than she was one week before!) and she's now 27 inches long! She was all smiles for Dr. Kent, who thinks she is absolutely beautiful (we happen to agree) and growing perfectly. She still has a bit of a cough, but the junk in her nose seems gone, so I think she is mainly over her cold. And hopefully the cough too will disappear, although it always seems to be the thing that hangs on with everyone this cold season.

This week Katy's Nanna (my mom) is coming into town for a 10 day visit, and to help with Katy-care while I work several days, and while Benji and I go on our annual anniversary trip to our favourite B&B in Capitola, The Inn at Depot Hill. It will be our 5th anniversary on Feb. 23rd!! We'll be staying in the same room we did on our wedding night, the Portofino room. Check out the Inn at http://www.innatdepothill.com/ . We absolutely love it there!! It will be my first night away from Katy, but I know she'll be in great hands with her Nanna, whom she had a great time with last month up in Moose Jaw. And I have an ample supply of breastmilk stockpiled in the freezer for her, so all should be fine in Katy-world. See you soon Nanna! Oh, and Grandad (also known as Papa by Jackson) will join Nanna here for the last 3 days or so, so luckily we get a chance to see him too! :)

Katy update

Katy and I have been gradually getting back into a regular routine, now that we're at home again. This week we went back to our breastfeeding support group and our mom's group at the hospital. When I weighed in Katy on Tuesday, she was 13 lbs 8 oz. So she had put on exactly 1/2 lb in 4 wks. The breastfeeding consultant says as long as she is seeing about a 1/2 lb per month, they are doing great. It seems like Katy is also getting longer by the minute! While we don't nearly need the next carseat according to weight, as our infant one is good for 20 lbs, her head is right at the top and her feet getting close to reaching over the bottom. So we have started to look at the next seats, as I don't think her height will allow her to remain in this one until 20 lbs!

We are also working on her sleep routine, and trying to cancel out middle-of-the-night feedings. We got a little off track while in Moose Jaw, as mid-way through our week there Katy started waking up pretty much every 2 hrs!?!? As I was sick, I didn't want to be awake more than necessary, so I would just feed her as that puts her right back to sleep. However, not the best habit... as she definitely does not need feeding that often at night! Before that, she was still usually feeding one time, but returning right back to sleep. That I could handle, but the every 2 hrs, or even a couple times a night, had to stop!! So I chatted with the breastfeeding specialist about it, and with that I was fairly confident Katy should be able to do at least a 7-8 hr stretch, if not more. I think I was partly to blame for encouraging night feedings, as when a baby wakes up and is fussy in the middle of the night, one tends to just want the quickest way possible for getting them to go back to sleep! Which, of course, was reaching over and pulling her into bed with us (she is usually in a cosleeper right next to our bed on my side) and hooking her up! Then we both could fall back to sleep.

So... I figured now that we were home, and I could manage a few tough nights, I was going to try to wean her off of nights and encourage longer stretches. So my rules... if she was just sort of fussy or making a little noise, or calling out, or a momentary cry, I'd let that go and not feed her. Only if the cry elevated to a full-out cry and didn't fairly quickly come back down would I assume she then must really be hungry. Otherwise, I'd just let her work it out on her own (while being right there), and maybe at the most just stroke her head or hold her hand to give a little comfort, without the feeding, to encourage her to return to sleep.

Our progress so far?? Last night she slept for close to 11 hrs straight without a feeding, or even needing me to pop her pacifier back in or anything!!! :) :) :) It was only the 2nd night since I decided I would try this, so I was pretty amazed. Of course, I kept waking up, sure that at any moment she'd be fussing, but barely a peep all night. I do think she was awake momentarily around 3am, but just a little movement and no cries or fussing, and after a few minutes she was completely still again. The first night, she went down around 8:30, but by 11:30 was pretty persistently crying, so I fed her hoping than she'd be set for the night. Around 5am, she began fussing. I just layed there as still as could be... but the fussing continued on and off, so at 5:30 I started stroking her forehead etc and SSSHHHHing her. Finally, by 6am, she was back to sleep, and woke up happy just after 8am. So she did make it over 8 hrs that first night without a feed, but we did have that hour of fussing.

I was convinced yesterday she must be close to cutting a tooth... Katy seemed exhausted in the afternoon and evening, in spite of good naps. She was desparate to be sucking or chewing on something, and seemed a little flushed and warm. So I was actually bracing myself for a tough 2nd night on my plan... but she was an angel! Straight to sleep without a fuss after her 8pm feeding, and woke up happy but hungry at 7am today. And then she went right down for a good 90 min nap at 9am! That's my girl!!! I still think her gums are bugging her a bit, but she's a trooper.

She should actually be just about ready for another nap now... she's been playing next to me in her Bumbo as I type. So I'll sign off for now, but I'll try to add a few more pics soon!