Thursday, July 19, 2007

Katy's 11mnth update!



As of yesterday, our girl is now 11 mnths old! As usual, I took Katy for a weigh-in at Good Sam on Tuesday... she is now 17lbs 1oz. Once again, this showed a pretty significant weight gain - 12 oz over the month. She is eating more and more table foods, since Katy won't have anything to do with pureed baby foods! She is most happy just eating bits of whatever we are having, although we are still mainly avoiding the major allergy foods, such as nuts, eggs, and most dairy. But as she approaches the one year mark, we're letting her try more & more things, and not worrying too much if it has perhaps a little milk or butter in the ingredients, for example... seeing as she hasn't had any bad food reactions, and she so loves REAL food!

Katy's still not crawling! Over the past day or so, she doesn't seem content to stay seated, so she is constantly going over onto all fours, but just can't quite get going yet. She ends up on her stomach moving backwards, until she runs into something! So I guess only time will tell if she is going to take after me, and just skip the crawling... or whether she will suddenly figure it out.

Probably the biggest new things this past month have been in Katy's language... both speaking and sign. On July 3rd, I was feeding Katy dinner and had the Giants game on in the background. A TV commercial came on, where there was a dog running around in circles. Katy peeked around her highchair to see him, and held up her hand and did a snapping fingers motion. The sign in ASL is a combined finger snap and a pat, which of course I've been showing Katy anytime we run into a dog. Who who have guessed this would be her 1st sign?? Since then, we've seen her repeat the sign for "dog", as well as the signs for "milk", "all done", and a couple of others we're not sure of, but could be "eat" and "more".

Katy talks up a storm, and every day it sounds more and more like she is really talking. For about 3 weeks now, her new and favourite sound/word has been "yah." At first I thought it was merely her newest sound, but soon realized she was responding "yah!" when asked a question. The funniest part of it is that she will answer "yah!" to any question posed to her. ie "Katy, do you want some more banana?" "Yah!" "Katy, do you want to go watch the fireworks?" "Yah!" "Katy, would you like some cockroach soup?" "Yah!" :) Since she always has a big smile for everyone, strangers will come up and start talking to her. So it's cute to hear a "yah!" after somebody says to her, "Aren't you a pretty little girl?!" It always surprises people to hear this petite little thing responding to them, especially as most people typically thing she is younger than Katy actually is.

So, we're moving on to Katy's final month of being 0! It looks to be a fun one. We have several 1-yr old birthday parties to attend, and of course, one to plan! And the first half of August will be filled with non-stop visitors. We'll first spend a few days up in Windsor (wine country, about 2 hrs north of here), with some of the Tittle extended family... Benji's Uncle Keith & Aunt Debbie are spending a week at their timeshare. So we'll see them, including their daughter Karalee. And the Floridian Tittles will be passing through at the same time, so we will also get to see Uncle Dick & Aunt Karalee, who have not seen Katy since we visited them in Florida in early December! Then my sister Lauren and nephew Jackson come into town to stay with us for a week, followed by Benji's parents. So Katy will not suffer from lack of attention! She is going to love it. The month is going to fly by, and suddenly it's going to be time for our little girl to blow out her birthday candle!

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Fourth of July

Since, regrettably, Katy's Daddy *is* American, we joined him in celebrating Independence Day. For Katy's 1st Fourth, we took her to festivities scheduled at a nearby park, which included a petting zoo. Katy has absolutely no fear of animals, and loved touching them all (although I often had to guide her hand to prevent her from grabbing the poor animal's coat in excitement!). Of course, Katy also loved all the other children there! After consuming hot dogs, ice-cream (Benji) and strawberry shortcake (me), we headed home to let Katy get a nap in before more evening fun. We invited our friends, Jason & Kari, along with their 2 children, Cosette (4) & Henry (1), over for a BBQ... it was too hot to cook inside. So we all enjoyed sitting around our patio table on our deck, which thankfully gets shade in the latter half of the day. Katy was so excited to realize they were here when she woke up from her nap! We hung out at home until around 9pm, and then drove 5min downtown and went up to the top of a parking garage to watch the fireworks. I had read in the San Jose Mercury News that this was a good place to see them without dealing with huge crowds. It turned out to be a great suggestion... as we were high up it was pleasantly cool, we could see not only the downtown fireworks but others from over the Bay Area, and it took no time at all to get home afterwards. Katy quietly gazed at the fireworks (fortunately as we weren't really close they weren't too loud), fighting falling asleep. As soon as we got back into the car, sleep won the battle!

At the petting zoo...

Katy would hold out grass for the goat but then try to pull it back out of his mouth so she could try it!
Katy got some much loved attention from other kids while waiting in line to hold the rabbit.
Clapping along with the music
Waiting on the top of the parking garage for the fireworks to begin
A very sleepy Katy gazes out at the fireworks
Mere seconds after getting into the car, Katy is sound asleep

Oh Canada!

We had fun celebrating Canada Day with a couple of our Canadian friends, Krista-Dawn & her son Judah. We dressed for church for the occasion: Katy wore a cute onesie (courtesy of her Auntie Lauren) that says, "Canadian Girl." My shirt said "Everybody loves a Canadian girl." And Benji pulled out a red T-shirt... since of course he has to celebrate the country that gave him his 2 favourite girls! Krista-Dawn met us at church with a gift of Canadian balloons and paper tattoos, and we made plans to go out for dinner together. So once Katy had her afternoon nap, we had fun getting ourselves all tattooed up! Then it was off to Aqui's to eat, where we met up with lots of River friends, and Krista-Dawn brought along extra tattoos so our American friends could show their appreciation for their neighbour to the North. Since Benji tattooed "I love Canada" to his forehead, we let him come along. :) We had a great time at dinner, where Katy devoured black beans for the 1st time. Then we walked across the street for some very yummy icecream at a local shop that has been around for over 50 years. They had little kids chairs outside, so Katy loved her pink princess chair! It was a very fun day. And we're looking forward to another visit to Canada at the end of the summer - we'll be in Moose Jaw from Aug. 28th to Sept 4th. So if you happen to be in the area, we hope to see you then!
Katy a mess but happy after eating MANY black beans!

Our Canadian friends Krista-Dawn (the River's worship pastor) & her 2yr old son, Judah. Katy was fascinated by the three Disney princesses on the back of her chair.