Pictures as promised and Weight Update

I don't know why this picture insists on turning sideways - it shows up fine on the computer until I put it in Blogger . . . who knows! Anyway, she's a happy girl and getting so big!

She laughs quite a bit now, especially if I put my hair in her face, or in this case, push my foot against her diaper!

Can you see my teeth yet?

This is how I feel about rolling over . . . I'd rather just lay down and take a nap!

She was a little sleepy when I took this picture but she's showing off her sitting up skills!

As for me, I had a surprise at my Weight Watchers meeting this week and actually reached my 25 pounds lost goal! I have 10 more to go 'till the goal I'd like to set there, and 15 more to go 'till I'm really where I'd love to be. Not sure if it will happen before we decide to have another baby, but we'll just take it one day at a time!

I was surprised that I had lost anything because we had our Thanksgiving day at work and I didn't really hold back much (I had smaller portions of most things, but ate a little of everything that looked good!) and we had eaten at a friend's house and she had made this wonderful creamy white chicken chili and delicious cornbread. I ate way too much of both and I don't know what was in the chili, but I am pretty sure that it wasn't light or low fat in any way!

I tried to track as well as I could, but that's a lot harder when you're totally guessing about what you ate! Anyway, I kept the rest of my meals under control and I guess it all worked out with my weekly points and everything. I am finally back in my healthy weight range . . . I'm still at the tippy top of it, but I'm officially in there (and actually, since you have to weigh in dressed at WW, I am probably a smidge less than they weighed me, and therefore not quite as close to the cutoff line, which makes me happy!)!

So, hopefully I can keep that up over Thanksgiving. It will be hard because there is a lot of food that I just LOVE for Thanksgiving . . . but I don't want to be like the average American and gain 4-5 pounds over this weekend, so I'm going to do my best to keep it in check and remember that it's just food!

6 months - pictures coming soon!

Well, we've reached and passed the 6 month mark. We had our doctor's appointment last Wednesday and our girl is 15 pounds, 5.5 ounces, which puts her still close to the 50th percentile on weight (slightly below); she's 26 3/4 inches long, which puts her still in the 75th percentile on height and also means we're in the market for new car seats pretty soon since ours is only good 'till she's 29 inches; and her head is back up to the 25th percentile.

She is eating yogurt, apple sauce, rice cereal, baby oatmeal, and today she's trying sweet potatoes for the first time! We also let her suck on a banana through one of those nibbler things and she seemed to like it until later when it had turned brown - she wanted no part of that! I'm having to face the fact that I can't eat as much now that she doesn't need me as much - freedom has its price! ;)

She's sitting up pretty well (she still gets distracted and falls over sometimes) and she can roll over both ways, but usually doesn't like to do that (we put her on the floor and she's happy for a little bit, but then she wants up!). She loves her jumperoo, LOVES books (last night we were coming home from the store and she was getting really upset. We started to try to sing to her, but that wasn't helping, so then I started quoting "Moo, Baa, La La La" and she calmed right down. I quoted "That's Not My Dolly" and as much of "Barnyard Dance" as I could remember and she never fussed again!), and loves playing "Where's Catelyn?"!

She's getting both of her lower front teeth (they've both broken through the gums) and we've had a few fussy days, but she's mostly been really good about it. She's doing better with the spitting up - hardly ever has very much anymore, but she still has some issues with trying to go to the bathroom - hopefully her new diet full of fruits and veggies will help with that.

She is more fun than we could have imagined and we're head over heels in love! We definitely have a lot to be thankful for this year!

Fancy Nancy

Last night, my Bible Study class had a ladies' night. Last month we decorated scarecrow cookies, and this month was a "fancy" tea party. The idea was to wear all your grandmother's jewelry at once or pull out your fanciest tiara, or whatever - ham it up with the "fancy". So, I complied.

I didn't have many "fancy" bases to start with because, while I've lost all the baby weight (reminds me I need to update the tracker at the top), I've still got about 10-15 pounds to go to get back into a lot of the clothes in my closet. But I had this beaded top and a black skirt that I could get myself into, so I started there. Thankfully, my cute little shoes still fit fine.

I started with some earrings I have worn for dressy events (probably could have gone a little crazier on the earrings, but didn't have a lot of time to find things), the necklace I wore for my wedding (covered by the boa in the picture), my grandmother's cocktail ring, my mom's diamond and ruby ring, a diamond ring my mom bought me in high school, another "diamond" ring that I think also belonged to my grandmother, and a huge gaudy ring that was given to me. Then I put an ankle bracelet on each ankle, and put on 3 toe rings.

Then I went to the dress-up bin . . . I found a crazy-long string of "pearls", a pink feather boa, a rhinestone belt (hard to see against the beaded top), and the best find of all, a little hat that belonged to my great aunt or my grandmother (not sure). The hat has some sort of animal fur trimming it (mink I think, but Mike said I looked like I had a dead squirrel on my head!) and I think it's meant to go around a bun, but I slid it around my ponytail. To top it all off, I put some glitter on my eyelashes and cheeks. I was super-fancy!

We mostly just sat around and ate some "tea party food", drank some tea, and talked. It was fun to see people dressed up, although only a couple of other girls went quite as far out as I did! Most of them wore their everyday clothes and threw on as much jewelry as they could fit! One of them had on a tiara that is just like one my nieces have - you push the heart in the middle and it lights up and twinkles! I thought about borrowing one myself, but decided I had enough stuff on already!

Here's a pic of Catelyn asleep after she had rolled onto her tummy. She almost always turns herself at a 90 degree angle in her crib too - it's funny and I'm not sure why she does it. It does render the blocks we put under one end of her bed to help with her reflux, pretty useless! But she's awfully cute, so I think we'll accept her turning around in her bed!

Rolling Over!

I meant to get this written and posted last week, but better late than never!

(The pictures have nothing to do with the blog post title - just some cute pics my sister took of us and Catelyn at her house last weekend)

I don't actually have any pictures of Catelyn rolling over (or video), but since last Sunday (the 25th), she has rolled over from her back to her tummy a lot! I found her in bed that way Sunday morning, and then she repeated the trick for me and my mom several times that week. By this weekend, she's pretty much rolling over every time you put her in bed unless she's in her wearable blanket (it must slow her down).

She's also moving on to other foods! I had told my mom last week that I thought we needed to start making her bottles bigger because she seems so hungry in the evening. Today was the first day for her to make the bottles a full 8 oz. and Catelyn was still fussy, so she decided to try feeding her some yogurt (something she had tried before and kind of liked, but also made some weird faces at). She GOBBLED it up! Guess it's time to start that rice cereal!

Mike and I got to go on a retreat with our Bible Study class this weekend and it was great. Not many people made it out there, but it was a beautiful weekend at the church's property in Danbury and it was great to get to know some couples a little better! My mom was keeping Catelyn for us, but she came down with a virus, so Mike's sister, Mary stepped in to save the day! Catelyn didn't seem to miss us at all! ;) I really think she did, but she was well taken care of!

I am loving this fall weather, but I am ready for our household to be well! We had the swine flu, upper respiratory infections, and now it seems like Catelyn and I have colds. Daddy has felt a little bit sluggish at times, but he never went ahead and got sick, which is good because he has more limited time off than I do.

Later this week I'll get back the CD of pictures from the family pictures we had taken a couple of weekends ago. Let me just tell you - that was an adventure! 11 adults and 6 children (one 5 year old, four 4 year olds, and Catelyn!)! Wow! Those pictures are a treasure just because of the amount of work it took to get everyone's schedules coordinated and everything! I can't wait to post some here!

Catelyn is just a couple of weeks away from being 6 months old - I can't believe how time has flown and HOW MUCH she has changed! It is amazing! She is so fun and sweet and she is interacting with us more and more! Her favorite things are remote controls and cordless or cell phones! She is hilarious when she has one of those things in front of her - all of her attnention is focused on that object no matter what else is going on around her!

Well, I will try to get another update on here soon, and maybe I'll even get some rolling over video!

Our last couple of weeks

I had planned to get a 5 month picture taken and posted, but then our house came down with the flu! I got an infection that can give you flu-like symptoms, but when the infection got better, my other symptoms got worse. Unfortunately, I have a new doctor and she didn't believe that my symptoms were anything other than the infection, so she wouldn't see me and I had to suffer through the weekend with the most terrible part of the flu. By Monday, when I went in to get a flu test to see if that's what I had had, I was over it and the test came back negative. I was hopeful that I had not had the flu and hadn't exposed Catelyn to it.

No such luck. On Wednesday she started running a fever. My mom was able to take her to the doctor that day and he diagnosed her with the flu (not a surprise - I knew my doctor was wrong) and got her on Tamiflu. Thankfully, she was feeling a lot better by the next day . . . but then my mom came down with it! Yuck! And then one of my nieces got it. However, the kids' doctor put all 5 of them on medicine so that the others wouldn't get it, so hopefully we've stopped it in its tracks.

My nieces' and nephew's pediatrician said this is too early for the regular flu, so it was probably the swine flu! Unbelievable! I am more than a little frustrated with my doctor since she could have made me less contagious much sooner and maybe prevented some of the other people from getting it!

Anyway, Mom and Daphne are recovering and Catelyn and I are feeling good again. Mike managed to not ever catch it, which was wonderful. I've gotten my regular flu shot now and Mike gets his on Tuesday. Catelyn can't get one 'till she's 6 months old, but hopefully with Daddy, Mommy, and Grandma all vaccinated, she won't have anyone to expose her to it!

Now that we're healthy, we put Catelyn's Halloween costume on her and snapped a few pictures. I'm hoping to get her to a pumpkin patch soon, but we have a packed calendar coming up, so I figured I'd better take the pictures that I could for now!

Updates all around

First, I'll throw in a few recent pics.

Catelyn with Uncle Brian

Catelyn on her changing table

Pretty girl looking at us from her new big-girl crib

Catelyn is doing so well! At her 4 month appt. on 9/14, the doctor told me it was a good time to move her to her own room (we'd been working towards that, but didn't quite have her room ready plus the SIDS info. tells you to keep them in your room 'till 6 months, so I was waiting for her appt. to see what he said). He also told me she did not (nutritionally) need a middle-of-the-night feeding, and he told me to start putting her to bed before she was asleep so she could learn to fall asleep on her own. At that appt., he also took her off of the Zantac because most babies outgrow the need for it by 4 months.

I was worried about all of the changes at once, but we worked our tushies off and got her room ready and everything went really well. I think she was sleeping better because she wasn't hearing us make noises to wake her up. But a few nights passed and all of a sudden, she was only sleeping 1.5 hours at a time again - uh oh! No bueno! So, I first put her back on her medicine (at a slightly higher dose since he had mentioned that she was on a dose that was about half of what she should need at this point), and the next day, after seeing major improvement, I called the office and they called out the new dose for her.

She immediately started sleeping 9 and 10 hours at a time on the new dose of the medicine! The only thing that was waking her up was having a soaking wet diaper! But, she was still spitting up a ton, so I called again to ask if there was another medicine we could try or add to make that better (even the nursery workers at church asked if I knew my baby spit up a lot - they see a lot of babies, so they would know!). He wanted to see her again, so we went in on Wed. morning and he doubled the dose he had just put her on with the Zantac (he gave me really good reasons for not switching to another medicine or adding any other medicine). He said we could break it into 4 doses throughout the day if we wanted to try that.

So, we tried it, and wow . . . major improvement! She still spits up (as all babies do), but she is no longer coating us, the floor, and anything else that happens to get near her! It's incredible what a difference it has made.

She is not sitting up quite yet, but it seems like it will be any day - she is so strong! She is giggling more and more and becoming so much more interactive! She loves being read to, she loves her baths (she kicks and splashes now!), and she loves playing "Where is Catelyn?" She's starting to get just the tiniest bit ticklish, which is so fun! We haven't started any solid foods yet, but the Dr. recommended we try YoBaby yogurt for some digestive issues, so we're going to see how that goes!

As for Mommy, I'm still plugging along on the weight loss thing. I'm down 10% of my starting weight with Weight Watchers, so I'm pretty excited about that! I'm just shy of having lost 20 pounds, and I'm just about 4 pounds heavier than I was before I got pregnant (but you'll notice my goal is another 10 pounds lighter than that!). My sis gave me a hard time about not showing my actual weight (by the way, she just got her 60 pound star at WW!!! So proud!), and you know, it's not that I wouldn't tell any of my friends who wanted to know, but I just really don't want to publicize it to the whole world! Maybe once I'm back in my healthy weight range or when I get closer to my goal, I'll be that brave! But if you want to know, just ask - I'll be happy to tell you the true number!

The other big news with our family is that we just joined Sagemont Church. We had been going to the Pearland Campus of Second Baptist for a couple of years, but we never really got plugged in there, and because it met in a movie theatre, there weren't as many during-the-week options as you might have at other churches. My sister's kids just love the children's ministry at Sagemont and I really wanted Catelyn to have a ministry she'd love too. We have already gotten plugged into a Sunday School class and met some great couples who even live close to us (Bonus!) and who we can definitely see ourselves hanging out with and becoming good friends with! It's so awesome to finally feel like we're where we need to be church-wise - we haven't really felt that since even before we got married.

That's all for now . . . I mean to blog more often and hopefully I'll get more consistent with it soon! I just haven't had the oomph to sit down and write stuff up for a while - not that it's that hard - it's just something I haven't been able to get myself moving on! Hopefully a motivation fairy will hit me with some magic dust!

4 Months!

Yes, I'm a bad blogging mommy! I always have good intentions, but just never seem to get a post written! Anyway, yesterday was Catelyn's 4 month checkup and she's doing great. She's 25.25 inches, which is just above the 75th percentile for height, 13 pounds, 6.5 ounces, which is right at 50th percentile for weight, and her head is 15.50 inches, which is in the 10th percentile for her head. This is the only percentile that has changed since she was born - she started out with a 25th percentile head, but has gone down to 10th - the doctor says it's all fine though.

She was happy and chatty the whole time he was examining her, which was a change from previous visits. He told me she doesn't have a tooth like I thought - it is just a little epithelial cyst and he said it will go away. He said all the chewing is just because babies naturally explore everything with their mouths!

He encouraged me to go ahead and put her in her own room (something we've been working towards, but I just haven't felt totally comfortable putting her that far away - especially since I was still getting up to feed her in the middle of the night) and he said I don't have to feed her in the middle of the night anymore - he said that nutritionally she doesn't need it. He also told me to start putting her to bed when she's still awake - she can be drowsy, but she needs to learn to fall asleep on her own. We tried it last night and it worked great - she chatted to her mobile for a while, then fussed so I went in and swaddled her and gave her her pacifier and walked out and she was fine! I was shocked!

Anyway, she's very healthy and we're very blessed! Here are a few recent pics (the ones with the hair sticking up were after her bath - her hair wasn't messed up on purpose, but it's cute!)