mmm...beer

I think I need to take this test several times to see what the different outcomes are. The first time I took it, I got 'Bud Light'. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I refuse to drink this nastiness and that I am actually quite a beer snob. So I decided maybe I drink beer from a bottle more often than from a glass, and that savoring the taste of my favorite beer was a better description than relaxing and unwinding. And then I got 'Guinness'.

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world.Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them.When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well.But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

So. Mostly I think the writers probably don't know good beer, and also I'd like to enjoy a nice cool Mirror Pond Pale Ale right about now. Check out the quiz for yourself: What's Your Beer Personality? Thanks to Katie for the link.

Kate likes pulled pork sandwiches. With extra BBQ sauce. It's what I had for lunch, and after her lunch of Cheerios and an apple wagon wheel, she was ready for some good food, too, I guess.

Also, everything is now a push-toy. Books, boxes, the cat, things without wheels.

http://media.putfile.com/everything-is-a-push-toy

Oh, and I almost forgot: I finally got a picture of Kate's teeth! It also includes some food.

she's going to start climbing soon

Kate realized this morning that she is almost able to get her knee up on the step chest and start climbing it to get what is out of reach. This never really occured to me. I thought that she'd figure out how to climb things someday, but I guess I never really thought about it. If she gets up on that first step, then falls over...oooh, that's not good.

Okay, naptime is over, so that'll have to do it. Ciao for now!

ew, ew, ew, ewwwwwwww

GROSS. I went into Kate's room to pick her up out of her crib this morning from her nap, and this was on her dust ruffle:

In case you can't see the magnitude of this spider, it is the largest spider I have seen outside of a cage, where all spiders should be unless they are dead. How did it get in my house? And how did it get into the baby's room?? Stupid insects. Spiders. ICKY. What good is my cat if she isn't hunting these enormous creatures? I think I would rather have bears roaming around outside than spiders like this in my house.

After my heart attack that preceded the Raid attack this morning (to which Kate was oblivious, thank God), she enjoyed a nice breakfast of oatmeal and Cheerios. She is now eating Cheerios! I pretty much have to feed them to her because she just likes to pick them all up and hold them in her hands, but she likes them.

Hope you're all having a less eventful Monday than I am.

endless entertainment

Starbuck the kitten is proving to be one of Kate's favorite toys. She makes Kate laugh, and Kate enjoys trying to chase her around. Kate's gotten a few scratches for not being gentle with the kitty, but overall things are going well. I think it's worth it for my entertainment alone.

http://media.putfile.com/falling-down-laughing

http://media.putfile.com/Starbuck-is-so-funny

Is everybody watching?

I'm going to let go now.

Look at me!

We went to dinner at my sister's house last night, and Kate showed off by standing up without holding onto anything. She's getting better at this everyday. She also learned that playing the piano is fun.

i think Kate hates JC Penny

For the past several times that we've taken her to JC Penny for her photos, she has pretty much refused to smile. The Picture People? Loves 'em. Curtis Almquist? Loved him. The expensive photographers she seems to love, JC Penny not so much. I guess I can't really blame her - they have sort of dingy props and a dark cramped room that they take photos in. But you can't beat $7.99 for all kinds of photos. Guess we'll just keep the Picture People on our list for a couple of times a year.

Kate turned 9mo yesterday. Nine months! Already! She didn't gain any weight last month, which kind of worried me, until I checked the back of her thighs and reassured myself that she's getting plenty to eat. Last month she was in the 90th percentile for weight, this month she's down to like 70. I think we're doing okay. She might have grown 2 inches over the past month, too. Although I imagine a more likely scenario is that I did a sucky job of measuring her last month. But she's 29" now. Such a big girl!

We haven't done much else lately, except swim, because it's too hot! Monsoon season is close at hand, though, which should cool things down a bit. Then we'll swim in the streets. Kidding...

almost a whole week?

I thought I just updated y'all, but I guess it's been awhile. Happy Father's Day! We had a pretty good weekend, mostly just relaxing. It's hot here, so the weather has been calling for siestas. I think it's 108 today. Whew.

Kate's been learning new tricks, like eating whole foods, and using her walker to walk. She decided she wasn't content to just crawl everywhere over the weekend, and began pushing her walker around. She was a little unstable at first, but soon got the hang of it.

http://media.putfile.com/running-over-Starbuck-and-crashing

Last week she sat with begging eyes as I ate macaroni and cheese for lunch. So I gave her some. She LOVES it. Now she wants everything I am eating, and will climb up on you if she can so she can steal some of your food. On Sunday she wanted canteloupe.

http://media.putfile.com/canteloupe-is-so-good-Im-going-to-spit-it-out

We spent the morning of Father's Day watching Brasil win some World Cup soccer. She has started to scrunch up her nose and breath out of her nose at the same time, which is a really strange yet cute combination. I'm not sure where she learns these things! I was surprised with the pouts we got when she was newborn, and now this is another Kateism, I guess.

http://media.putfile.com/Kate-cheers-on-Brasil-and-does-the-weird-scrunchy-nose-thing

She got Daddy a nice card, and even signed it with a hand print. She of course wanted to help him open his card, and then she wanted to eat it.

Here Dad, let me help you open your card.

The darling is waking from her afternoon nap, so I'll sign off for now.

i feel teeth!

Two of them, in fact. I thought I'd been seeing white bumps on Kate's bottom gum, but hadn't felt much besides a slight lump. Now I feel sharp ridges! The things that can happen overnight.

We got Kate a new toy over the weekend, Starbuck. She's an 8-week-old kitten, and is quite the terror. Kate has been enjoying tormenting her, and watching her jump around. They both have strong personalities, so I imagine they will be able to hold their own against each other. Starbuck was certainly Kate's favorite thing all day Sunday; she kept shrieking whenever she spotted the kitten.

You can climb out through the door, kitty.

photos from Oregon

Here are a few photos from our trip. I'll keep trying Shutterfly to get the rest online (none of my photos would upload yesterday). Enjoy these for now!

Playing with blocks with cousin Hannah.

I bet Grandma will let me lick the chocolate cake beater when Mom leaves.

First time on a swing. This is fun!

Hanging out with Mom before her baptism.

Tim & Kate at Seaside.

Serious baby.

we're back!

What a trip! We had a great time, but we are tired and need a vacation from our vacation. We drove to Silverton, Oregon in 3 days a little more than 2 weeks ago, stopping in San Diego to see Grampa and Vovo, then in Sacramento, and then made it to Silverton. Just a note for those of you who have infants, when Yahoo says a drive will take 8.5 hours, with a child it will take you on average 11 to 11.5 hours to complete that drive. We found this out in California. Overall, the drive wasn't too bad, but Kate refused to go to sleep in her PNP at a normal hour for much of the trip, and this meant some late nights for us. But we were on vacation, so that also meant lots of naps for us!

We spent a few days in Silverton, where we caught up with family, and we had Kate baptized that first weekend we were there. On Tuesday we met in a park for family photos (and when I say family, this is not your average-sized group: we had 20 people there, I think, and that's just Tim's immediate family!). This went pretty well considering there were 11 children amongst the masses. After that we packed up and headed to the coast for 3 days. We spent some mostly rainy days in Seaside (if you've never been to the OR coast, many days spent there are rainy), where we introduced Kate to the Pacific Ocean, and we relaxed with family. From there, we drove to Seattle for a very short visit with a couple of friends. It was great to see Seattle again, but I wish we'd had more time! We'll be back over Labor Day as we will be attending Christy and Jonas' wedding. Back to Silverton for a couple more days, and then we began the long drive home. We decided that we ought to take 4 days to return, and that worked out better for all of us.

Kate was pretty happy to return home, and is enjoying sleeping in her very own crib and playing with her toys. But I think she misses all of her cousins and wonders where everyone is.

Grampa feeds Kate.

Cowgirl Kate.

More photos later, as I'm having trouble with the blogger site at the moment...