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I completed Katherine’s first year scrapbook! Only 8 months after her first birthday but since my mom is currently working on some year in the 1980’s I figure that is pretty good. It is not 100% done as I still need to do some labeling and journaling but all of the pictures and main decorations are done.

October 26th started with me remembering that this is the anniversary of my Uncle Kent’s going home to be with the Lord, just one year ago. I called my mom to talk to her and see how she was doing. His death was different from others in my life because it was someone younger, not a grandparent. I am not ready to think about parents dying.

It then was a happy day because we found out the day before that Sam’s youngest brother Justin was getting married today. We knew that he was pretty serious about Leah and he had mentioned that she was the one. He lives in Hawaii so we have not met her yet but we look forward to meeting her at Christmas. Welcome to the family Leah!

The day ended on a sad note when we found out that Sam’s Nanny passed away. She has been doing poorly and has been in a nursing home for some time. Nanny was the last living grandparent for either of us. She lived to be 95. Nanny was a strong Christian woman and we can be excited that she is with the Lord and is no longer suffering.

I have a confession to make - I am addicted to reading blogs. I have a google reader account to manage all of the blogs that I follow and I currently have 39 friends and 3 family blogs that I subscribe to. There are about 5 others who will not work with the subscription service for one reason or another. That is not bad though, I know all of those people. What is bad is that I also follow the blogs of many complete strangers. I follow 29 different photographers for inspiration and 50 other blogs that interested me in some way either because they are about parenting, travel, nutrition or other cute kids.

Two of the random blogs that I have been following for a month or two are some parents of quadruplets. One of the couples, the Steeces are from my area and even graduated from A&M. They are so cute. Last night I spent more time than I wold like to admit reading blogs of several other families who have had quads or quints in the last year. It is so fascinating. If you are interested in reading about them, just go to the blogs of the Steece quads,  the Murray Crew, Billy and Monica, the Burkett Quadsquad, the Goodfellows, the Tubre quads, the Wright Five, JonZReaTom, and the Wilson Quints.

What have I learned from this time “wasted” on the internet? If I learn something, then it was not really wasted was it? I have learned that I am so thankful for what I have. These parents had much more difficult pregnancies, usually being on bedrest from about 18 or 20 weeks on. Some were even hospitalized that early. Many traveled to Phoenix to deliver with a perinatologist who specializes in high risk multiple births. I had an amazingly easy pregnancy. At 18 weeks I was barely beginning to show that I was pregnant and I was still able to work out at the gym the day before I delivered. These babies were delivered between 27 and 34 weeks. 34 weeks is about as long as a doctor will let them go. Katherine was born at 40 weeks 3 days, just past full term. As you can imagine, a baby born 3 months early has a lot of complications and has to spend a lot of extra time in the hospital. When you have 4 babies in the hospital it must be exhausting. They don’t get to come home with you and they don’t come home at the same time.

Once they are home, the adventure just begins. I sure was whiney for awhile when Katherine was crying a lot, I was trying to learn to nurse and she wold not sleep. Imagine with 4 babies how hard it would be to have any personal time and just think of how much crying there would be. The positive would be that your family is complete in one pregnancy (for most people it would be) and as they get older they are able to entertain themselves. You pretty much have your own playgroup every day.

Katherine was a huge change for my life. It has been 20 wonderful months. We want to have another someday. If we have problems getting pregnant next time around, these families will make me really evaluate whether I am up to the risk of fertility treatments. Obviously God knows what he is doing but I just hope that I don’t have quads next time around.

20 months old today - the last month has just flown by. I feel like you are changing so much. You are so much more of a little girl than a baby most of the time.

You are so caring and loving. You are learning to say “I love you” or ”I faff ewe” and it is so cute. You love to give hugs and kisses to mommy and daddy and to your baby and all of your animals. You love your baby doll and carry her around with you all the time. You pretend to put her to sleep by putting her in your crib and covering her with a blanket. Then you close the door, say “shhh” and then “night night”. You continue to say “shh” and “night night” until it is time to wake up baby. Baby has a special blanket that you are always arranging and rearranging on her. I love looking over at you and seeing you hug and kiss your baby. You take care of your baby by cleaning her face with a wipe (clean), changing her diaper and feeding her. I did not coach you to do these things. It is amazing how little girls just instinctively are so maternal.

The other night it was really cute.  Daddy and Mommy were sitting on the couch with you in the middle reading a book. Then I asked you to give me a kiss, “mmmmmma” (the kiss noise). Then you gave daddy a kiss, “mmmmmmma”. Then you grabbed mommy’s chin and daddy’s chin and turned them together and said “mmmmmmma”. Over and over you turned our heads so that we would kiss. I had just read an article that day in a Christian parenting magazine about the importance of your children seeing you kiss and show affection to your spouse. It was really sweet.

I am starting to see a sense of humor. When we are reading books sometimes you will do the wrong animal sign or sound on purpose and then look at me to see if I notice. You love to be tickled and to tickle. We have a tickle monster that comes for you and you have started to try to imitate the tickle monster when you tickle mommy, daddy or baby. The cutest part is that when you tickle one of us, you laugh too.

You are so smart. It is not just me that thinks so too. Today your babysitter was amazed at how many words and signs you knew. I am amazed at the connections that you make. The other day I sat you in a high chair that is different from what you are used to. I asked you if you remember sitting in the same one at Nikolas’ house. You then said his name and started to do the sign for cat. Nikolas is the only friend you have that has a cat at his house. I was amazed that by mentioning his high chair you remembered his cat. I am so glad you know sign language or else we would not have been able to have that conversation.

You are starting to learn and say friends names. Some of them you have not known for very long but you remember them. It is fun to see you making friends.

Growing up one of our family activities as playing games after dinner. I was telling Sam about how when we were in preschool we would play “animals” where one person would silently act out an animal and the others would guess. Uncle Will would always just walk on all fours and get so frustrated when we could not guess what it was. We decided to see if you were ready for animals and you actually were able to guess some of them. How fun!

You enjoy singing. Sometimes I will hear you singing to yourself. You have a few books that we sing to you and when you pick them up to read on your own you sing your own version. you have a musical piano that plays nursery rhymes. When you pressed the key for itsy-bitsy spider, you started doing the motions. You also love to sing and do the motions for the wheels on the bus.

You are able to follow directions very well (when you want to). In the morning you will find daddy after he has gotten ready in the bathroom and he will ask you to go take his pajamas and put them on his bed. You will follow them exactly. The other day we were changing your diaper and clothes in the bathroom and forgot a shirt. We asked you to go into your room and get your white shirt off the bed. We had no idea what you would come back with. you came back with a white shirt.

I really enjoy that your language skills are improving so much both in your ability to understand and your ability to communicate. You both sign and say phrases of several words such as “more cheese please”. It sure helps to know what you want.

This month you have had several more teeth come in. It has not seemed to bother you once your eruption cyst came and went. It sure is helping you to be able to eat more food. I really enjoy that if we are out and about and a mealtime approaches I can feed you from our plate and not have to have your own food with us. Usually I am prepared with some of your favorites but you are getting better about eating what we eat.

Yes, you are still nursing. I go back and forth about how I feel about this. I still really enjoy it at times and I am very tired of it at times. I had hoped that you would taper off and wean yourself by now but you show no desire to slow down. I need to come up with a plan on how to wean you without it being too traumatic on you.

You are doing very well with potty training, at least as much as I am trying to accomplish at this point. In the last week and a half the only “dirty” dipaer I have had to change was when we were out of town and there was no toddler toilet for you to use. So, you are really good about wanting to go #2 in the toilet. That seems to be what most kids have more problems with. Now if I could get you to hold #1. I have started to look for underwear or training pants for you and it seems that not only are you on the younger end of kids that are working on toilet training, but you are small for you rage as well so there are no options for me to buy. Hmmm.

You are growing so much more independent. You do not fear wandering off from your mommy when we are at a park. You go play with other kids at the playground. You run, climb, and jump. You want to do things all by yourself from eating to dressing your baby. It is so fun to see this independence. This inependence often manifests itself in stubborness and frustration. It is so hard to know when to step in to help and when to let you be frustrated and figure things out. Daddy and I struggle with knowing how to best discipline you. We know you understand things because when you are doing something you know you are not supposed to do, you actually will scold yourself as you are doing it. We pray that we can discipline you fairly, appropriately and in love so that you not only become obedient in your outward behavior but so that your heart is obedient and you do the right thing for the right reason.

I love you sweet Katherine and cannot wait to see what the next month brings.

Jen had this fun little quiz on her blog. It asks you to answer questions about words that sound similar or the same and then evaluates your accent. My accent is from the “Midland”. Whenever I travel people are surprised that I am fron Texas because I don’t have much of a southern accent. Really my only giveaway is the fact that the word “ya’ll” is a regular part of my vocabulary. Most people do seem to think I am from the midwest.

I am not talking about the weather though there was no precipitation today. I am talking about diapers folks, yes diapers. With the exception of the first diaper of the day which was on overnight Katherine had no wet diapers today. She successfully used her toddler toilet all day long! This includes after an almost 3 hour nap and after a bath. I know she is a long way from being potty trained but I tell you what, if I can continue to avoid changing poopy diapers even half the days, I am pretty happy.

In a little over a year we will elect a new President. That means a year of political ads and campaigning. I ran across a quiz on the internet where you can answer questions and see which candidate best fits you. I selected Tom Tancredo. To be honest, I have never heard of him but I left his website open to read over more tomorrow.

By the way, I guess I have always thought of politicians as pretty old and out of it. Tom Tancredo’s webpage has links to his profile on myspace, facebook, flikr, youtube, meetup and eventful as well as his blog. I don’t know why that is surprising to me. They all have PR staff that help them to reach as many people as possible and the internet is the best way to do it.

– Take the Quiz! –

I have been “tagged” again by Jen. Here are my answers.

MAN TAG:
1. Who is your man? Sam
2. How long have you been married? 5 years on December 21st.
3. How long dated? We dated 4.5 months before we were engaged and 4 more months before we were married.

4. How old is your man? 33
5. Who eats more? Sam 
6. Who said “I love you” first? Sam, but I brought up our DTR conversation (Define the Relationship)
7. Who is taller? Sam. He’s 6 ft, I’m 5′8″
8. Who sings better? Me
9. Who is smarter? Sam
10. Whose temper is worse? mine
11. Who does the laundry? Usually me
12. Who takes out the garbage? Sam
13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? At home, me. If we are traveling, Sam sleeps on the side that is closest to the door so that he can protect me if there are middleof the night intruders. So far it has not happened.
14. Who pays the bills? Me.
15. Who is better with the computer? Sam is better at technical stuff. I am better at fun stuff like blogs, photos, etc. Computers are a necessary, frustrating presence in our lives.
16. Who mows the lawn? Mike Lybrand and his crew of 4 Mexicans bow, edge and blow the grass in only 12 minutes.
17. Who cooks dinner? Usually me, but he helps a lot if he is home in time.

18. Who drives when you are together? Sam drives, I direct.

19. Who pays when you go out? Usually Sam but since it all comes from the same place I do at times.

20. Who is most stubborn? Me
21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? I would say Sam because I hate to admit I am wrong.
22. Whose parents do you see the most? Mine, since they are in town.
23. Who kissed who first? It just kind of happened with us both knowing it was about to happen so I guess we kissed each other.

24. Who asked who out? Sam emailed me to confirm our first dinner date but I had no recollection of him asking me out before that email. We still can’t remember how it happened.
25. Who proposed? Sam proposed at the Arboretum after a picnic by singing me a song that he wrote and then giving me the ring in a box with a special light that he had rigged up. 26. Who is more sensitive? We are both sensitive in different ways.
27. Who has more friends? Me 
28. Who has more siblings? We have the same. He has one brother and a step brother and step sister who he was raised with and does not consider steps at all. I have one brother and two half sisters (does that mean I have a whole sister then?) who live in St. Louis so I don’t see them often.
29. Who wears the pants in the family? Yikes, I would hope to say Sam but in reality one of my biggest weaknesses as a wife is taking over and leading where I should sit back and let Sam be in charge. It really depends.

 I tag Amy, Heather, Jaime  Shannon and Erin.

Tonight we had dinner at one of Sam’s coworker’s house. It was NOT babyproof and we were in such a rush to get there that we did not remember to bring her any toys. She actually did quite well. She was a little interested in the Jade statue of horses but it remained safe. She also enjoyed pushing all of the books further back on the bookshelf.

Her favorite was punching the on/off button on the Roomba. I was watching and quietly waiting to see if she would get it to start. Nothing happened for a long time and then all of a sudden the little robot came out of it’s dock and moved right in her direction. She ran and was quite scared. Everyone thought it was really funny and really cute. The funniest part was her reaction over the next 15 minutes. While Sam was holding her she would furrow her brow and babble on and on in a serious tone while shaking her finger. Then when we put her down she went near the Roomba and was literally scolding it. That is what the picture is of. I wish I had a video. It was so hilarious.

I have mentioned before that Katherine has had a language explosion. It is so fun. I have had a list of her words for some time and today I added all the ones I could think of that she says. The list has 110 spoken words and 50 signs. I am sure there are even more. Of course some of these words would be hard for another person to recognize, but these are words that are pretty close and said in context, either while pointing to the actual object or to a photo in a book. And this is not repeating words, I am not cheating to increase my daughter’s vocabulary. She is talking all the time. The cutest is when she picks up the phone. She is also learning all of her names. By looking at pictures of family and friends she can either name on her own or point correctly to her entire family on both sides and about 5 friends. The photos above are of her saying and then signing “cheese” when she was having her picture taken.