Florida

Katelyn and Dave spent 5 days in Florida visiting Nana. I wasn't able to go, but they reportedly had a great time!


Here are some highlights:

• Her first plane ride.  She did really well!  Hats off to Dave for braving an airplane ride with an active one year old.
• Her first trip to the beach. 
• Her first trip to the zoo.  Not surprisingly, Katelyn loved the zoo, especially the elephants.  She also wanted the monkey-- or rather, the banana the monkey was eating. 

waiting for the plane

at the beach with Nana

with Daddy

It didn't take long to abandon riding in the stroller at the zoo.  Zoo map in hand, she preferred to push the stroller and point in the direction she wanted to go.

She's pretended to be an elephant ever since.

She loves water!

Molars and Animals

Holy Molars!  This round of teething somehow caught me off guard.  Since Katelyn only has three bottom teeth, I was surprised to discover a first year molar coming in on top. Teething molars is ROUGH.  The fever spikes, erratic sleeping, fits of unconsolable screaming, unpredictable eating... it's all very fun.  Wow.  It's like having a newborn all over again.  This too shall pass, right?

Here are a couple of random, happy pictures I took... before the molars began... it was a simpler time.  :)

Lately, this has been Katelyn's expression of choice right when I'm about to take the picture.  After I take the picture, she giggles like she did it on purpose.

About 90% of the time that Katelyn is awake, she is pretending to be an animal.  I can't stress this enough.  Whether she's eating, playing, almost asleep, or not quite awake, chances are good that she's pretending to be an animal-- usually a dog (although monkey, fish, horse, elephant, and alligator are also favorites).  Last weekend she had a fever of 103, and as I lifted her out of her crib to give her medicine, her eyes barely open, she pretended to be a dog.

My favorite is when we're in the car and I adjust the sun visor.  As soon as I raise my arm to move the visor, she raises her arm and pretends to be an elephant.  Every. Single. Time.  It keeps me laughing!  When I first noticed this and wanted to see if it was coincidental, I had a little fun and raised the visor up and down, up and down... but sure enough, she would raise her arm and make her "Ahhhh" elephant sound repeatedly, as if on cue.  Love it! 

pretending to be an elephant

This is how a normal "conversation" goes on our way home in the afternoons:

Me: Did you have a good day?
Katelyn: *makes a fish face*
Me: We're going to stop at Wal-Mart on our way home.
Katelyn: *pretends to be a dog*
Me: Daddy is excited to see you!  We're almost home.
Katelyn: *pretends to be a monkey, then quickly switches to dog, since, in the mind of Katelyn, home = dog.*
Throw in a couple of elephants and several more dogs, and then we're home.  Love her!