7 Months

Kate turned 7 months old on Monday. These two pictures pretty much summarize what she is up to these days:

Front view.

Back view.

She's pulling herself up, standing, and climbing up on anything she can! Although she is now crawling for real (no more army crawling), she's already over it, and prefers to spend a good portion of her day standing up with the help of this chair:

She's sitting here. but that's only because I posed her for the picture.

This was the moment the standing started on December 29th:

Kate was desperately trying to get over Nici's legs to get to the fireplace.

Nici loves this crazy girl!

Steve and I both agree that this phase is much harder than when Kate was a newborn. She's still in the really good baby category, but she is waking up A LOT overnight, some nights every two hours, and we cannot take our eyes off of her for one second. She's so active and we don't want her to get hurt. We are hoping that her waking up at night is tied to more teething (it's definitely happening) or all of her new motor development and once one or both slow down she'll return to just one wake up per night. Or, maybe her sleep will get better once she figures out that solid food is good and filling! We're still working on it. Right now, about one out of every five eating attempts goes alright (just alright - not good). But, we have "mastered" bananas, avocados, sweet potatoes, carrots, and pears. We are now working on sweet peas.

The day Kate turned 7 months old also marked my return to work. This week I am slowly easing into it, only leaving Kate for 3 or 4 hours to get ready for next week when classes start. As my maternity leave is coming to an end, I am trying to not be sad and instead be grateful that it happened. The 7 months I got to spend entirely focused on Kate were absolutely glorious. I know a lot is going to change with me back at work, but my promise to Kate is to now make the time we do get together even more special.  And, until Monday, I am going to soak up as much of this girl as I can.

At Duke's in Malibu.
January 4, 2015

Christmas

"Christmas isn't a season, it's a feeling."

Get ready for a picture heavy post as I document Kate's First Christmas!

On the 23rd, after some shaming from Rachel, Aimee, and Nici for not taking Kate to see Santa, we squeezed in a visit with the big guy at the Santa Monica Place Mall.

The final product is featured at the end of this post.

Kate wasn't at all phased by Santa. She remained her happy, smiling self the entire time. It's how she typically is when we are out and about. She likes interacting people and taking in new sights. But, her visit might have also gone so well because she never really looked too closely at whose lap she was on. She was much more interested in all the decorations around Santa's chair.

Santa's Mall Headquarters provided a nice photo op.

We spent Christmas Eve at Aunt Rachel's and Uncle Derek's in Costa Mesa. After battling some serious traffic to get there, we had a prime rib dinner and enjoyed present opening with my parents and brother and cousins, Shane and Ella:

All dressed up in their Christmas dresses from grandma.

Kate with Grandpa checking out all the Christmas cards hanging up.

She got Aunt Rachel's hair!

"What's in that big bag? Is it all for me?"

The girls, post present opening, in their cozy Christmas jammies.
Kate has one of her favorite gifts in her hand here -- her own smartphone from Grandma!

Dessert time.

Our little family.

Christmas morning at home:

As we figured it would be, the paper and ribbons were a much bigger hit than anything that was actually wrapped up.

Kate approved of my new wallet from Steve.

Happy girls.

Christmas Day we were back down in Orange County at Nici and Aaron's in Newport Beach for our big family gathering:

First, the food.

Then, the present opening!
Gifts Galore.
Paige hoped for more orderly gift opening this year, but it didn't happen!

Kate's big gift - her own chair from the Andrews, McGowans, and Great Uncle Skip and Aunt Diane.

Feeling loved.
Uncle Skip, other the hand, was obviously feeling tired (look between us)!

"Hey Dad, you better plan on sharing that homemade beef jerky from Uncle Skip that's in your pocket with me!"

Aimee and the newest addition to the McGowan family, Coco.

All the little cousins (18 and under) on the couch.
From left to right: Kevin, Kelsey, Kate, Emily, Shane, Cole, Ashley, Ella

I love that the Christmas holiday brought two of my best friends, who both now live in D.C., home:

Chan!

Natalie and our girls in Alta Loma.

Kate with Baby Evelyn (7 weeks old).

Kristy too!
The three of us have been friends since high school. That's 20 years!

Kate's Christmas continued on all the way through this past weekend when we visited the Pestana family in South Pasadena:

I don't know what Kate was doing here, but Ben, Jack, and Caroline are very amused!

Liz showing Kate her new talking puppy.

As you can see, Kate's First Christmas was a huge success.

 Thank you to everyone who helped her celebrate and begin to learn what Christmas is truly about.