Snow Day!

Well, even though I'm sure this is the 16th blog you've read about a snow day...I couldn't leave ours off!

Thursday morning the snow started coming down! Most of the time, the flakes were HUGE!

In the afternoon after it had been snowing awhile, I put Kate's jacket on & took her out to snap a few pictures & let her see the snow. She LOVED watching the big flakes. She would hold her hand out to feel them & smile so big!

She did NOT like falling in it though...

The next morning when we woke up it had snowed a total of 7 inches! A Texas Winter Wonderland!

the fountain in front of our house

5 inches in our backyard!

The front of our house

Our backyard

Kate's swing!

After breakfast, Kate & I got bundled up and woke David up to go play in the snow with us!

Daddy & Kate

Mommy & Kate

our self portrait :)

Daddy showing Kate the snow

So much fun! It's crazy that it's still hanging around too. Definitely melting a lot, but I think this is my first time to wake up two mornings in a row with snow in my yard!

Valentine's Day Photos

We didn't quite get around to sending out a Christmas card...so when so many of Kate's Valentine's Day pictures turned out I decided to make a card to send to our family. Now that they've gotten them, I thought I'd share it with you...

...and some that didn't make it on the card, but I still loved!

Hope you have a great day filled with love!

Happy 14 Months Kate!

I did this post a little differently. Instead of at the end of the month thinking back through & trying to remember what had happened, I started the post at the beginning of the month & have been adding to it all along. So, there is a little more than usual, but it helped me remember more funny little things I just don't want to forget :)

This Month Kate:

is SO FUN! I tell David all the time how much fun I'm having with her right now. Her vocabulary is growing as she tries to repeat everything I say.

--1st pigtails! Which she HATES to have done.

Doesn't she look so old in this picture??

--puts her hands out to the side & shrugs when you ask her where something/someone is like "I don't know?"

--adding signing "Thank You" to her repertoire

--says the same thing everytime she wants something. Not sure what it is...sounds like "This?"

--loves books even more this month

--"helps" me when I'm dressing her - offers her foot when I get socks out, etc. Was doing this a little last month, but always this month

--signs "sentences": eat-more-please (do you notice that a lot of her development revolves around eating! ha!)

--sense of humor really taking off. This started sometime last month, but I didn't write it down. When people laugh, she'll keep doing whatever it is she's doing. A little class clown on our hands :)

--She also started "telling" funny stories. She babbles along talking, then laughs at the end like whatever she just said is SO funny.

--is FINALLY totally walking. Been a looooong slow process since she started taking steps at THANKSGIVING! Even trying to run.

--LOTS of new words: book "buu", ball "baa", no, up - for some reason she says this "muh", bye "bi", thank you "tane too", diaper "dipuh", thank you "tane too", balloon "buh" - sounds a lot like book, but says it when there are balloons around, all done "all duh", baby "bebe"

--a new tooth! This one has been bulging FOREVER! Top right (next to the middle) finally broke through

--covers her mouth to cough - apparently she learned this from David b/c he saw her do it a lot before I ever did. It's a fake cough, but after spending a Monday night with him when he had a cough, anytime someone coughs or she thinks of it, she covers her mouth & offers a few little fake coughs too.

--learning to use a spoon. Can scoop food and get it from the bowl to her mouth, but this is quite messy, so we only practice at home :)

--understands so much more than I realized. I can tell her to get her paci while we're in the car, and she will & put it in her mouth. I can ask her to sit down & she points down and does it (well, most of the time!).

--answers all questions with "no". No matter what the question. So far, it's just funny. Won't be so funny when she's telling me no for real.

--Still has a great love affair with eating. Moans & yells at me when I don't move fast enough!

--Stops to turn around, wave & say bye "bi" when she's leaving the room you're in to explore the rest of the house.

--shrugs her shoulders & scrunches her face all up when asked to smile

--learning her body parts. Knows where her head, tummy, toes, eyes, ears & nose are. When you ask her where her tummy is, she'll lift up her shirt to show you.

Nana & Poppa Visit

Well, once Kate learned to say Poppa, they couldn't help themselves and made the trek to come see Kate last weekend. We had a relaxing weekend of eating out, shopping, and just hanging around the house. I even got to sleep in on Sunday morning!

Kate got to open some Valentine's Day goodies a little early...

Nana picked out this adorable shirt at Gap for Kate! It matched her pants from her birthday perfectly :)

They also brought her some other clothes & this an Elmo book. Kate loves it. She shows it by ringing that doorbell on the book over and over and OVER. All day. She loves it :)

Nana & Poppa even left us more surprises to open on Valentine's Day! Thanks for coming to visit us!

Couponing

Well, I decided to bite the bullet & try to learn to use coupons. I get so tired of spending money at the grocery store! I'm not so much interested in saving money to put it in savings, because well...David makes our budget tight enough for that! haha! But, I would just so much rather spend it differently. If I could save $100 a month, I would much rather spend it on going on a date or buying a gift for someone or something a whole lot better than groceries.

So, I asked a good friend to teach me all that she knows about couponing & I'm going to try it out. I have a few hesitations - spending too much time on it, buying stuff I don't need, having to "stockpile" a bunch of stuff we don't need this week just because we might need it in a few weeks. But, I decided it was worth a try to see how it works for me. I want to keep record of it for this first month to see what I can accomplish...

So, last Sunday I bought my first paper to clip coupons out of, checked out a few blogs to tell me what the best sales were, and headed to Kroger today - IN THE SNOW! For my first trip, I got $28 of groceries for $13! I only bought a few things (pic below), but I wanted to just get a few for my first try out. And, I'm trying really hard not to buy things we wouldn't have before just b/c I have a coupon for it. So, it wasn't an enormous savings - but it was more than %50 off!

I even had my first "that couponing girl" moment when one of my items wasn't ringing up right & had to get her to fix it. Oh well.

Here's Kate in the snow when we got out to the car! Such a trooper :)

I'll keep you updated as I go! (I know you're dying to know...)

I can only imagine...

what will come out of her mouth someday...

Nana?...Poppa?...

Yesterday Kate was playing with my phone - I would talk on it, then she would talk on it. One time, I was asking her who it was, and as usual she said Nana (this is who she usually talks to on the phone). Then, I asked her if it was Poppa & she repeated me! She has been saying Nana for awhile, but this was a first time with the Poppa! My dad was pretty convinced it was going to take awhile...but look, Dad!