Burpin' the baby.

Words

Katie's been using sign language since she was 9 mo. old. While she did stop signing while she learned to walk, she made up for it right after. She now picks up signs very quickly and even makes up her own. (It can be a little challenging trying to find out what some of the made up ones mean.) I've been trying to compile a list of the words she can sign...but there are new ones all the time. I'm gonna try again, here we go:

Ball, bird, water, horse, fish,
more, eat, banana, turtle, peas,
sheep, dog, cat, change, diaper,
up, cracker, book, sleepy, bath,
toothbrush, hairbrush, shoes, flower, airplane,
daddy, pig, dirty, baby, bubbles,
dinosaur, bean, milk, teeth, go,
bunny, and bellybutton

She is also starting to say words, although her pronunciation is not quite perfect most of the time. Here are the words she can say:

Bubbles, dada, mama, cracker (Ka Ker), hi,
bellybutton (bell bun), yes (yep), no (nope), go, water (wah wah),
book (booo), and Bum Paste (bu pahss)
**You can thank Johnny for that last one.**

She is also great with exclamations. "oh!" "oops!" "ahh!" and "un-oh" are her very favorites, and she uses them frequently.

I see some peas.

Our year in pictures

Katie's New Hat

I crocheted this cute hat for Katie...she hates it. Good thing it has a chin strap...harder for her to rip off her head. I had to distract her by letting the dog attack her ball just so I could snap these photo's. *sigh* she is so unappreciative. ;)

A walk in the Gardens

Johnny and I took Katie to The Japanese Gardens...the very place that Johnny proposed to me. :) Katie had so much fun looking at the koi and signing "fish". So cute! She was amazed at the peacocks and kept saying "peh'COCK" LOL. Here are some pictures:

Signing "fish"

She wanted to climb of this bridge and into the water SO badly!

Pointing out the "peh'COCKS" in case we missed them.

What is Katie pointing out now?
More "peh'COCKS" of course!

A Pinky sized bridge for peaking over.

We had to drag her away from this bridge...she would have spent all day climbing up it if we had let her.

Music We Love.

You're listening to It's A Big World by Renee & Jeremy

Happy Halloween!

Walking caught on tape!

Whew!

I have lots to catch up on...we will start here:

10 months

11 months

We moved into a house (woo hoo!) and aside from still not being able to find things, we are loving it!

Helping paint the new house!

Gotta start the growth chart on the door frame!

Katie and I went to Hawaii to visit the Cousins, Auntie Heidi and Uncle Kirk. We were there for Hayley's Birthday and had a great time. Katie did very well on the flight. It helped that we had a whole row to ourselves going both ways.

Practicing standing

Birthday gift from Grandi

After we got back from Hawaii, My Dad came to help us do some stuff to the house, we had a great visit, and he and Katie got along great!

Hanging put with Pop-Pop!

While he was here she started walking...I've been on my toes ever since. I keep finding things in unusual places...like the dog's water bowl. (ie, her toys, the dogs toys, her socks, my cell phone...you see how it is.)

Yep, that's walking.

Hell bent on the destruction of my cell phone!

Birthday gift from Tutu!

Getting ready for Halloween!

Katie almost totally stopped using sign language while she was learning to walk...but took off after she mastered locomotion. Here are the signs she knows as of now:
milk, more, shoes, change, diaper, dirty, cheese, horse, dog, Kitty, daddy, bubbles, book, bird, go, up, and her favorite...ball.
The sign for bubbles quickly turned into a whispered "bubas" and eventually a pretty clear "bubble". I'm putting it down as her first word.

Video

8 mo. vs 9 mo.

Better late than never. Prepping for the move has me behind in several aspects of my life.
Katie is doing great in her ASL class. She can sign the words: ball, more, milk, dog, diaper, and up. She also understands want and book. She seems amazed that we understand her, and is still struggling to remember to use the signs instead of screaming. Walking is right around the corner. She pulls up on anything and everything and occasionally will let go and throw her hands in the air fearlessly before plopping down on her backside. I have no idea what happened to my baby.

Got Boob?

We participated in a 2 mi walk to support Breastfeeding Awareness. You can read more about the benefits of breastfeeding here:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/2/T020100.asp
We started our sign language class last month, Katie's first sign was "ball"! This delighted her Tutu, since "ball" was Kirks first word.
I will post 9 month pictures soon! Can you believe it has already been 9 months!

On second thought...

I didn't get a changing table. Katie's room is kinda small, and I decided just to change her on the bed. I hadn't regretted my decision until recently, for obvious reasons.

Tub Time!

Katie has been promoted to the full size bath tub. I started out giving her a bath in her baby tub, but then she learned how to splash all the water out of it. I then started bathing her in the kitchen sink. Now she has learned to splash the water out of the sink...so in the tub she goes. Last night during her bath she invented keep away. She was holding out her little toy to her dad, when he would reach to take it from her she would snatch it back with the biggest grin on her face. This thrilled her to no end, and each time she was quicker then her dad it would thrill her even more, squealing with delight and scooting all around in her tub chair. She was doing her own little happy dance and splashing water all over the place! Katie Bohren, inventor of Keep Away.

Baby's First Shakespeare

Katie and I went with a friend and her daughter to see Othello last night. It was at a theater in the park and the summer weather was perfect! Maybe Othello isn't the best choice for baby's first Shakespeare, but Katie seemed to enjoy it. She only yelled back at the actors once or twice. She fell asleep at the end. She may have liked the lights better then the play, but I enjoyed the experience very much! Oh and our Triscut made it into the play. Not everyone can say that their Triscut was in Othello.

7mo. vs 8mo.

The craziest month yet. Katie is crawling at amazingly quick speeds, getting into trouble left and right...It will be a wonder if she survives unscathed. Just to prove my point I have added some extra photos here. When I take her monthly photos, I snap about 8-10 photo's in a row, so that I can pick the cutest one. This month, there were only 2 to pick from. The others were unusable.

Crazy Baby!

She crawls, she sits herself up, she pulls herself up, she has 4 teeth, and now...

...she claps.

Episode I

6 mo vs. 7 mo.

She is almost crawling AHAHAHAHAH!!! HELP ME!


Close up of her two little teeth...they sure FEEL bigger than that!

Life happens pretty fast...

...if you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you just might miss it.

Things Katie has started doing:

Saying "Mama", she doesn't mean me, she just babbles and a mama comes out...but my heart does a little dance and I always say, "Yes baby?"

Really focusing all her energy on getting a hold of something. She stretches out as far as she can, pushes with her toes and reaches with her arm, her little fingers wiggling away.

Being aware of her surroundings. She searches for dropped items, she struggles to look around you to see things behind you, she knows that her dad, or the dog, or something she wants is around the corner or in the other room.

Repeating an action to get the same result, ie clunking two toys together resulting in a sound, and repeating it to hear the sound again.

I am amazed at the progress in her thought process.

Coming soon, 7 mo photos

5 and 6 mo Photo

Here is Katie's long over due 5 mo. vs. 6 mo photo. Look at her sitting up like a big girl! She is absolutely hilarious to watch playing now. The other day I snapped this photo of her putting on a little show for her stuffed animals. She was babbling away, and doing her fancy princess wave. I hope they liked the show...Johnny and I did!

Dinner and a Movie!

Katie's had a big week of firsts! She has eaten rice cereal and bananas (big winner!) She also went to her first movie! No we did not go to the latest Disney Flick...we went to the Movies with Mom showing at our local theater. They show a 10 am movie on the first Thursday of the month...turn the volume and A/C down a little and keep the aisle lights on. Since all the customers have kids...they don't mind when the baby cries...but my baby didn't cry! Woo Hoo! She was the only baby that didn't cry during the movie. I swear, I didn't drug her!

Swimmin' Video!

Swimmin'

Hey Johnny, thanks for takin' a picture of me and Katie...well, half of me is better than nothing.

New Game!

Thanks for the game Tutu!

Walkin' the dog!

Sitting up like a fool!

Something is wrong with YouTube...I've tried twice to upload my video...not working, I will keep trying.

Katie's Tutu (that's Grandma in Hawaiian) was just here and we had a great visit...look for upcoming video.
Katie is getting her first tooth! She seems to be handling it well. Lots of drool and plenty to chew on...I hope the others go as smoothly. As soon as it is visible we will put up photos.
In the mean time, check out her cool hair style! (yes, there is finally enough to style...kinda.)

Katie at 4 mo and 5 mo.

Katie is 5 months old and is doing new stuff every day. She rolls over both ways now and gets around quite well for someone that doesn't actually crawl. I put her down to play and when I came back she was 4 feet away! I think she is a secret crawler. She is always reaching out to grab something, and whatever it is, goes directly into her mouth.

The last 72 hours have been full of new activities. Katie is now proficient at rolling over, grabbing her toes, using her feet as tools, putting stuff to her mouth (but not quite IN her mouth), and maneuvering around by arching her back and propelling herself with the heels of her feet (resulting in a bald spot with carpet burns on the back of her head). If you have a minute, or three and a half, check out our new little movie.

Here is Katie's 4 month old photo next to her 3 month old photo. She is getting so big! And yes, she does have monkey toes...she gets them from her dad.

I couldn't resist playing with my video editor (the one on my computer, not Hobbs!)


Get your tissues...

OK, so I didn't ask Peggy or Amie if I could put this on the internet, but it was so cute, I couldn't resist. Don't sue me.

Happy Valentines Day!


Here are some recent photos.

Here's some happy baby to make you smile! She makes me smile every day!

I wanted to share Katie's 2 month and 3 month photo's side by side. I see her every day, so it is hard to tell how much she is changing. Looking at these side by side it is easy to see how much she is changing.