Katelyn standing by herself and also responding to questions

Katelyn has been crawling (including up the stairs) and cruising on furniture for a while now, finally she's getting a hang of a new trick.. She's been caught a few times standing by herself without holding on to anything when we are not looking! It's so cute to see her standing like that, I can't believe she'll be 1 years old in 3 weeks!

She's also starting to answer questions. If I say: "Katelyn, where's the fan?", she'll point to the ceiling fan. She also points to Trees if I ask her "Where are the trees?". She says Mama, Dada, Indira, and she loves to sing "Ashes, Ashes" from Ring Around the Rosie song.

And when it comes to food, Katelyn is a super great eater.. There's nothing she doesn't like, the only catch is she wants to eat everything by herself. She's been very independent in that regard.. All we have to do is put food in front of her and she'll eat, anytime, anywhere :)

Also, we've started to phase out the formula. After this can of formula is done, I think we'll cut over to whole milk. And as expected, she likes milk :)

Katelyn has been interacting with Ashley a lot more now, so Ashley is beginning to like spending time with Katelyn more than before. At the park Ashley pushes Katelyn on the baby swings, or holds Katelyn on her lap while they go on big girl swings.. She gets Katelyn to chase her around the house, and they even took a bath together last week, which Ashley thought was super cool!

Ashley calls Katelyn, Kay-Kay or Kate when she's trying to get her attention.
I call Katelyn my little monkey, she's so active and funny all the time, she's always smiling and making very loud screeching noises, like a monkey :)

Ashley now even likes the idea of Katelyn moving into her room some time in the future. She really wants to share a room with Katelyn. We hope in another 6 months we can do that and get the office back..

Overall, I think Katelyn is at a perfect age right now, she sleeps well, eats well, does cute things all day long, smilings a lot and is in bed by 7:30! :)

First trip to the beach this year :)

The weather has been great this Spring, so last Thursday after work I took Ashley and Katelyn to the beach to meet up with an old friend from college and her son.

Ashley knew exactly what she wanted to do.. she wanted to feel the water and then build a sand castle. She loves the beach, and I suppose she remembered from last year what to do..

Katelyn was too small to be able to play on the beach last year, but this year it's a whole different story.. She was super excited, like she always is, and also loved it!

Good thing the beach is 10 min from home. I have a feeling we'll be coming here a lot this year!

Ashley's First Trip to Manhattan

On Tuesday, May 25 I took Ashley to NYC with me. I had some business to take care of at the Russian Consulate, and didn't want to wait in line for hours so I dragged Ashley along for the trip. People with young kids get to cut the line :)

It was a long day, but she was a trooper through most of it. We had to take a train to the city, then two subways and walk a few blocks.. I didn't realize how many stairs are there that you need to take to get from one place to another in the subway system.. Dragging a stroller and a 3 year old through all that was a challenge to say the least..

Nevertheless, we took care of the business and then walked down from 91st street all the way to 31st to Penn Station to go back home! The weather was beautiful and we met some dear friends along the way :)

I think for Ashley, the highlight of the day was the train ride, yellow cabs and strawberry ice cream! (Her favorite)

I think our trip went as smooth as possible and I think we can now plan to come back in the near future for leasure with all of us :) Ashley agreed that she liked it and wants to go back again!

Here are some pictures from our trip
(Ashley doesn't like taking pictures, so that's why there aren't that many pics and she's frowning on the picture with ice cream.

Ashley's bed time story

Ashley has quite a bed time ritual that has evolved over time. I'm posting this so that we don't forget how she is, b/c I think it's hillarious! So, here it goes.. After going to pee, brushing teeth, putting on PJs and reading a story that she picks out Ashley makes her 'nest'.. She has to line up three pillows along the side of the bed, then comes her Mickey pillow that she sleeps on, next to it she has to have Minnie mouse and a small teddy bear, each of whom get their own blankets. Next she has to have a sippy cup with water wedged between her pillow and Minnie. Then I cover her with her Mickey blanket that has to be arranged soft side up, and lastly she needs to hold a small book in her hand (usually an abbreviated Webster's dictionary). Is this OCD or perfectionist? All in the name of the good nights sleep :)

On the video she forgot about her little book for a second, but as soon as I turned her light off she asked me to get it for her..

Ashley and Katelyn eating breakfast this morning

It's so hard to leave them and go to work every day :(

Ashley and Mommy Baking Cupcakes

Ashley loves to help in the kitchens, here's a picture of her stirring the cupcake batter :) I hope she grows up liking to cook!

My garden

Here is a slide show of what my garden looks like right now.. We are already picking strawberries :)

Katelyn's firs time in a high chair at a restaurant

We had a really nice weekend with the girls, the weather was just perfect, so we got sandwiches and took kids to Thompson Park for a picnic, then we went to Deep Cut Gardens to check out Spring flowers in bloom and had another picnic and wrapped our day up with an ice cream Sunday at Friendly's. This was the first time we put Katelyn in a highchair at a restaurant. She did surprisingly well, kept herself entertained and all the people around us entertained with her occasional screeching sounds.. She can be very loud when she's happy :)

Here are some pictures..

Katelyn - pointing with her finger

Katelyn started doing a new cute thing about a week or two ago.. She holds up her little index finger and points at stuff, most of the times it's because she wants to eat whatever it is she's pointing at or because she wants to go where she's pointing...

This weekend Mike taught her about the Tree in our front yard. If you ask her, 'Where's the tree?' She points at the tree! :) So, the new game is whatever she points to, we name it for her. I think she's starting to understand a lot more. She knows 'No' and 'Come here' very well, I guess timet o expand our vocabulary :)

She's still continuing to eat everything in site.. She could spend a whole day in the high chair just picking at food.. It never gets old, as long as different types of food keep coming :) And she's made it very clear to us that she really rather feed herself.. spoon feeding her becomes a war every time, her swatting at our hands with the spoon in it, or sticks her hands in the food bowl when it's within reach..
Her latest new food that she tried is hummus with wheat pita bread. She really enjoyed it last night along with home grown strawberries, fresh grilled corn and black beans! Next we'll be trying to ease her off formula and onto whole milk.
I look forward to not having to pay $32 per can of formula that doesn't even last us a week!

No more baby food!

About 2 weeks ago Katelyn decided that baby food is not for her any more. She didn't want to be spoon fed the mushy stuff and kept trying to grab the spoon away from me. I gave her a few bites of my dinner and surprisingly enough my 10 month old decided that she rather eat that.

Her first real meal was penne with vodka sauce, some garlic bread and sauteed string beans with garlic and chunks of fresh strawberries for desert! I thought for sure she'd throw up or not be able to sleep that night but nothing happened :)

In the last week she tried a bunch of new seasonings & flavors and I can't think of one that she didn't like. Anything I put on her tray she eats. She can now handle regular oatmeal for breakfast (not the baby food kind), different fresh fruit in small chunks (bananas, strawberries, pears), rice, pasta, turkey meatballs, black beans, corn, peas, broccoli, pita bread, waffles, and that's just to name a few!

I also got a yogurt maker to make yogurt at home. It's so easy to do and we are saving a lot of money! We used to go through 4 32oz containers of yogurt a week, at $3.50 a piece is $14 a week! Now, I just get a gallon of organic 2% milk for $4.99 and that makes my 2 64oz batches! It's tastes really good and we now never run out :)
I highly recommend homemade yogurt if you spend on it as much as we did. It's lower in sugar, no additives and tastes better! We add a little sugar to it, and some fruit - frozen blueberries make it taste awesome!