G-Jonny

My oldest brother, Jon, died two years ago today. He was only 37 and his death was very sudden. I’ve been thinking about him a lot and wanted to post a few pictures and write a little about him. He was 12 years older than me, but I’ve always looked up to him and admired him for many reasons and I have a lot of good memories with him. He was a very genuine and sincere person and always tried to live life to the fullest. Whenever I think of him, I think of how happy he always was and how accepting he was of everyone. He found happiness in some of the simplest things of life and radiated it to everyone around him. He was a great husband and father and made sure his family new he loved them not only by telling them, but showing them. He always made me feel important and was interested in what was going on in my life. While I was on my mission he took the time at least twice a month to respond to my weekly e-mails. When Drew and I got married, Jon and his family couldn’t come, but he still called that morning to congratulate us and see how everything was going. And now I can see hints of him in different expressions Kathryn makes. I miss him a lot and sometimes still find it hard to believe he is gone. But I love him and am so thankful for what he taught me and for the example he left of loving life. When I remember him, I want to be a better person.

Jon and his wife, Sanni

Jon and his family

The summer after Jon died, I got to babysit their two sons, Samuel and Christian. They are such sweet boys and I loved my time with them...

Samuel and Christian

Snow Day!

We had an awesome snow storm here on Thursday. Drew came home from work early so we took Kathryn out to play in the snow. It hasn't snowed very much here this winter and we had never taken her out when it had, so we were excited for her to experience it. She seemed kind of confused and very cold, but had fun. So here are some pictures of us and our little snow angel...
Since we found out how much Kathryn likes exersaucers when we were in Dallas, we started to look for one for her. I found one on Craig's List that is almost brand new and was pretty cheap, so she has been having a lot of fun in it. She gets so excited in it, it was hard to get a picture of her that wasn't blurry. Here's about the best I could do...
We also took Kathryn in to get weighed on Friday and she had gained a pound since last Tuesday, so it looks like her new diet is working :) Yea!

Kathryn's New Weight-Gain Diet

As you probably know, Kathryn is definitely on the petite side. We joke about having given her a complex because ever since we found out we were having a baby we've called her "Tiny". However, for a while we have been a little concerned about how small she is. She has always eaten regularly and well (at least we thought so) and has been developing normally in every other way, so we figured she was fine. She was only 11 lbs (3rd percentile) at her 4 month check-up but her doctor wasn't overly concerned about it, so we thought it was okay. Well, she had her 6 month check-up on Tuesday and had only gained 1 ounce since her 4 month check-up! I was really surprised because I thought she had gained at least some weight over the past two months. Needless to say, her doctor was surprised and concerned as well. She had me feed Kathryn there and then we weighed her again to see how much she ate. She only ate about 4 oz, so the doctor said she was probably just not getting enough to eat. But just to make sure nothing else was wrong, she sent us over to The Children's Hospital to get her blood and urine tested. This made for a rough day for Kathryn because she had already gotten 4 shots at the doctors office and then had to get poked 3 times in the heel to fill the 3 vials of blood they needed. She was quite a trooper though, and even smiled for a picture to show off her cool stickers the nurse at the hospital gave her.
Our doctor called back on Wednesday and told us that the tests came back normal so that was a relief. This meant that Kathryn's lack of weight gain is most likely because she's not getting enough to eat. I feel really bad because I've always thought she was eating well and enough (she usually stays on for 30 or 40 minutes) and she's always seemed satisfied when she's done, but I guess I'm not making enough milk. So I've started supplementing with formula at every other feeding and we'll go in sometime next week to check her weight again. She's been taking the bottles well, so hopefully we can plump her up in no time. If only we all could have this problem :)

Our trip to Texas!

A few months ago we found a great deal on plane tickets to Dallas, so we jumped on the chance to go visit family. My sister and her family just moved to Dallas and Drew's brother and his family live in Houston. Drew was able to stay for a week and then Kat and I came home a few days after him. We had a lot of fun and Kathryn enjoyed hanging out with her cousins. While we were in Dallas we went downtown with Sarah, Mark and Adriana for an afternoon. We had fun walking around and we also toured the 6th Floor Museum (where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK from).
The next few days with them we had a lot of fun mini golfing, flying kites, going to a glass blowing shop, playing games, and just hanging out.

All of us at the botanical garden in Grapevine...also a great place to fly kites :)

Kathryn had a lot of fun with Adriana and they were fascinated by each other. They have a couple of matching outfits, so it was fun to dress them as twins...

While we were in Texas, Drew made sure that Kathryn didn't get out of practice with her great talent of balancing on his hand. She loves it and is really good at it (well I guess Drew gets a lot of the credit) :)

We spent a few days in Houston with Drew's brother and family. We got to see their 2 oldest boys, Clayton and Isaac, in their school program about Texas, for "Go Texas Day". Clayton sure knows how to shake his little booty in the chicken dance :) They also took us downtown to see the aquarium. It was really cool and fun to ride the train through the shark tunnel. They took us to dinner there as well. The food was so good, but eating seafood in an aquarium was a bit strange :)

Drew, Isaac, and Brigham in the sting ray tank

It was really fun to see all of them again. Kathryn and Clayton formed an instant bond which was really cute. He was so sweet with her and she loved anything he did to entertain her -especially peek-a-boo.

Kathryn and Clayton

Kathryn with Brigham, Clayton, and Isaac

While we were in Houston, my sister and her husband closed on their house. So after Drew went back to Colorado I helped them move in. It was fun to get to see their new house and Kathryn and Adriana loved having more time to play together. Adriana showed Kathryn the ropes on her exersaucer, which Kathryn absolutely loved.
My parents also came to help and it was really fun to get to see them again...
Kathryn did a great job with all of the traveling (until she threw up all over the place on the last leg of our flight home--I'm just glad no one was sitting next to us!) Here she is, as happy as can be, in Denver before we flew out.
It was a great vacation and so nice to have some warmer weather for most of the time we were there. I even got to come home to a clean apartment thanks to my sweet husband. :) Thank you, Sarah, Mark, Adriana, Nathan, Emily, Clayton, Isaac, and Brigham for the great time! We miss you!

Drew's Birthday!

Drew's birthday was January 27th and we had a lot of fun celebrating it. It was his golden birthday (he turned 27 on the 27th), so I tried to make it extra fun. To start out the day, I made crepes and gave him breakfast in bed. Then while he was at work, I got him 27 "gold" (really yellow, but oh well) balloons, 27 Krispie Kreme mini donuts (he took them to work the next day so we wouldn't eat them all :), filled a little treasure box with gold Rolos, and made him a candy bar card. For presents, Kathryn and I gave him some shirts, gloves, and The Office DVD board game.

For dinner, Drew wanted to get food from Whole Foods, so we got some BBQ, mac and cheese, and some really fancy and delicious desserts. It was all really good.
That Friday was one of our friend's birthday, so we decided to get a group together to go bowling and celebrate both birthdays. The bowling alley was in a shady part of town, but we all had a really fun time.
Check out Drew's good form...
Kathryn even got in on the fun...
The evening really wore her out, too. The next day she took two long naps (2 and 4 hours)!

So it was a fun week of celebrating. Happy Birthday Drew!

Baby Noises

Anyone who has spent time around babies knows that one of the cutest things on this earth is a little baby when they start making little noises. Now granted this is probably ten times as cute when the child is your own and so I don't expect you all to enjoy it quite as much as I do, but Kathryn has been very vocal lately and I thought you might like to listen. Emily took a short video the other day to capture some of Kat's new talent. It's only about 60 seconds, make sure you watch until the end because the last noise is definitely the best one. Enjoy.

December and Christmas Vacation!

Sorry it's taken me awhile to get this post up, but I'm still trying to get back in the swing of things. December was a fun month for us. At the beginning of the month we went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert which was so good. Unfortunately you weren't supposed to take pictures, so we can't give you an idea of how awesome it was, but we do highly recommend it. We also went to Drew's work Christmas party which was fun and had good food :) I also got my hair cut and highlighted. It had been a long time, so it was fun to finally do something different. I wasn't going to post a picture of it, but Kathryn just looked so cute in this one and was actually smiling (lately when we try to get her to smile for the camera, she just starts studying the camera and is so distracted she won't smile for us), so I just had to :)

For Christmas we were able to go to my parents house in Cedar Falls, IA for about 10 days. Unfortunately Drew was sick and/or working for most of the time we were in there, so it wasn't exactly his favorite vacation, but he hung in there. We had a great time with my family and friends. Six of the nine kids in my family were there with their families, so it was really fun for us all to spend time together. Kathryn had a great time too. Here are some pictures...

My mom is so good at getting Kathryn to sleep on her shoulder. She did this several times while we were there and it was so cute.

All of the cousins that were in Iowa for Christmas.

While we were in Iowa, my sister-in-law, Sarah, did a photo shoot of Kathryn for us. She did such a good job and it's hard not to post all of the cute pictures she took, but here are some of them...

During the photo shoot, Kathryn rolled over for the first time! It was most likely because she was mostly naked and tummy-down on a cold table, but still, it was pretty cool to get a picture of it...

(Disclaimer: Even though you can see her ribs so clearly in this picture, be assured that Kathryn gets plenty to eat. Just look at her cute little pot-belly in the other pictures :)

On our way home, there was a sign on the freeway for a place called Drew's Chocolates in a little town called Dexter, IA. With how much Drew loves chocolate, how could we pass that up?! So we stopped and got some tasty chocolates and truffles, and of course a picture...


Kathryn is 4 months old today and is growing and developing so fast. She likes to put everything in her mouth and her neck and legs are so strong. She has also been sleeping 8-12 hours almost every night since we were in Seattle for Thanksgiving (which was when she started sleeping in a different room from us)!!! Is is so nice to get more sleep and she looks so cute sleeping in her crib. Alright, well, sorry this was so long, but I hope you enjoyed the pictures even if you didn't read it all :) HAPPY NEW YEAR!