New Words

Kate has had a great time so far in Idaho. Although her dad was worried that she might start walking (not so far) she has seemed to pick up some new words. Kate has Dada and Mama pretty much down but the new words are kitty (which sounds a bit like key) and no (which is nenene).

Her top two teeth are definitely in and we tried to get her to display them for us as she sat with her Grandad at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. No luck but we did get a good picture of them.

Secret's revealed

Where have we been?? It has been over a week with no posts!!! I will get to that but first I need to say a bit about where we are now. Kate and I flew into Jackson Hole on Thursday with our traveling partners Aunt Funny and my Aunt Julie. This is the second flight for Kate and once again she braved it like a champ!

We are staying at my folks house near Idaho Falls, Idaho and right on the Henry's Fork river. It is absolutely beautiful up here and the weather could not be any better. Sunny skies and highs reaching only 70 degrees. We wake up to frost on the deck and the heaters going full strength.


Getting to what has been happening to keep me from posting. We had been preparing for our arrival in Jackson for weeks. In-flight I had changed Kate's shirt to

Quite a shock when you first read it! Needless to say things have been a bit crazed for us for a while. The worst part was keeping it a secret from all the grandparents until we could tell them in person(Dan's folks got to see the shirt last weekend when they came to Austin). I also had to "edit" the posts so that there were no hints or clues as to the upcoming "reveal".

To backtrack, we found out about the baby about 5 weeks ago(July 24th) and were totally in shock-not planned or expected especially after trying for so long the first time! And at first I was in denial but three positive pregnancy tests later and some "symptoms" made me a believer. Since then I have been scrambling to find a new OB who delivers at St David's. Our friends the Robertson's also insisted that we find a new perinatalogist and we did that too(and are so pleased to have found him!). There have been cravings and other "symptoms" I had to keep quiet from my folks. I have almost slipped many times and I am just relieved to finally be able to talk about it!!!

Aunt Funny has been a champ throughout all of the doctor's appts and early moods of pregnancy. Dan has also been a huge help and I know it will be a relief when he joins us in Idaho just as I hit the second trimester. My due date is set at March 23rd and I am currently 11 weeks and three days.

Kate and I are surrounded by great babysitters and they are all helping us get through the final week of my first trimester. Kate continues to eat solid foods and especially likes her Queenie's Mac N Cheese!

Yesterday we hit Yellowstone National Park and today we are fishing. Aunt Funny has been cleaning out the Henry's Fork of trout and so far the fish refuse to take the pregnant woman's fly!

On a side note...We are also glued to the TV and Hurricane Katrina. Our hearts ache for all of those people and the beautiful old city of New Orleans!

Busy girl

Kate has had a big couple of days. When she learned that we were not going to StrollerFit for two days this was her reaction...

Instead yesterday was "outlet day". Her Aunt Funny and I decided to take her shopping at the outlets in San Marcus. Kate did great-made it through the day with only one episode where apple juice was used to stop the tears (a last resort). None of us came home with great purchases but Kate did get the "footie" pajamas we wanted. MOST importantly, Kate slept through the night after a very long day(the second night in a row!!).

Today has been a whirlwind. Kate's grandparents, Nana and Bieboo came in from Dallas. I got to spend the afternoon out while they babysat Kate. This is the result, post bath...

Dan's mom (Nana) said that Dan used to play with his ears when he ate (my response was "Used to??"). She is already asleep and I have a feeling we will not hear from her until morning.

Love the new cookbook!

I had a huge surprise in my mailbox yesterday from my Granny. A cookbook but more importantly Rebecca Rather's, The Pastry Queen was inside. I have coveted my mom's copy for a while and was ecstatic to get my own! The book is filled with sweet treats as well as good dinner stuff(my mom made the King Ranch casserole for us a while back-it was fabulous!).
With such a great addition to my kitchen, what better reason than to spend this afternoon baking something from the book.
Called Peanut Buttercups with Peanut Penuche Icing, these babies are rich and really rich. It is your basic peanut butter cupcake with a chocolate center and a fudgy peanut butter icing...you need milk to survive it. And to be sure that they were good enough to be sent to Dan's office, I had two "testers" on hand to sample.
(Note: to qualify as a "tester" you must visit your sister and niece-hint hint Barrett...). Today's "testers" were Aunt Funny and our other brother Shady (aka Howard). I have to say for a bachelor he has some pretty good babysitting skills!

New Trick...

After a few good nights of solid sleep, we have had two nights of mulitple "wake-up crying" sessions. We were unsure what might be causing this new round of sleeplessness until tonight when we spotted it....her third tooth! Top right and just barely breaking the surface.

She and her dad learned a new trick this weekend. Dad wanted to start practicing for future UT pep rallies and here is the first glimpse of what is to come...

Kate could not stop smiling as she sat on her dad's shoulders!

Where have we been?

Ok I understand I have been a little neglectful of the blog lately. Do I have a good excuse? Well....Kate's sleep schedule is still pretty iffy. One night we don't hear a peep and the next she is up at 2:30am. Last night was a good night-not a peep and she is still asleep now. Best tip was from Queenie-"put books in her bed"...usually the first thing I hear is her talking(reading) her books.
Rather than go into all that we have done for the past week I will just provide you some bath pictures and a little about yesterday(Wed)...

We did go see a Speech therapist yesterday. The pediatrician and I were worried about her inability to take in solid foods(real solid foods with texture). The therapist was very helpful and encouraging and said that we need only make minor changes in how we feed Kate and she should soon be eating everything. Yesterday afternoon two whole graham crackers were consumed and neither came back "up"-yea!!

Last night Aunt Funny babysat while Dan and I tried a restaurant by us, Giss Cafe (great peach cobbler but so-so on everything else....). These pictures are from the bath that Aunt Funny gave her...such a clean baby!

Bye-bye Somer

This week was Somer's last in Austin and Kate and I are so going to miss her! Starting in June, Somer has been spending one or two days a week with Kate while I get some time to myself. Never have a met a more poised, responsible, smart, and pretty person all rolled into one! I can not say enough good things about her and above all, Kate loved having her here! She is headed back to dental school where she is in her second year-we wish her all the best and if dental school doesn't work out (haha) we always have an extra bedroom....
(yes that is a Sooner T-shirt she is wearing...born and raised in Oklahoma)

Thursday's Sleep(or lack there of) Report

Kate decided that it was playtime last night-starting at 1:15am. I finally got her back to sleep at 3:15am but she felt that she still needed some quality time with mom and proceeded to wake up at 3:45am. It was a long, long night...But who could be upset at this face....
Especially when all I am seeing lately is more and more of this...

Cool despite the kitchen

Aunt Funny is in town and we thought we were headed to the outlet mall today. Plans changed so we decided to stay inside where it is cool. What better to do than cook (and get the oven roaring...).

Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess" cookbook is one that I really want to like. I love her writing style but so far have been unimpressed with the stuff I have cooked from it. Today I was looking to use up some ripe bananas and decided to try her muffin recipe. It is an odd one-no eggs and uses honey. The batter seemed a little baking powdery to me so I added cocoa powder and chocolate chips to try and mask it. Regardless these muffins were not as good as Tyler's so I won't post the recipe...here is the resulting image though.

On the adjoining page was a recipe for Peanut Butter Snickers Muffins-what good "domestic goddess" could pass up that title??

SNICKERS AND PEANUT BUTTER MUFFINS
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
3 1/2 full-size (2.07 ounces) Snickers bars, chopped
Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the peanut butter and mix until you have a bowl of coarse crumbs. Add the melted butter and egg to the milk, then stir that mixture gently into the peanut butter mixture. Mix in the Snickers pieces and dollop dough into lined muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes, at which time the tops should be risen, golden and firm to the (light) touch. Sit the pan on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before taking out each muffin in its paper cup and leaving them to further cool - if you can. Makes 12 muffins.

Not as rich as you would expect but pretty good. I should note that the entire package of mini Snickers was used but not all of them made it into the batter....

Last but not least I made dinner. A new recipe that I saw this weekend on Everyday Italian, Baked Angel Hair. I tweaked it a bit by adding mushrooms, hot Italian sausage and put it in two 8 in square dishes(so I could freeze one). I also only put the pastry on top.

I thought it was really good. It will be even better to make this winter when it truly is cold outside versus a "simulated (A/C at 65degree's) summer cold front".

Is it already Wednesday???

Some may have wondered-why hasn't Kelly posted in a while? Two words...

SLEEP DEPRIVATION.

This so called "No cry sleep solution" book has now proven for us to be the "No sleep cry solution". Kate went from sleeping through the night to waking up every night for hours on end. We so wanted to get her on a good nap schedule but this is not worth it. A little bird (let's call her my mothers) told us not to buy the book because Kate's sleep schedule can be boiled down to one word...

PAYBACK.

So what have we accomplished this week. I taught StrollerFit on Monday-my first class as a "certified"(I passed my certification! got the results on Saturday!) aerobics instructor.

Tuesday, Kate and I went to her pediatrician where she weighed in at 19lbs, 14oz. and is 28 1/2in long. We are now starting to supplement whole cows milk for formula and really push those solid foods. Someone should probably alert Elsie....