1122 Christmas

For the slightly belated 2008 edition of the 1122 Christmas Party, we ate dinner at Chili's (along with a ton of N.C. State fans in town for their bowl game tomorrow), then came back to our house to open presents and play cards. Katelyn enjoyed her first official 1122 function as a junior member of the board. The timer on Tammy's new camera took 10 pictures in a row (we had it set for that but didn't know it), so we have a bunch of funnier versions of this picture where we're all laughing because the camera was seemingly going crazy. These can be viewed for a small fee.

Pulling Up

Little Doll

Katelyn's First Christmas

Christmas was extra special this year. It was Katelyn's very first Christmas and we enjoyed watching her experience this wonderful day. She seemed to like her gifts, but really enjoyed playing with the boxes and wrapping paper. I am sure it was all a bit overwhelming to her. She even decided to pull up for the first time on Christmas day and she pulled up on her Mommy. It was so exciting! Although she was sick with a nasty cold she still smiled and smiled. She is such a good baby and rarely lets things get her down. We were amazed at what a trooper she was. She had to feel bad with such a runny nose and cough. I received a DSLR camera for Christmas and had a blast taking pictures of the entire day. I no longer have lens envy : )There are more pictures to come! We had a wonderful day celebrating Jesus' birth and it was very special to share it with our precious little girl. What a blessed Christmas!

Pulling up on Mommy

My brother, Ryan, and my cousin, Shanna, and I have taken a picture together for the last several years. This year the picture included the grandchildren and the great-grandchild.

I am sure Katelyn is thinking "What are you crazy people trying to do to me?"

Christmas Eve 2008

you don't think anymore

The times they are a-changin'....well, they already have.

When I first started What I Think and What You Think back in April 2001, both were a little bit ahead of their time, at least among my friends and family. What I Think allowed me to easily and quickly post something on my website from any computer, instead of the normal way of coding in straight HTML and then transferring the file over to the server and hoping I didn't mess anything up. Blogging was far from mainstream, Facebook/Myspace didn't exist, and for the most part only computer geeks could have websites. I added What You Think to give my friends and family a way to post something that others could see. At the time, and for a while after, it was really their only way to do this. For many of my college friends, for example, What You Think was the only place they could write something and know that a lot of their other friends would see it.

Obviously, a lot has changed since then. Many people have their own blogs or websites these days, because it doesn't require a computer science degree anymore. Everybody and their brother at least has a Facebook or Myspace profile. All of these outlets give people ways to say what they want to say on the internet.

What You Think has become obsolete because of this. Most months in 2008 didn't even have a single posting. I have now "closed" What You Think. The What You Think Archives are still around if you want to stroll down memory lane (the link is on the Old Stuff page).

What I Think has evolved a little bit too. I'm not planning on it going anywhere, but some people might have noticed that I have started simulcasting my What I Think posts on my Facebook status updates. These days, a lot more people see my Facebook status updates than actually check What I Think, so I'm putting everything in both places unless it just doesn't make sense.

I've tossed around in my head a few ideas for a new section on the site, so stay tuned...

Little Curl

Katelyn's First Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day celebrating with both our families. Katelyn really enjoyed the turkey/dressing, corn casserole, and other new things she sampled. It was quite a feast. We have so many blessings to be thankful for this year, especially our precious little girl! She came along in our lives at just the right time and she has brought joy and comfort to my family as we are missing my granddaddy very much, especially this time of year. I am so thankful he got to know her for even just a short while. God is so good!

More Teeth

Katelyn now has 4 teeth. As you can see it is not easy to get a picture of the top ones.

Merry Christmas!

Eleven Months Old

Our eleven month old is a little social butterfly. We go out and she just talks, squeals, laughs, and waves to everyone. It is so cute! She is at turbo speed for her crawling now and has pulled up to standing a few times. She should have that down soon. We love when she says mama and dada. She is also pretty close to saying dog for Angel and she says baa baa for sheep/lamb. There are other words mixed in like 'ba' for ball, but we are not sure what she is saying for most of them. It is fun to try and figure out though. Oh another of her favorites is no no no when she doesn't want something. She is so smart, but of course we are a bit biased : ) She loves her bath and splashes so much water that we are both very wet at the end. Katelyn has also been imitating sounds and facial expressions we make. Now we can say 'blow kisses' or 'wave bye bye' and she does both!

We can't wait to see what she does next!

It has become very challenging to take pictures of Katelyn these days. She will not sit still so we have to be quick. She also does not like shoes, so as you can see in the pictures she did not leave them on for long.

Katelyn's Grammy showed her the Jinglebuddies on the tree and now Katelyn loves them. So much in fact that she will take them off the tree. Hopefully we can keep her from doing that : )

Yes, we do let her play with her shoes in order to get her to sit still.

Big Smiles

Just in case there were any questions about why Katelyn does the big open-mouth-smile thing that everyone seems to think is a yawn:

Santa

Two things you should know about this picture:
1. Katelyn did the whole crying-so-hard-she-forgot-to-breathe thing as soon as we put her in Santa's lap. Once we realized it wasn't going to happen, they suggested doing it this way. Her mouth-open-smile is due to a light-up spinning toy they had.
2. I had no intention of being in a picture when we left the house to to go the mall.

Snowglobe Silliness

Sweet Little Pumpkin

I actually started this scrapbook page awhile back, but I could never get it quite like I wanted it. Now that I have learned a few tricks it has really come together. I just have to remember to make my digital scrapbook pages the same size. I am still learning. : )

Too Much Fun!

Love This Picture!

Friends!

Here is it is, my first digital scrapbook page! It was really pretty easy and fun to put together. I have Jenny to thank for getting me up and running. Thanks Jenny! I will still post individual pictures of Katelyn, but this is a creative and fun way to put together a collection of pictures.

On this trip to Huntsville we met up with Jenny and her son, Hatcher, and Amanda. This is the first time that Katelyn and Hatcher have been together that they actually acknowledged each other. So fun to watch!

It was the Three Musketeers together again!

A Typical Night?

If you have ever wondered what goes on when Tammy's at choir practice and it's just Katelyn and her daddy...

Happy Ten Month Birthday Sweet Girl!

Katelyn is learning new things everyday. She is crawling everywhere, eating all kinds of food (even Zoe's), talking up a storm, drinking from sippy cups with only a couple of bottles, and so many more things. She has really latched on to ma ma and has been saying it all day. I love it! It seems she really wants her ma ma when she is fussy. She does not like to try on clothes and we kind of exhausted that one today. She also says no no when she doesn't want something and baba for ball. I can't wait to see what she learns next!

 

Exploring Is Hard Work

Make sure you have your sound on for this one...

A Typical Day?

I'm always curious about what all I miss that goes on at the house while I'm at work during the day. I think this video sums it up pretty well. It's got everything from Tammy singing to Katelyn yelling to Katelyn playing with one of her favorite toys to Angel playing with one of her favorite toys to Katelyn trying to play with one of Angel's favorite toys.

It's The Great Pumpkin, Katelyn Eanes

Katelyn's First Halloween

As you can tell from the pictures Katelyn has had a great Halloween. We started the day by joining our friends from playgroup and reverse trick or treating the church staff at Dawson. The kids gave out candy instead of receiving candy. We all had a lot of fun and we managed to actually get all of the kiddies to group together for some pictures. Katelyn is pretty tired of her ladybug costume so I guess these are the last pictures we will see of her in it. But really who can get enough of those sweet cheeks in her adorable ladybug costume.

Happy Halloween!

Katelyn And The Pumpkins

Lunch With Daddy

Katelyn and I met her Daddy for lunch today at Johnny Ray's. All the workers thought our little pumpkin was so cute! Katelyn even tried a little BBQ chicken and some bread which she loved.

On The Move

Over the last month or so Katelyn has gone from scooting and sliding to get to want she wants to actually crawling. Here is a video of each step of the exciting journey to crawling. Our lives have changed once again now that Katelyn is on the move. My day just got a whole lot more interesting!

Melts My Heart

So indulge me for a moment because I have to write about the sweetest and funniest thing that Katelyn just did. She seemed tired so I laid her down for her afternoon nap a little early. I rocked her while singing our nap song and placed her in the crib. I blew her a kiss as I was going out of the room and she seemed fine. Well about 10 minutes goes by and I had not heard anything so I figured she was asleep. Then suddenly she starts crying a bit. It was not much so I just listened to see if she would settle back down. She was still crying some so I went upstairs to check on her. I could not resist picking her up. So I sat in the glider with her and she laid her head on my shoulder and we rocked. I love when she snuggles, it just melts my heart.

I figured she had fallen asleep so I just kept rocking. After a little bit she raised her head off my shoulder and just looked up at me with those big blue eyes and her mouth wide open. Then she laid her head back down and did it over and over again. Every time she looked at me with that expression I did it back and she just laughed and laughed. Apparently she just wanted Mommy to come and play with her. She was not at all interested in sleeping. It was such a fun and tender moment. I love her so much!

Family Fall Festival

Last night we dressed Katelyn up in her ladybug costume and headed over to the Family Fall Festival at Dawson. It is such a fun event. We pretty much just strolled around and chatted with friends and ate a lot of junk food. Who can resist those yummy doughnuts? : ) Katelyn did pretty well for about an hour and then I guess she had enough of the crowds and it was past her bedtime. She did ride her first carousel. It was so cute, she even held on to the bar on the horse while I held on to her. It was hard to take pictures while we were on the carousel so hopefully you can see her a little bit. Everyone thought she was the cutest with those cheeks. She even had her picture made with Lola the ladybug from our VBS week at church. We had a wonderful time and it will be even more fun when Katelyn can play the games and enjoy the treats.

 
Adorable Ladybug

Katelyn the Ladybug and Lola the Ladybug

Face Off

Flannel Quest 2008

The 10th Annual Flannel Quest was the first which required us to find a baby sitter. As per tradition, we ate supper at Johnny Rockets (Tammy was excited to be able to eat whatever she wanted this year...last year she couldn't because of her gestational diabetes) and then headed to the thrift store. A good time was had by all.

Playday At The Great Pumpkin Patch

Today we traveled to The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, AL for playgroup. It rained pretty much the whole way there, but fortunately the rain stopped for us when we arrived. It is a neat place with lots of activities for young and old alike. We took pictures of the kids in their tie-dye pumpkin t-shirts and then went on a hayride to pick pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. I must have looked pretty silly holding Katelyn in one arm and a rather large pumpkin in the other. We purposely picked one with a handle.

After the pumpkin patch we went to McDonald's for lunch. It was a great outing and I think all the kids had a lot of fun. Katelyn will probably appreciate these activities more next year, but we like to expose her to different experiences even at this young age and she really enjoys watching the older kids run around.

Did She Just Say Duck?

So Precious

 

Hey, Where Did My Puff Go?

Mobile Trip

We took a long weekend trip to Mobile. Katelyn stayed with Tammy's parents (you can read about her adventures here).

Visit To Grammy And Poppy's

Katelyn stayed with Grammy and Poppy while Ricky and I took a late anniversary trip to Mobile for a few days last week. It was our first trip without Katelyn. It was especially hard for me because I had never been away from her overnight before. Ricky had already experienced being away from Katelyn. I called a lot and we also did webcam a few times.

We had a wonderful time and it helped us to relax knowing that Katelyn was in good hands. She had a great time and Grammy and Poppy loved every minute. Katelyn played and played and learned how to go from her tummy to sitting up. She went to UAH park and saw the ducks and Grammy said it sounded like she said the word 'duck.' So funny! This visit has started some wonderful grandparent/grandchild memories.

Katelyn just laughed and smiled when we went to pick her up in Cullman on Sunday. We loved it. She just looked at her Daddy and smiled and smiled and then looked at her Mommy and belly laughed over and over again. She is such a joy!

 

Family And Friends