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