Eyes

Hannah Kate has an eye appointment this morning. Fun times. Not so much. We are waiting on her eyes to dilate then I get to hold her down so the dr can look at her eyes. I know you're jealous. Try not to be!

Tractors

Hannah Kate has enjoyed watching Daddy on the tractor this week!

Hk's actions today are, I believe, a result of her waving at Papa & Wesley on the tractor: she waved at Mark as he drove by the house in his Jeep (she saw him before I did) & then started waving in the living room -where she couldn't see out the window-when he drove by on the tractor (I guess she heard it) then we went to bi-lo & a big dodge diesel drove by & she started waving big waves at them. I guess she thinks these are all people she should wave at?!

Parents of a Preemie Day

I read on this blog that yesterday was Parents of a Preemie Day. Who knew that existed?! Not me, but we need a day! We knew that we would have a preemie once we found out that we were having more than one baby, but we didn't know what kind of preemie we were having (as in how early she would really be)-and we were blessed! Hannah Kate has come a LONG way, and we have been blessed every single day with her progress. I was thinking this week about how terrified we were when we brought her home, and she was so much better off than a lot of preemies! Thanks to our sweet family and friends who were supportive and understanding of us as we learned how to care for Hannah Kate at home and how to keep her healthy and safe. I know some people thought we were crazy for how extra careful we had to be with her and germs. I'm sorry for the extra work on everyone's part, but Hannah Kate has been healthy and has only had two colds, so it was worth it! RSV season is almost over and we can be normal people for the first time! We are thankful EVERY day for God's provision and blessings for our family!

Underage Dating

Brittany posted this article on Facebook this morning. This is an excellent article about why we shouldn't let our kids "date" before they are ready to be married. Sadly, I think the author is totally right about the media's influence on our kids. It's time parents stand up and defend their families!

Courtship

Here's a great article I read today that talks about how one family wants to do courtship with their children. Hope it's helpful.

13 Months

Hannah Kate is 13 months old....actually 13 1/2 by now, but we won't talk about that.
Diaper Size: 4

Weight: March 9 (RSV clinic): 9.59 kg 21 pounds 2 ounces

Clothing Size: 9-12 months (she's still sticking with her adjusted age for clothes!)

Food Fun: Hannah Kate is finished with Mommy's milk as of March 11. She is still getting a little bit of whole milk with her vitamins and Miralax before bed each night in a sippy cup. I feel like she needs to be done with something right before bed, Wesley isn't so convinced, so we are working on that. Her new favorite is red grapes (cut up, of course!). She eats grapes with almost every meal. She eats a 1/2 jelly sandwich and grapes for lunch almost everyday. I'm a little concerned because she doesn't each much meat, but she will eat lunch meat on a sandwich, so I got some at the store this week to try to get some more protein in her! She still loves banana for breakfast! She has also recently tried apples, mandarin oranges, strawberries and blueberries. She chews the apple into tiny pieces and spits it out. She really likes mandarin oranges.

Newest Tricks:
~She's cruising everywhere on everything.
~Climbing stairs. We don't have stairs, so she does this at Nana and Papa's house. She just needs to learn to crawl back down on her belly. That'll be hard!
~Her new favorite thing to do is to "stand up." Wesley or I grab her and stand her up and usually sing, "Stand up and tell me if you love my Jesus." She tries to balance herself as long as she can. It usually lasts a few seconds. Friday night this is all she wanted to do. She kept crawling to Wesley and climbing on him and laughing when he would stand her up. She stood for quite awhile at one point-her little arms were shaking and her eyes were SO big, she was so proud of herself! Then, I got the phone out to video her and she stopped (of course).
~She can choose between two objects when we ask her. For example: "Which one is the Bible?" (while I hold her Bible and something else)-she will pick the Bible every time. She can also differentiate between our phones-they are identical except mine has a pink case and Wesley's has a black case. I can hold them in my hands and ask, "Which one is Daddy's phone? Which one is Mommy's phone?" and she picks the right one!

Things Hannah Kate LOVES:
~Grapes
~Standing up
~Climbing
~Our phones-Wesley has gotten into the habit of turning on bluegrass music on his iPhone and handing it to Hannah Kate when we are playing in her room. She loves this. She will try to put it in her mouth, but most times she will stop when we tell her to. (If not, we take it away.)
~The iPad-we just got the new iPad last week. Wesley downloaded a game for her (Fisher Price has free baby apps) that has the Sing 'n Learn Puppy like she has. She loves this. Of course, it's like a giant phone to her. :)
~Walking-She likes for us to hold her hands and let her walk.
~Our porch swing-we have been spending time on the porch swing in the late afternoons before Wesley gets home. I think she likes it more than her pink swing! She likes to stand up on it backwards (while I hold her so she doesn't fall).
~Bible class and Bible time-She still loves it!
~Books-she can turn the pages by herself and she likes to look at a book and "talk" like she's reading the story. So sweet.
~Baby Signing Time DVDs-she still loves them. She has started making motions similar to the signs during the songs and saying some words when they sing. When it comes on, it sings "Baby Signing Time,"-Hannah Kate says "baby, baby" over and over.
~Windows-these are her favorite-she has a lot of favorites. There are fingerprints and hand prints on every window! She also likes blinds, but we try not to let her play with them.
~Brushing her teeth-she thinks it's hilarious when we brush her teeth. She laughs the entire time.
~Jimmy the Giraffe Paci-I do not even want to think about when we have to take him away from her. She only has him at nap/bed time or during church services sometimes. When we go to pick her up from her bed, she almost always has one Jimmy in her mouth and the other in her hand.

Things Hannah Kate Does NOT Love:
~Giving up something she's playing with. We are working on this. If it's time to clean up or we take something away from her for some reason, she falls to pieces. One night, at the beginning of March, she was playing with Wesley's phone. He took it from her to change the song and she pitched a FIT. He was originally going to give it back to her, but then he couldn't because she was throwing a fit. She signed "more" to him and so he gave it back. She took it from him, fumbled it around in her hands and then THREW it at him. We were shocked. I spanked her and told her no and she cried and cried. She signed "more" again to him, so we gave it back to her and she fumbled it around in her hands and THREW it AGAIN! (neither time was a real throw, more like a Hannah Kate baby throw, but still!) Needless to say, she was corrected again and we were done with the phone for the night. She is one stubborn baby.
~Shopping-Hannah Kate needs to go to Nana's Shopping Camp. She isn't a great shopper, but maybe she gets that from me! As long as the stroller is moving, she's fine. If I stop to look, she gets very impatient!
~Having her ears cleaned out-it's like wrestling an alligator!

Words:
Hannah Kate went about two weeks of saying nothing good. She learned all of these wonderful words right after her birthday party and then went on strike. She likes to be difficult. She would only say "/b/" for everything. She is finally getting out of that in the last week or two. I know I should list the words she was saying at 13 months, but it's 2 weeks later and I can't keep up (it's all documented in my phone anyway).
/b/ for banana or anything she wants, more-starting to sound more like "more" but it has a b at the beginning, moo-started at Agribition and then she has remembered it every time she sees cows-last weekend she mooed at every cow we saw in the pasture!, Mama, Dada, puppy-she said this SO clearly and distinctly when Wesley showed her the Fisher Price puppy game/app on Friday-we were so proud and she has yet to say it since then, Amen-it sounds more like /a/ loudly, up-when she's ready to get out of the highchair, she says /u/ loudly, Papa, baby-she has even used this independently and in context on Sunday in Bible class-they gave her a baby doll and she started loving on it and saying, "Baby, baby," then she cruised over to Aunt Jana and Baby Cousin Mollie and started patting and saying "baby, baby,"-I was SO proud when Jana told me!, she will also attempt to say some words when you ask her to do so-during early intervention last week she said something that sounded like bumble bee and puppy! she also has said something for God, Jesus, Bible.

Signs:
more, all done (with one hand still), sun (we think......she moves one hand in the air kind of in a circle)-sun is on our favorite DVD (A New Day)
She understands a lot more signs than she actually uses.

March Fun....the first half of March

March has been a great month so far! We have been very busy as always and are enjoying the unseasonably warm weather (although I'm still sad that Hannah Kate didn't get a picture in the snow!)!
Here are a few highlights from the month so far.

We have had lots of Daddy time-which has been wonderful! He is finished teaching the Convicted class on Sundays and Wednesdays, so now we have his free time back!

This was THE sweetest moment, and I told him I wouldn't put it on Facebook....but I didn't say anything about the blog. He and Hannah Kate were dancing around and she was LOVING it! He even stood her on the bed and held her hand and twirled her around. PRECIOUS. I almost cried. Seriously.
Hannah Kate got her last bottle of Mommy's milk on Sunday, March 11th. (She gets her vitamins at night, so that's why her milk looks a little funny!)

Ryder came to play with Hannah Kate and Wesley on Monday the 12th so Kristy and I could go to a consignment sale. They were "hiding and seeking" when we got back.....apparently Hannah Kate hasn't learned how to be quiet so you aren't found yet. :)
Wesley had Monday-Wednesday off so he could attend the gospel meeting at night. On Wednesday, we joined the Harrub family and some other families from our congregation for a picnic at the park. We really enjoyed this time of talking about spiritual things as they relate to our families. This made us very ready for PTP this August!
Hannah Kate got her March Imagination Library book-A Mud Pie for Mother.
Wesley hung up Hannah Kate's swing since the weather is so warm (it was in the 80s last week and this week!)! She wasn't quite sure about it at first.


Hannah Kate has learned how to make quite a mess while she eats.
Her lunch favorite is currently a jelly sandwich (1/2 sandwich) and fruit.
Granna and Pa came to visit us one night because they needed to pick up some cows. Pa saw that Hannah Kate was going to eat yogurt and jumped right in!
We have gotten to see them three weekends in a row! We are enjoying March!

Hannah Kate's First Cattle Event & Visiting Ma Coley

Hannah Kate enjoyed her first cattle event. She (her mommy) was really excited that the weather cooperated and she got to wear her adorable cowgirl boots! Sarah joined us and we left right after breakfast Saturday morning. Hannah Kate was a pretty good traveler and was SO good the rest of the day. She didn't get down to crawl or play from 8:30-2:30 because we were in the car/barn. I was highly impressed. She did great! I was expecting the sale to scare her because it was loud, but she didn't mind. Once when it got quiet, we realized she was "singing" and making noise. :)
Dad and his siblings

We were excited to see Kellie and Clifton. It was the first time for either of us to see each other's babies. Kellie and I grew up showing cattle together.
I have no idea why this picture is all the way down here......
Please note the manure on her boot (I held her hands and let her walk for a bit).....she wanted to be authentic!



When we got to Ma Coley's, we decided Hannah Kate smelled like a barn and needed a bath. Ma Coley happened to have some baby soap, so that was handy! She walked in the kitchen and said, "That's where my babies used to take a bath." So Sweet!This was Hannah Kate's first time to meet Cousin Kim (who lives in California). She was excited to meet her! We got a girl cousins picture with Ma Coley....and Charlie. :)
We tried waiting until Chad and Jan arrived so we could have a cousins picture, but it was so late and it also was the night of the time change. We made it home at 11:45pm. Hannah Kate did great!

Farm and Fun

We recently got some bad news about Ma Coley's health. We are enjoying every precious moment we have with her! We made a trip to Middle Tennessee to visit Ma Coley and celebrate Auntie Carol's birthday. We left early Saturday morning because there were bad storms Friday night and we spent most of the afternoon and all night in Nana and Papa's basement!
We drove straight to Hartsville and picked up my dad at work to go look at a tractor for Wesley's dad. Hannah Kate tried it out and said she approved. Wesley spent several hours waiting for the auction to get to the tractors and finally gave up. We found out later that this particular tractor went for more than Wesley was going to bid.....and they ended up finding one just like it somewhere else that they bought. Dad also bought a John Deere tractor the same week, so now both of Hannah Kate's granddaddies are John Deere men! :)

Just hanging out with Pa.

After Hannah Kate took a nap and had lunch at Granna and Pa's, we went to visit Ma Coley. When we got there, we went in and she was taking a nap. After we were there a few minutes, she woke up and was glad to see us!
Auntie Bonnie was there too!After hanging out with Ma Coley and Auntie Bonnie, we went to the Kueckers for a family get together. They also had some baby lambs, so of course Hannah Kate needed to meet one!

I expected her to love the lamb because she loves dogs (and they're basically the same, right?!), but she really acted like she was just trying to appease us. She would reach her hand out quickly and barely touch the lamb, then jerk her hand back. Connie said most babies cry, so she thought she did great!

Hannah Kate wanted to wear this outfit since Ma Coley got it for her for Christmas!
Hannah Kate was cracking up. :)


Hannah Kate thought she needed to help Auntie Carol blow out her birthday candles!
Uncle Bob came for the fun too!
Playing with Pa
Ma Coley and her kiddos!

Hannah Kate was really interested in Wendy this time and that made Wendy pretty happy.
Fun times!