Katie's new tower

We asked Dad (Pappa) if he would make Katie a stand so she would be a bit safer when she's helping in the kitchen, and so she can get up & down by herself. And he came through with this wonderful creation.

I think she likes it.

More pictures and stories will come sometime after bedtime.

Baking!

Well, more heating things up in a pan and then letting them cool than baking, I guess. We did bake later, we just didn't take pictures then. Mostly because the best one would've been Katie sucking on the spice covered measuring spoon. What can I say, the girl loves her spices.

Here she is beating the candycanes so we can make peppermint bark. Yum!

And here she is showing off her ponytail. Her hair is long enough now to make a ponytail in the back. Until she rips it out anyway. Is very cute.

Even better.

Apologies

I have to apologize for the serious lack of pictures lately. She now stops what she's doing and runs away when I get out the camera. If it's warm again tomorrow, we'll try to get more snow pictures though.

Messy, messy.

We had pasta for supper tonight, and some of Katie's noodles slipped off her fork onto the ground. After supper, I guess she felt the need to help clean up.

We've been letting Bailey play for a while, but now that Katie's a little bigger and a lot more stable, Bailey gets to play even more. Which is great for both of them, and the more it happens the less excited they are. Which means that Katie doesn't get knocked over so often, and Bailey's hair doesn't get pulled so much.

I love my doggy!

Too bad she's never happy. Geez. She's so hard to get along with.

Mama's little helper.

I guess the shopping list was missing a few things.

Snow Day!

Today we woke up to some snow. Also woke up to no power, but that was quickly resolved. The new insulation works great, and the repair man was already working on the problem by the time I discovered it. I was on the phone with the electric company to put our name on the list of "make sure we have power before you go home" people when the lights turned on again. So I told her not to bother putting my name on the list. Ha. We ended up with about an inch and a half of snow before it quit coming down, but it was pretty warm this afternoon, so it melted a bunch. We did take a walk around the yard before it melted though, just for pictures' sake.


First, this is how she entertained herself yesterday morning. Apparently she needed a little decoration.

And here she is getting her first look at snow up close. She was pretty excited about it until I made her walk in it. Then she got a little bit miffed at me.

"What is this stuff, Mom?"

"It's touching me!"

"I think I'll look from here, thank you very much."

A breath of fresh air

Yesterday we went for a nice walk in the yard with the critters. Okay. Enough pictures, I'm going to play!

New trick: Climbing up on anything she can reach.

New clothes and new shoes! The shoes won't fit properly until spring probably, but she had to try them on.

Hmmm... Interesting...

Here. you should read this too.

Adventures in Katieland.

Katie is trying to learn to be gentle with the cats. Here she is petting Morgan while she eats breakfast. Notice Morgan is ready to run if the going gets rough.
Then she decided it was time to place an order.
And wait for the little cat to make his delivery.
Today she tried hummus again. She wasn't thrilled with it before, but apparently she likes it now. She even dips her crackers in like a big kid.
Well, like a big, messy kid anyway. She got it everywhere.

A Porcupine!!!

First, she told me she wanted to be a ghost instead. A pretty, rainbow ghost.

Then she said, "well, okay. I can be a porcupine if you'll draw me some whiskers." And the whiskers and the black nose were so funny that she giggled the whole while.

Here is my front.
Here is my back. Watch you don't get too close!
And the cousins too.
Katie's costume was a big hit all around. Everyone loved it.

A preview of cuteness to come

Finished Katie's Halloween costume last night. You'll get to see the rest of it in a couple days, the outfit that goes underneath is in the wash. It's very cute. And this hat is toasty enough that we can use it for winter too.

Finally

This one above is Katie dancing in the car after Salsa class.

And Salsa Tots video. It's hard to get video of her, as she mostly stands and watches everyone during class. She very much enjoys it, but she gets pretty enthralled by watching all the other kids.


And some pictures too. Katie and Murphy, double trouble. Wherever one is, the other is not far behind. They chase each other around all day long. It's pretty funny.

I had to show her how to hold him, she kept trying to pick him up by the head. Poor cat.

Andrew was working in the garage and Katie wanted to watch him, so I put her up on her bench to watch. Next thing I knew, Murphy was scrambling up so he could see too.
New favorite game (besides pound the cat): Throw all the toys out of the toybox! As you can see, Murphy likes to help.
Poor little guy is all tuckered out.

Meet Murphy

This is our new guy Murphy. He's very sweet. We picked him up on Saturday. Katie is totally in love, and he adores her. Follows her everywhere. Bailey is just as indifferent to him as she is to Morgan, and he loves Bailey as much as Morgan does, in typical cat fashion. Morgan is so not impressed that there is another cat here. Not sure how long it's going to take her to warm up, but hopefully soon.

And, since we have a new kitten to occupy a baby, I've been getting lots of knitting done. Here's the scarf again, just started the second skein of yarn. I think that I'm going to end up using 3 skeins instead of 2, because I want it to be long.

New scarf

I started this scarf today. Mine will look similar to the multicolored one at the bottom of that page. I'm making it with a wool/mohair/silk blend yarn that is very nice to work with. Hoping to have it done before it gets too much colder.

Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty...

I have a video of this that I will put up in a week or so when I've got faster internet. So funny. She clonked the cat on the head once because she was so excited about it, and after that the poor cat wasn't sure if she wanted to chase the bug or run away from the stick.



We have a child who likes to look out the window and see what the animals are doing. And a good part of the day, the horse stands at the gate, so if the dog is out Katie can see all three outside critters at once. However, it was getting a little dangerous...

So we made some adjustments to furniture. This is actually Katie's toybox. It has a lid with a cushion, so it can be used for extra seating. And it makes a great viewpoint.

Falling behind again

I still have more pictures from our trip to share with you, but the whole program crashed the last time I tried to do it. Hope to get to that soon. After the winterizing, maybe. It seems that winter will be coming early this year.

Anyhow. Let's get on with the pictures.

Here is Miss Katie modelling the latest in baby fashion. She is wearing an adorable handknit dress from our friend Korin, and snuggly soft handknit scarf from Aunty Joannie, and a homemade bracelet from her cousin Dylan. And does she ever know how cute she is.

And the latest in baby farm-wear. I went to get our hay the other morning, wanted to get it dealt with before Andrew got home so he wouldn't have to worry about it. So I dropped Katie off at Grandma M's before I went. Of course that meant waking her up 2 hours earlier than she usually gets up, so she was a bit tired. But she got there just in time to help feed the critters, so it was well worth it.

This week has been rough on the poor kid. Monday, she managed to find a bee that had gotten in somehow, and not only did she find it, but she picked it up. That did not turn out well for either of them, as you can well guess. Then Tuesday, she used the table leg to keep herself from falling on the floor, and her momentum swung her around into it and split her lip. As you can see from the little red mark and the big fat lip in this picture. So far there haven't been any more crises this week, let's hope it stays that way.

She didn't let it keep her down for long though!
She's even holding that waffle with her stung hand.

She still fits into her GrammyJammies! Barely, but she fits.

I bought these tubs yesterday at the grocery store. I've discovered that it's cheaper for me to go grocery shopping when we're in the city for Salsa Tots than it is to go shopping here in town. By a considerable amount so far, so that's what we're doing. But the store we're going to charges you for each bag you use. They do sell these little totes, they're the same ones they use as baskets when you shop (except those have handles) and they're very handy.

Katie found them entertaining as well. She must've spent over half an hour in there today. She'd get out and get a new toy or a book and climb back in again. I guess they make good, baby-sized chairs. They'd have made good baby bathtubs as well, but she's a bit splashy for that now.

Loads of pictures