Our order came in!

I ordered a maraca for Katie at our last Salsa Babies class, and it finally came in today. They were seriously backordered. She was so excited. She loves it. So, of course, I had to take some pictures. She's been hauling it around the house with her.
Then she went to play with H & S again. She LOVES them. I am told that there were crawling races around the house, lots of climbing over legs and pillows, and all the poker chip towers she could knock over. What more could a girl ask for?

Her shirt says "Here comes trouble". I thought it was fitting.

There is no justice in the world.

The mosquitos are back. I squished one yesterday. I am not happy with this turn of events because I absolutely hate mosquitos. I mean seriously, we still have snow on the ground. What the heck?!

Springtime!

Well, most of our snow is gone now, so I took Katie out to play in the grass.

She was not impressed.

So big!

Look what I can do!

picture post

Catching up on some of the pictures I've taken recently.

Swimming with Daddy.
4 teeth!
And again.
If i could just get this down...

Let me outta here! I want to help cut Bailey's hair!

Katie and her friend Lazare. He's a month older than her.
And this one's from this morning.

Attacked!!

Some of you know that our neighbor's dog was coming over here for visits and marking our territory as his own. Well, we finally got that resolved by chasing him down the road yelling at him every day for a week. Then their cats started coming over. I half suspect these cats aren't being fed, but they also mark territory and I don't want them here. They, however, don't run down the road when you chase them, they just go up a tree. So it's proving to be more difficult to get rid of them. I think that after yesterday though, we may be rid of them for a while.

Yesterday afternoon, I scared the black one away from Morgan's bowl twice (the black one comes here more often). Apparently he was just biding his time when I didn't see him again. We got home from visiting friends and let Bailey out, then a minute or two later heard an awful commotion coming from the side of the garage. First we though she'd cornered a coyote, but thought better when we remembered what a chicken she is. So we went to look, and the fighting was coming from the doghouse. We called Bailey and she jumped out, quickly followed by the black cat, who disappeared into the bush.

Bailey won't attack a cat, and she hasn't bothered these cats when they've been here before, so we figure she was the one who got attacked. I imagine the cat was in the doghouse when Bailey went in and Bailey scared him and he attacked her. Then she had to defend herself, of course, because she won't stand for that. But no scratches on Bailey and I haven't seen that cat all day.

Swimming baby

I am a slacker.

I've been lazy. I haven't posted here as much as I should be, thinking I could placate you all with cute pictures and videos. And then I slacked off on those as well. So here's a brief update before I go fix supper.

Katie is now nearly 9.5 months old. She crawls like lightning, but no independent walking just yet, thank goodness. She does race along the furniture like nobody's business, using only the slightest pressure that tells me that she doesn't really need the balance, she just thinks she does. Okay by me. She thinks she's very clever too. No real words yet either, but she sure babbles a lot. She likes to play pat-a-cake with Grandma, and she's recently learned that she can THROW! So she does, anything and everything she can lay her hands on gets thrown. She especially likes to throw fridge magnets.

Andrew is back to his slightly slower schedule where he's home for equal time as he's away. We went for a couple months with seeing him a lot less, but that's over again for now as spring is hitting us full force. He's still irritated at his truck because it keeps breaking for no apparent reason. Seeing as it's the same part that keeps breaking, you'd think that the dealership doing the repairs could figure out what's breaking it, but alas that is not to be.

I am itching for spring to be here full force. Katie and I have been swimming a fair bit, and we took Andrew with us the last time. Then we got distracted by the local rec league volleyball finals, but we hope to swim again tomorrow. I also leave her with our friends H & S on Thursday nights when Andrew is away, and I swim by myself. And we're starting a new round of Salsa classes this week too.

The house is coming along. Not so much going in the way of renos now that the windows and doors are finished, but the siding will hopefully be done next month. I'm in the process of decluttering the boxes we've been storing for 3 years and am very excited about my progress so far. I've thrown out 2 40gal bags of junk and taken 2 of those same bags to the local 2nd hand shop as donations. I also have a rubbermaid tub full of things I'm hoping to try to sell as soon as I can get some pictures edited and uploaded. We hope to start painting again soon, once it warms up enough for us to open windows again.

The critters are doing well. Morgan got stepped on by Charlie the other day, but as she was running and jumping just moments afterward with no apparent pain, I think he only got her belly skin. Scared me a minute though, maybe she's learned not to play under the horse. He didn't mean to, I was cleaning his feet and he stepped backward to re-balance when I put his foot down. She just got in the way. Bailey got a haircut and a bath last night, that's why the laughter and bouncing in the video of last night. The mad bath dash. Jose is Jose. He swims. Everytime someone comes over they say "is that fish still alive?" And I say "he was when I fed him this morning." And every morning he's still alive when I feed him. He's just not very exciting, I guess.

Funny video.

Bailey got a haircut and a bath today. Katie loved it.

Growing like a weed

Hard to believe she used to be so small. I think it's time to go through her clothes again and sort out the ones that don't fit. I think we have had another growth spurt, because there seem to be a lot of things that used to fit and don't anymore. Also, her top tooth finally broke through the skin. Finally. Of course, it's taking its sweet time coming all the way down, so it's still giving her grief, and the second one is helping it out now. Poor girl is miserable tonight.

She is now, by rough measuring, 20lbs and 27 inches.

comparison

Okay, I know she's not 9 months until Friday, but she's wearing this dress today, so I had to take a picture.


And she got herself stuck again. I'm not sure what the draw is, but she sure likes to climb into this thing.

Funny baby.

Aha! So this is where my noisy toys went!

I am THIS big. Too big to fit in a measuring cup!
MOMMYYYYY!!!! I'M STUCK!!
This is interesting. A rice chip, do you call it? Hmm. I think I like it.

Swim, swam, swum.

Katie and I went swimming today. Very low key, not a class, just us and one other baby with his parents. The pool here opens the shallow end to babies/toddlers and their parents while adult lane swim is open.

Katie LOVED it. She was so happy and smiley. I think we're going to go again tomorrow, and we'll see if we can get some pictures to share. No pictures today as we were by ourselves.

Messy baby

I found some wheat-free teething biscuits at the health food store. They're maple flavored, so Katie smells like a pancake. But she sure seems to like them.

Cute kid stuff.

time warp

Here's me and my Grandma.

And Katie. And just for good measure, isn't my sister a cutie? Hehehehe.

Adventures

Just pictures.

Katie in her warmer weather suit. It's been +10 here all week, no need for the parka.
What color are these eyes? We can't decide.

Cute little outfit from Grammy.

The sunset out the kitchen window a couple days ago. I love that there is no metal bar in the middle anymore.

Bailey can stand on the snow now and see over the couch. The deck under the snow is at the same level as the floor inside. In other news, Bailey pulled a muscle in her shoulder playing in the snow the other day, but is apparently fully recovered now.

And our mini-garden. i think we may pull the beans and start them over again. They apparently didn't need planted this early. The beets finally sprouted today, so the only thing yet to come is the asparagus.

Today we played in the snow.

Lots of it.

Andrew & I went out to start pruning Saskatoons while Katie was having her nap, then Katie joined us when she woke up. I've kept out a bunch of poles that I am trimming branches off of and I'll use them to hold up the beans and cucumbers in the garden. Maybe the pumpkins and watermelon too, I haven't decided on those yet. Andrew thinks we'll have beans indoors before the snow melts, they're very tall already. I'm hoping to get the second round started maybe next week.

Here we are. Me & Katie. I'm standing on packed snow and this is how far down I go. You can see the garden fence behind me, I can barely step over it when there's no snow.

Andrew & Bailey. Poor dog, the snow is over her head, so it took her ages to get to him. She was taking full advantage of his lap though.

And we stand

I stand with Daddy.

And I stand with my toy.
She wasn't able to stand up with this toy until today. It's too light and it kept tipping over. Apparently, she's needing less support.
And then I get tired and get ready for bed.