SMILES!

Kate is finally starting to whine a little less and smile a little more!!!

ICE ICE BABY!

Well, I've been waiting and waiting and winter is finally here!!! We've been hit! An ice storm hit a large part of the mid-west this weekend. We woke up Sunday morning to a stunning view out our window! I've never seen anything like it! It is absolutely beautiful! Everything was coated in about an inch of ice! Our church was cancelled Sunday and Jason's school was cancelled today. A lot of the Metro area is out of power, but so far we have lucked out! It is supposed to warm up some tomorrow afternoon, and the ice will hopefully start to melt, so cross you fingers that we last until then!

Kate finally has use for her winter hat!



Since I haven't had a chance to post for a while, I also wanted to add that Jason turned 25 on the first of the month! Aside from a hectic shopping trip to the mall and me almost burning the house down trying to cook a fancy dinner (no joke, there was a huge fire in our oven!) the day was pretty laid back! I made Jason 1/4 of a cake to commemorate him turning 1/4 of a century old (and because I ruined the rest of the cake)! Happy Birthday Jay! I love you!

THE ZOO!

Friday, Oklahoma celebrated 100 years of statehood! Jason had the day off of school so we decided to get out and do something fun. As I was searching to find an activity, I found out that in honor of the centennial, the Zoo had free admission! WOO-HOO! It was a perfect day to be outside. It was a clear sunny day and the fall leaves were breathtaking! We had a great time seeing all the animals and just enjoying the fresh air!

Kate's Quilts!

I am so fortunate to have such talented friends and family! Kate got some really beautiful quilts and I just thought I should showcase them!!! Ok, so not everything I am showcasing is a quilt, but everything is beautiful none the less, and I know a lot of work and love went into everything!

My oldest sister, Michelle, made this quilt for Kate's crib! I just love it!!! My Mom did a fantastic job making the beautiful matching bed skirt! It is just what I had in mind for her bedding!



This one is from one of my life long buddies, Autumn. It is the first quilt she has ever made!!! Can you believe that? It turned out so beautiful! She is so stinkin' talented and does good at everything she tries! Kate and I adore this quilt, it is our favorite cuddle blanky, it is so soft!


Autumn's Mom, Nancy, made this one. She is such a talented quilter! This is such a special quilt, there is so much detail and it is just pieced together so beautifully!


Here is a picture of some of the detail.


This one is from one of my former roomies and good friend Tristyn. I love the border and you can't see it in the picture, but it has hand stitching in the design of a giraffe eating from a tree, tons of work I'm sure and so adorable!


This last one is from my sweet SIL, Rebecca! It is a playmat; such a cute idea! I love it! It's so colorful and has ribbon on the corners to attatch toys! She is so creative!


I can't imagine how much work went into all of these! I am so lucky to have such sweet, giving and talented friends and family! I know once Kate gets older, she will love and appreciate all of them as much as I do!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We had a great Halloween! We carved our pumpkin:



With a little inspiration from our "Witchy Women"



Our little Katie-Bug was a Lady-Bug for Halloween!



Here is one of all of us at our church's carnival/trunk or treat! We still aren't quite sure what Jason REALLY was, so we are just going with a member of a 70's rock band!



I guess all the fun made Kate sleepy!



And I just thought this was too cute!



We hope everyone had a great Halloween!!

Grown Up and Moved Out!

That's right! Our little Kater-Tot has moved out of our bedroom into her own room! I was hesitant to try it, because I love having that little bug right next to me all night long, but I was getting to the point where I was willing to try almost anything to get her to sleep better! The first night she didn't sleep any better than normal, but the second and third nights she slept so good! She slept from about 8pm-3am!!! That is 7 hours!!! Of course I didn't get 7 hours of sleep because I was busy trying to get stuff done while the opportunity was there, but it was so nice to have time to get things done and also time to spend with Jason! Last night we weren't as lucky, she fell asleep at about 6pm and slept until midnight, and then was up every 2 hours. I have a feeling tonight will be the same, because she fell asleep at about 6 again. But at least she is sleeping for longer stretches, and hopefully I will be able to figure out a way to get her to go to bed later, so I will be able to sleep while she does! At any rate, Kate seems to be happier now that she is getting more sleep and has started a new morning routine consisting of smiles and coos!

Binge And Purge!

After about a month of eating just about anything that had fortified, enriched, added, extra, and plus in the ingredients, Jason and I decided it was time to change our lifestyle! No, we are not becoming bulimic as the title of this post may lead you to believe; although I might prefer that to what we have decided to do! We went through our cupboards, fridge and freezer and eliminated all unhealthy foods! Well, eliminate might not be the perfect word, we did throw some stuff away, but a lot of it just got put in our deep freezer in the garage. We'll allow ourselves a treat once a week! Here is a sample of some of the food that was "purged".



Our goal is to eat healthier, not just doing away with unhealthy foods, but adding more fruits, veggies and whole grains to our diet. Also we are going to try to work out at least 4 times a week. We took some "before" photos of ourselves, but I would hate to make any of you sick to your stomachs, so I won't be posting those! Jason also made us a spreadsheet to help us keep track of our goals! Wish us luck! I know I'll need it!!!

Beautiful Weekend For A Blessing!

What a perfect weekend! We had family come visit for Kate's blessing and it was SO nice! Jason and I have been missing family ever since we moved out here, but everytime we have people out, we realize even more how much we miss all of them! My parents along with Jason's parents came out and so did Jason's brother, Rob and his wife Steph and their two adorable kids, Ethan and Leah (aka "WEAH" according to Ethan)! Events of our weekend included visiting, the girls going to Hobby Lobby while the boys went to check out OU campus, a trip to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorail, an OU game for the guys and Diane (Jason's Mom) and a poor attempt on my part for the girls to make placemat purses! I couldn't remember how my sister, Michelle, had told me how to do it!

Our church doesn't start until noon, so I thought I would have plenty of time to get dinner going in the morning...I am SO grateful for a realistic and lifesaving Mom! She came over at 9:30 am to get things going! I kept thinking "as soon as I get (fill in the blank) done, I will go help her!" Well my fill in the blanks took up way more time than I thought! So my sweet Mom ended up making dinner and bathing Kate for me! Next time I have a baby blessing, I told her I am doing a frozen lasagna!!! THANKS MOM!!!



Jason did a wonderful job blessing Kate. I always love baby blessings, but it was so special to hear my own baby being blessed! I am so glad that we had family here to be a part of it with us!





Kate enjoyed being held all weekend, and especially enjoyed taking naps with Grandpa!





I couldn't have asked for a better weekend! The weather was perfect, the company was wonderful and Jason gave a beautiful blessing!

2 MONTH CHECK UP

Up until yesterday I have loved every single thing about being a mom. Kate had her 2 month check up and I had to go without Jason. I had been dreading it all weekend; holding down a sweet, innocent little baby while they are poked with sharp needles and screaming has to be the worst feeling in the world!!! Luckily she didn't cry for too long and she fell asleep on the car ride home. Here is what she did pretty much all day yesterday after we came home.



It's just too bad this didn't last through the night!!!!

September Sum Up

Ok, since I was a huge slacker last month, I decided to just do an all inclusive post for September!!!

We finally got Kate's crib!!! We ordered it back in June and it came the beginning of July, but had a broken piece. We called the manufacturer and they sent us a replacement part. We finally got that towards the end of July, only to find out they sent us the wrong piece!!! We called them again, and made sure they knew what piece to send and they said they would put a rush delivery on it. Weeks went by with nothing so we called them again, the woman who I talked to said, "yes, I see there is a rush order on it, but it has not shipped out yet...I'll tell my supervisor" BAH JEEZE! So finally a few weeks and a few more phone calls later, the correct piece came! Everytime Jason went to put the thing together, I wanted to take pictures, so buy the time the right piece came, he was sick of picture taking, so here is one of the crib all finished!

My sister, Mollie, threatened me...so here are some pictures of Kate, CLOSE UP!

Cuddling with Daddy, her favorite time of the day!




She smiled, RIGHT after I took this picture! I'm so sad I missed it! Kate had her first smile on Sunday, September 23rd. I had gone back to bed for a little bit while Jason took care of her, and she smiled for him a few times. She still isn't smiling a ton, but does it most for Jason, I guess she is a Daddy's girl!


Jason took on a project this last weekend, he thought would be small, but turned out to be a whole day of HARD WORK! He dug up a whole section of our front yard with a hoe to get rid of a bunch of weeds and old decorative rocks and planted some pretty plants!

BEFORE:





AFTER:





And to finish it all off, a poo story! We went to get Kate's pictures taken professionally on Saturday; we had her dressed up in the cutest little outfit! It had been a few days since she had poo'd and I had been a little concerned about it, but it was the last thing on my mind during her photo shoot, she was even making some grunting faces, but I didn't think much of it. About half way through the session, the photographer was re-situating her and informed me that she was soaked. This seemed weird to me considering we had just changed her before we left, I was about to blame the cheap diapers, and then we went to change her...there was poo soaking through her skirt and onsie! We took them off and it was all up her tummy and back! Then we took the diaper off...no joke it was FILLED side to side and front to back, not a speck of clean diaper!!! I had no clue so much stuff could come out of something so little!!! Luckily we had taken quite a few pictures already and just moved on to some nudie pictures! She had a few more blow-outs over the next few days and now is going on 2 days with nothing...I am just waiting for the next explosion!

My Baby's Momma

This is Jason posting. I figured that since the profile that Megan uses is called "jasonandmegan" then I at least have the right to type once. I've actually wanted to do this for some time now and figured that since both of my girls are taking Sunday naps, now was the perfect time.


I am so blessed! I constantly feel so lucky to have such a wonderful woman be my wife. Megan has been stellar as a mom and makes me proud to be her husband. She almost never complains about the hassles of being a mom (or my wife) and seems almost happy to get up in the middle of the night (not always of course) to feed our little Kate. In fact, last night Kate was sleeping so well in the early evening Megan told me "I just want to wake her up and hold her." I think that while growing up I wasn't the typical young man. I wanted to go on a mission but only so I could come home and start my family. I never daydreamed about which foreign land I'd end up preaching in (Ohio Baby!) but I did think a lot about the person that would be my wife and help raise our children. Megan has met and surpassed any expectations that I've had about my wife and although she has only begun being a mother, I know that she'll be the best. I love her and appreciate all that she does.

(Hopefully this post doesn't sound too girly, I just wanted to publicly tell my wife how great she is and now I'll leave the blog for Megan.)

One Month Old And Packin' On The Pounds!

I can't believe it has already been a month since Kate joined our family! Believe it or not, our little skinny minny has turned into a chunky monkey and now weighs 8lbs! We celebrated her one month birthday with a little bubbly!



Kate was a little upset when she found out she would not be getting any!



Happy One Month Birthday sweet baby! We love you!

Boogie Nights

My poor baby has a clogged tear duct! As you can see from the picture, these are the boogies that accumulate in her eye through the night, even after wiping her eyes every feeding with a warm wash cloth! The Dr. said it should clear up on it's own by the time she is a few months old, but I hate seeing my little girl struggle to open her eye! I hope it clears up sooner than that!

As I was trying to get a shot of her little crusty eye, I managed to get a picture of her "smiling". So I guess her eye can't be bothering her that much...

...And Kate Makes Three!

Well, as I am sure all of you know by now, Kate Elizabeth made her way into our home and into our hearts on August 6. She came exactly one month early, but luckily was perfectly healthy! She weighed 5lbs 8oz and was 20" long. We could not be more in love with our sweet little girl.

We got home from the hospital late at night on August 8th and my mom flew in soon after, and could not have arrived a minute too soon! What an amazing help and blessing she was while she was here! I don't know what I would have done without her! She kept my house clean, kept us fed, stayed up with Kate so I could sleep, answered ALL of my MANY questions and helped me stay sane! Needless to say I bawled my eyes out when she left! It was so nice to have her here with us, and we are so grateful for her sacrifice to come and help us out! I miss her tons!





The past few weeks have been a whirlwind! Everyone has always told me that having a baby is life changing, but nothing could never have prepared me for this! It is such a rush of emotions, so much work, but so much fun! Lucky for us, Kate seems pretty mild tempered (so far)! She still hasn't really cried, she just whines a little and then calms down pretty quickly. She is starting to sleep better at night and is changing so much every day! I already feel like she is growing up too fast and she is only 3 weeks old!!! I love every single thing about her and she has brought such a sweet spirit to our home. I never could have imagined I could love someone this much!

Ok, now prepare yourself for a picture overload! I am just going to post all my favorite pictures!!!







Here is Kate's first bath






And more of my favorites...







and here she is on a quilt that one of my best friends mother made, she did an amazing job!