Just Adorable!!!

Well it doesn't get much sweeter than this!!!

This is our friend Emma from Dallas, her parents are good friends of ours and Stacy, Emma's Mother, sent this picture to me last night from Emma's first ballet recital. If I remember this correctly Emma's is in a Christian dance class and their age group, the 3 year olds, had a theme of "Bee Humble". Isn't that precious!!!

I just had to share this picture because I'm willing to bet that it made you smile.........am I right?

Yummy....

Katie outside, riding in style........in her pajamas. It rained most of the weekend so as soon as we saw the sun we just dropped what we were doing and ran outside. And, yes, it was 4pm and she was still in PJ's, that's what happens at our house when it rains!

First strawberry shortcake of the season!!

Above is Nat's version, he did share a little with Katie but she seems to like the strawberries on their own, not a big cool whip fan. Below is my version, I don't like strawberries (yes, there is something wrong with me), but Nat makes me eat at least one every time I make shortcake, clearly I have no issues with the whip!

We are finally COOL!!

So you are all going to crack up when I tell you this.....Nat and I finally got an iPod!!!!

Yes we are the last two people on this Earth that didn't own one, call it techno-laziness, but finally we have one and that's what counts. Isn't it beautiful, it's a Touch and I have already stolen it and claimed it as my own; although I guess Nat will have to have some access to it because at this point I can only play music! (Don't know how to download music on to it and there are a thousand other features that bewilder me; do you know I can even get online with this thing!!!........please stop laughing at me.)

Ok well I am going to rock out now......now if someone could just explain to me why those stupid ear buds won't stay in my ear holes that would be great......

Just Sayin' Hi!

Nat has returned from Chicago to rescue me from my own body, the hot flashes and insomnia are bringing me down big time. Right now we are watching cartoons and waiting for some rain to come on through the area, nothing too exciting or important. I just wanted to throw these pictures from yesterday online, it was really cold and Katie was all bundled up and her hair was super curly. ( No, she doesn't like to wear socks!!)

Katie's 18 Month Check-Up

(A Katie Burt original hairstyle, she likes to put headbands on all by herself now!!)

Katie is a full fledged big girl now!! Today at her 18 month check-up my notion that she had a growth spurt recently was confirmed; Kate weighed in 25 lbs. 2 oz., up 1 lb. 11 oz., and was 33 inches tall, up 3 inches. All that growth within the past 3 months, that's a lot of growing! As far as percentiles go she is now in the 85% for height and 60% for weight, which means basketball might be back on the table and top of the pyramid girl in cheer leading might be out!

Pediatricians nation wide just started doing 18 month autism screening, Amy told me all about it when she took Lauren in for her 18 month visit, so I had to answer a batch of questions about Katie's behavior. (does she point at things, does she look when you say her name, stuff like that) No red flags from Katie, she seems to be developing on track.

The one thing her doctor did point out was that Katie seems to have a very well developed vocabulary, which shocked me since Katie just kept saying, "no, no-no and nope" over and over to the doctor. (When she saw where we were going she looked at me, said nope, and turned around and started walking back towards the car!!) Katie did do a little show and tell by pointing out by name her feet, toes, knees, belly, eyes, mouth and teeth. (we couldn't get her to say nose or ears, but she pointed to them.) I guess at this age the doctor said it's normal for a child to say 5-10 words, besides Mommy and Daddy, and 25+ words are considered advanced. Katie is around 75 words, yes I'm a nerd and keeping a list, and can say a few short sentences like "I see it" and "want that ball" or "want that juice".

It's nice to hear that your child is doing well, especially when you are questioning her mental faculties after watching her fall off of the sofa for the third time in the past three minutes. Every day I think that she is turning into her Aunt Liz, smart and intelligent with little common sense. (sorry Liz, but you know it's true!!) Only time will tell!!

Have a great weekend!!!!

They're Back....

The hot flashes have returned!!

I knew it wasn't going to be too long until the full effect of the Lupron stole my sleep, of course it would be the night after I took my final when I really wanted the sleep. I was really tired too, mentally and physically, I went to bed around 9:30pm and was totally out by 10pm (I don't remember how the show I was watching ended.)

Around 3:30am I looked at the clock and realized that I was a little warm so I kicked the blanket off of my legs and fell back to sleep for about 10 minutes. At 4am I looked at the clock and thought, hmmm.. was I just asleep? After thinking about that for a second I realized that I was hot, really hot. I guess I was in a daze because I distinctly remember taking my pj bottoms off thinking that would most likely cool me off and then realizing that my legs were dewy from sweat.

I sat up in bed and walked into the bathroom, passing the thermostat that told me it was 70 degrees in our bedroom, and splashed my face with cold water. That did two things, it cooled me down and also woke me up completely. Now it was 4:15am and I was wide awake listening to the newspaper delivery guy dropping off all of my neighbors newspapers while jamming away to music that was way too loud for the 4am hour. I then turned on the TV only to realize that even this History Channel runs infomercials in the wee hours, turned the TV back off and turned on the laptop. I surfed around the net for about 30 minutes, getting caught up with all of the celebrity gossip on TMZ and Perez, when I finally had a wave of exhaustion come over me and the feeling that my body might be cooled down enough to fall back to sleep for another hour or so, until Katie decided to wake me.

I would say around 5:15am I fell back to sleep, wishing that Nat were home to cover my morning duties so I could get an extra hour or so of sleep, but at 6:15am I was back up listening to Katie talk to "Bessie" her doll. Thank goodness Katie was good today because I was draggin' tail, I was all about letting the TV babysit her today! She went down for a nap around 9:30am and I was right along with her falling asleep to the lullaby CD playing in her room through the monitor.

After our naps we went out shopping and I was so not in the confrontational mood that I bought a Barbie just to keep her quiet while I roamed the aisles at BJ's. It did it's job and there were no breakdowns from either of us at the store, although there was a commotion when I made her choose between two Barbies, she wanted one for each hand. After we returned from the store Katie surprised me by taking another nice nap and giving me time to clean up from the day and take another mini-nap on the sofa. YAY KATE!!

Tonight Nat's parents came over to relieve me of some of my duties. Of course they played with her and Grandma gave Katie her bath, plus they brought dinner over for me so I got a night off from my usual Weight Watchers Meal. (Sure they're good, but not four nights in a row good!) God Bless Grandparents!!!

So now it's 8:10pm, Katie just fell asleep and I think I am going to hit the hay as well. I was hoping my final grade from my class would be posted by now, but I guess I will have to wait another day or two. Ugh. Nat comes home tomorrow, the crowd goes wild (YAY, YAY, YAY), so even if I sleep like crud again tonight I can make it through knowing that Friday morning Katie will be all about DADDY!!

WVU Engineers.....

Ok this doesn't fit into the parameters of my normal blogging but I just had to post this, it's about 4 minutes long and makes me very sad that I'm not in college anymore......Enjoy!!!

Bath Time!!

I only took this video to show Tilly that Katie is learning her swimming moves but the she busted out with belly, knees and toes so I thought I would share with everybody. (Oh and she did say belly, I just tried to get her to say it again and of course when I ask her to say almost anything she won't......stage fright I guess!!!)

Learning and Growing....

Nat left Katie and I for Chicago this week and as luck would have it Katie finally figured out how to climb up on to our ottoman cubes and to the sofa, now I really have to watch her! (Not like I ignored her before or anything, but I was cutting up some fish sticks and turned around to she her dancing on the sofa?!) The top picture is of Kate perched atop one of the ottoman cubes, none of the pictures of her standing on them came out, but rest assured she can do that too. Below is of her climbing onto the sofa while trying to concentrate on her cartoons at the same time, yes she's a multi-tasker!

These two pictures are from bath time and I just thought they were cute so here they are. She loves bath time!!

Katie and her Grammy.

Katie.

Happy Mother's Day

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!

Messed up.

It's never boring here!

Yesterday Katie and I were outside talking to Heather as she was pulling out of the driveway on her way to work when Katie decided to try and turn and walk at the same time and since coordination doesn't run in our family, she went down right on her face.

What you see here is the resulting busted lip, what you can't see is the tooth that was pushed backward and the gums that spilt between her two front teeth. It was horrible, she was bleeding and wailing and I was frantically trying to calm her down so that I could check her out. Lucky for us our neighbors Scott and Sheri are a doctor and nurse, respectively, so I called them and made them come and check her out to see if she needed a stitch . Of course as soon as Scott looked at her she calmed down and I could see that the lip, although cut and beginning to swell, wasn't as bad as I thought. I felt like a panicky Mom but I think I know them well enough now that they won't judge, plus Sheri told me she would have freaked out at the sight of all of that blood too.

Nat walked in right about the time Scott got to the house and as fate would have it my last class of the semester was starting in 20 minutes so I had to part ways with my broke down baby and head into school. I spent 15 minutes on the phone today with a pediatric dentist who reassured me that although Katie might have a black tooth for a few years, her adult teeth should be fine. We are on a mushy diet for a few days while the nerves in her teeth heal and of course Motrin if she needs it, and yes she has needed it.

Well that is the excitement from here in York, it's never dull and I'm sure this little bundle of joy will in the end take 10 years off of my life expectancy........

Here we are.....

Injection day is upon us......

Tomorrow is the start of Lupron injections, 20 units into the fat around my belly button. I really hate Lupron, it isn't the "shot" that I hate, it's the hot flashes, mood swings and general blah attitude that comes with it. Lupron is designed to halt the production of estrogen and progesterone in my body, basically slam me in to a false menopause, and then they blast me with fertility drugs to hyper stimulate my ovaries into massive egg production. The whole process is no doubt wrecking my reproductive system, which wasn't so awesome in the first place or I wouldn't have this blog, and I'm sure I'll be the first of my friends to have a complete hysterectomy because of them. UGH!

So tomorrow........get ready for the fun stories and the ugly shot pictures. Fingers crossed, we are looking for un bebe...no doubles or triples and maybe, if God has been watching, he might find it in his infinite wisdom to make the next one look just a little, tiney, tiny bit like me??? I mean come on, I go through all of this and Nat get's a female duplicate.........not fair!!!

Hopefully I have passed on the bigfoot gene, someone else should appreciate what looking for 10.5 size shoes is like?!

Ok fine, you can be a size 10.....geez........

Playing.....

Nat and I took Katie to the Springettsbury Township park this afternoon for a little play time. It was a really nice playground but not a lot of toddler friendly equipment so we had to help her climb, slide and just navigate the massive play structure. I think what mattered most to Katie was the fact that this trip included both Mom and Dad, so by far it was her favorite playground trip ever!

Swinging....

More Swinging....

and MORE SWINGING!!!!

Fairy Festival.....

Today my neighbor Sheri, her mom Lil, son Maddux, Katie and I went to the Fairy Festival down at Spoutwood Farm in Glen Rock. Spoutwood farm is an organic, community supported farm and every year they hold this fairy festival to raise money to keep the farm the success that it is. Sure it's a bit Earthy, a few to many adults dressed in costumes for me, but Katie LOVED it and I am certain that we will be going back every year; she loved the fairy wings, the drum circle and all of the bubbles that they were blowing....

I will appologize that the pictures are a bit out of order, but you can catch the drift....she got a bit of a tan (you can tell in the car seat picture!!).

Watching the drum circle.

Chasing the bubbles.

Still chasing....

I wish I could tan like her, no pink at all!!

She was watching a lady make bubble wands.

Katie with her wings, about five minutes later we lost them.....dang it.

Katie's drum circle.

Katie dancing with the other kids.

Just hanging out in the grass, watching everyone dance. It was her one moment of rest!

Drug Companies!!!!

So I was supposed to get my drugs yesterday, and not that I was waiting around for them, but I was keeping my eye out because they are delivered in a refrigerated box and I have to get them from box to fridge ASAP. The past three times that I have gotten medication from this pharmacy they have been dropped off by Fed-Ex with no incident and really I have had little contact with them because I just haven't had any reason. Well yesterday came and went and no drugs so this morning at 8:30am I called them to let them know and to see what the big hold up was.

First problem, after discussing my order with me for 30 minutes on Tuesday the "order placing" lady decided not to enter my new address and phone number into the computer, why bother?! So apparently the drug company had been trying to contact me since Tuesday night with no luck. Of course it was put to me this way, "Well your phone has been disconnected so we couldn't get a hold of you"! (Say that with a bitchy tone and you catch my drift.) After I told the new order taking lady that I had a new number she explained to me that they can't ship orders that haven't been paid for, so again I asked, why hadn't the lady on the phone told me that Tuesday. Well she said, she wasn't a member of the billing department.

WHAT THE #$%^!!!

Thank GOD I'm not dying and dependant on this medication to live, really and truly THANK GOD!!

So I asked this lady exactly what was the point of being on the phone for 30 minutes with this lady on Tuesday if she couldn't enter in my new information or pass along the fact that I owed co-pays on my medication. "She was just confirming your order".

A 30 minute confirmation.....am I stupid? Plus as the conversation was going on I realized that she had called me on Tuesday, at my house, with my new phone number?! How had she gotten my new number and then somehow lost it? Plus I had been told that my order would arrive Wednesday by Fed-Ex and I had to give permission that if I wasn't at home that they could leave the medication on my porch. Was that too all part of confirming my order?

Basically for about 30 minutes this morning I lost my mind. I was cursing those "stupid Floridans", the pharmacy is in Florida, and wondering why competent, English speaking people are never on the other line when you need them! (I didn't actually say any of this to the lady on the phone.) Katie was sitting in the corner reading books, giving me stares and basically ignoring me; she knew I was crazy. I'm better now, or at least I will until tomorrow when and if my order shows up. If it doesn't show up I'M DRIVING TO FLORIDA!!!

(She knows when I need a smile!!!)