Julia "Talks"

We are so excited and proud to hear our baby girl make such sweet noises! She has just started to "talk" to us in the last few days. It is so much fun to see her learning and changing every day.

-Jarret

My Next 30 Years

The day I dreaded for so long has finally come and gone. I'm now an official member of the 30 Club, and it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as I expected! My first 30 years have seen so many joys and blessings, and I hope the same can be said for my next 30 years.

When doing a recent bible study, it hit me that Jesus didn't begin his ministry until he was 30 and David didn't become King until he was 30. I started imaging what God might do with me now that I'm 30. I hope in these next 30 years, I show more kindness, more selflessness, and more care to those around me and I pray that they'll know it's because of God's love for me that I'm in turn able to pour out love for others.

I had a whole weekend of celebrations! On Friday, Jarret and my parents took me to Roy's for a wonderfully nice dinner while Jarret's parents were kind enough to watch Julia. My parents gave me a beautiful cross necklace that I'll have for years to come, and the dinner was really relaxing and enjoyable.

(Note the necklace change!)

On Saturday, I celebrated with some of my closest girlfriends at On The Border and Sprinkles Cupcakes for dessert. It was so fun and yummy, and I felt hugely blessed by some much needed girl time!

And on Sunday, I celebrated with Jarret's family at Red Lobster. My neice Kendall and I have a competition to see who can eat more Cheddar Bay Biscuits...I could eat those and only those for my meal! We then chilled at J's parents house for a while and had my beloved Sam's white cake. Better than any bride's cake I've tasted!

- Katie

Julia's Trip Downtown

After Kate's Square One class at Watermark yesterday, she brought Julia downtown to have lunch with Daddy! We had talked about how fun this would be even before Julia was born...and the first family work lunch definitely exceeded our expectations. We walked across the street to the Plaza of the Americas which is the building with the ice rink and a bunch of assorted restaurants. We ate at the greatness of J. PePe's enjoying some wonderful Mexican cuisine. After lunch we made the rounds at my office (CBRE) to show off our sweet daughter. Everybody was so complimentary on her good behavior and her beautiful blue eyes. We let a bunch of people hold her, and it was fun to see the joy they had getting some sweet time with our baby girl! I can't wait for the next workday lunch with my two favorite girls.

-Jarret

What a Glorious Morning!

Our little pumpkin slept through the night for the first time! At only 6 weeks and 2 days old, we'd be crazy to believe this trend will continue. But who cares!? I just got the best night of sleep I've had in 3-4 months, considering I didn't rest well the last couple months of pregnancy. She slept from 10:30 - 6:30, and then again from 7ish to 11am, and she goes down fairly easily on most nights. The trade-off? She's a TERRIBLE napper during the day! She's fussy and we can tell she needs to nap, but she doesn't like being put down. I guess be careful what you wish for... we wanted her to be a snuggly baby and she certainly likes being held a LOT during the day.



We sat her up on the couch today and she actually really liked it! Here's our cutie pie:


Also, Jar celebrated my birthday early! Two nights ago, I received my BD present at 3:30 in the morning. "What on earth?!", you say. I've been telling J I want a smaller camera that will fit in my purse, because I refuse to carry around our big camera and the backpack of all the camera gear we own. I guess he got tired of having to lie and make up stories every time I mentioned the camera, so he decided to "run an errand" Friday night (picking up my new toy at the store). When Julia woke up at 3:30 for her middle of the night feeding, I went to pick her up and felt something hard and boxy in her crib. J had left the camera box in her crib, knowing I'd easily find my present there. Very clever!


Here are my first shots with my new toy...



- Katie

Thankful

For today, I'm incredibly thankful that I had a C-section. Otherwise, today would be my last day of maternity leave and I simply cannot imagine leaving Julia in just a couple days from now. I'm so grateful that I have another three weeks with her. However, it seems impossible that my maternity leave is 2/3 over, so I know these last three weeks will go by so quickly.

I'm also so thankful that my little one is sleeping so well at night. Hooray!

Jarret's taking a 1/2 day of vacation this afternoon and we're heading to the lake...without baby. That's right, it's our first real "date" away from Julia. We continue to be so, so thankful for grandparents who live in town, who love to spend time with Jewels, and who give us the gift of babysitting!

We updated our Photo Gallery, so take a peek when you get some time. Photos are ordered most recent first.

- Katie