Christmas 2010

Love Joy Christmas

Shutterfly has classic, elegant Christmas invitations for your party.

View the entire collection of cards.

This is the first time I've ever ordered Christmas cards! I'm just so excited to share our little family with the world. And the little one is so fun to photograph!

Apologies for the lack of updates lately--as soon as I figure out how to type with one hand a little better, I'll get some updates posted!

Love you all!

Great Old Friends!

In September my sister hosted a shower for me and Cupcake at my mom’s house in Springfield, MO, with help from my Aunt Kathy and my Aunt Jan and cousin Ashley. It was a WONDERFUL time, and I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have such great friends from the past!

Most of the girls in attendance have been friends of mine since high school and college, a lot of whom I have reconnected with thanks to good ol’ Facebook (to which I am addicted). It was amazing to see all of them—lots of them married, some with kids, and all of them grown up into beautiful, talented, kind women I am proud to know.

We had taco salad for lunch and mostly spent the time chatting. It was great to see my friends connecting with new people they hadn’t known before or reconnecting with people they hadn’t seen in years.

I got TONS of great advice from these ladies, and Susan had them all write a little letter to Cupcake. One of my greatest wishes for my daughter is to have a support system of women like I have had throughout my life, in family and friends like the ones who were in Springfield with me that day. We were of course showered by amazing gifts, and I hope I can continue to stay in touch with all these women as their lives grow and change (and hopefully knit some of them baby gifts as well)!

Honey-Do

I'm a list maker. At any given moment I have at least 2, if not 3 or 4 or 5 or more, lists that outline what needs to be done, for work, for the house, for the baby. I make lists when I am packing to go out of town for a weekend. I can barely stand going to the grocery store without a list. It's not even worth my time to leave the house to run errands if I don't have a list of some sort.

So in preparation for Cupcake's arrival, I have made a list that we need to complete. And by we, I mean a lot of times, Aaron, because there are only so many things I am able to do at this point in my pregnancy. Aaron is a good sport about it—he indulges me with my list of tasks—and I try and be realistic about what can get completed by December.

This weekend, he tackled a task that has been weighing on my mind for years. You see, Aaron loves technology, and consequently, all the wires that come with it. In fact, he may really love wires more than he loves the technology those wires drive. He has a crazy collection of wires and adapters and things I can't name. It's very handy, really—we always have whatever we need to plug this electronic device into that one. For example, I can move shows from the DVR to the computer, or from a video tape to a hard drive. Way more impressive than my own mixed-tape set up from high school, where I dubbed my CDs on to cassette tapes for the car.

So we have a lot of wires in the house, connecting televisions to cable, and computers to televisions, and routers to devices, and so on. This weekend, Aaron spent time planning out a wiring layout, and he hid all the wires in closets and made new jacks in the walls for all these things. I think he did a great job. And I only had to sit on the floor in some closets a few times feeding wires through walls to him, and he helped me and my pregnant self get up off the floor every time.

I even learned how to wire Cat5 jacks—I'm pretty proud of myself for that one.

Now, there are no wires trailing across the floor in any of the rooms, and you can most conveniently connect to the internet, wirelessly or wired, in any room in the house. It's gloriously nerdy. And now the baby can have a laptop whenever she's ready. I think Aaron will begin teaching her to code software at an early age.

Thanks, Aaron! One more thing checked off the list!

Still Kickin'

Me, the blog, and the kid are still here, in case you were wondering.

People are always asking me if the baby is active, and let me just tell you—the answer is YES! This little girl is a whirlwind already—there is hardly a time of day that she ISN'T kicking me. The doctor recommended that I keep track of how often she kicks by counting the amount of time it takes her to get to 10. It's usually around 30 minutes, but sometimes she kicks that many times in 5 minutes!

I feel it all day whether I am sitting or standing or walking or lying down. It's quite enjoyable, but it is SO weird. That something—no, someONE—is in there, flipping and turning and kicking and punching and stretching. A whole person, who will be born in around 12 weeks! WEIRD.

The only part that makes me wrinkle my nose a bit is when she pushes directly on my belly button (which, in other news, is getting smaller every day) from the inside. It always makes me kind of squirmy when someone, even me, pokes my belly button from the outside—and it's just as weird when Cupcake does it from the inside.

Otherwise, I adore feeling her move, and I think I'll be a little bit sad when I don't get to feel it any more. Though I do wonder if she'll ever take naps…

Showered With Love!

Cupcake's Grandma Sheila and Aunt Ashely (Aaron's mom and sister) hosted a baby shower in the Quad Cities this weekend, and Aaron and I came home feeling overwhelmed with love and incredibly blessed by his family!

Since we were going to be traveling all the way to Illinois for this party, we decided it would be fun to have a couple's shower--Aaron deserves to celebrate with his family, and we wanted to see everyone we could, so all the guys were invited, too! For a lot of them, this was the first shower they'd ever attended, and I heard a few of them were nervous about attending, but I think it turned out great.

Sheila and Ashley had TONS of great food for everyone to eat (including a great big tray of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, one of my current cravings--and it had a bowl of gummy worms in the middle, which is one of Aaron's favorite treats). There were cupcakes (my favorite!) with awesome handmade little monkeys on top, courtesy of Jon's daughter Marisa, who is an amazing baker!

When everyone arrived, Sheila got them to work on decorating onesies for cupcake--which was a GREAT project for the adults and the kids alike! They turned out so cute, and I am sure you'll see them featured on this blog as the cupcake tries them all on. Because she's so smart, Sheila made sure they spanned from Newborn size to 18 months, so we'll be able to enjoy them for many months to come.

At present time, Aaron's little cousin Tony helped us with unwrapping the presents (he's pretty much a present opening expert) and Aunt Ashley was AMAZING at keeping up with his speed on taking notes of who gave us what. It took some fancy pen work to keep up with that energetic little guy!

We received so many nice things--we have SUCH great friends and family! How did we get so lucky? We are so thankful, and we love all of you so much! Keep an eye here to see Cupcake enjoying each and every one of your thoughtful gifts.

Love,
Kate and Aaron

Cupcake's Dresser

Well, dear readers, it is apparently baby room improvement week here on the blog!

My parents, being the first-time grandparents of baby Cupcake, are pretty pumped, to say the least. Mom calls me about every day with something she's read or heard or seen or thought up about the baby or her room or supplies we might need after she arrives. It's pretty great seeing them this excited about their granddaughter--they are going to be AWESOME grandparents.

As Aaron and I were trying to decide how to furnish and arrange Cupcake's room without breaking the bank or crowding the space too much, my mom called to let me know she had an idea (she has lots of ideas, and they're usually good). She said she had an old dresser that she thought they could build a changing table top for, saving us the need to buy either of those two things. The old art supply chest of drawers from the garage was going to be the subject of the renovation, and I have to admit, at first I was a little skeptical. That thing had been out there for ages and ages, and I'm pretty sure there was at least a pound of glitter spread among the drawers.

However, with a little TLC (and some assistance from my carpentry-loving brother-in-law, Cameron) I am pretty sure this is the best dresser ever! Check out the photos!

A Furry Friend for Cupcake

I had dinner with my friend Amy P last night and she helped me review my registry and think of things I might be missing. While I was there, her ADORABLE son Aidan ran in with a box from Build-a-Bear and gave me (and the baby) this!

Aidan tells me his name is Monkey, and Amy said he picked it out, kissed the heart he put inside, and wanted it to be Cupcake's first furry friend. I'm SO excited to add this to our nursery décor!

What a lovely evening with some wonderful friends!