happy birthday, lukas!

My cousins had a baby about two and a half weeks before we had Kate last fall and we got to celebrate with little Lukas on Saturday.  He's super tall and is already walking all over the place.  He's a little bit of a handful for his mommy and daddy, but you can tell he is super loved too.

Here are a few pictures of our day...

the big 1 year old!
with his new boxing gloves:)

 

loving cupcake #2!

Happy birthday, Lukas! Thanks for letting us share your special day with you!

the many faces of our beautiful girl

Kate is sporting a cute new shirt dress from her uncle Brian:)

raaarrrr!

happy girl! 

so sweet:)

caught her mid-laugh, she's cracking herself up!

it's fun to look out the window!

lions and tigers and bears...our first trip to the zoo!

With the wonderful warm weather we had earlier this week, Kate and I made our first trip the zoo.  My friend, Leigh, and her son Caleb have a membership there and invited us along for a few hours with the animals.  I was a little nervous that Kate would get scared, but she loved it!

she loves to point at everything!

look at the monkeys!

that's some serious cuteness:)

happy birthday, daddy!

We celebrated Matt's birthday last Saturday.  He had the day off - a first in over three weeks! - and we squeezed every minute of fun out of it that we could.  We enjoyed family time, a trip out for pumpkins and mums, a quick stop at Grandma's house, and then time with friends for the MSU vs. U of M football game and carving pumpkins.  The only thing that could have made the day better was a win from MSU, but we were happy anyway:)

This little girl LOVES her daddy!

big girl toys

Kate loves her new(ish) big girl toys...can you tell?

K-Day

So, call us strange, but our family celebrates a made-up holiday every year.  My cousin Mike made it up, and it's a celebration of our Kadzban family, so we call it K-Day.  We get together, just to hang out, on (or around) October 10 every year (10/10 because his hockey number was 10).  This year we met up at Main Street Pub and had dinner together.  It wasn't a huge crowd, but it was fun to see everyone and catch up a little bit.  Matt even got to join us before going in to work the night shift!

Kate had fun with her great grandparents, gnawed on a few french fries, and drank lots of water from a straw:)

If your family doesn't have their own made-up holiday, I highly recommend getting on that:)

11 Months

I've been a bit of a blog slacker lately.  Sorry about that.  Kate turned 11 months old on October 14.  That was also the day my little brother was ordained as a pastor and we had a huge family gathering to send off he and his wife to their new church in New Jersey.  Things were a little crazy, so we didn't get around to taking Kate's pictures until a few days later.  And the little stinker just won't sit still.  Each month seems to get harder and harder, but hopefully we got a few good ones.

come back here!

At just shy of a year, Kate's newest favorites seem to be:

• hummus
• Provolone cheese
• music (and dancing to the music)
• buttons
• cords
• walking ALL OVER the place (with our hands)...I'm pretty sure she could walk all day long and she's getting pretty good at it.  Matt predicted that she'll walk on her own before she's one.  We'll see:)
• keys
• remote controls
• waving and saying 'hi'
• other kids
• patting your back
• being outside
• splashing in the bath tub
• gritting her top tooth on her bottom two teeth (which drives me nuts!)
• laughing at herself in the mirror
• picking up strings or tiny pieces of things on the floor
• feeding herself

And a few of our not-so-favorites:

• teething
• diaper rashes
• the vacuum cleaner
• the blow dryer
• getting her face wiped (I'm pretty sure no kid likes this)

sweet serenade from daddy

Kate is a lover of music, you should see this girl dance! Matt got out his guitar and played her a few songs before bedtime the other day.  She couldn't have been happier.  What a great dad!

One of those days...

Yesterday was one of those days that was so great I wanted it to last forever.

Residents are required to have four days off each month, and Matt didn't have enough days off on the weekends this month, so he randomly had yesterday off.  A lot of times when he has a day off like that we end up either just getting stuff done around the house all day or spend so much time trying to figure out how to best enjoy the day that we don't end up doing much of anything.

Kate slept in until 7:45 and had a great morning at home.  Matt mowed the lawn.  We went to Target.  We ate lunch together.  Then we took off for our Family Fun Day adventure:) The drive out to Laketown was absolutely beautiful with all the fall colors, and that alone would have been enough, but it got better!

One of my favorite dates that Matt and I have ever gone on was when he took me to 'the Bowl'.  We went on a beautiful fall Friday night and we saw the best sunset.  It was amazing.  He likes to tell me that it's where I fell in love with him...that may or may not be true:) In case you don't know about it, here's a description:

The Bowl is an gigantic sand bowl, resembling a sort of concave desert.  Along with the other dunes and Lake Michigan itself, The Bowl was carved out of the earth by glaciers millions of years ago and was likely a small lake before drying up. Standing at the center of The Bowl and being surrounded on all sides by enormous walls of sand is quite breathtaking. The landscape is truly like no other. (Mike Guisinger via www.awesomemitten.com)

Yesterday was a little chilly and a LOT windy, but we went back to the Bowl and had a great time.  We started out at the park, walked way up and way back down to the beach (over 500 stairs!), then up the beach to the Bowl.  Kate loved being by the water and exploring lots of new sights and sounds.  She jabbered and squealed the entire time.

up we go!

the first of many 'quick' stops for a picture:)

Family Fun Day (October 9, 2012)

me and my girl:)

the beach

our entrance to the Bowl...yes we climbed that whole way

the view from the top

so incredibly beautiful

looking down on the Bowl and beyond

from the inside of the Bowl, looking back out at Lake Michigan

here she goes!

walking the last few steps to the top of the back dune:)

And of course we had a quick little photo shoot on our way back to the park...

I'm sorry, but she is absolutely the cutest girl in the world!

Matt gets the tough guy award for carrying Kate in the Baby Bjorn all the way up and down the stairs (twice), all the way up and down the beach (twice), and all the way up the dune to the Bowl.  Those of you who have been there know how steep and far that is.

Thank you God for a beautiful day, a beautiful family, and time together.  I am blessed.