Kinsley's 11 months!!

My sweet baby girl is 11 months old.  This time last year, I was very uncomfortable and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our daughter.  I was so excited to see what she looked like and anxious about labor. I had absolutely no idea how much my life was about to change!  Every passing month keeps getting better and better.  Each milestone is definitely bittersweet as my tiny baby begins to make this transformation to a toddler.  August 13th we will celebrate her 1st birthday. I'm so looking forward to it but also wish I could stop time and keep my sweet baby just as she is...

At 11 months Kinsley:
-is wearing size 4 diapers
-is eating mostly what Mom and Dad eat now but is still picky about her veggies.  She can down a jar of baby green beans or peas in about 45 seconds.  I'm offering her things like avocado, peas, tomato, etc., but she spits most of it out.  She LOVES pizza and pasta. 
-is getting great at taking bites of something.  She has 4 teeth on top and 2 on the bottom and she is putting them to good use.
-is moving around and getting into everything.  She loves her new walker and has improved greatly since the video I took of her last week.
-thinks tooting is hilarious.  Every time she does it, she stops what she's doing, looks at me and then starts giggling.  Then, of course, I start laughing and then she grunts and does it again.  Not so lady like but oh, so funny. :)
-likes to say "hi" to Trout and Striper first thing every morning.  I pick her up out of her crib and we immediately go find Striper and Trout to give them a good morning pat. 
-loves the pool and being in the water in general.  She loves to splash and put her face in the water.  I have to keep a close eye on her or she will drink the water. 
-is fascinated by the vacuum cleaner and the hair dryer.  She wants me to blow her hair while I'm drying mine.  It's pretty funny because Trout likes to have his hair blown dry too so when I'm trying to dry my hair I have Kinsley on my leg and Trout laying on his back right underneath me with his legs in the air. 
-loves to open drawers and has just figured out this whole cabinet thing.
-also loves her rocking chair.  It used to be her daddy's when he was a child.  She's such a big girl!
-loves to dance.  (See the video below. :))

"What do you want Mom?? I'm busy here!"

She got into her chair all by herself.  (Although she needed a little help getting into the sitting position.)

We go to the pediatrician the week after her first birthday and I will have new "stats" then with plenty more pics I'm sure! :)

GOING PRIVATE :)

After discussing things with Louie we've decided to make the blog private.  This will protect us from strangers seeing what we're up to.  All this means for you, is that I will need to email you an invite so that you can have access to the blog.  If you would like for me to send you an invite, please leave a message in the comment section of this post or email me.  :)
Thanks for understanding!
-Catherine

"Independent Women!"

At my Bible study that meets on Tuesday evenings, we got off topic a little and started discussing how to deal with the fact that our spouses are never home.  Not only that, they say they are going to be home at a certain time and 2-3 hours later they show up (last night 5 hours late!).  We know they don't do it on purpose but it sure would make life a lot easier if they could give us a realistic time.  For some reason, we always believe them... we go back and forth with dinner plans, keeping the little one up past bedtime, not meeting the girls for a drink, all with the hopes that our husband will actually be home when he said he would and then he's not, again. 
My friend Erica, whose husband just started his ortho residency in June said that she can deal with the fact that he's gone all the time, she just wishes she knew the actual time he would be arriving home.  This limbo thing is no fun for anyone and I can only imagine what this will be like when kids get older.  "Dad's going to try and make it to your game, honey but don't get your hopes up." Ugh. I do have to say that there are many, many things for us to be thankful for so I know we shouldn't complain... I think we are just looking for a little support from someone in our shoes and some good ways to cope. 
All that being said, back to the story (it's no wonder we got off topic, with me there, it's no surprise), Emily suggested we think of ourselves as strong, independent women with very exciting lives.  If the hubby shows up, great, but if not, we had our own thing going anyways. :)  Easier said than done, but I decided to take her advice and plan a few outings over the next couple of days.  Here is what the independent Stryker women have been up to:

We hit "Thursday's on First" with our wise friend Emily.  There are all kinds of local crafts, food, art, etc. It's a good time, especially on a beautiful day.

Every time we go, we find something sweet to taste. Last week it was cupcakes and this week it was gelato.  Yum!

On the way home, we stopped at the children's resale shop and picked up a new toy for 8 bucks. Wohoo!  She loves it! Check it out!

So she needs to work on the fall factor a little bit and I need to work on how often I say "whoops!" Sorry.

After we got bored with our new toy, Kinsley helped me with the laundry because that is much more exciting.

The thing on her head is usually for washing her socks but it fit perfectly on her head. She wore it for about 30 min and looked like she should be serving cafeteria food.

Later that evening, Kinsley and I went to the Rochester Water Ski Show.  Luckily the weather was beautiful because the show itself was a little bit of a dud. 

After lunch today, we headed to the Quarry Hill Nature Center. Kinsley was mesmerized by the huge fish.

After exploring indoors, we headed out with our friends Sari, Witten, Danielle and her puppy, Molly for a nature walk (which really meant we spent the whole time chatting while the kids looked around from the stroller - or in Kinsley's case, chewed on her sun block bottle).

Our "turn-around point" was at a neat park where Kinsley and Witt had fun on this bouncy thing.

Both looking in the general direction of the camera! Great job Danielle!! :)

So overall, our adventure as independent women has started out well. Although, we both miss Daddy tons.  He hasn't seen his little girl for 4 days now. :( I'm hopeful that she will get to see him a little bit tomorrow evening. 

In the mean time, we've got big plans baby! :)

Have a great weekend!

Love, C

Fun in the Sun!

The sun is supposed to be out for a few days this week so we decided to take advantage of the sun with a trip to the pool.  Witten and Kinsley spent most of the time focused on each other instead of in the water but it was fun none the less.  If these kiddos could talk to each other I can only imagine what would be said...

"Hi Witt! How are you today? I like your hat!"

"Hi Kins! I like yours too."

"Mmmm. That looks yummy. Can I have one of your snacks, Witt?"

"Sure, Kinsley. Here let me help you with that."

"Oh, You have a little something on your face. Let me get that for you."

"Um. Mom. This girl ate all my snacks."

As you can tell, Sari and I had a good time watching them interact. :)

Here is a litle clip of Kinsley doing the "bear crawl." She does this when she doesn't like the way things feel on her knees, like rough concrete or grass.  I find it humorous.

Have a happy Thursday!

Love, C

A Vacation at Home

This weekend has truly felt like a vacation at home.  Louie has had 3 solid days off from work.  No rounding, no pager, no working.  It's been heaven.  We've made the most out of our weekend.  We started with sleeping in Saturday morning followed by breakfast.  Louie loves to make breakfast and he usually goes all out.  After Kinsley's morning nap, we went to our friend Diana's neighborhood pool. This was the first time Louie had been swimming with Kinsley and they had a blast.  It makes my heart smile to see Louie with his little girl. 

After our swimming adventure, we headed home for a Stryker Family nap.  It was great. :)

That evening, Louie and I had a date night planned.  The sitter came at 5 and we headed over to a pub with a great porch to meet some friends for dinner.  We had a couple of ice cold beers (or in my case, Mike's Hard Lemonades) and then scooted over to the movie theater.  The original plan was for the boys to go see the A-Team and the girls to see Eclipse from the Twilight series.  Unfortunately for Louie, a couple of the boys backed out so the plan fell through and Louie ended up having to suffer through the vampire romance movie.  He was such a trooper and didn't complain about it during or after and even asked me a couple of questions about the series.  Way to show interest in one of my silly obsessions, Lou! :)

The next morning we got up and went to church. We've been trying out a new church and it is drastically different from what we have been to in the past.  There is a band and you get your latte before the service and a lot of hand raising.  It feels a lot like a Weekend Christian Conference.  Jury's still out... They have a great children's ministry program.  We have one other church to try... we'll see, but either way, I'm glad we went.  :)

After church we had planned to watch the Rochester Ski Show from Fisherman's Inn Restaurant in Oranoko, MN.  It's about a 15 minute drive and Kinsley woke up from her AM nap at the perfect time for us to head up there.  Only problem was that it rained all day yesterday and the ski show got rained out, BUT I had some delicious fried catfish and great company for lunch. :)

The annual Rochester fireworks show was rescheduled for this evening due to the weather.  It's pretty rainy today too so I'm not sure if it's going to happen tonight either but we've made sangria and apple pie in hopes that our 4th of July festivities will in fact, occur.  Instead of going to a fireworks show last night, we had our own celebration at our house indoors.  After dinner we had a little popsicle party and Kinsley got to try strawberry and lime popsicles.  She wasn't sure if she liked it or not...

Louie went to the gym this morning and checked on a couple things at the hospital and was home by 7:45.  We were still sleeping. :)  Then we had breakfast again.  Biscuits, sausage, eggs and maybe a doughnut or two. Now Kinsley's down for her morning nap and Louie is reading a little bit of orthopedics.

Nothing that crazy or amazing happened this weekend, we just had time together and it was wonderful.  Louie and I needed a chance to reconnect as a family and I'm so thankful that his schedule allowed us to do so.  He will pick back up with his crazy, busy schedule tomorrow and he has to work this coming weekend but he is off the weekend of our anniversary. Yay!  7 years!! I look forward to the weekend of the 17th.  I already have the sitter scheduled. :)

Hope everyone has had a wonderful July 4th holiday weekend!

Love,

Catherine

Ode to Louie

My poor husband usually gets left out of the blog.  It's not intentional, but the truth is, in case you didn't already know this... my camera goes straight to Kinsley.  I remember reading other people's blogs before Kinsley was born and thinking to myself "I'm going to make sure and do more than just take pictures of my child. I want to have a well-balanced blog." Turns out, when you become a mom, you become slightly obsessed with your child and think everything she does is the cutest thing ever and MUST be documented.  That being said, Louie usually gets the short end of the stick.  Sorry Hubby.

So... this is what is going on with my husband. :) Louie just started his FOURTH YEAR! Yipee! We have 24 months to go (we started with 60). Woo woo!! I am really very proud of all his hard work. It definitely hasn't been easy and I'm not going to pretend that this process has been all hunky dory but in my biased opinion, Louie is going to be an amazing doctor and surgeon. (Yes, I know he's technically already a doctor, but you know what I mean.) He really and truly cares about his patients and they always come first.  He's a little OCD about his duties and responsibilities as the resident on whatever rotation he's on, but he's received nothing but stellar evaluations, so I guess that has paid off. 

Recently, at the end of the year ortho banquet, Louie received an award.  It's sort-of a tongue-and-cheek award, but to me (and Louie too, I think) it was a big deal.  It's called the "Dan Funk Me Award."  It's basically an award given to the resident who has had the most difficult or crappy rotations over the past year.  Yay us!  Dr. Funk is a former Mayo ortho resident and he supplies a plaque and a monetary gift for the award.  There are 3 stipulations for the money: 1)It must be used for something fun. 2) It must be spent with someone you care about. 3) It cannot be spent in Rochester.  All three are pluses for me. :) I know the award is kind-of silly but I really appreciate it because it served as a nice recognition for all of his hard work over the past year and the sacrifices we've made as a family. Hopefully he will NOT get this award next year. :)

Louie and I at the ortho banquet. He was actually on call that day but one of the other residents covered the pager so he could come over to the banquet so he could "roast" one of the graduating residents. Thanks Nick!

Louie receiving his award.

Louie's award - and yes, that is a horse's backside. :)

Daddy Duties: In all his free time, Louie had to baby proof the house since our little one became very mobile.  Baby proofing was a bit of an adventure.  Our banisters do not meet code and there are about 5 inches between each of the railings. This meant we needed to find something to put across the railings.  We decided on plexi glass rather than a netting. We also needed to install gates for the stairs.  The one on our second floor was not a problem BUT the one that needed to be installed at the bottom of our stairs in the basement was a tad bit more challenging. Turns out the walls in basements are made of concrete. Hmmm... not the easiest to drill into. We currently have 4 nice holes in our wall downstairs but still no gate. Oops.  Louie's quote of the day: "I have never used more of my ortho training on any home project." (Followed by a few expletives.)

Oh well, the important stuff is done.  Kinsley has the largest playpen imaginable.  I just close all the upstairs doors, have moved the coffee table to the side of the room, and she crawls all over the place.  Thanks Daddy. =)

So beautiful, but at least it's safe. :)

The dogs are a little confused by the baby gate.  Trout tries to stay as close to you as possible as you are going up the stairs so he doesn't get locked out. 

Father's Day: On Father's Day we had breakfast together (Louie cooked it - he said he wanted to), and went to a Rochester Honkers Baseball game.  I didn't take any pictures but should have saved Kinsley's Baseball video for this post. I'll re-post it for fun. All in all, it was a good day. 

I'll try and include Louie in a few more of our blog posts.  Love you Louie. :)

Witten is One!!

Our friend, Witten, turned one on June 24th. I can't believe a year has already gone by.  Kinsley was born 7 weeks after Witten, so her first birthday is just around the corner.  Craziness!

Kinsley watched the festivities from Witten's swing.  She loved it! We might need to invest. :)

Witten got a new ball for his birthday.

He kind-of liked it...

Ummmm... actually he loved it!

Kinsley already has the boys chasing her. :)

BEFORE

AFTER!!

Happy Birthday Witten!!