Fialas

Thanksgiving 2004

We had so many memorable activities that it’s worth describing our Thanksgiving week. It started out with the Bush home in Trilogy closing on Tuesday – coming down to the wire right before the Thanksgiving weekend. Suffice to say, everyone was relieved that the closing happened in time for Steve’s parents to stay in the new house. Wednesday was a flurry of activity, as grandparents settled in and Katherine and I ran errands prior to the weekend.

On Thursday, we all trooped over to Steve’s Aunt and Uncle’s house for an extended (and we mean extended) family celebration. With half a dozen great-grandchildren, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, it was a raucous celebration. As you can see, Katherine befriended Mandy, a very patient golden retriever who allowed Katherine to play with her at length.

The following day, we celebrated my birthday at Amy and Jason’s house. You can see the birthday cake which barely fit all 36 candles. 🙂

And, then on Saturday, Sid and his parents came over to hang out. For a snack, we made smoothies for the kids. They liked it.

Later that evening, Grandma Bush babysat while Steve and I went to the “Incredibles.” Suffice to say, we weren’t disappointed, and I understand the terrific ratings.

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter!!

Katherine is still talking upstairs and calling us. She’s been very difficult to put down lately. Tonight we went thru 6 or 7 books and then she clung to me like a monkey when I tried to put her in the crib. I had to detach her before she went down to sleep. Her naps have been equally as difficult – with her crying a good 10 minutes or so and saying “dadadda” before drifting off to sleep.

We had a fun Easter – two egg hunts. We went to brunch with friends and Katherine tried to play with them. This ended up with Katherine and one other friend standing in a plastic house looking around :). She figured out after a couple times that the key was to pick up a brightly colored plastic egg and stick in one of her fuzzy baskets. Funny enough, she wore her beautiful velvet pink dress which got ink on it after she played with stamps (her eyes just lit up when a friend said “lets play with stamps!”) and she must have stuffed down a dozen blueberries and a handful of grapes at lunch. By the time we headed home it was 1PM, which is very late for a nap, and she finally fell asleep after a good cry at 1:40. She woke at 4:10 and then we went to a family Easter celebration. Katherine hung with her cousins Will and Grant – played with the toys including a trike and xylophone. She ran around the back yard and Steve would follow her, scooping her up before she could reach the sand play area. We must have spent half the time running after her and keeping her from playing with sand and then sticking her thumb in her mouth! Nevertheless, she wore herself out and ended up asleep by 9:35 or so.

Animal Fun

Yesterday, we showed Grandma Bush the nearby animal farm. The pig at the farm had just had 10 or 11 piglets and the goat was extremely pregnant. Lots of exciting things to see at the farm. Katherine spent time staring at the duck (“ducg”) and saying “baa” at the goats and sheep. The ponies were exciting as well. She’s really learning her animals – she can now say “woo” for dog “ducg” for duck “baa” for sheep and “whabbt” for reader rabbit program and “moo” for cow (I think). She says “buss” for the wheels on the bus book and I think she even said “egh” for egg today. She’s definitely picking up words, although she’s not what I would call conversant.

More Words…

The Playdate

Katherine had an amazing playdate today. It started with Steve and Katherine visiting the Fialas while I had my workout. They dropped in, said hi and caught up. Apparently, Mandy their golden retriever brought Katherine her leash – once attached, they walked around the house.

They picked me up at the Pro Club and we headed off to the LeVines. Katherine played with her friend Sid and her older friends Adam and Derek. Playing consisted of staring at each other, playing with Sid’s toys and only occasionally vying for the same items. We had a couple very cute moments. Katherine took a real hankering to Suzi’s straw hat from Cuba. Our daughter looked very adorable in the big straw hat! She also played with Maggie, their poodle who really wanted to lick Katherine’s face and hands. Katherine probably spent 10 minutes on Eric’s lap squealing as Maggie licked her hands. They’re now fast friends.

After this busy morning, Katherine was beat. She fell asleep on the car ride home and woke up a couple hours later. We all rolled around and headed down the hill to the local toy store where we loaded up on blocks and birthday toys. Katherine was on a tear at the store, she kept running and grabbing Hello Kitty merchandise (oh please) and anything within reach. So, finally, I took her out to the sidewalk and Steve bought a ton of stuff.

We went to a party for Ian and India – who were turning 3 and 1. They had a couple Step 2 plastic outdoor structures in their new house (intended for outdoor use), and the kids had an amazing time. Katherine in particular loved the Storybook house with the plastic phone and patio chair. She would stand on the patio chair, grab the phone and walk around. She seemed a bit overwhelmed at times by the other kids screaming around the house and running thru the plastic house. On the whole though, Katherine played very well with the other kids and we had no major mishaps. She also loved their slide. Apparently, she walked up the stairs and even turned around once and slid down the slide backwards!! I missed this of course, but Steve swears it happens. After the party, we went to Coho to have dinner with Audrey and her parents. We ordered her chicken nuggets for dinner. It came with fries and grapes. She wolfed down the grapes first, then 6 or 7 fries that we left on her plate (we took a bunch off her plate). She jammed 2 or 3 in her mouth. Only after she was done did she stuff down pieces of the nuggets.

Overall, Katherine had quite a day. We went home, played with the PlayDoh and other party favors, had a quick bath, drank a cup of milk. Katherine passed out without a protest or cry tonight. I expect that she’ll sleep through the night.

More Words…

Katherine continues to become more verbal and it’s just so much fun to hear her talk. She now says “daw” for dog and “hei” for hi and “up” pretty regularly. We stopped by our local cider house. She spied their small dogs and sad “hei” and motioned for down. I put her down and she immediately put her hands out to touch the dogs. I confirmed that the dogs are friendly, and the teeny dog barked, wagged and jumped on Katherine. Well, she just loved it. Last night, she said “apble.” We were so proud and said “yes, apple apple apple”

She totally understands everything we say. I asked her to find Toby Bear and she’ll pick him out of her assortment of bears. She follows instruction very well – from helping to put on her coat to going to the front door to help with Bisco (and handing us his towel). She understands our routines and looks forward to participating.

Sense of humor

Now that Katherine understands what’s going on, she gets the biggest kick out of the smallest things. For instance, she kept pointing up to helium filled balloons at the party. Of course, I couldn’t reach them because they were up on the ceiling and the string were out of reach. So, i had to jump to get them. Katherine chuckled at that. She also brought toby bear in the car with her for our ride today. She would clutch him and then drop him at some point, making um umming sounds to get our attention. I would reach around, grab the bear and push it up and she would grab him out of my hands. She really liked toby peeking around the front car seat to say hi and seeing him moving around the car (courtesy of mom).

I jinxed us by saying that she would sleep thru the night. she just woke up with a big blowout. I think she had too many grapes today – or maybe it was the fries. Anyway, she’s pretty unhappy – better go manage the situation.

Painting a couple weeks ago

I just found pictures from Katherine’s first finger-painting exercise back on January 24th. Steve, Katherine and I went to a teachers store and got an easel, finger paints, bowls and finger painting paper. I had also purchased a plastic vest to theoretically keep her clean. We setup shop on the hardwood floor with newspaper underneath. Katherine was a bit puzzled initially and watched me paint. She caught on, dipped her finger in a bowl, and then put finger to paper. After a few minutes, we had a nice picture – courtesy of the whole family. We had to put Bisco behind the gate, or he would have contributed too.

As I explained to Steve, I learned two valuable lessons. One, put newspaper over the carpet in the kitchen. Two, wear clothes that I don’t mind getting paint on. The good news is that this is very much washable paint.

What a Fun and Busy Christmas!

What a Fun and Busy Christmas!

We had yet another wonderful holiday. We spent Christmas with Steve’s extended family: his parents, Ramsays, Olbrights, and Fialas. To celebrate Christmas Eve, we went to Everett and a children’s Christmas service. Lots of families with little ones attended and Katherine and Kevin both did very well during the 30 minute service. It consisted primarily of singing and children enacting the Christmas story. Katherine was so taken by the service that she would zip around to the back of our seats and sing (off key) in a very spirited way. After the service we went to Steve’s sisters house and had a nice pork BBQ dinner. The cousins played very well with each other – Kevin even took Katherine’s hand and led her to the tree to see all the ornaments and lights. After the excitement, Katherine took her bath and we discovered a new rash, brought on we think by the heavy tights she wore. Thankfully, by the next morning, it had disappeared.

We opened our presents Christmas morning with Grandma and Grandpa Bush. After they left to participate in gift opening in Everett, Katherine took a very early morning nap. This was highly unusual as she’s been on a 1 nap schedule for several weeks. When she woke up, we piled back in the car, headed north and enjoyed an hour or so with the Olbrights. Katherine had great fun eyeing all of Kevin’s gifts. Kevin had received a musical keyboard with bright plastic instruments. Katherine wanted to play with the instruments and Kevin was determined to keep them with the keyboard. After tussling over them for a bit, Katherine finally grabbed two of the instruments, thrust them to her cousin, lifted her chin, turned around and walked off in the opposite direction. We weren’t sure if it was a case of “sharing” or having had enough, but it was quite amusing.

For dinner, we went to the Fialas where we had a delicious potluck with ham, beef, turkey (I think), beans, salad, pink stuff (yum), and mashed potatoes. The dinner closed with a vast array of cookies and ice cream that the Olbrights had brought. While the food was very tasty, the parents really enjoyed watching the three children interact. Will and Kevin ran around and by the end of the evening, Katherine had figured out that she could run around too. So, we had all three cousins doing laps in the living, dining and family room – with Katherine waving her hands and screaming (ahhhh!!). Even better, some adults joined in the fun too. 🙂

Another highlight of the week was visiting the Seattle Aquarium. It really is a wonderful resource for families, and the whole family trooped out to see it. Will and Kevin were in perpetual motion, and Katherine took turns riding in her stroller and braving the crowds by walking around. We saw the fish get fed by a scuba diver (very cool), other fish get tossed food and the otters eat their shrimp. After a fun-filled couple hours, we headed to the Spaghetti Factory. Katherine ate mac and cheese, the boys played with plastic barber toys and crayons. The boys even treated us and neighboring diners to a rousing rendition of the ABC song.

Prior to a family dinner, we visited the Redmond Town Center and tried to go to Gymboree. Unfortunately, they were closed, so we stopped by a Paint store – its one of those places where you paint some object and then they put it in a kiln. I painted three ornaments, Steve painted a cake platter and Grandma Bush a heart platter. Katherine had her hands painted (three times!) and then stuck to the platters. That was probably the most interesting part of the visit, because she couldn’t check out the pottery or paints or brushes…Grandpa was a good sport and took Katherine around the neighboring stores while we painted. We did eventually go to Gymboree later with Grandpa, which was a good workout for Katherine.

On the last day of the Bush’s stay with us, we hosted a family dinner potluck at our home. It was a nice way to spend some quality time with family and allow the children to play together. Will really enjoyed playing with Hokey Pokey Elmo. The children took turns playing with the trike, and there was just a lot of running around and excitement in general. Grant seemed to enjoy the mayhem from the family room (what an adorable baby!). By the time the evening ended, both Will and Kevin were determined to stay and were very sad to leave. I guess that’s the mark of an enjoyable and successful play event!

We capped the visit off with a family photo sitting at the local mall. While the Olbrights weren’t able to join us, we did get some nice shots of the Bushes with Katherine, us with Katherine and then all five of us. We’ll be sure to send pictures to the family.

Another Growth Spurt
Holy Cow – Katherine has been eating a ton lately. Two days ago, she must have eaten 5 meals. With every meal, she’s been stuffing down a lot of food. Favorites these days are spaghetti, tofu, peas, bread, yogurt…There really isn’t any food that she doesn’t eat. We also found that while we eat dinner that Katherine would tug our pants and try to climb in our laps. Grandpa Bush was very accommodating and we found Katherine perched in his lap pointing at food and trying to explore the food in his mouth. During a rotation on my lap, Katherine pointed at salmon, got a taste, wanted more and double fisted fish into her mouth. Of course, this whole eating thing has been accompanied by real growth. She now sort of fits into a while sweat suit that Grandma Chang gave her for her birthday. She also is starting to outgrow one of her red jackets.

More Learning- “What a Busy Child”

We must of heard this at least 5 or 6 times during the holidays from family, friends and random strangers. Katherine is indeed busy. She never stops very long for any one task or event. For instance, this morning I took out all of her shape blocks from her puzzle and asked her to put them back (a new development!). She inserted one, picked up another block, tossed it aside and headed off to her toy bin.
Katherine is so funny with her Jumbo Knob Puzzle. It has big wooden knobs with shapes – circle, square, pentagon, etc. For a couple weeks, this puzzle had been on our coffee table. Katherine would do a quick drive by, grab a puzzle piece and take off. We had encouraged her to put the pieces back, demonstrated and even had her friend Audrey play with it. Finally last week, she took the rectangle piece and managed to put it back in. Steve and I cheered and Katherine loved it. Now, she will grab any puzzle piece, put it back and look up to make sure we saw her do it. At a minimum, she gets a big smile – other times clapping and always encouragement.

We took her to the local children’s shoe store to get snow/rain boots. The sales person said as Katherine stomped off in her shoes, “what a busy child…” The shoes by the way are very cute – purple patent leather boots with flowers. She also got some pink leather shoes with a mouse chasing a piece of cheese. We can’t get away with putting her in this stuff much longer, as she’ll soon have her own opinions. So, we might as well buy it now!
Katherine has also reached a number of other milestones as well. She’s points consistently at food that she wants to eat and objects that she wants to checkout. It may be food on our plates or things on the counter. It’s been very handy for us, since we can now respond directly to her requests. The only downside is that she can be very insistent with what she wants.
We also have been trying to encourage scribbling…on paper that is. I read in a parenting book that scribbling is a key milestone. So we put her Crayola washable big crayons in a diaper wipe box. Assuming the box is open, she’ll dig around and pull one or two crayons. Katherine likes to walk around with crayons, and occasionally she’ll even draw a line on paper. 🙂 Her other favorite activity is handing Bisco her crayons. He’s managed to eat and destroy a couple already. At least the stains wash off the carpet. Grrr.

An Inauspicious New Year
We sincerely hope that 2004 is better than what happened New Years Day. To start things off, I managed to get a nasty 24 hour stomach bug around…1:30AM on New Years. I’m about 90%, but to shake it required a ton of sleep and rest. While New Years Day sucked for me, it was even worse for Steve.

He decided to build his own PC from scratch (why, I don’t know…) Anyway, he goes to Fry’s and gets the parts. He comes home and discovers voila, no processor in the box! He heads back to Fry’s and they think that he stole the processor, so he has to wait at customer service while they figure this all out. He comes home, and I’m passed out on the couch trying to watch Katherine who can’t figure out why Mom is stuck on the couch. He then makes lunch for Katherine and in the process spills coffee beans, breaks a glass and then cuts himself on a soup can. Even worse, the credit card company thinks that between a gas station visit and Fry’s that the card has been stolen. Wait…it gets worse! The processor that he gets from Fry’s doesn’t even work because the box had been opened already and the pins had been bent.
Its a good thing he made the bean soup because we’re going to need all the luck we can get with 2004!

Final Stages of Weaning

Our goal had been to breast feed Katherine until she was 12 months old. Between pumping at work and managing milk inventory, we made it! Starting at 12 months, we began to remove one milk feeding every week. By late November and early December, we were down to one feeding at bedtime. The last several days have really been a great opportunity to finish the weaning process. My production has been down with the flu, and Steve has been home to feed her a bottle of formula at bedtime. Hopefully, in the next week or so, we can wean her from her bedtime bottle, and we’ll be done! From here on out, Katherine will be drinking full fat, organic milk and water from her Playtex insulator cup and straw.

Birthday Dinner for Grandpa Orr

Aunt Pat and Uncle Art graciously hosted the family tonight to celebrate Grandpa Orr’s birthday. Both Grandma and Grandpa Ramsay were in town to meet Grant – the newest member of the extended family – and to spend some quality time with family.

We really enjoyed catching up with everyone and watching the babies and toddlers interact with one another. Both Kevin and Will were active, playing with all the wonderful toys in the backyard, from the sandbox to the basketball hoop to the swings. Katherine spent much of the evening watching the two toddlers (especially from the high chair) and socializing with the adults.

Grant, who is a month old, snoozed, ate and generally hung out with Trina, Aunt Pat and Grandma. He is a very adorable baby, with a wonderful disposition. Mandy managed to sneak some food when folks weren’t watching, although she didn’t get any carrot cake…this time. 🙂

Highlights for Katherine:

Steve and I took turns pulling Katherine along in a plastic wagon. The faster we went, the more she would clutch on to the side of the wagon and kick her legs. We could tell that she really enjoyed this because she would start panting (this is her new “thing”) sort of “ha ha ha ha” and give us a big smile.
Katherine enjoyed the kiddy swing. Dad pushed her several times and then would grab and release her feet. Katherine thought this was extremely funny and would laugh at dad every time.
Katherine got to play on the teeter-totter with Will and Kevin. Will was initially a bit concerned that Katherine shouldn’t be on the teeter-totter (perhaps being too young), but Aunt Pat convinced Will to get on the other side and play with Katherine. Afterwards, he and Kevin both huddled around Pat and Katherine saying “Hello, baby Katherine” and peering into her face. It was a very cute moment. Katherine then crawled over to the basketball hoop, which she managed to face-plant into (mild crying) the pole, but she recovered fairly quickly.
The adults all took pictures of Grandpa Orr with the children. Kevin and Will both held plastic balls. Katherine eyed Will’s red plastic ball and grabbed Will’s shirt to try and get to it. Once Will lowered the ball, both children grasped the ball and stared at each other for several moments. I think we managed to capture this on film …er …RAM.
Grandpa’s birthday cake had a rainbow with the birthday inscription. This is perhaps a testament to how much we’ve read the “What makes a rainbow” ribbon book, but Steve and I listed off to Katherine all the animals that make a rainbow- Red/Ladybug, Orange/Fox, Yellow/Baby Chick, Green/Grasshopper, Blue/Bluebird, and Purple/Butterfly. Yep, we’ve read this book wayyyy tooo many times!

Many folks in the family were sporting new cars. Jason and Amy just bought a mini-van and Art and Pat a SUV. Both are great for kids. It seems like our children now drive so many of our decisions. It was great seeing everyone. Between us we shot 244 pictures the best of which appear to the right.

Other New Developments This Week…

Katherine’s teething continues in earnest. Patty told us that Katherine has a new tooth about to emerge on the bottom right gum and another up top. I stuck my finger in Katherine’s mouth last night, but didn’t have much luck finding them. The problem is that Katherine would chomp down, and those teeth really hurt!

We’ve got a new game in the morning where Steve and I take turns showering while the other plays with Katherine in the bathroom. She’s now learned that if she crawls to the shower and stands up (with palms on the glass) she can sometimes see the person in the shower. She also crawls to the drawer and pulls it out and pushes it in. yes – we’ve got to put in the drawer locks.

We took Katherine shopping last weekend (or maybe the week before?). Anyway, we hit the Nordstrom Anniversary sale, where we got a couple autumn outfits and some much needed 12 month jammies. She should be all set for the next several months or two more major growth spurts. We also stopped by a toy store, and picked up a toy that Steve and I had been looking at for a while. It’s kind of like a bead maze where the beads move on these wires (this toy’s been around for a while, so you’ve likely seen this thing). Katherine’s still a bit young to grok it entirely, but she does like to spin the beads around and move them up and down a bit. Nevertheless, it’s a great toy for the rest of the family. It’s also a nice change of pace from the other two standing toys that she plays with which are battery operated. (Speaking of which, we think the Leap Frog table is possessed. It will randomly start playing music at weird times of the day, even if we haven’t touched it in hours.)

Mother’s Day

Sunday was Christine’s first official Mother’s Day. Last year Christine was pregnant with Katherine but this is the first year Katherine could actually give Christine a Mother’s Day gift (with a little help from Dad). Surprisingly enough, Dad coordinated Mother’s Day gifts for Katherine, Bisco, and himself. Christine is a great mom to Katherine and Bisco in addition to being a loving wife. After a lazy morning, we spent the rest of the day running errands.

Mother’s Day at the Fialas

The extended family got together to celebrate Mother’s Day at the Fialas. In addition to Art and Pat Fiala, Dave, Trina, and Will Fiala were there. Trina is 8 months pregnant with their second boy and looks great. Their first boy Will has grown up and loves to run around and play with Kevin and his grandparents (Art and Pat). Amy, Jason, and Kevin Olbright also attended the family gathering. Kevin is Will’s age and the two of them had a great time playing together. The Fialas have turned their house into a kid fun zone complete with toys, sandbox, swings, mini-basketball hoop, and of course their golden retriever Mandy. Kevin and Will immediately wanted to play on the swings. Both were experienced swingers and loved to have someone yell “boo” or give them a high five when the swing reached the apex of it’s swing.

Katherine patiently waited her turn for the swings (actually she had no clue). After the boys were done Katherine played on the swing. Katherine loves the swing. She likes having dad or mom stand in front of the swing yell “boo” when she comes close. Katherine has 15 minutes of pure joy of the swing before she’s ready to get off.

After the swings, we decided to line up the kids for a group photo shot. Will Fiala sat in the left chair, Katherine in the middle, and Kevin Olbright on the right. Kevin and Will have obviously done this before, sat patiently, and smiled. Katherine slowly sank in the chair and had to be readjusted a couple of times.

It was good to see everyone. Kevin and Will are growing up and hopefully someday soon Katherine will be able to play with them.