What is your favorite part about Christmas?
Opening presents, play outside in the snow, and playing with toys in the morning.

What did you ask Santa to bring you for Christmas?
Adoptimals and Doc Clinic, and stuffed animals and toys.

What are you leaving for Santa on Christmas Eve?
Cookies and lemonade.  Rudolph gets noodles and milk.

Why does Rudolph get noodles?
Because he loves noodles.

Where did you learn that?
I learned it no where.

What is your favorite Christmas song?
Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Polar Express.

Who else do we celebrate on Christmas?
Happy birthday Jesus.

Where was Jesus born?
Bethlehem

Who were Jesus' parents?
I don't know.

Was it Mary and Joseph?
Yeah, it was Mary and Joseph.

It's no secret around our house that Katherine loves music.  We played our favorite musicians for her pretty much as soon as she was born.  She took to some music, while completely rejecting others.  Some voices would calm her right down when she was upset,  and one of those voices that seemed to soothe her was David Nail.  This pleased her father because David is one of his favorites, and needless to say Jason would always play his music for Katherine.  When Katherine was still very small, David performed on the David Letterman Show, which we DVR'ed to watch later.  We played the performance for Katherine on the TV, and were surprised to find her mesmerized.  She was now able to visually recognize David (Nail not Letterman), and know his voice.

We tried showing Katherine other artists, but she would always be uninterested.  So, she grew up listening to "Whatever She's Got," and will come running from what ever room she's in to see or hear David (pronounced "Debit" in Katherine language).  Soon she learned the lyrics, which we thought was super cute until she started referring to the song as "blue jeans painted on tight" (the chorus from the song).  One day I found her in her playroom alone, with her wooden microphone belting out "blue jeans painted on yight.....I won I won I won whatever she's caught."  She loves to sing it, so I'm sure the church nursery workers have heard her rendition of this song and wondered what on Earth she's been listening to.  Oops.  I guess it could be so much worse.  I remember singing along with Garth Brooks as a six year old singing, "I'm much too young to feel this damn old."

If you were to ask her what singers she liked, she'd tell you Taylor Swift ("Tayer"), David Nail ("Debit"), and Anna and Elsa from Frozen ("Anna Elsa First Time in Forever Frozen" can you guess what her favorite Frozen song is?).  It was slightly less embarrassing when she learned the words to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off."  I started letting her listen to Taylor because of her peppy, catchy songs, and the fact that I didn't see Taylor going off the deep end like other young song birds.  (Taylor, I'm watching you.  Don't screw this up for me.)

So at any given time, you may hear my child belt out "haters gonna hate hate hate," "blue jeans painted on tight," or any one of the Frozen songs.  I quickly learned my lesson by the time she showed interest in "All About That Bass," and promptly put an end to listening to that song.  And, after watching the Super Bowl halftime show, Katherine had a new interest in Katy Perry.  Being a fan myself, I embraced it with ever so much caution.  We only listen to a couple of her songs just to appease the audience, but omitting the songs with questionable lyrics (which are most of her songs but I digress).

I just mentioned to Jason the other day, how I almost dread the day Katherine joins the preschool choir because I'm afraid she'll think she's entitled to all solos, even when there aren't any solos to be distributed.  She'll insist on hogging the microphone, and maybe even start her own verse of "blue jeans painted on tight" in the middle of Jesus Loves Me.  

I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.  In the meantime, Katherine's Mimi has offered to give her piano lessons as soon as they get their new house in order.  Good luck Mimi.

We took Katherine's newborn photos when she was a week old.  I can't believe how different she looks in just a month.  My mom crocheted her mermaid outfit, cupcake hat, and crown.  I loved dressing her in these cute little outfits!  She would have had bows in her hair but her little head was so small, none of them would stay on.








Katherine is growing so fast.  She finally grew out of her newborn clothes and is on to 3 month apparel.  I'm glad the weather is finally warming up (for now!) and we're able to go outside.  Today we went for a walk around the neighborhood and spent time on the backyard swing.  I'm ready for summer! 

In keeping up with monthly desserts, this month's chocolate dessert was Chocolate Cookie Stacks with Lemon Cream.  While they were easy to make, mine turned out a little messy.  I also left out the lemon cream.

{Nailed it.}

Oh well...

I can't believe my little baby is one month old!  It seems like it was just yesterday I was pregnant and freaking out about giving birth.  Now she's here and one month old.

{1 Month old and a little wiggle worm}

Being a mother is a whole new game.  For one thing, things that used to take me an afternoon to do, now take me a week or longer.  Going to the store is an adventure in itself.  I was surprised to figure out that once I placed the baby car-seat in the shopping cart at Target, I was too short to see over the top to push the cart.  I have to look to either side of the seat to see where I'm going.  I almost ran over a small child who had gotten away from his mother then stopped directly in front of my cart.  I thought the kid's mother was going to be mad at me, but she saw the baby car-seat and just smiled.  I guess she understood.

The attention I get from random strangers has changed from comments about my pregnancy to comments about my baby.  Baby Katherine gets attention everywhere she goes.

{Me and my Mini Me.}

We took some newborn pictures when she was a week old.  After seeing how much it can cost to have your photos printed on canvas, I saw this project on Pinterest and decided to try it.

All I needed was some canvas (I bought mine on sale at Hobby Lobby), some black paint, brushes, and some Mod Podge.

I painted the edges of each canvas with black paint.  I made sure to buy the size canvas of the size pictures I had printed.

After the paint dried, I painted a layer of Mod Podge around the edges of the canvas and carefully put the photos on, making sure that there were no air bubbles.

Once the photos had completely dried, I trimmed any uneven edges.  



I wasn't sure how different photo finishes would look so I printed a couple with a matte finish and a couple with a glossy finish.  The matte finish looked way better.  Next time I'll do them all with a matte finish.  I can't take credit for this project.  I totally stole it from Pinterest.  LOVE Pinterest!