One year

Cate at ONE year!!

This past year has seriously flown by, and I still can't believe our baby is one!  

~Cate is the absolute happiest baby!  Most of the time she is so content and smiley.  She goes with the flow even if it interrupts her schedule.  She loves people and unless she's tired, she smiles at everyone.  If she's tired, she'll bust out crying if someone gets in her face.  When I picked her up from her Sunday school class, her teacher went on and on about how happy she was!  I know we are so blessed to have such an easy baby.  Believe, we know. 

~Cate is slowly starting to lose some of her chunkiness.  I know no one believes me, but we looked at pictures from the spring, and she's definitely losing it in her cheeks and thighs.  She's still chunky, but not as chunky!  And everyone still comments on her thighs.  Complete strangers pinch them still.  

~She's a super fast crawler and is turning into a climber.  She's learned to climb the stairs so we had to pull out another baby gate, and she'll climb in the dishwasher in a heartbeat!  Cate is all over the place at home.  Her favorite place to go is the pantry where the dog bowls are.  Just this weekend, she started playing peekaboo with the pantry door.  Cate goes in the pantry, closes the door, and laughs hysterically while I say "Where's Cate?"  Then she opens the door and laughs even louder.  It's so funny!

~She takes two long naps everyday.  Unfortunately, she still gets up at night.  She'll sleep through the night once or twice during the week.  Cory and I decided we just don't make good sleepers.  And we have no desire to make her cry it out in the middle of the night.  Her room is too close to Luke's room, and there's no way we want two children up in the middle of the night!  

~Cate loves to eat!  She always has loved real people food instead of baby food.  Her favorite things are bananas, cheese, and black beans.  But she's really not that picky.

~She thinks Luke is the funniest thing!  Her favorite thing is for me to hold her and have Luke run from one end of the house to the other while she watches and squeals every time he runs past her.  So random, but really funny to watch.  And Luke loves the attention from us!  

~Cate's favorite word is "daddy".  Really it's the only word she says, but she says it all.the.time.  She screams it from her bed every morning!   She says lots of other sounds and she says 'momma' sometimes, but 'daddy' is her fave!  

~She has quite a few nicknames.  Cory and I call her Cate Cate, Little Bit, Sissy, and Sweet Thing.  But Luke's names for her are my favorite, and we actually say them a lot too!  He has a hard time saying Cate so he calls her "Tate" but since we always call her Cate Cate, he calls her "Tay-Tay".  So I think we call her "Tay-Tay" way more than we realize!

~Cate wears mostly 12 month clothes.  She can still fit into her nine month bubbles because she has a short torso.  But she needs 18m and even 2t when she wears capris or pants because of her thighs.  But I'm thinking that will change once she starts walking and loses those thighs.  She wears size 4 diapers.

~Cate just now figured out how to cruise.  Up until this week, she had no clue how to move her feet when she was standing.  But she has it figured out now!  She still hasn't stood on her her own (unassisted) so it may still be awhile before she walks.  

~One of Cate's favorite activities is to look at the clothes in her closet.  I'm not kidding.  She busts out laughing every time we walk in her closet.  I'll hold up different outfits for her to see, and she'll smile SO big at each one.  She has her favorite outfits that make her giggle!  She is such a girl!  And I love it!  Cory better get ready because I think we have a girl that loves clothes.

~Her hair seems to be a little redder than Luke's but most of it is still the original hair she was born with.  She has some crazy blond chunks in it so I'm really not sure what will happen once it really starts growing.  The front of her hair is totally straight, but the back curls a little.  And she has kept her pretty blue eyes!   I wasn't sure if they would change to hazel like Cory and Luke's, or brown like mine.  But it seems she got blue eyes from both of her grandpa's, and that makes me so happy.  

~Cate is an absolute joy to be around, we're so thankful she's ours.  I'm excited to see her personality develop over the next year, and watch how she grows and changes.  

We love you so much, Cate Cate!