It's official!!!

Katy is CRAWLING!! Although she's been rocking and scooting and taking the occassional lunge forward on all-fours for a couple weeks now, today is the first day that I would really say she crawled, several times, more than a foot, in order to get something she wanted. I know, I know, everyone will say that I won't be excited about this for long, but I really am excited, because I can already tell that it helps her contentedness. She is such a busy and curious baby, and she gets really frustrated when she can't get to where she wants. So I'm hoping this will help her be a little more independent like she wants to be!

Here's Katy with 3 things that make her happy: her "baby", somebody's shoe, and most of all, her thumb.

The other exciting news is, of course, the championship football game tomorrow night. Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. I mean, I really really really want to win. I think we should win. I think we deserve to win. I think we're a better team. We just have to go out there and get it done. That's all there is to it. Everyone thinks we'll win, oh....the pressure, it's KILLING me. We're having some people over from our new life group at church to watch the game since it's past Katy's bedtime. I guess all that's left to say is,

GO BUCKS!!!!

My little contribution to the kitchen project

Well, it may not be much, but I finally made some curtains to help brighten up the kitchen a bit. I made these ties because I love how bright and sunny the kitchen is now, but I'm not sure how I feel about the ties. Are they too country? You can let me know what you think.

We ordered tile for the backsplash behind the sink, and Brian hopes to work on it this weekend. we are gradually ticking off the checklist for finishing this major project.

If I had to summarize my activities over the past week in one word, it would be "organization". You know the after-Christmas drill: you put the decorations away, you have some new things to put away, and it motivates you to get rid of some old stuff and get organized. If you're one of the people who gave Katy a toy for Christmas, you motivated me to purchase this beauty today:

All those toys and look what she choses to play with. Actually that's how I was distracting her while I organized her toys. :) I've learned that having a kid is a revolving door or organizing things. She continually grows out of things that I need to put away for potential future kids, then get out the hand-me-downs that she is growing into. I was at Target the other day and about every third person had a Rubbermaid container in their cart. I guess I'll be joining them.

Welcome 2007!!

Happy New Year, everyone! I kinda like a new year. It's fun to reflect on all that God has done in our lives this year, obviously 2006 has been a big one for us. But I think 2007 is promising as well. I will celebrate my 30th birthday, Katy will celebrate her first. Brian's planning to run his first marathon, and we're planning to take our first family vacation. We know of at least 2 weddings and a couple babies (there's still time for that one, though). Anyway, who knows what 2007 will bring, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Of course 2006 has been eventful for us. In addition to having Katy, which was rock-my-world life changing, there have been some other changes. We resigned from our staff position with Students For Christ, and have become participating members of Hertiage Christian Church in Westerville. I also resigned after 5 years of working with Columbus Public Schools, and I'm now working part time doing early intervention for my former co-worker Kay and her new company, Pediatric Therapy Partners (she doesn't have a website yet, but she'll be bugging Brian for one soon :) ). In general, life looks a little different this January 1st than it did last year.

This week has been really nice, though, we've caught up on a bunch of things, gotten some hang out time, and Katy is progressing along with new developments. One highlight is that I got to see my high school girls, Cindy and Jen, along with Jen's 19 month old Will. Katy and I took Jen and Will to Young's Dairy, an Ohio classic, so they got to hang out in the car seats:

Then we had lunch and ice cream, catching up on life spread out over the US. It is always amazing to me how our lives can change so much and be geographically so far apart, but when you come back home, you can just easily have a conversation as if it's 1995.

I also found a really good deal at a consignment shop, which makes me really excited. A couple of moms have told me this this Fischer Price Laugh and Learn House has been their kids' favorite toy from age 6 month-2+years, but it's $70. Well I had $40 from Grandma Martha to spend on Katy for Christmas, and I found it for, guess how much? $40. Sweet. Looks like brand new, and Katy likes it already.

Katy is getting stronger at crawling every day, she can move across the room in about 5 minutes with a lot of work and complaining. She also had another tooth poke through yesterday, on the top, and I am praying PLEASE oh PLEASE let that be why she's been so fussy this week. But we will see....