4th of July

We celebrated the 4th of July in our new home town of Billings Montana.
And we did it in style. :)

 

Since we missed out on the annual Lewiston parade, we made up for it by going to a parade in a little town called Laurel.  I can't say it was quite the same experience as the one in Lewiston, but never the less we had a good time, and we were in good company.

Our friends The Low's and Palmer's joined in on the fun.

It's nice already having some friends out here.  It makes the transition that much easier.

Trey enjoyed the parade but decided he'd rather sit by mom and dad than fight for the candy with the rest of the kids.  Instead I had to be the one to still candy from little kids.  It was embarrassing!

We came home for lunch and naps and then it was off to a BBQ with Jeff's co-workers.

Many of the fireworks were cancelled this year due to all the fires, but we lucked out and got our own little show right in our front yard.  The park about a block away from us had their own little firework show and it was actually quite good.  Kate zonked out before the show even started and Trey was excited he got to stay up and watch them with us.

It was a good day.

After 5 tries, this was the best I could get.  Trey will hold Kate for about 5 seconds and he's done.  No convincing him otherwise!

The Clipper!

Somehow I wrote this post before we left Pittsburgh and I just realized it never posted.
Lame!  Anyway, I will post it now even though it's way out of date...


In case you've forgotten..... We're graduating!! (well Jeff is graduating but I feel like we both are!)  That means we are DONE here in Pittsburgh in exactly 6 days.  Moving truck will be packed and we will be boarding a one way flight to SLC.  I can hardly even think about it without wanting to bawl my eyes out.  It's gonna be rough leaving this place, I'm already feeling a little nostalgic and we haven't even left yet.  I don't know what I'm going to do!  I'm going to miss this city and all the people in it SO much!
So in an effort to have one last HOO-RAH before we move... we opted to go on a Dinner Cruise with some of our friends from the graduating class of 2012.  We're sad more of our friends couldn't make it, but I think all of us who were there would agree that we had a great night!  The weather couldn't have been more perfect!

We had a buffet style dinner, followed by our choice of dessert.

The crew before we took off...

(Our table, minus the Drapers)

After dinner, we all hung out on the top deck, admiring the city that we've all grown to love.

We danced....

Held babies....

[Yes we brought Miss Kate along, but it was okay because she is so good!]

And chatted the night away!

It was a good night.

Kate is 6 months!

I know I always say this, but what the heck!?  How on earth is my little girl already 6 months!?  These past 6 months seriously flew by.  Between getting our house ready to sale, all of our visitors, living in Utah for a month, and moving to Montana, I can hardly keep up!  Poor little Kate probably doesn't know the difference between her house and a complete strangers house!

Kate is still such a little sweetheart.  I just love her to pieces.  She's done great with all of our traveling and will sleep in pretty much any bed I put her in.  Thank goodness.  When Trey was her age, I felt like if he wasn't in his own bed, he had a really hard time adjusting.  Maybe I'm just more laid back as a second time mom, who knows.

[My friend Carlee captured this shot of Kate at our last bbq we had with the dental students]

Kate is 4 months in this pic

I just recently started Kate on solids and she is really not a fan.  I tried giving her oatmeal and banana puree and she gagged with every spoonful.  And now it's gotten to the point where she just cries when I feed her.  I dread feeding her because I pretty much have to hold her head in place to get the darn spoon in her mouth.  She wants nothing to do with it!  Hopefully that will change soon.

(Don't be fooled by this picture)

Kate is our little smiler.  It's easy to get her to laugh, and when she does I don't want her to stop because it's so dang cute!  She is starting to become more of a mommy's girl and just lights up every time I come in the room.  It makes my day. :)  

One thing Kate isn't good at is sleeping!  She does great for naps but when it comes time for bed she is up at least every 4 hours if not sooner!  That really is not acceptable.  I know I need to just let her cry but I've become too big of a softy.  I think I did too much of that with Trey that I can't bring myself to do it with Kate.  She slept better as a newborn than she does now.  It's pathetic!  I know a lot of it is my fault because I let her sleep in bed with me A LOT when we were in Pittsburgh and then with all of our traveling it was hard not giving in to her every little whimper.  But now that she finally has her own room and an actual crib to sleep in I'm ready for her to sleep longer at nights!  Come on Kate!  I know you can do it!  {Crossing my fingers I don't have to let her cry it out}

[Picture taken about a month ago on our way to go swimming in Bear Lake]

Kate is just like her mommy.  She has to have a soft blanket by her face when she sleeps.  It's the cutest little thing... I swaddle her up, give her her binki, and lay her in her crib.  I have to be sure to put the soft blanket right next to her face or she will just keep turning her head back and forth until she can find it.  She then nuzzles her little face in to it and will most of the time go right to sleep.  She occasionally will let me rock her but for the majority of the time she just likes to be laid down with her binki and blanket and fall asleep on her own.  I was so used to rocking Trey to sleep every night I hardly know what to do with myself!  It's too easy!!  I never believed that babies actually did that without training them to do that, until I had one of my own.  Crazy!  Maybe it's the binki that does the trick...

Just today I noticed that Kate has a tooth!  I've been checking her gums lately because she has been pretty fussy lately and I thought maybe she was teething.  Every time I checked I couldn't feel anything.  Until today!  Hooray for a bottom tooth!

Kate's 6 Month Stats:
weight: 17lbs 7oz  75th %
height:  26.5in  75th %
head:  44cm  92%

A friend of my sisters, took some pictures of my kids while we were in Utah.  Here's a few of miss Kate.

Kate was not very cooperative to say the least.  For someone who smiles as much as she does, we couldn't get even one picture of her with her cute little dimples.  I've decided taking my kids to get pictures is at the top of my list of things I don't like to do.  It is exhausting and my kids never want to cooperate.

And here are some random pictures I've taken over the past couple of weeks

And my personal favorite...

Trey thought he was being so helpful.

The best part was she didn't seem to mind!

Love my little munchkin!