Happy Birthday, Cate!

On our third date, Sam told me he wanted to make his kids cakes bigger than they were when they turned one:

Done and done. Cate's a little taller than this, but the cake definitely weighed more than she does. The bottom layer is actually a styrofoam dummy cake, because Sam tells me a 14 in. round like that one could easily feed 60 people! Who knew.

Here's one more shot of it:

The favors in the basket to the right are sugar cookies made using a recipe and cookie cutters from my great-grandmother (Cate's great-great-grandmother) on my dad's side. Aunt Dale gave the cookie cutters and the recipe to Cate when she was born.

My mom and I made this banner for Cate. I hope she likes it, because I really want to have a family tradition of making all of our kids birthday banners for their first birthdays and then putting them up every year. (If Baby is a girl we are probably going to name her Elisabeth, but while sewing this banner I started to wonder if maybe we should limit our name choices to four-letter names.)

I made this party wreath for the door:

(Some cameras make things look better in pictures than in real life. My camera is not one of them. This looks better in real life than in this photo.)

We hung the cutest balloons from the ceiling in the kitchen but I didn't take any pictures at all!

Cate got the hang of opening presents:

So that by Christmas she was really in the swing of things:

More Christmas photos and stories to come, but in the meantime, here is our Cate working on her very own 6-in cinnamon strawberry cake made by her favorite pastry chef. (My mom was appalled that she did this shirtless. I suppose I could have at least put her in a onesie, but ... too late now!)

11 Months Old

Cate is 11 months old today! I should have taken video of her when she first started walking--a month ago today!--but of course I didn't. Bad mom. Anyway, here she is now, walking around like she owns the place:

Four

Baby Major #2

arriving June 2012

Our Happy Strawberry

Many months after strawberries had been well established as Cate's favorite food, we heard babies aren't supposed to have strawberries until they are a year old. Well, all I can say to that is that I'm so glad I didn't deprive Cate of even a day of strawberry eating. We figure she eats about a pound of strawberries every 4-5 days. That's a lot when you only weigh 18 pounds. I recently bought a two-pound container and wondered if she would be able to eat them before they went bad. Answer: yes.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate Cate's first favorite thing than this:

Our Blue-Eyed Pixie

I love this picture of Cate because it shows just how blue her eyes are.

She is still so tiny, and I love that you can tell just what a pixie she is here. Sam's eyes are hazel and mine are really more greenish than blue. We figure she must have gotten those wonderful eyes from my very blue-eyed parents.

We love our little blue-eyed pixie!

Pumpkin Picking!

Last week we went to pick out our pumpkins!

I had big plans to find us someplace with pick-your-own-fruit, hay rides, caramel apples, cider, and the whole Fall thing, but it turns out those places (at least the ones I could find around here) aren't open on Mondays. Because our weekend is Sunday/Monday instead of the usual Saturday/Sunday, Monday was the day for picking. Oh well, I figure we'll all have more fun at a Fall Fest place next year when C's a little older anyway.

We found a pumpkin patch at a Methodist church near our house, and the proceeds from the pumpkin sale supported the youth choir's trip to Cuba. I have some mixed feelings about the ol' youth choir trip to Cuba, but where I've made it this long without injecting politics into the family blog I'll stick with talking about how adorable Cate was getting ready for her first Halloween.

Cate loved the wagon:

But it did take her a minute to warm up to the idea:

Some Photos

So I've finally managed to take some photos of Cate! Here they are, first at the Children's Museum, then at the park, then at home. Thanks for checking in!

Just one quick note on living in Houston: It is so crazy to hear people having conversations about "how great it is that it is getting nice enough to do things outside." Everyone's talking about it--in the grocery store, walking down the street, everyone! We were on a walk a few nights ago and someone just stopped us as we walked by his front yard to talk about how nice it is getting. I love this. I anticipate missing winter not. at. all.