Tita and Tito Visit

Last weekend, Tita Christine and Tito Jordan came down from Seattle to meet their new niece and play with their first two nieces. We enjoyed much quality family time with this aunt and uncle who live so far away!

After church on Sunday, we went to Chi's Chinese for lunch with the whole family.

Tita Chrissie planned a fun day flying kites at Pinnacle Mountain. As it turned out, there wasn't enough wind to fly kites, but we enjoyed tossing some balls around, taking a short hike, and playing on the playground.

Tita and Tito hung out at our house most evenings. Tita played Wii Bowling while holding a sleeping baby, which startled Katarina every time she threw the ball. Katarina also tried to hide from the flash on my camera. Neither of those would bother her as much as being put down, though, so Tita continued to hold her.

Tito says a trip to Little Rock wouldn't be complete without eating at the Purple Cow, so we met there for lunch one day. The girls love Purple Cow and consider it quite a treat; they even have a short song about it (repetitions of "purple cow" comprising the entirety of the lyrics).

Gabi enjoyed showing Tita that she can read some books all by herself now! Our girls always welcome extra attention from doting family members.

Gabi's Journal

In Gabi's class at school, each student keeps a journal. Here are a few of her March journal entries: (Her teacher wrote the correct spellings in ink as necessary.)

Gabi likes to point out in the above picture, on the right, she drew herself going to the Wonder Place. I am impressed by her sentences, but it is also fun to see her artwork illustrating her thoughts.

And in the next journal entry, you can see that two weeks after her birthday, she still had birthday on her mind. Actually, I think my kids have birthdays on their mind year-round! They love wrapping (in a blanket) each other "presents" (from their playroom) and singing "Happy Birthday."

For her St. Patrick's Day journal entry, Gabi says this is what she would buy if she caught a leprechaun and got his pot of gold:

Gabi's 5-year check-up was on March 29th, a month after her birthday. (Life around here was a bit crazy immediately after her birthday!) Gabi weighed in at 40 pounds, which is 50th percentile for her age. She is 43 and 1/4 inches tall, measuring 60-65th percentile.

Katarina at One Month

Katarina's one-month check-up was on Tuesday, April 6th, when she was exactly 5 weeks old.

She weighed 9 lbs even, a 2 lb 11 oz gain from her birth weight (placing her in the 40-45th percentile). Soon she will outgrow newborn sizes ("up to 10 lbs") and instead wear 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers. She measured 20 and 1/8th inches long (only 10th percentile). Her head circumference was 14 and 1/4 inches (also 10%, making her the first of our children not to have a huge head).

For reference, Katarina's measurements at birth were 6 lbs 5 oz, 19.5 inches long, and 12.5 inch head circumference.

Katarina loves her baby sling! Daddy and I like it, too, as it allows us to hold her and also accomplish things. Gabi is a wonderful big sister who loves to help care for and entertain the baby, as seen in these pictures where she was reading Kätchen a book. Bella continues to be loving and generous as well, bringing Katarina blankets and sharing Lily bunny.

At Katarina's one-month check-up, the pediatrician remarked at how well she could focus and move her eyes together, although she does still go cross-eyed sometimes. She is working on visually tracking objects. She is also developing strong neck muscles to hold her head up, and she does baby push-ups with her arms.

Easter Dresses

Since Michael had to work on Easter Sunday, we took pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses a few days late.

We also had a mini egg hunt with the girls in dresses instead of pajamas, since the Easter morning hunt commenced as soon as the girls awoke, before we got them dressed.

And here are a few more pictures from Easter Sunday that didn't make it into the previous post:

Gabi hunting eggs at church
Bella hunting eggs on Easter morning
Katarina sleeping amid stuffed bunnies

Katarina Smiles

One of the wonderful privileges of Motherhood is seeing my baby's first few smiles. On Tuesday as I was admiring her eye color, Katarina almost smiled at me. Wednesday night when I picked her up and held her, she looked at me and smiled as if to say, "I recognize you, and I like you!" Thursday after she finished nursing, she looked up at me and smiled again. In those brief moments, I felt an even more intimate connection with my baby.

Today after a nap, Katarina happily looked at the toys dangling above her bassinet. I finally caught a few small smiles on camera, although they were not as miraculous as her smiles for me.

Happy Easter!

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here.

Happy Easter! Yesterday morning, we enjoyed a wonderful egg hunt at church, and the girls met the Easter bunny.

Michael and I went to the Easter Vigil at church last night while a babysitter was here with two sleeping girls, and before bed Gabi wanted to make sure that we would go to sleep as soon as we got home so that the Easter bunny could come. This morning, the girls awoke to discover that the Easter bunny had visited. She even hid eggs up high on top of picture frames, door frames, and the mantle; she must have hopped!

Katarina isn't old enough to participate in the egg hunts, so Gabi helped me take her picture with a bunch of stuffed bunnies during quiet time instead.

We went to Lolo and Lola's house for Easter dinner, and Ninang and cousin Steven finally got to meet our new baby. Bella gave Gabi and Lolo a guitar concert after dinner.

Michael had to work all day (and overnight tonight), so he wasn't able to celebrate Easter with us today.

Nicknames

Katarina has gorgeous blue eyes, but it is difficult to capture their beauty in a picture.

In her first month of life, Katarina has already collected many nicknames. Even so, I most often call her by the full Katarina. Michael's family is big on nicknames, though, so she'll go by each of these throughout the years, I'm sure:

• Kätchen - (pronounced "Kate-chin") is my favorite nickname for our little Katarina
• Katya - (pronounced "COT ya" or "KAH tee uh") is the nickname we selected before she was born as one that should be easy for everyone to say (and spell). Katja (pronounced the same) is an alternate spelling. I especially like this nickname combined with a shortened form of her middle name: Katya Lily
• Little Kate - is Gabi's nickname for the baby, since I explained that Kätchen is German for "Little Kate"
• Kati - (pronounced "caught-tee") is Bella's nickname for the baby, as she decided to shorten Katya further
• Kitty - Her Daddy has proposed "Kitty" as a nickname, and her Tito wants to call her "Kat"