Random February Happenings

Next week my mom will have all of her granddaughters in town. She's bringing Rachel's four girls back with her from Tennessee. She sent me to look for dresses to get a cute picture taken. I wanted to show Rachel and my mom the dresses, so that night I took a picture of them. I think we need one more solid pink dress and one more white cardigan. Carmen, AJ, and Matt had come up after school to play RISK and eat dinner. AJ and Matt were good sports to help display the dresses. Katelyn likes playing dress up and was all smiles.

It's been fun having Matt so close. Yesterday, he came up here and we met my dad for lunch. We went to Sweet Tomatoes, which was funny because Israel was working in The Woodlands on Wednesday so we met for lunch. We also went to Sweet Tomatoes. I love their strawberry lemonade. Katelyn slept through both lunches. I'm thinking about investing in a track of restaurant chatter to play at midnight.

Katelyn has started holding rattles. She shakes them pretty well, but hits her head quite a bit-- still working on the hand coordination.

I actually took these pictures while Israel was at church. I kept Katelyn home because she'd been sick all week. I took her to the doctor on Thursday. She had started coughing a little and had a running nose on the previous Saturday. The cough got worse and she started wheezing Wednesday night. She never ran a fever the whole time. The doctor predicted RSV just from listening to her cough. She ordered a chest x-ray. The contraption they use for baby chest x-rays looks like something from a torture chamber. It's this long tube they enclose them in while they sit on something that looks like a bike seat. You have to hold their arms up. Understandably, Katelyn screamed through the whole ordeal. Thankfully, it came back clear, but Friday I got a call saying the RSV culture came back positive. This freaked me out because every time I've heard about RSV the word hospital was associated with it. We had to take her back to the doctor on Saturday for a follow-up. She was doing fine by this point and the doctor said she sounded great. It was quite the scare. It's not fun watching your little baby cough and go through all that.

During one of her naps she found her pocket. I thought it was too cute!

First Photo Shoot

I took Katelyn to get her pictures taken in her blessing dress. I can't decide how I feel about professional pictures. They are so expensive! It's a lot harder saying no to pictures when it's your kid and you think every shot is adorable, well almost everyone. I also was very annoyed that the sells associate sits there and clicks through all the proofs. I needed much more time to study every little detail before I chose which ones I wanted. Grrrrr. I ended up just buying the CD with all the pictures on them. I went in with the idea of being very cheap (even had a coupon) and ended up spending way too much. I also think I've captured some pictures that are just as cute. In the end, we have some cute pictures of Katelyn.

Blast from the Past

We had a ward activity this last Saturday. I found it's trickier to get ready for an activity when you have to stop every three hours to feed a baby. Saturday was planned down to the minute, but we got it all done. We not only had the activity, but had Katelyn's follow up doctor's appointment and a baby shower. Israel was a huge help and extremely supportive. He cut out signs, glued papers together, packed the car, went through costumes, and mostly listened to me freak out about everything. My friend Cathryn saved me too as she picked up a project Friday night to help out. I'm so blessed to have such support!

The activity was called Blast From the Past and had to do with family history. The bishop wanted everyone to research a name and take the name to the temple by March. This activity supported that goal.

One of the activities was a matching game called Guess Who? You had to match up the ward member with their ancestor. I had a lot of fun making this game and even more fun watching people play it.

The family history consultants in the ward did an amazing job organizing their portion. It was awesome to watch people doing family history during the activity.

Another activity was making a grandparent notebook. Everyone was given a sheet of questions that they could glue in or write in a notebook to find out more about their grandparent.

In one room, ward members were to act out family history stories. I think people mostly just had fun playing with the costumes.

Our bishop and his wife.

The family history consultants had kid friendly family trees for everyone to fill out.

The gym was covered in trees. Each family filled out a family tree from memory as they waited for everyone else to get there.

Ward members brought food from the countries of their ancestors. We had quite the assortment of food--everything from craw fish to soda bread to potato soup to Swiss rolls.

Katelyn's Blessing

Katelyn showing off her beautiful blessing dress. Thanks again Grammy. I'm going to get professional pictures of her in this dress.

The Morgan Clan
(Cade, Matt, Israel, me with Katelyn, my mom, and my dad with AJ and Carmen in front)

My Parents

The Wallace Gang

Katelyn and Jacob--I think this is the third picture we've taken like this. I guess fourth if you count the prego picture Bri and I took.

AJ and Carmen

AJ, Carmen, and Cade--I had to bribe Cade with candy to take this picture.

Yesterday was a very special day for our family. Israel was able to bless Katelyn at church. It was so neat to watch and hear Israel who holds the priesthood bless our baby. A reoccurring theme came up a few times. That is that Katelyn will be an example to those around her and bring joy to others.

It reminded me of our wedding day in a way. Those of you who were there will remember I was all smiles. I couldn't stop smiling. Even during the parts of the day where I should have maybe had a more serious look on my face I was grinning ear to ear. Yesterday, after the blessing was over and the rest of sacrament meeting was happening, I was still smiling. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing little family. I know Heavenly Father has watched over me and has given me amazing gifts at the times in my life when I needed them. Families are definitely central to Heavenly Father's plan and provide so much happiness. I love Israel and Katelyn!

Lunch with Friends

Last Sunday I was telling Israel how I loved being a stay-at-home mom. For obvious reasons, I get to watch little Katelyn learn and discover new things. I get to read her books, play with her, feed her, hold her, and laugh with her. I don't even mind the dirty diapers.

Another plus is having more freedom to go to lunch with friends and family. A few weeks ago my aunt and my cousin along with her kids went to lunch at Red Robin. Last week I went to lunch with an old college roommate and her kids. I also had Aliccia, a friend from the ward come over to the house for lunch. We enjoyed a Caesar salad and then dipped yummy treats in chocolate. Don't worry I just had a little--no gall bladder attack that day. Her daughter is only two months older than Katelyn, so we look forward to when they can play with each other.

Katelyn snoozing at CiCi's Pizza.
Colleen with her adorable kids!

Ike enjoying his macaroni.

Aunt Livi with Katelyn at Red Robin

Jacob and Katelyn--They are only a month apart.

Brianne and me. I'm talking to my mom to get her to go order. She and Falicia were going to go to lunch with us, but Falicia wasn't feeling very well.

Livi and I decided we need to make this a monthly event.

Family Dinner

I love weekends!
1. Israel is home. I, of course, love spending time with him no matter what we're doing. Work hours during the week have been a little long lately. When he's home, he is a huge help with Katelyn and around the house.
2. Israel goes grocery shopping. He brings me treats I can eat. He's very conscious and checks the fat content. Every week he buys me a cheese bread that isn't too high in fat, yum!. Some of my other favorite treats are fudge bars, pudding cups, fresh fruit, fruit bars, and baked chips. April 5 is coming up!
3. We get to go to church together. Yesterday's meetings were very uplifting.
4. We went to my cousin's husband's birthday party.
5. We had my family come up for dinner last night.

Cade loves to play with my ABC magnets when he comes over. I guess there are some advantages of having a room full of my old classroom.

Carmen is always so helpful. She's wiping off the kids' table. I love that we have so much family close that we have to do two tables. After dinner we worked on her "Pony of the Week" poster. It was adorable!

My mom, as usual, was a huge help. She hand washed all of the china. It's sad that Israel and I have only used our china about five times. It's always a nice touch to dinner.

Israel and Kate playing Dominoes. Israel was the hit of the night with his hand squeezed limeade and avocado salad. We also had roast, potatoes, carrots, and corn. Brownies came after the games.

When Matt walked in Israel made a comment like "Have we met? Sarah didn't tell me about another little brother." I like it Matt. It's a good look for you. It looks like AJ might want to play another game of Clue instead of watching the "big boys" play Dominoes.

The Dominoes game. Mike's hands are the only piece of evidence that he came to dinner too.