First Day of School...Take Two!

Today was Cate's first day of school! Yea! She loved it. Her teachers said she did GREAT. (For those of you who are wondering why we are having another "First day of school"...well, long story short, the preschool we started a few months ago ended up not being a great fit. Good school, just not what Cate needs. She actually said the following: "Are you going to find me a school I'm good at, Mommy?" Our new school is going to perfect...and Cate will be very good at it indeed :) )

Her teachers are Ms. Shirley and Mr. David, and there's another Kate in her class. How exciting! Cate tells me her favorite part of her first day was painting. Sounds good to me!


Here she is ready to go. This is the first time we've done pigtails. On the way home from school she asked me, "Do I look like Hannah?" Hannah is one of her best buds from San Diego...so sweet how they remember each other.


We recently purchased this totally-awesome-amazing-best-stroller-ever double jogging stroller. The plan is to walk the 1.5 miles each way when I take Cate to school. Then I'll pick her up in the car. So far so good. The stroller ruled, the girls enjoyed the ride, and I'm finally exercising again. Did I mention I love the stroller? :)


Here's Cate in front of her new classroom! The school is in a beautiful park and the classroom is full of wonderful things to do.

Anna the Amazing!

Okay, time for a little report on Anna the Amazing!


She really, truly crawled for the first time on Friday - yea for Anna! She's been getting up on her hands and knees a lot the last few weeks and she's been scooting around on her belly like crazy. But she kind of got it all together on Friday. It's so cute. She's not quite to where she is crawling all the time for transportation, but she's close! AND...yesterday she was lying on her stomach...got herself up on hands & knees...and then pushed herself up to sitting. Go Anna!

We went to the first Stanford football game of the season on Thursday night (more on that later), where we discovered that she can stand on her own when she's holding on to something...in this case, the back of the bench we were sitting on.

In addition to her athletic prowess, she's pretty smart too. She was playing with some toy plastic plates of Cate's tonight. I picked two up and banged them together. Then I gave her the plates back and she did what I did. Then I started putting a plate on her head like a hat...it would sit there for a little bit and then inevitably fall. She was laughing like crazy, it was so cute. So, to try to make it even funnier, I'd put a plate on my head as well. After she saw me doing that, whenever I'd put a plate on her head she'd reach up and take the plate off of her own head. What a genius! :) And then she clapped right along with us as we cheered her on.

It's just so fun to watch our little babies grow and start learning things. The plate stuff is so simple, but it really is amazing what it represents, watching their little brains working. It never grows old.

We love you, happy little Anna!

A few more things to remember...

I found another little sheet of paper with notes...better write these down or I'll totally forget what they mean. :)

Cate-ese:
Bedgie: wedgie
Stersty: thirsty
Breckstest: breakfast
Beaufiful: beautiful

When Cate saw my friend Deidra in, oh, January...Deidra was wearing heels. Cate, who had recently received some dress-up shoes exclaimed, "My shoes go up too!" It was really cute. She still refers to high heels as "shoes that go up." On a related note, trying on shoes at a store is absolutely one of her most favorite things to do.

When my Dad was in town back in, oh, March...the following conversation occurred. Cate: "I want to cuddle with you." Mom (Jane): "Why don't you go cuddle with Grandpa?" Cate: "His stomach is too big. Sometimes Grandpas get big stomachs." Note, like Nate, Grandpas stomach isn't big. Cate should be a personal trainer or work for Jenny Craig or something when she grows up. She's a tough coach!

First time Anna rolled over (was from her front to back) was on March 17...the day of Nate's PhD defense. She knew it was a big day, so she followed suit! She did it right before we all left for the defense. It was a good omen of things to come that day. :) A few more Anna things I jotted down...She was SUPER SMILEY early on...definitely by 2 months. She still is. She smiled at everyone who looked at her at the grocery store today. I love it. I also wrote down that she was sleeping 11-12 hours per night at 3 1/2 months...unfortunately our summer travels totally spoiled her! She was always in the same room as me for 5 weeks and in places where she couldn't cry at night...needless to say I spoiled her and now, well, she's spoiled! We're trying to re-train her...come on, Anna...sleep sleep sleep! We still love her, though. :)

One more cutie-patootie Cate thing...in April she always called me "mother." It was so funny. Don't know if she picked that up from the Little Bear books or what, but it was really cute. She kind of stopped, but it still comes out once in a while.

Okay, done!