New Year ramblings

Hey everyone! Well it's been months since I've written a blog that contained anything more than just pictures, and while I'd like to say that my news years resolution is to get better and post every month I know that is pretty unlikely especially since I don't make new years resolutions. However this week I have felt motivated but be forewarned that this post is long and rambling!


Katelyn is 7 1/2 months already - she can sit up without falling over, she can eat cheerios and drink water from a sippy all by herself (which she LOVES), and she is learning how to crawl although she's thankfully still pretty slow. She really loves her new Christmas toys although funny enough her favorite toys are Maya's hand me downs. She still doesn't have much hair although her fuzz is growing in and is darker than Maya's hair. She doesn't have any teeth yet either although we keep checking for something, especially on those crabby afternoons. She really doesn't nap very well, maybe a couple of hours all day long however she is a great sleeper at night sometimes sleeping from 7pm to 7am without feedings. She's still so big, we were just talking last weekend that we're pretty sure the rolls on her legs are getting bigger instead of smaller. And she is quite the screamer and squealer, making sure we know that she's there. She isn't too content to be alone with plain old mom (unless she's tired or hungry) so she's always looking around for big sister and dad to entertain her and make her laugh. And everytime she gets to laughing she ends up with the hiccups which is adorable. And last but not least when she sees me at the end of the day she will give me a big 'hug' consisting of burying her head in my shoulder and grabbing me really tight to tell me that she missed me. Oh how I love my baby girl ;-)


Maya is doing awesome, growing up more and more every day. She pretty much tells us what to do all day long. She is working on grasping the 'calendar' right now - what season or holiday comes next, what day is it, what day comes next, etc. We talk about these things at least once a day. Some of our other daily conversations: She tells me she loves me about 20 times a day - which I LOVE because I know in 10 years she definitely won't be telling me that! Every night as soon as I get home she asks for a snack and keeps asking for a snack at about 15 minute intervals until bedtime. She very recently started to eat her dinner better, probably because we tell her no snacks unless she eats dinner. So she'll eat the required number of bites and immediately ask for a snack while sitting at dinner. She also asks for a snack as soon as she wakes up some days, preferring 'snacks' to breakfast. She had an awesome Christmas and was so excited for Santa this year. She got tons of toys and stuffed animals. I'm not sure she has a favorite but the unicorn pillow pet from Santa Claus got to go to daycare twice last week for show and tell so it appears we have a front runner!


Outside of having perfect children (LOL) things have been pretty stressful. I survived layoffs back in October when the FDIC shut down one of our loan products that produced 60% of our company revenue. The company luckily seems to have made a quick turnaround and I feel pretty safe for this year but that was a really awful time. On Chris' end of things he ended up having to work the night shift for the past two months during Q4 and actually just got to go back to the day shift this week. That schedule was really hard on us all and I'm very glad to have my husband back home with me at night!


We have also been in turmoil about our house and Maya starting school in the fall. For several reasons we do not want Maya to go to the elementary school that she is supposed to go to, so we've been contemplating whether we try to transfer her to another school in the district, try out private school, or we try to move. After changing our minds numerous times over the past year I believe we are going to stick things out at our house and play the odds that one of our transfer requests is granted (trying 5 schools). That is the two second version to a long decision. If we knew she would for sure get into one of the transfer schools then it really wouldn't be as big a deal - the hardest part is that we won't find out until the week before school starts which school she'll be attending!

We did get to escape and had an awesome night out on New Years Eve - Grandma Bennett babysat the girls and Chris and I stayed overnight downtown. I only had one request for the event - that I got to lay in bed and order room service for breakfast. Well it was a success! It was just what I needed to recharge for a few extra hours! :-)

And so 2011 is already in full swing and Christmas already seems like a distant memory except for one thing - my wonderful, loving, awesome husband got me a MAID SERVICE for Christmas and I have my first cleaning tomorrow!!!!! Happy New Year to me!!!!

And some pictures too

Getting in the Christmas spirit...


The Christmas tree in downtown Ft Worth - so pretty


Showing off our team spirit - Go Cowboys! Go Panthers!

Last Saturday - lounging around the house in our pj's

Kudos to my hubby!

I barely have time to catch my breath these days, with Chris working nights I'm on full mom duty 24/7 which is WEARING ME OUT! I'm not sure how I'm going to get everything done at work and at home before Christmas gets here! I've been sick for like 5 weeks and can't get better. I need some R&R! Ok ok enough complaining, that's not why I came here...lol

Needless to say I was thrilled when Chris put together and published our movies of the girls from the past couple months. We aren't as neglectful of our 2nd child as it may seem, we do take video of her we just don't ever have time to publish anything :) It was fun for me to watch these videos of her from September all the way through last week. She is growing up so fast I can't believe she's almost 7 months old!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I'm sure we'll post something at some point with our Christmas fun.

September video - http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb14/kbennett79/?action=view&current=September2010-1.mp4

Fall video - http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb14/kbennett79/?action=view&current=Fallvideos2010.mp4

Maya Christmas party video - http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb14/kbennett79/?action=view&current=ChristmasParty2010.mp4

Fall pics

Had a good photo opp last weekend at the church festival. Our first family picture (pretty sad, huh?)

We love October!

The Pumpkin Patch, Halloween, football, perfect weather...what's not to love about fall? We are definitely excited that fall is finally here, we put up some fall decorations this weekend and I don't even think it got above 80 the entire weekend! We even went to the park and ate dinner and played the other night. We have lots to look forward to in the coming month - Maya and Chris are going camping next weekend, Chris' birthday on the 13th, Katelyn's baptism on the 24th and we will have some company for the occasion, and of course Halloween and all the fun kids activities that go along with it.

Maya and Katelyn are both doing great. Kate just had her 4 month checkup on the 1st. She weighs 16 lbs and is 26 inches. She's stayed right on track at the 90th percentile since she was born. I think in the next week or so I will see if she's interested in trying out rice cereal - she definitely watches intently when we are eating so she may be ready. She's been rolling over since she was 15 weeks old. We can't keep her on her back when she's playing and she rolls over in her crib and likes to sleeps on her tummy. She's definitely more active then I remember Maya being at this age. I have to strap her onto everything otherwise she will wiggle and kick and roll her way to freedom. Here are some new pics...

And this picture is for my family, I know my baby pictures well so I know that this picture could have been me when I was a baby!

Maya is still doing great. She has been learning like crazy already this year. She is the leader of the pack at her daycare, she knows all her letters and numbers so we help her practice writing them and sounding out words with her. She is also practicing cutting a straight line and cutting a circle. What a difference a year makes!

Chris and I are doing good as well. We're both busy at work as usual and exhausted every other part of the day. We had a really great date night when my mom was here over labor day and I hope we get to have another one in October. We went to dinner at a winery in Ft Worth and had a lot of fun. Also, Katelyn's daycare has 'parents night out' where she'll watch the kids once a month for an evening. So we took advantage of that last week and went to see a movie and stuff our faces with popcorn and candy :-)

Well the kids are in bed so I'm going to go park myself on the couch with a glass of wine and my hubby. I do have some new videos of the girls but I still need to get that put together. Until next time...hope everyone has a good week!

Back in the swing of things

Well I think we're all looking forward to some cooler weather anytime soon. This past week we had a cool front and it went below 100 degrees for the first time in weeks. We were all so excited! Yesterday we even broke out the kiddie pools and had Ang and Noah over to play. Maya is doing really well being a big sister, she can always make Katelyn smile and loves to play with her. I can only imagine how much fun it will be when Katelyn starts to play back! Maya's preschool starts back up after labor day and they'll be working to get her ready for Kindergarten next year. A couple of her friends are going this year and I'm sure next year will be here before we know it.

I'm definitely back into the swing of things with work and we have a new daily routine around here. Katelyn is doing well at her daycare although we have challenges getting her to eat and sleep enough over there. She does just great for us on the weekends so we think it's just too noisy for her at daycare to get any good rest. The good news is that when I went back to work she started to seriously sleep through the night, like from 7pm till 6:30am the next morning as long as I feed her before I go to bed. It's been very nice getting a full night sleep again! I definitely miss my baby time during the week though since I only get to see her for 2 hours before it's bedtime.

Hard to believe Katelyn is going to be 3 months old this week. She's still growing like crazy, today I weighed her and she was 15 pounds. Here are some smiley pictures of her. She's getting pretty good at tummy time and sitting in her bumbo chair. And I wouldn't be surprised if she's rolling over when I sit down to do the blog next month. We really lucked out having a 2nd 'easy' baby I'll say that much!

Back to work I go...

Well it's back to work for me this week :-(. I'm really not looking forward to it, but then again when does any new mom want to go back to work and we all survive just the same. It's funny though just about the time I get her all figured out and she becomes and easy baby for me, I have to hand her over to someone else to benefit from my hard work. The girls will be going to separate daycares because Maya's is geared towards older kids, so I will be dropping them both off in the morning and then driving 30 minutes to work, Chris will be picking them up when he gets off. Our week days are about to get super hectic!

About 2 weeks ago I started tracking Kate's schedule and really started trying to get her to bed by 8 and seeing how many hours of naps she needed during the day, etc. Ever since we went through that exercise she has been crying less, taking naps and going to bed on time. It's amazing what paying attention can do! She is definitely our chunky monkey, she goes for her checkup this week but I'm pretty sure she already weighs as much as Maya did at 4 months old.

Last week I went to visit my mom in San Antonio with my sister Angela and her son Noah during my last week of freedom. It was very spur of the moment and while it wasn't necessarily a relaxing trip for me it was good to go visit my mom and spend time with my sister. Maya and Noah got along really great until the end of the trip was near, but I know they both had tons of fun. We got back Friday afternoon and since then this weekend has been relaxing, I haven't had to do much of anything around the house so this first week back to work should hopefully go smoothly. Last night Grandma Bennett babysat the girls, Katelyn didn't spend the night but it was still nice to get out for a nice dinner. Cheesecake Factory...yumm!

This outfit inspired her current nickname. When I was at my mom's I looked at my baby pictures, I think Kate might have bigger cheeks than I had but otherwise we are pretty identical.

I'm so happy to be two months old today! I'm smiling alot these days and I LOVE my playmat, I'd rather be laying down than be in a swing or bouncer or even be held!

Here are Maya and Katelyn just sitting around...