Krewe de Speyrer

Happy National Championship & a Big Roll Tide!!!

2012-01-09T11:50:00.004-06:00

Big day for all, but especially in the Speyrer household since Alabama plays LSU tonight in the National Championship game. We are all very excited about the game. Daddy is in New Orleans having fun and will be going to the game tonight. Since he is away, the girls in the Speyrer house are able to show our true colors. Roll Tide!!!!

Both girls happy to be in their crimson and white this morning (Momma is also sporting her AL shirt). Interestingly enough, the year Kate was born Alabama won a National title. The shirt that Emily is wearing was one Kate received after that win. We are hoping that Emily is just as lucky as Kate and will see Alabama win another title in her first year.

Christmas in Alabama

2012-01-09T10:21:00.011-06:00

We were in Florence this year for the long Christmas weekend. When we got in on Thursday the family gathered to celebrate Nonna's birthday. Then Friday morning we had our Christmas celebration. We had a fabulous big breakfast and exchanged gifts. Christmas Eve we all went to a children's mass with Nonna and then made a trip to see a big Christmas lights display at a house that I remember going to as a child. Kate loved it! We had a relaxing Christmas day at home with Nonna and Papa and then Granny and Jan joined us for a wonderful lunch and later that night we visited with Uncle Mike, Lauren, Jason, Michael and Beth. Our visit was perfect! We were so happy to get to see and visit with everyone! The girls had a blast and loved playing with all of their cousins!

Nonna with Harper and Emily

Langley and Emily

Kate with Connor and Camden

Emily and Aunt April

Emily and Camden

All the kiddos (minus Emily who slept through the whole gift exchange)

Kate ready to open gifts

Harper

Owen

Langley

Camden

Daniel

Mary Emma

Connor

Liza

Everyone patiently waiting until the adults said go

Daddy and Kate opening up some princess pj's

Kate and Emily before Christmas mass

Our little family

Daddy and Emily

Daddy and Kate

Momma and Emily

Kate wasn't too big on cooperating with pictures (which is the norm these days with her…she usually gets mad as soon as the camera comes out)

Aunt Jan, Nonna, Kate, Granny and Emily

Liza and Emily

Santa Claus Came To Town...

2011-12-28T15:59:00.006-06:00

…a little early for the Speyrers. Even though I am just now getting around to posting, Santa actually visited us on 12/17. We put in this request to Santa so that we could enjoy our own little Christmas eve and Christmas morning at home and we are SO glad we decided to do that!! It was so wonderful! The girls were super sweet about everything! Pop Pop also got to come stay with us for the festivities and we were so happy to have him here with us too! Nick cooked a pork roast on our Christmas eve and we visited and opened our gifts to one another. We have started a tradition of opening Christmas PJs on Christmas eve so both girls got their matching Christmas PJs along with a thing or two from Momma and Daddy as well as gifts from one another. Of course Emily doesn't know what's going on yet, but I think it's important to teach about giving gifts during the Christmas season as well as receiving them. I picked up a little something for Kate to give to Emily and she surprised me with how well she did handling the whole situation. Kate helped me wrap it and was happy to give it to her baby sister for Christmas. The girls were also sweet about their things from Santa. Emily got an exersaucer, a door jumper and few other small things. Kate got a princess 4-wheeler, a set of Disney princess figurines and a few other small things. We expected a big reaction over the 4-wheeler and there was probably more of one over the princess figurines but she was excited about everything. Daddy and Momma had to show Kate what the 4-wheeler was all about before she was really anxious to get on it, but once she finally hopped on she was ready to go! We had such a great weekend and are so thankful for all of our blessings! We hope you enjoy our pictures from our holiday.

Kate helping hand out presents on Christmas eve

Hard to believe this is all before Santa even came! Also, I have to say that Kate exhibited some great patience waiting to open her gifts until we had them handed out

Kate's gift to Emily--Mike the Tiger. Kate has one of her own that plays the LSU fight song. This one does an LSU cheer. Kate really likes the new Mike but was happy to give it to Emily

We were so happy Pop Pop was here

Emily's toy from Momma and Daddy (Kate's enjoying it too!)

Kate and Daddy going to put cookies and milk out for Santa before bed

Treasures from Santa

Kate LOVES her princess figurines!

Emily checking out the frog on the exersaucer

The whole family on Christmas morning

Emily and her new friend Sophie the giraffe

With Pop Pop

Daddy showing Kate how her power wheels works

Emily in her door jumper

Ready to ride!

Momma's gift from Daddy--a real fire in the fireplace. First one in the 4 years that we've lived in this house!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T14:22:00.005-06:00

We hope everyone is having a wonderful, blessed holiday season! Ours certainly has been! We are enjoying our Christmas day with Nonna and Papa in Alabama. We have been having a great time celebrating with family for the past couple of weeks actually. We notified Santa that we would like for him to visit Kate and Emily on Saturday 12/17 so that we could enjoy our goodies from Santa at home. It was so much fun! There will be many pictures to come once we are back home. We simply wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas with Mama LaHaye

2011-12-24T21:46:00.000-06:00

We celebrated Christmas with Mama LaHaye in Port Barre on the 10th. We had so much fun getting together with family! Nonna and Papa were still in town for Emily's baptism so they enjoyed visiting with everyone as well. We weren't able to make it to Christmas with Mama Speyrer the following day but were there in spirit. We will soon be traveling to Florence to spend Christmas with Nonna and Papa this year. We are so blessed to have such a big, wonderful family! It is so fun all of the time, but especially during the holidays having so many chances to get to spend some quality time with all of them! Here are some pictures from our first Christmas celebration with Mama LaHaye.

Kate and her Parrain, Marcus

Mama LaHaye and a curious Emily

Mama LaHaye with both girls

Kate waiting in anticipation of the present opening

Miss Emily

All of the kiddos during the present opening

Emily 4 Months Old & Baptized

2011-12-19T19:47:00.000-06:00

Emily was 4 months old on the 11th. Time is flying by and our big girl is as happy as ever. We went for her 4 month check up last week and she weighed in at 16 lbs, 7 oz and 26 inches long, which is 90th percentile for weight and off the charts for length. Emily is really starting to interact more with us as well as with toys and her surroundings. She has mastered the ability to reach for and grab anything that she wants that is within reach. We also broke out the Bumbo seat in the last month and she has been happy sitting in it like a big girl.

Emily was also baptized on the 10th. We had a very nice, private ceremony at St. George here in Baton Rouge with a few family and friends who shared in this special event with us. Emily was perfect! I think she thought she was about to get a full bath when the Deacon baptized her she seemed to just relax as soon as the water touched her forehead. Below are some recent pictures of Miss Emily and several pictures from the baptism.

Big girl in her Bumbo

One night while Daddy was out of town Momma decided to try out both girls in the tub at the same time with the help of the Bumbo seat. They both absolutely loved it!! Emily did not stop smiling the whole time!

Kate had a big time too! She was so excited for Emily to take a bath with her

Emily with her Parrain and Nanny, Kevin and Dana, before the baptism

Proud parents and Godparents

With all of our kiddos

Our family. Kate isn't much on cooperating for pictures these days

Momma and Daddy with our girl on her special day

Happy Emily!

Daddy and Parrain

Parrain and Braxton with Emily

During the ceremony

Emily being baptized

With the Deacon. We are so very thankful to have had such a special private ceremony

With Pop Pop and Nonna and Papa

Emily and Pop Pop after the baptism

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

2011-12-13T17:10:00.006-06:00

I was on the ball getting my blog header and background updated with something Christmas-y but since then have fallen behind in my blog posts…been busy baptizing a baby, getting Christmas shopping done, visiting with Nonna and Papa and celebrating our first Christmases already…all posts to come! We have been in the Christmas spirit around the Speyrer house for a while now. Our tree and decorations in the house have been up since the weekend before Thanksgiving and lights have been up outside since Thanksgiving night. I added some garland around our door last week and Nonna and I knocked out some of my Christmas baking last week while she was here to visit. I honestly don't know how I would have gotten the baking and the majority of my shopping done if she hadn't been here. Papa also helped out as one of Santa's helpers delivering a big gift for Kate from North Alabama. Thank you both for all of your help!! We also enjoyed our visit with Nonna all week last week and with Papa over the weekend!

The girls are also definitely into the Christmas spirit! Emily is her usual happy self enjoying having some new, fun things to look at around the house. Kate loves the "santa tree" (I'm pretty sure she calls it that because she can't really say Christmas) and all of the lights outside. We visit the Santa and Rudolph inflatables at other houses in the neighborhood daily and have driven around another neighborhood or two admiring all of the decorations. Kate is also into reading her Christmas books and singing carols. Tonight in bed she sang Jingle Bells over and over again until she fell asleep. This has always been my favorite time of the year but it is getting better and better as I get to share it with my girls. It is so much fun teaching them about all things Christmas!

Emily decked out in her Christmas shirt in front of the tree

And Miss Kate

Helping Nonna measure out ingredients for the famous Johnson family Christmas Fruit Cookies

Loving getting her hands dirty mixing up the fruit and nuts with Nonna

Emily got in on the action watching from her Bumbo

Kate and Nonna mixing up the batter

The finished product. Yummy!!

Santa has already made his trip around our neighborhood. Here are Kate and Daddy waiting for Santa to come by our house

Kate was definitely excited waiting for Santa but I sort of expected a melt down when he actually got here. Kate did great! She was a little skiddish, of course, but was happy to see Santa. I think it also helped that Santa was handing out candy!

Enjoying her candy cane from Santa

Kate opening an early gift--Elf on the Shelf. We have been very excited to start this tradition this year. I thought Kate might be a little young for it but so far Mike the Elf (I think Daddy had some influence in the naming of our Elf…Mike the Elf shares a name with a favorite local mascot, Mike the Tiger) has been a hit. Kate loves him and he actually has helped a little with her behavior since she knows he will report back to Santa if she's being naughty.

Mike hanging out on the door

A second new tradition this year has been our outside decorations. Nick did a great job on our lights! The picture really doesn't do it justice. I don't quite have the technique down on taking night pictures but you can get the idea of what we have going on.

The garland around the door is my contribution to our outside decorations.

There will be lots more Christmas action to come! We hope all of you are having a joyous, blessed holiday season!

Life with Royalty

2011-11-29T12:23:00.000-06:00

I have mentioned in a couple of posts lately that Kate has recently become obsessed with princesses! I'm not exactly sure where the fascination has come from. I am thinking there may be some influence from school or she may have just totally come up with it on her own. Who knows! Anyways, Kate got a box with princess dress up clothes for her birthday, including shoes, bracelets, necklaces, crowns...all things necessary to turn an ordinary little girl into a princess. Since we received the "princess box" as Kate calls it we have not been able to make it through too many days without a princess transformation. There have even been several days where Princess Kate is with us all day long! Just thought I would give you a little picture into the daily life of a 2 year old princess--

Princess Kate plays at Nonna and Papa's house

She helps pick out a book to read to her little sister

She has coffee with Daddy before he goes to work

Princess Kate has friends (Annie Grace Laperouse) over to play and let them borrow a princess outfit as well

She multi tasks--reading while pushing her ball popper

No chauffer needed. Princess Kate can drive herself

She also provides her own entertainment…"I play drums marching band!"

Princess Kate oversees the putting up of our Christmas tree

Oh So Thankful!!!

2011-11-27T12:16:00.000-06:00

I try to be thankful each and every day for the wonderful blessings in our lives and around Thanksgiving it is the perfect time to really think of all that we have to be thankful for. In this year that we have welcomed sweet Emily into our lives and as Kate has just turned another year older we are obviously thankful beyond what words can express for our sweet girls! I have watched as many people on Facebook have been giving thanks daily during the month of November in honor of Thanksgiving. Since I never do anything but share my blog posts on Facebook, I thought it would be fun to think of 30 things that the Speyrer Krewe is thankful for and just note them all in this post. In no particular order--

I think that I can speak for all of us in the Speyrer Krewe and say that we are all thankful to have one another!
We are also thankful for our extended families! Kate and Emily are so blessed with wonderful grandparents and lots of fun cousins, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents and many others!
I am thankful to have recently been able to stay home with my girls rather than return to work!
I am thankful for Nick, my great husband and excellent Daddy! He works hard, plays hard, takes amazing care of our girls and helps me out around the house.
I am thankful to be a mom!!
I am thankful for a roof over our heads! I love our house!
I am thankful that I have been able to breastfeed both of our girls! Excellent bonding experience and saves $$ too!
"DD" (DVD) players both in the house and in our cars
Coffee. Even though I haven't had caffeine in about 4 years I still love a good cup of decaf coffee
A glass of wine after getting the girls in the bed
For the addictive laughter of my little girls. Emily is ticklish and I can get a good chuckle out of her every night while getting her ready for bed. Whenever something really gets Kate laughing I do my best to keep it going no matter what it is because there is no better sound in the world than a true, heartfelt, no-worries-in-the-world laugh from your child.
I am thankful for my parents and in-laws. Having children has given me a whole new level of love and respect for our parents. It is impossible to know just how much they love you until you have children of your own. My wonderful parents have taught me so much, I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am for them. And my father-in-law is one of the kindest people I have ever met and I am thankful to him and my mother-in-law for making my husband the man he is today. I wish I had more time with Nick's mom and that our girls could have met her, but I am thankful that I was able for the time that I did have with her and know that she watches over us every day.
I am thankful for technology. I don't know what I would do without my iPhone, iPad and our Mac
My camera! I may not be taking as many pictures as I should these days (I mean I should never stop taking pictures!) but I try to capture as many of the special day-to-day moments as I can.
My sisters and brother- and sister-in-laws
I am thankful that Christmastime is upon us! It is my favorite time of the year! I love the decorations and giving gifts to others. I am also enjoying getting to teach Kate all about Christmas this year.
I am thankful for friends, who although I may not see or speak to them all the time, when we are able to spend time together we are able to pick back up where we left off
Kate's school. Most importantly Kate loves it and I am able to give her friends to play with on a regular basis in a safe environment. It also give me a little quality time with Miss Emily
A husband who likes to cook
Nick is thankful for LSU sports--most importantly football but he is also a devoted fan who follows pretty much any sporting event that LSU participates in

Kate is thankful for...

Blankey
Paci (still working up the gumption to take it away from her)
All things Mickey/Minnie Mouse
Her Santa "DD" (DVD)
And probably the current top ranking toy--a Leap Frog picnic basket

Emily is thankful for…

Her big papasan swing. I don't think we could nap without it
The fact that she has been able to get her hands/fingers in her mouth the last couple of weeks. She is definitely looking like she'll be more of a thumb sucker than a paci girl…braces here we come
Her space heater, noise maker and bed. She is such a great sleeper and I truly believe it is due to these factors.
Her daily bath. She loves it!
Her sister Kate. Emily already thinks that Kate is one of the greatest things in the world. When she can, she is always staring at Kate and loves when Kate talks to her and gives her kisses. (I am also thankful that my girls love one another. It is an amazing thing to watch--that from birth Kate has truly loved Emily like she has always been here, and as I said, Emily already thinks Kate is pretty great!)

I think I could go on for many, many more…I'm so glad we have so much to be thankful for! I know Nick is also thankful for many of the things that I am thankful for and many more. He just wasn't given the chance to have any input in the list :) I hope all of you have had a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving! Enjoy a few pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend--

Emily snoozing with Pop Pop at Aunt Fanny's before Thanksgiving dinner

Kate and Connor playing at Aunt Fanny's

Kate and Connor enjoying their Thanksgiving feast

We were happy that Uncle D, Aunt B and Claire stayed with us for most of the weekend. Kate and Emily had a lot of fun playing with Claire!

We hosted lunch with friends on Saturday and we all had so much fun watching all of the kiddos play

Life on the Lake

2011-11-22T09:35:00.000-06:00

I am finally getting around to sharing some pictures from our week in North Alabama. Since our last trip up in the Spring, Nonna and Papa have moved into a new house on the lake so we were super excited to see the new place and enjoy being on the water. We coincidentally timed our trip perfectly with the changing leaves. It was absolutely beautiful driving up on the Natchez Trace and had some pretty gorgeous views at Nonna and Papa's too! Most of our week was pretty low key just spending time with family and taking it easy but we did get out on Kate's birthday to go see Leo and Una, the UNA mascots, and take a ride on the water. Nick and I had a separate boat trip out one day while Kate was napping. It was really too cold to get the girls out on the water much. We had such a great week and can't wait to get to really get into the water next summer! Enjoy some of our pictures from the week.

These were our gorgeous views waking up each morning

Nonna and Papa's new house

Kate and Nonna on the pier throwing acorns into the water. This was definitely one of Kate's favorite activities while we were there

Kate with Leo and Una. Leo and Una were pretty lazy while we were there

Una did get up and walk around just a bit

Kate and Daddy walking on UNA's campus

Kate wanted to ride this lion outside of Leo and Una's habitat but she was scared so Daddy was a good sport and took a ride with Kate

Kate driving the waverunner while she let Daddy ride along with her

Momma, Daddy and Kate riding on the waverunner

Kate with Daniel and Harper

Daniel walking Kate up the hill

Kate's first appearance as a princess was at Nonna and Papa's. You can tell by the smile on her face that she was in love from the first moment. We have worn a princess outfit at least once a day almost every day since

Emily 3 Months Old and Rolling Along

2011-11-20T14:35:00.005-06:00

Emily was 3 months old on the 11th. We just went to the doctor this past Friday to get her growth stats--she is currently 14 lbs, 11 oz and 26 inches long, which is 90th percentile for weight and off the charts for length. She has definitely become much more active over the past month. She has already rolled over from tummy to back and she is constantly reaching for things now. She is loving being in her bouncy seat that has little animals that she can bat and pull down. Emily is chatty, happy and an absolutely perfect baby! I never hear a peep out of her during the night. Every once in a while she wakes up at 4ish but the majority of the time she is sleeping from 9 to at least 6. I feel like she hardly ever really cries (unless she is in the car--she's definitely not a big fan of the car but we survive it) and she will just whine a little when she's hungry or tired. Emily loves her bath and we have graduated from the infant tub to laying on a sponge in the big bath tub. We are having more fun every day with little Emily!

Laying in the wagon while playing outside with Kate

Emily with Braxton

Emily and Daddy at Kate's birthday party

With Nanny and Karoline

In the bouncey seat. You can see that she's already pulled down one of the animals and is working on the snail

Kate is 2!!

2011-11-15T15:09:00.008-06:00

Well Kate's birthday extravaganza has finally come to an end. After celebrating for about a week and a half I am finally able to share info and pictures from all of her festivities. We were in North Alabama for Kate's actual birthday and celebrated with a practice round of birthday activities...blowing out candles, being sung to, opening presents, etc. We decided that it was very good to have practiced without a crowd since Kate definitely did NOT like candles. So Kate enjoyed birthday cupcakes with Mary Emma, Daniel and Liza after dinner on her actual birthday and got a few "happy presents" as Kate calls them from Nonna and Papa. Then the Friday after her birthday we had a party with all of our Alabama family. And finally we had a party with our Louisiana family and friends at Pop Pop's house this past Saturday. Kate has had a blast at each of the celebrations. We are so blessed to have a big family with lots of cousins almost all of which were able to celebrate with us. I think Kate may be in for a shock when this week passes us by with no birthday party! She is having a lot of fun playing with her happy presents and we even still have some "happy boons" (balloons) and "happy cake" left at our house.

I can't believe what a big girl Kate is becoming! We still have our momentary lapses into baby-ness--we still haven't gotten rid of our paci yet (a project to be tackled very soon!) and Kate is asking more than ever for "Momma hold you" and "Daddy hold you", which I have to admit has been pretty nice--but overall we have a pretty independent, happy, chatty, strong willed little girl. Kate still loves all things Mickey mouse, hence the Minnie birthday parties, but has recently become very fascinated with princesses. She even got some dress up dresses, shoes and jewelry for her birthday that she insists on wearing pretty much all of the time now. She is also very into Santa right now, which I guess is good preparation for the upcoming holidays. "Sanna cause"(Santa Claus) is the "DD" (DVD) of choice right now and Christmas books are often the books of choice right now as well. I think I could recite the Santa DVD in my sleep. I definitely walk around singing the songs all day! Kate knows almost all of the basic colors (red, blue, green, yellow, pink, purple, brown) and loves to "coco" (color) in her coloring books all the time. She doesn't always do it when asked, but she does know how to spell her first name. She can count backwards from ten and up to at least thirteen (sometimes makes it to fifteen but usually skips around in her teens before she gets to twenty). Kate also has a recent fascination with marching bands. As posted, we did go see the LSU band several weeks ago but it has taken a long time for all of that to really soak in. Kate has had a little toy drum since Christmas last year and has now started wearing it, playing it and telling us that she's in the marching band. The LSU band is also one of her favorite things to get Daddy to pull up on You Tube. Kate is also quite the little helper. Anytime I am baking or cooking she wants to be right in the middle of it--"I hep Momma!"--measuring and stirring. She also thinks she's helping while I put my makeup on. She sits on the counter, digs around in my makeup bag, has her own set of brushes and pretends to put makeup on. She knows where each thing goes without me telling her. For example, she'll try to put eyeliner and mascara on her eyes but knows that powder and blush go on her cheeks.

I can't believe how fast time is flying by! I know we'll have another year down before I know it. Kate is so special and I am so proud and blessed to be her Momma!

Playing outside before her AL birthday party

"happy boons" from the Boxes and Simmons on her actual birthday

Cupcake time on her actual birthday. In the process of melting down over the candles.

Daddy helping Kate figure out how to tackle the cupcake

Opening "happy presents" from Nonna and Papa on her actual birthday

All of the cousins at Kate's AL birthday party

Kate and "Danull" As you can see we got the most out of our Minnie dress, wearing it for both birthday parties

Trying to get a picture with Granny and all of her great-grandchildren. Kate was all ready for her "happy cake" so this ended up being the best we could get before she started to melt down

Ready for singing! She loved being sung to. Every time she would ask for it to be sang again

Little miss careful tasting one tiny fingertip full of icing

Enjoying her happy cake

Happy presents!

Opening presents with Momma and Daddy

Checking out the princess goods

Kate's Minnie house.

Showing Granny the Minnie house

Giving Granny Betty, Kate's great great Aunt (Granny's sister), some loving. We were so glad that we were able to spend some time with Granny Betty while we were in AL

Showing Mama LaHaye the goodies at Kate's LA party

We celebrated all of the November birthdays at the LA party

Dining with friends Adi and Annie Grace

Checking out the cake with Parrain

Opening happy presents with Daddy

Trick or Treat!!

2011-11-01T17:27:00.006-05:00

Halloween greetings from Alabama! We made our way up to North Alabama on Saturday to stay for the week. We have planned to do several things while we are here--celebrate Kate's birthday, Nick will be traveling to the football game of the year, the LSU/AL game on Saturday and we were excited that Kate and Emily would get to trick or treat with their cousins. Last year Kate didn't really trick or treat, we just went to the neighborhood block party so it was great that she got to go with some older cousins this year so that she could see what it was all about. We went over to Aunt Anna and Uncle Jason's house to get ready and make a little trick or treating trip around their neighborhood with Mary Emma, Daniel, Connor and Liza. Kate had a blast!! She had fun playing before trick or treating and once she figured out what trick or treating was all about she got into it too. Kate was a little skiddish at the first house but once she figured out all she had to say was "Chuh chuh teet" (trick or treat) and somebody gave her candy she was running up to the door of the next house. Emily was snuggled up in her flower costume and walked around with Momma enjoying being outside. We had a great first trick or treating experience and will be excited to share more from our week in Alabama in more posts to come!

Minnie Mouse

Happy little flower

Kate was excited about all of the big riding toys that she got to try out

Everybody ready to head out for trick or treating

Headed to the first stop with Mary Emma, the woodland fairy, and Daniel, the football player

"Trick or Treat!!"

Emily enjoying her "treat"

All the trick or treaters during their run

Kate showing off her haul

Minnie enjoying some of her treats on the ride back to Nonna and Papa's

"Punkins!!!"

2011-10-26T03:59:00.000-05:00

We have been all about "punkins", as Kate says, around our house since the beginning of October. I got some of the decorative pumpkins to put around the house early on and Kate confiscated a few of them as hers and has been playing with them for a while. Then last week the church where Kate goes to school started their annual pumpkin patch so one evening last week we made a family trip to pick out our big pumpkin. It was the first day of cooler weather so we all enjoyed walking around outside and Kate LOVED the pumpkins. She ran around picking up as many as she could and of course cried when we had to leave.

Then on Sunday we finally got around to carving the pumpkin. It was a quick and simple jack-o-lantern face that I carved. Kate was interested in watching the process but once it was complete with the candle burning inside Kate was a little scared of it. She's been a bit of a scardy cat these days about a lot of things. She was still interested in checking it out but she wanted to hold on to me pretty tight and she would just say "Momma, I scare you" over and over again, which really means that she's scared. Emily just laid back in the bouncy seat and enjoyed being outside for the festivities.

Here are some pictures from our "punkin" adventure--

Kate loved all of the pumpkins. She kept trying to pick up the big ones but realized they were too "heady" (heavy) so she picked up as many little ones as she could.

She loved all the regular looking pumpkins but the ones that were bumpy, like the one in the foreground of this picture, she was scared of them and wouldn't even think about touching one.

Emily was all smiles and happy to be strolling outside

Daddy and Kate. Kate wasn't big on participating in this picture. She wanted to play peek-a-boo with Daddy from the other side

Carving our pumpkin at home. I tried to get Kate to help me scoop out the insides but she did not want to get her hands into that pumpkin

This is what she does when she's scared. "Punkin scare you"

Our finished product

We did finally convince Kate to sit on the same bench as the jack-o-lantern even though she was still pretty scared of it

Emily 2 Months Old

2011-10-24T06:55:00.000-05:00

The last couple of months have just flown by since Miss Emily joined our life. I think she's already trying to compete with her big sister for who was the best baby. Kate was such a good baby that we were certain that Emily would give us a harder time because you don't hear of too many people having more than one easy baby, but Emily has proved us wrong already. She is so sweet and easy on Momma and Daddy! We are already pretty much sleeping through the night...she is going from 9 or 9:30 to 6 or 6:30. I am able to put her down before she is all the way asleep and she will just look around her crib until she's ready to go to sleep and then she goes to sleep with no fuss. Just in the last couple of days she's started showing more interest in some toys. She has been very interested in some of Kate's stuffed animals...Mickey may have a new friend...and she has really started to enjoy her mobile. Emily is growing like crazy. We went for her 2 month check up on the 11th and she is weighing in at 12 lbs, 11 oz and 24 inches long. That is 90th percentile for weight and off the charts for length. We make big babies around here! The smiles have fully arrived! Emily loves to be on the changing table and will give the biggest grins and just gurgle and coo at me anytime she's there. I haven't been able to catch a good smile on camera yet though. She just stares at the camera and can't think about anything else. I just can't believe how blessed we are with our wonderful girls!!

Emily is loving her swing these days. She usually naps in it in the afternoons while Kate is napping.

Kate insisted on a ride in the double stroller one day a couple of weeks ago. They both loved it!

Kate loves to play with Emily's toys as much as Emily does

Daddy getting in a snuggle with Emily

Kate - 23 Months Old

2011-10-10T14:39:00.007-05:00

We are less than a month away from having a two year old!! Kate is such a big girl and continues to entertain us on a daily basis with the things that she says and does. She is really to the point that I feel like we are carrying on actual conversations all the time. She is speaking in sentences a lot of the time. One of my favorite things she says right now is "I so essited!!" (I'm so excited) usually with hands in the air and often a little dance that goes with it. Kate is LOVING going to school. In the beginning she was crying when the helpers at school would get her out of the car in the carpool line but now she's excited to see them and happily tells me bye-bye. One of her teachers told me one day that the only trouble they had with Kate that day was that she started crying when it was time to put away the toys because she didn't want to leave. I'm so glad that she has somewhere to go play with other kids where she has a great time and doesn't want to leave! We try to get details about school, her friends and what she does at school out of her but all we get in response are things about cars (she played with the toy cars on our open house visit) and tea party (snack time).

I thought this would be a good point in time to note a few current favorite things. Kate still LOVES tv and "dd's" (DVDs). Her current favs are "Memo" (Nemo), "Pee Pooh" (Winnie the Pooh) and still loves all the baby Einstein movies. Current favorites in the book category are Dr. Seuss Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You?, Yat and Dat (a local book about New Orleans food) and of course her Dora and Mickey books. Little Einsteins have moved into the favorite TV show category along with Mickey and Dora. Kate really enjoys coloring and collecting what I like to call "treasures". Kate will put things in a bucket, basket, purse, wagon, toy stroller...you name it and carry these "treasures" all over the house. Here is a short list of some of Kate's "treasures"-- dental floss, handles to razors, a travel bottle of shaving cream, a travel bottle of scope, measuring spoons, flashlights, measuring tape, cans of soup or vegetables from the pantry, little cups like the ones you rinse your mouth out with at the dentist, silver cup and rattle that were Nick's as a baby, her miniature Mickey and friends and most recently mini pumpkins like the ones you would use several of for a centerpiece. It never ceases to amaze me the things that she becomes attached to and wants to carry around with her.

Kate is getting so big! She's the perfect big sister and pretty sweet to Momma and Daddy as well. We are so blessed!!

"Cheeeese!"

Pulling her wagon of treasures

Watching Nemo from the window sill in Momma and Daddy's room

Daddy recently got a new bike with a seat for Kate to ride too.

A Couple of Firsts

2011-10-04T06:02:00.006-05:00

Two weekends ago Emily had her first little road trip to stay with Pop Pop in Port Barre. Port Barre is only an hour away and of course Emily made it great traveling there. I was also very relieved that both girls slept great there all weekend and, as always had a great time seeing family and playing with cousins. Emily had not yet met her Mama LaHaye so we had a great visit with her on Saturday morning and enjoyed food and fun with family on Friday and Saturday nights.

We also went tailgating for the first time last weekend. Of course this is Emily's first tailgate ever and Kate's first of the season, which also felt a little like her first ever since things are totally different this year vs last year. With the early game (LSU played at 11:30) we thought it would be a good opportunity to get the girls out there on a game day and try to catch the band coming down the hill into Tiger stadium since we're always up early anyways. We were on campus around 8. Visited a couple of tailgates and then made our way over to the stadium. Kate was disappointed that Mike had already been loaded in his cage for the game so we couldn't see him in his habitat. Then we staked out our spot to watch the players and the band go into the stadium. Kate didn't cry, but was pretty scared by the whole scene...who can blame her there are tons of people everywhere and then the loud band. She took it all in though and I think she enjoyed it. I think next year she'll be all about it. Emily was perfect. She just hung out in the baby bjorn and enjoyed some snuggle time for the morning.

Daddy and Emily with cousins Ann Marie and Amelia

Kate and Amelia had a lot of fun playing together

Emily and Mama LaHaye

"Tea Party" at Mama LaHaye's (They call snack time at school "tea party" and Kate talks about it all the time. It's clearly her favorite part of the day)

Playing with toys at Pop Pop's

Emily and her Parrain

Scott and Adi Levy with Daddy and Kate outside of Mike the Tiger's habitat

Momma and her two girls out for tailgating on Saturday

The family of tailgaters

Kate and Daddy waiting on the football players to come down and go into the stadium

Kate and Daddy waiting on the band. You can tell Kate was far from pumped about the experience. She was pretty freaked out by all of the hoopla but handled it well.

Emily One Month Old

2011-09-14T20:12:00.004-05:00

Emily was one month old on Sunday the 11th. In many ways its hard to believe that she's already one month old but on the other hand I can hardly remember what it was like before she got here. We went for Emily's one month check up yesterday and she is weighing in at 10 lbs, 8 oz and is 22 inches long. I didn't get where she's at on the growth charts but the doctor did say that she's going to be big like her sister so maybe we're making our way up the charts already.

Things have definitely been different the second time around. We aren't as nervous about things as we were with Kate, and it's also been very interesting to try to figure out how to handle the two at the same time. Emily definitely prefers to be held a good bit, which can be challenging at times since we are still really hands on with Kate as well. I remember Kate loving to be in her swing and bouncy seat and Emily is not much of a fan of either. Emily does like her bed though and does pretty good resting there for short periods of time during the day. I don't want to jinx it, but she's also doing great in her bed at night. We regularly get a 5-6 hour stretch between feedings at night and last night she went almost 8 hours, the longest stretch so far. She is starting to be more awake and alert during the day, just checking things out. I have also braved a couple of outings (Target and the grocery store) with both girls and they have both been successful trips. I am able to put Kate in the buggy and carry Emily in a sling. She seems to be a big fan of the sling which is good and Kate thinks that Emily is hiding in the sling so we play peek-a-boo the whole time we are shopping. Good distraction for the big sis. Overall things are still going great! Of course it is challenging at times trying to give both girls all of the attention that they both need but I really couldn't feel any more blessed!

Captured a sleepy smile on her one month birthday. No "real" smiles yet but we know they'll be here soon.

Emily got her first bottle on her one month birthday. It was still breast milk, we're just making sure that she'll take a bottle if and when needed.

I hate that I am just now posting pictures from when my mom and sister were here 2 weeks ago. Nonna (my Mom) was here on Emily's birthday and stayed over 2 weeks to help us out in the beginning. She will never know how truly grateful we were not only for her help but also for that precious time that both girls (as well as me and Nick) got to spend with her! I don't know that I would have survived without her those first couple of weeks. I also have to thank Poppa (my Dad) for sharing Nonna with us for so long! Then my sister, April came down to meet Emily, hang out for the weekend and drive my mom back at the end of her two weeks with us. We were so glad that Aunt April got to meet Emily and Kate was thrilled to have her here! We can't wait for the rest of the Jungs, Boxes, Simmons and the rest of the Johnson clan to meet Emily! We will be making our way up to North Alabama soon enough!

Emily with Aunt April

Kate and Nonna

Everybody before Nonna and April were ready to start their trip home

Both girls with Nonna. Kate was giving Emily a kiss.

Nonna and Emily

22 Months Old & Off to School!

2011-09-06T11:50:00.005-05:00

Well it's been a really big month for Miss Kate. As you know she has become a big sister in the last month and adjusted to life sharing her Momma and Daddy with Emily. She has been absolutely perfect with this adjustment. Kate continues to be the sweetest possible big sister! Every morning when she wakes up and when she wakes up from her nap in the afternoon she wants to know where "baby" (she does call her "Emma-me" sometimes but most of the time refers to her as "baby") is and she will go find her to tell her "He-whoa". Kate is really becoming quite the big girl right before our eyes. She is still talking up a storm and now can basically carry on a little conversation (with some jibberish mixed in). Kate still loves TV, especially Mickey with Dora coming in at a pretty close second and now really likes playing on our iPads. She can navigate through apps probably as good as I can.

The other big adjustment this month has been starting "school". We have enrolled Kate in a Mother's Day Out program at the Jefferson United Methodist Church here in Baton Rouge. Nick and I took Kate to the open house last Thursday and from the moment she walked through the door of the classroom she made herself right at home and pretty much forgot all about us. Today was her first day of school and Nick and I dropped her off at her classroom and again she just walked right in, started playing and never looked back. I am so excited for her to have this outlet 3 days a week for just 4 hours each day (9 AM to 1 PM) where she can play with other kids her age. She looked like such a big girl when I picked her up this afternoon, standing there holding her teacher's hand. She is growing up so fast!!

Ready for school. Hard to believe that in September in LA we needed for Kate to wear a jacket this morning. It has been an absolutely gorgeous and refreshing day here today!

Walking in to school with Daddy

On the way to her classroom

She was the first one there this morning so she was surveying the toy situation in her classroom

Playing with one of her teachers, Ms. Mandy

This was taken a couple of weekends ago while Aunt April was here. We have quite the lizard habitat at our house. It is crazy how many there are! Kate had one cornered behind her kitchen outside.

And as a side note, we were able to pretty much finish up Kate's room over the last month as well. Here are a few pictures of the finished product. Be sure to check out the awesome cubby/toybox that Nick and Uncle D built for Kate.

First Game Day of the Season

2011-09-03T16:51:00.004-05:00

We are very excited that football season is finally here! Trapped indoors today by all the rain down here we have enjoyed having football things to entertain us. Nick definitely wishes he was in Dallas at the LSU game but has enjoyed spending the day with his little tigers around here. Just thought we would share some pics of the girls in their game day attire. We wish a happy football season to all and particularly a Roll Tide!!! and Geaux Tigers!!! from the Speyrers.

Kate in outfit #1 of the day posting with one of her best buds, Mike the Tiger.

The littlest tiger around here

Kate wasn't much on posing with Emily this morning but I was able to snap a quick pic with Kate checking her out.

Somewhere along the way Kate decided that rain boots would be a great accessory to add to her lovely jersey and jean shorts get up

Daddy and his little tigers. Daddy was sweet to go pick out game day outfits for the girls last weekend. Kate's shirt has a sparkly tiger paw on it and she loves it!

Kate giving Emily a kiss.

One of Kate's favorite things to do with Emily is point out all of her body parts. Here she's saying "Eyes"

And here's a quick video of Kate. Nick has been working with her all week to say "Tigerbait!" and she has definitely said it she just refuses to do so on camera. You'll see what she's not afraid to say on camera though...

She's a Bama girl at heart!

Emily One Week Old and "Cool" Like Her Sister

2011-08-22T20:40:00.009-05:00

We've had our sweet Emily home just over a week and things are going great! She has continued to be super sweet and pretty laid back. We had our first couple of post-discharge from the hospital doctor's appointments last week. When we were discharged from the hospital we knew that we were going to have a couple of follow up labs and appointments about Emily's bili (jaundice) levels as well as a an appointment with an orthopedist to check her hips.

We had our appointment with the orthopedist first and were very glad to know what we were probably dealing with this time around since we needed to address Kate's hips right after she was born also. Sure enough Emily wants to be just like her big sister, decided to camp out in Momma's tummy in a breech position and decided that she wanted to be one of the "cool kids" that wear harnesses too (See our post on Kate's hip dysplasia). As a quick explanation--since she was sitting with her head up instead of down while in my tummy her hip joints are not properly formed at birth. The place where the ball should fit into the socket is loose (the orthopedist likes to say the joints are shallow) therefore they put the baby in a little harness that forces the ball into the socket like it should be and since baby's bones are so malleable the problem easily corrects itself with no trouble/pain to the baby. We quickly learned with Kate and see again with Emily that wearing the harness is no big deal at all. It definitely doesn't bother her and if anything I think that she likes being held in a position, kind of like how infants love to be tightly swaddled. So you may notice over the next several weeks (she's estimated to need it for 6 weeks) she may look a little like she has football pads on under her clothes. That's just the little harness under there.

Emily's biliruben levels were slightly elevated before we were discharged from the hospital so over our first weekend home we made a couple of trips to the lab to get her levels checked and after a little increase the numbers seemed to start to level off. So we had another trip to the pediatrician last Monday to get levels checked and check her weight. Bili levels were still slightly elevated (just in a "need to monitor" zone but nothing that the Dr was concerned about) and our little piggy is definitely gaining weight. We had things checked again on Friday and today and she has gained over a pound since birth already. That's a lot when you only weigh 7-8 lbs to begin with. Birth she was 7 lb, 11 oz, before we left the hospital she was 7 lb, 8 oz, last Monday 8 lbs, 4 oz, Friday 8 lbs, 9 oz and today 8 lbs 12.5 oz. The steady increase makes the nursing Momma feel pretty good. Everything else looks great and we aren't due back for another check up for a couple of weeks.

We are trying to start to settle into our little routine with our two girls. Makes it pretty easy with Nonna here helping with everything!! We are so blessed to have her here helping out! It will definitely be a reality check next week once she's gone but I think we'll make it just fine. We have two little girls that could not be more perfect in my opinion! It really just keeps getting better and better. Kate continues to be a great big sister and seems to be adjusting to all the changes as well as we could ask for. It is crazy to think that just a week and a few short days ago we were still a family of 3 and Emily was still just hanging out in my tummy, but now that she's here it's hard to remember what things were like without her! We hope you enjoy a few of our recent pictures.

Emily sporting her harness

This is how Emily spends a lot of her time...happily snoozing. You can also tell in this picture that she's already getting to be quite the chunky monkey

Emily got a visit from her Aunt Dana and Uncle Kevin, who will also soon be her Nanny and Parrain (Godparents), and cousins Braxton and Karoline

Kate playing outside with Karoline and Nanny

Daddy and his girls before bed time

The rest of the pictures are from my attempts at an at-home photo session with Miss Emily. We got a few decent ones.

Welcome Home Emily!!

2011-08-16T14:13:00.006-05:00

We were lucky enough to get to come home Friday afternoon. We are so thankful that our doctor was a fan of letting me recuperate at home so that we didn't have to stay in the hospital over the weekend. We were able to start settling in at home and had a chance to visit with family and friends over the weekend.

Our first few days at home have been great...practically perfect!! Emily is so sweet and laid back and Kate has been the perfect big sister that I knew she would be. She has been super sweet and interested, but not too interested, in Emily and doesn't seem to mind sharing her Momma and Daddy with her new baby sister. We had to go back to the hospital Saturday morning for some lab work (everything's good) and as soon as we got back home Kate asked me if she could hold Emily. I asked Nick if he had talked to her about it and he hadn't, she just came up with the idea all on her own. You can tell when Kate holds Emily and looks at her that she's proud of her little sister. It's absolutely amazing that somebody as young as Kate can seem to grasp what is going on and welcome Emily into her life so openly. I cannot even begin to count all of our blessings!! I am absolutely in love with our newly updated little family!

Loaded up and ready to head home!

Welcome home Emily!!

Papa and Nonna arrived Thursday. Papa stayed through the weekend and we are so lucky that Nonna will be staying for a couple of weeks.

Emily checking Papa out

First bath at home. Momma and Daddy weren't nearly as stressed out as we were for Kate's first bath at home.

All clean after her first bath

Kate holding Emily for the first time. She was so sweet!

Giving Emily a kiss

Sweet sisters! I love my beautiful girls!!

Amelia and Anne Marie checking out baby Emily

Anne Marie and Aunt Lori meeting Emily

Claire and Aunt Brandi hanging out with us on Saturday

Daddy snuggled up with Emily

Momma with her girls

Kate leaning in for a kiss. I really can't believe how great she has been! Kate loves her little sister!

Happy Birthday Emily Alice!!!

2011-08-11T20:38:00.008-05:00

We are very excited to introduce Miss Emily Alice Speyrer. Emily was born at 1:23 AM, weighing in at 7 lbs, 11 oz and 20 1/4 inches long. As I posted just a couple of days ago, we were fully expecting to not be meeting Miss Emily until our scheduled date of the 15th but she had other plans for us! Last night while relaxing at home my water broke and and set things in motion for today to be Emily's birthday. I was very surprised, actually in shock I think, that my water actually broke since I believed this be a pretty unlikely scenario given the fact that Emily was still breech. Luckily we had pretty much everything together and were able to call on close friends, The Levys, to watch Kate (who was sound asleep) until Pop Pop could arrive to stay with Kate for the rest of the night. Water broke about 10:15, arrived at the hospital at about 11:15 and Emily was born at 1:23.

We have had a perfect day as our newly formed family of 4. Emily has been very laid back and relaxed so far. She is nursing like a champ and hardly cries for anything...of course we know this can all change at any moment but she has been happy as can be so far. We have continued to comment all day on how much Emily looks exactly like Kate did when she was born. You'll have to take a look for yourself and see (See Kate's birth blog post). Emily got to meet her big sister mid-morning and that went great as well. Kate was very excited to meet the "bee-bee" and was very sweet, even sharing a couple of kisses. We finished off Emily's birthday with the continuation of our tradition of a zero birthday party. Nonna, Poppa and Pop Pop helped us celebrate with a cookie cake and a couple of rounds of "Happy Birthday" in Emily's honor. Kate loved the singing and the cake and, thanks to those two things, probably thinks that having a little sister is pretty fun since it comes with parties and presents (Emily had a gift for Kate for when they met) and cake.

All in all it was a perfect day even if two of the biggest planners (Nick and myself) were thrown for a loop with this unexpected birth date! We enjoyed our intimate birth experience as just the three of us and are head over heels in love with our newest addition! We are unbelievably blessed with both of our girls and can't wait to see their sisterly bond grow as they get to know one another better.

Emily Alice weighing in at 7 lbs, 11.2 oz

Proud parents!

Emily meeting Big Sis, Kate for the first time. Kate was very sweet!

Emily meeting her Pop Pop

Kate checking out the birthday cake as we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Emily.

The happy family of four!

Emily at almost 38 weeks

2011-08-08T22:01:00.005-05:00

I went to the doctor for my 37 week appointment last Thursday. All is still looking good and still looks like her birthday will most likely be the 15th. We had an ultrasound and got a glimpse of our girl. Nick and I agreed that she seems to look like Kate as best we can tell. It was hard to get a very good look at her face and/or profile though since she is wedged up so high in my ribs. Measurements are also a little tougher to come by since she is breech but every head measurement that was taken came in at greater than 97th percentile. The other measurements (belly, leg, etc) weren't quite as big and the overall weight estimate was 7 lbs, 9 oz, but the ultrasound tech said that the estimates can be off as much as a pound. We (actually Nick) remembers them being off with Kate. We were thinking she was going to be a little bigger than she ended up being (7 lbs, 0.5 oz) but I do remember them telling us that it was really hard to measure her for the same reasons (head jammed in my ribs :)). We'll know for sure in just a few short days all of the little details about her. We are very excited, anxious (Nick) and just READY (me) for Emily to get here! We will have one last appointment this week and if there's anything to report I will be sure to post it. Otherwise look for an update next Monday after Miss Emily's arrival! Keep us in your prayers that things go smoothly! Here are a couple of ultrasound pics that we thought we'd share:

I know these can be really hard to make out but this is her face looking right at you. Looks like she has some chubby cheeks.

This is basically the same view as above, the tech just tried to back up a bit so that you saw more eye lid instead of eye socket. We were able to see her eyes moving around in one of the shots that we got though. Amazing!!

Kate - 21 Months and Counting

2011-08-08T21:21:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that Kate is 21 months old...for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is that she is only 3 months away from turing two and I can't believe how fast time is flying. Secondly, all I have been able to think about her turning 21 months is that all through my pregnancy I have been telling people that the girls will be 21 months apart and now we are here! So obviously Kate is less than a week away from becoming a big sister! She is talking, talking, talking non stop right now. The funniest part is that in some ways we have kind of reverted back to some jibberish. In the beginning it was all jibberish, then she got really good at one and two word recognizable phrases and now I think she is trying to mimic conversational talking so she's adding jibberish in with her recognizable words. So it will be a string of jibberish and the two or three recognizable words will be at the end of her rambling. You just have to be patient and wait for them. It's pretty funny. Kate loves to count and has for some time now. She used to count with the numbers all out of order, but now we can catch her counting to 12 in order with no help. We think she's pretty smart. We are still working on colors and while most things are still "yeh-yo" (yellow) she's actually getting purple right a fair amount of the time. Kate has also always been a dancer and really enjoyed music but over the last few weeks she has found "her song" that she wants to dance to every day and once she gets started, before the song can even end she's chanting "again, again!" Her song of choice is Knee Deep by Zac Brown Band and Jimmy Buffett. Love the song but anything can wear on you after you hear it a thousand times. The dancing is the best when it's solo, but she's also gotten to where she likes to have a partner for much of her dancing. Her favorite partners are Mike the Tiger and any baby doll that may be close by. And if she's tolerating other music on the radio she will still definitely let us know if she wants us to change the song or not.

Well our next Kate update is sure to be different as she settles into life as a big sister, or I guess more like life that will have to be shared with a little sister. We all know it's going to be a big adjustment but hope that Kate handles it as best she can. Here are just a few recent pictures and a couple of videos.

Kate enjoying her new table and chairs in her room. She was excited to sit at the table and is dying to eat at it.

Kate swimming at her friend Adi's birthday party

August 15 - A Good Day for a Birthday???

2011-07-30T07:16:00.002-05:00

Well me and Miss Emily are entering the home stretch of this pregnancy. As of today, I am 37 weeks and officially full term even though pregnancies are technically measured out 40 weeks. I am going to the doctor weekly and everything continues to look good. I went on Thursday of this week and we have made no progress as of yet and we went ahead and scheduled the c-section for Monday August 15 at 8:00 AM. Seems like a great day for a birthday to me! But then again at this point just about any day seems like a great day for a birthday to me. I guess Miss Emily will be the one to decide if the 15th is going to be her birthday or if she would like to come and see us sooner.

We have continued to get ready for her arrival. My mom came down and surprised me for my birthday the weekend of the 17th. We spent a few days shopping for a few little things that I needed for Emily. Nick also got all of our baby items out of the attic and Mom and I washed clothes and put together bouncey seats, swings, etc. After that weekend I felt like we were in great shape as far as being ready for Emily's arrival. Then we had a little excitement this week that motivated me to get some bags packed just in case. I had regular contractions for a few hours one evening. But my trip to the doctor for my regularly scheduled appointment confirmed what I had already figured out...that it was just false labor. I like to think of it as God's way of reminding me and Nick that we need to be ready whenever. So now we are ready, ready with bags packed and everything.

And to close with an interesting side note--Nick pointed out last night that the next tropical storm is to be named Emily. The depression that is in the Atlantic right now that looks to be most likely named Emily is tracking towards the Caribbean and Cuba right now and then who knows. Nick said if it tracks into the gulf, develops into a hurricane and causes destruction maybe we should consider changing Emily's name. I laughed and said as long as it took us to decide on Emily, we are sticking with it, hurricane or not! So we're just waiting here on Hurricane Emily :) We are ready for her to disrupt our lives. We just hope it's only the Emily I'm carrying or that if there is a hurricane Emily that it either stays away from here or that the two Emily's don't decide to arrive at the same time! Oh well. Out of our control but a pretty interesting coincidence don't you think?

We go next Thursday for our 37 week appointment and what will probably be our last ultrasound. I will be sure to post another update including any ultrasound pics that we are able to get next week.

Kate Has an Announcement...

2011-07-08T20:55:00.006-05:00

In case you need a translator for Kate's video, she is trying to tell you that her baby sister's name is Emily! We have finally decided after changing our minds several times, debating over different names and living with Emily for a little while to make sure it feels right. As with Kate's names, we really wanted to try to use family names if we could agree on one. Emily is after Nonna, my Mom, who is actually Emma Lee. She was named Emma after her maternal grandmother and Lee was after her Dad, Leo, who was often called Lee.

Kate has been referring to her baby sister as Sissy for a while now but pretty recently has been able to tell us that her name is "Emma-me". The video clip at the end where she is banging the spoon she had spontaneously broken out in an "Emma-me" chant that night that was pretty funny.

Of course now that Kate is comfortably in her big girl bed, we have been able to get the nursery set up with her old furniture. Here are some pictures of the nursery in progress. It's in pretty good shape, just a couple more pictures on the wall are needed and it will be done. Next we'll need to start getting clothes, swings, bouncey seats, etc out of the attic. We're really getting ready for our newest little girl! I had an appointment with the doctor this week and there's not much to report which is a good thing. We should be a little over 5 weeks from a scheduled c-section date but we haven't scheduled anything definite yet. We'll have an ultrasound in about 3 weeks and then maybe we'll start to firm things up with the scheduled date. Of course Miss Emily could decide she needs to meet all of us on her own schedule too so we'll see!

The name just went up today

BIG GIRL @ 20 Months!

2011-07-04T10:28:00.005-05:00

Kate was 20 months old on July 2. The big news around here for the last week has been Kate's transition from her crib to her big girl bed. The new bed was delivered on Friday June 24th and she slept in it for the first time that night. She did half way fall out of the bed (her bed has a trundle that we pulled out and she caught herself with her hands on the trundle and her legs were still in the bed) that night but handled it well. We haven't had any other problems at all since then. Kate's done great with her naps and bedtime! I guess she could sense she needed to make room for little sister. We left the crib in her room the first couple of nights as a "just in case" but moved it out last Sunday since she had done so great the first couple of nights. We wanted it to be out of sight and mind. I'm sure we're still due for some interesting nights in the future but the first week and a half has been perfect!

Big girl so proud of her new bed! This was the day it was delivered.

A few before pictures of Kate's room

And these are after. I still have a good bit of work to do. As you can see there are no decorations and I am going to get a few more things (a bookcase and a chair or little table and chair set). Her bedside table will eventually go beside the bed too once we stop using the trundle on a regular basis for fall prevention. I hope to have the room totally finished before little sister arrives. We'll see if I'm successful on that front.

We also want to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!! We've had a great long weekend, spending time with family yesterday and looking forward to time with some good friends today!

Beach Bums

2011-06-26T22:03:00.002-05:00

We went on the Johnson family beach vacation to Ft Morgan (west of Gulf Shores, AL) from June 11 - 18. It was an absolutely perfect week!! Kate LOVED the beach!!! I told Nick that she got just about everything from him (looks like him, acts like him...) but she got my love of the beach. From the first moment she stuck her toes in the sand and water she was hooked! She squealed with delight and had no fear of the water whatsoever. Every day, multiple times a day if we weren't already headed in that direction, Kate was asking to go to the "beat" (beach).

Kate also got in some great quality time with Nonna, Poppa, her aunts, uncles and all of her cousins on my side of the family this week. The big girls, Mary Emma and Camden, were so sweet with Kate and such a big help all the time! The boys, Daniel, Owen and Connor, were as playful as ever too with her. Kate is still big buddies with Daniel and she wanted to know where he was most of the time, calling him when she couldn't find him, "Dan-ull!!!" The littler girls, Liza and Langley, were super sweet playing with Kate too. They all got in some quality pool time together at the beach (we had a baby pool under a tent down at the beach). And of course Kate had a good time playing with Harper, aka "Hapah", who is just 6 weeks younger than Kate.

Thanks again to Nonna and Poppa for such a great week!!! We are already looking forward to next year!

First steps on the beach and into the water with Daddy on the day we arrived.

In love from the first moments!

With Mary Emma and Langley

Busy "cooking" while relaxing in the baby pool

Having a tea party with Liza and Langley

Kate borrowed some of the bigger kids' "goggas" for bath time one night and insisted on wearing them for the entire bath

The fascination with the "goggas" continued through the rest of the week

With Daddy

Relaxing and riding the waves with Daddy

Walking with Nonna

Beach baby!

Playing in the sand with Nonna

The family

The whole group!!

Also here's a few video clips we took during the week

And here's a link to a slideshow that my sister, April, made of the week. Shows more of the whole family.

19 Months & Talking, Talking, Talking!

2011-06-21T07:38:00.003-05:00

We have been busy lately listening to all Miss Kate has to say...and it's a lot!! She has continued to progress so quickly with her vocabulary and ability to communicate. I was telling someone yesterday that when she was younger and couldn't really talk, I used to wonder what was going on in her little head...now we know. It seems like a constant stream of consciousness coming out of her little mouth and most of it is understandable, at least by me anyways. When she gets up in the morning she's telling us "hey" and often "poo poo" since everything in her diaper, poo or not, is considered poo poo right now. Then she moves on to demanding "milk" and "mickey" and when prompted follows it up with a sweet "peeezzz" for please. After breakfast most mornings she moves on to playing something, or several things until lunch time. Her favorites right now are playing "night, night" in "sissy's" room. There is no furniture in the baby's new room but I have bought her bedding so Kate likes to get out her bumper and sheet, arrange it on the floor and play night, night over and over and over again. She also likes to "cook" in her kitchen and "wing" (swing) outside. Sprinkled throughout playtime she will ask for Micky or Elmo (mostly Micky) about a hundred times. For lunch she loves "burbers" (black bean burgers) and "hot dogs" (which are really corn dogs). After lunch time for a nap then more play time until dinner. Then it's time for a "bah" (bath), preferably with lots of "bubbas" (bubbles) and we get ready for bed. She knows her little routine and will want to help with her "botion" (lotion) and loves to "brush" her teeth. Kate has more demands for "milk" and "book" instead of Micky at bedtime. Then she heads off to bed after kisses to Momma and Daddy and telling us "nigh, nigh" and "wuv ooh" (love you) and often "bye, bye" as well. Anyways, that's a day in the life of Kate right now with a sampling of the many words that we hear everyday. I also recorded several clips of her talking and thought I would share that for her 19 month update. It's a little longer than most of my videos but Nick and I think it's pretty funny.

Third Trimester Here We Come...

2011-05-31T10:58:00.003-05:00

I cannot believe that I am officially in my third trimester. I'm not sure where the second one went. Me and the littlest one are doing pretty good. I am finding that I need to take it a little easier these days which is a little difficult with my big, almost 19 month old running around. I went for my 28 week check up last week and all was good. My measurements and experiences (already lots of Braxton Hicks contractions) are normal for a second pregnancy according to the doctor. I am anxious to get another look at her but don't think I'll have another ultrasound until around 34 weeks.

The little one still does not have a definite name. We've had several top contenders and have really narrowed down the list but aren't ready to commit just yet. We also officially started on the nursery over the last week or so. We are moving my office to where our guest bedroom used to be and the old office will become the nursery. The baby will get Kate's old furniture and we have ordered big girl furniture for Miss Kate. The nursery is currently empty and ready to be painted this weekend. I will be sure to include pictures as we start to get it completed.

We are getting really excited as we realize just how close we are to having this little one! We will keep you updated with progress during this final stretch.

Family Trip to NOLA

2011-05-19T15:31:00.011-05:00

Last weekend we took a trip, just the 3 of us, to New Orleans. Once we found out we were pregnant Nick and I discussed doing something special as a family of 3 before the baby gets here. May 13th was also mine and Nick's 5 year wedding anniversary and rather than take a trip alone we decided to take one with Kate. So we loaded up first thing Saturday morning and set out for New Orleans. We hit up the aquarium just as they opened and we had a great time looking at the fish and feeding the birds in the parakeet exhibit. Once we finished there we walked through the French Quarter to find some lunch before heading back to the hotel for a nap. After we all had some rest we went back out to walk around before heading to dinner at Palace Cafe. Nick and I had a very nice meal in honor of our anniversary while Kate hung out (she wasn't very into the food so she got to watch a video while we ate).

Sunday morning we got up and headed to Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee (juice for Kate) before heading to the Zoo. Our zoo trip was a little shorter than we thought it was going to be because Miss Kate was a little tired (and cranky) from less sleep than usual in a strange place. She enjoyed what she did get to see though and had fun for a little while at the Cool Zoo. We would highly recommend both Audubon attractions that were our big stops for the weekend and were especially impressed with how beautifully maintained the zoo was!

One of Kate's favorite books since she was born is Goodnight Nola. It is similar to Goodnight Moon except it says "Goodnight" to things famous to New Orleans. So Nick and I had discussed the fact that someday we wanted to create a version featuring Kate and thought this trip would be the perfect opportunity to do so. So along with pictures from our trip that I'm sharing below. Here is a link to a photo book that I created on Shutterfly and am ordering for Kate as a keepsake.

Kate at the Aquarium

Family pic outside the aquarium

Kate admiring the fish and sting rays

With Daddy checking out the sharks

In the parakeet exhibit at the Aquarium

Kate feeding the parakeets herself

Riding a fish in a kids play area at the Aquarium

Still in the play area. Kate became pretty territorial over this oyster. She scared off a couple of older kids and I think she would have sat there all day if we'd let her.

Kate and Daddy checking out the monkeys at the zoo. Kate said "Ee, ee!", which is her monkey noise, non-stop around the monkeys

Looking at the white tigers

Kate petting a bunny. Yet another place she would have stayed all day if we'd let her. Unfortunately we didn't and a meltdown ensued after leaving this cute bunny

The "Cool Zoo"

Kate was pretty content hanging out in a pool at the foot of one of the water slides.

I also wanted to give a link to some photos our friend Nicole took of Kate right before she turned 18 months. I forgot to post the link in her 18 month update. Nicole took some awesome pictures of Kate at 6 months so we couldn't wait to get her to take some more a year later. These turned out great too! Click here to take a look.

18 Months and "Ah-sigh!"

2011-05-03T21:05:00.000-05:00

I can't believe we are already to the half-birthday mark this year! We feel like Kate is learning at light speed at this point. She is understanding more and more and talking more and more every day. Her vocabulary is to the point that I can't possibly capture all of her new words since last month in one post. She is also beginning to string 2 or more words together at times. Kate is super sweet with her babies and toys. She will kiss them, cover them up with a blankie and tell them "nigh, nigh", take them for stroller rides, try to share her juice and snacks with them along with her paci. She's become quite the little momma all of a sudden. One of her favorite toys right now is her Little People farm. Kate LOVES all animals and loves taking them out, giving them kisses and carefully placing them in their stalls in the barn. She will also kiss the farmer, put him on the top floor of the barn and say "Geeeeee!" (for Wheee!) as she slides him off the top. We are also beginning to see more and more of her...personality I guess you could say...we often call it attitude :) She is a girl who generally knows what she wants and will let you know if things aren't going her way. Momma and Daddy are learning how to deal with our strong willed girl.

By far the most common word we hear on a daily basis is "ah-sigh" (outside). Kate would live outside if we would let her. She likes to walk around, ride in her wagon or stroller, swing, play in her water table, help Daddy water the plants and just be outside. We have also recently introduced a play kitchen that we inherited and a pool/splash pad, both of which she absolutely loved! I thought for her 18 month update I would share some pictures from her time "ah-sigh"

Cooking outside and offering Momma a bite

Busy in the kitchen

Relaxing and reading after her dip in the pool

Looking like queen of the pool surveying things from the top of the slide

Playing in the pool

Taking a walk with Daddy

Playing with her water table

Watering the plants at Nonna's house. Kate tries to water the plants at home with Daddy's big watering can so the Easter bunny brought Kate her own little watering can and she couldn't wait to put it to good use.

Happy Belated Easter!!

2011-05-01T20:57:00.001-05:00

We spent Easter in Florence with the Johnson clan. Kate had a great time playing with all of her cousins and luckily the Easter bunny found her at Nonna and Poppa's house. We hope that all of you had a very happy Easter as well!

Kate Easter morning after mass

The family

Kate's goodies from the Easter Bunny

She went straight for the suckers

Hunting eggs

And here's a little video of Kate checking out her Easter basket and another clip on the end of her hopping like a bunny

Fun with Cousins

2011-04-30T20:58:00.001-05:00

We've been on the road a good bit lately...hence the lack of blog posts...but luckily our travels have allowed us to spend a good bit of time with family and it has given Kate the chance to play with most of her cousins. While we are currently in the process of learning about sharing and playing nice, for the most part Kate has been sweet with all of her cousins and really loved getting the chance to play with all of them.

A couple of weekends ago we went to Anne Marie's second birthday party where there was a clown who painted faces and made balloon animals and lots to play with and see outside. Then last weekend we were in Florence for a long Easter weekend with all of Kate's Alabama cousins. They were so sweet to hide Easter eggs and help Kate find them, they took her for walks and just played...so much fun in fact it took Kate all week to catch up on her sleep!

We are extremely blessed to have such a big family with so many sweet cousins for Kate to play with!!

Kate and Claire. Kate has been very into checking out "the baby". I guess it's a good thing seeing as how she'll have a baby around all the time in a few months!

Kate and Karoline hopping on the trampoline at Anne Marie's birthday.

Daniel reading Old McDonald to Kate and Langley

Daniel getting some one on one reading time with Kate

Bath time with Langley and Harper. Kate wasn't quite sure what to think about all the activity at bath time but I think she had fun.

Camden reading to Kate

The bigger cousins put together an egg hunt for Harper and Kate. Harper caught on to the concept faster than Kate and was showing Kate all her goods here.

Mary Emma helping Kate hunt for eggs

Daniel and Owen helping out too

One more of Daniel helping Kate hunt eggs. I thought this one was cute!

17 Months and Daddy's Birthday

2011-04-04T20:26:00.006-05:00

This past Saturday we celebrated Kate's 17 month birthday and Nick's 29th birthday with a family crawfish boil in Port Barre. It was great! All of Nick's brothers and most of the sister-in-laws and nieces and nephews were in attendance along with Pop Pop to celebrate the occasion and enjoy some of the best crawfish and veggies that I have ever tasted! All the little ones had a blast running around outside playing with each other and everyone else enjoyed the day spent with family and some great weather!

I can't believe how grown up Kate is becoming! She is a girl who knows what she wants/doesn't want and likes/dislikes. Kate loves to be outside and can now ask, or tell us "ah-sigh" for outside in kind of a whisper to let us know that she would much prefer to be outside. Her vocabulary is really at the point where it is taking off and she is beginning to try to repeat a lot of what we are saying. There are too many new words since the last post to list them all but some of the most frequently used these days are "bub-buh" for bubble (she's obsessed with them and knows everywhere she might see them--the bath, the sink, the washer, momma and daddy's shower...), "dye" or "dye-dye" for bye-bye, she greets with a "heey" or a "whoa" for hey or hello, "bop-bop" for Pop Pop and "bah-bah" for Papa, "nah-nuh" for banana, "day-dee" for baby and tonight I got a "thank you". I don't know exactly how she pronounced it since it was the first time she had really said it but it was very clearly a thank you, Nick even verified that I had heard correctly. I hope to be hearing more and more of it (and a few other manner words) in the future. She LOVES animals and added "dah-dah" for a sheep's baa-baa and "meew-meew" for a cat's meow-meow to her list of animal sounds she knows (cow, dog, tiger, lion and duck). Kate loves to smell the flowers outside and candles inside, color in her coloring books, play with her little farm and ride her babies and stuffed animals around in her little toy wagon. It keeps getting better and better and we continue to have more and more fun with our growing girl!

Kate checking out the crawfish. She wasn't scared of them at all and loved throwing them back into the bucket.

Kate with cousins Braxton and Amelia taking a look at the crawfish

The birthday boy and his little girl

Kate with her Parrain, Marcus

One more with Daddy. Check out those curls! As you can see she's still not getting a whole lot of hair. It's also a little deceiving since everything that is coming in is so curly it just keeps looking short.

IT'S A....

2011-03-30T13:05:00.005-05:00

another GIRL!!! We are super excited!! But then again we would have been super excited no matter what we were having! Everything is looking great! The baby is measuring right on track and was pretty active during the ultrasound today. She gave the ultrasound tech a hard time trying to get her measurements both in movements and position. The baby was breech today, which isn't anything shocking. Kate was breech at this point too. I think it may just be the way my body is made. Maybe it's more comfy for my babies to hang out in there in the breech position. I know everyone will want to know if we've decided on a name and there have been no decisions yet. Had this little one been a boy we would be all set but we are tossing around several different girl names right now. I'll be sure to let you all know once we feel like we've made a decision.

Profile of our little lady

Her arm and hand

And her face. I know this one's a little hard to see. Image she's looking right at you.

Enjoying Spring

2011-03-29T09:27:00.009-05:00

I feel like a slacker for not posting more over the last few weeks but we've been sick and busy around here so it just hasn't happened. We have been thoroughly enjoying the nice spring weather...or on some days it feels like the beginning of summer already! A couple of weekends ago we took Kate to her first parade, the Baton Rouge St. Patrick's Parade. She had a great time! We had really hoped to get her to a parade during Mardi Gras but it just never worked out. Kate loves beads so that in itself was fun for her to get a bunch of beads and goodies and see how many she could wear all at one time! Then this past week Nonna was here to hang out with us during the week and watch Kate while Nick and I went to a wedding in Houston over the weekend. Kate and Nonna spent a lot of time playing outside and one afternoon we met Nick downtown to walk around and enjoy the beautiful azaleas around the state capitol. We did this last year and decided then that it might be an annual tradition since you just can't beat walking around enjoying the scenery and also trying to snap some pictures with the beautiful surroundings. We laughed at how much easier it was to snap some pictures of Kate last year in comparison to this year. Last year we could just plop her down next to something pretty and she would just smile. We spent much of our time this year just chasing Kate and she was way too into checking things out to give us the time of day. We did still get a few good shots.

As for me, the preggo, and baby #2 we are doing great! I started feeling the baby move over the last couple of weeks and it has gotten much more frequent over the last few days. Of course that is my favorite part of pregnancy. It is the most awesome feeling to feel that little baby fluttering around in there! I'm beginning to think that what the ultrasound tech said at our 12 week ultrasound may be true--that we've got a busy body on our hands. This little one is moving a lot! We go tomorrow morning to take another look and hopefully get to see what we are having. I can't wait!! I think I am more anxious to know the sex of this baby than I was with Kate. The bets around the Speyrer house are changing daily. Friday night at the rehearsal dinner for the wedding Nick was rubbing my belly telling everyone his boy was in there. Then Saturday at the wedding he told anyone that asked that daughter #2 was definitely in there. As for me, I'm pretty unsure. I've had girl vibes since the beginning and I guess deep down I'm still thinking girl but I'm not overwhelmed with girl thoughts. I guess we'll see tomorrow!

Kate and Daddy watching the St. Patty's parade

Kate riding in the wagon as we made our way to where we watched the parade. Notice how Kate is waving to anyone and everyone that she passes by. I think she thought she was the parade.

Kate checking out her little teddy bear that was the first of what ended up being many little stuffed animals that she caught. She immediately gave this one a hug and a kiss.

Kate and Daddy and all Kate's beads. She insisted on wearing all of them and was mad when we made her take some of them off

Our haul. No room for Kate to ride after the parade with all the beads and stuffed animals that we got.

Kate and the azaleas in front of the state capitol building

Cheese

Happy to see Daddy when he came to meet us.

Kate was all about the lake. I think she would have run right in if we had let her.

Our little family

Kissing Daddy

Daddy started this game and Kate wouldn't let him stop. Not an easy game to play with our 30 lb girl.

16 Months Old

2011-03-02T19:58:00.002-06:00

Kate is 16 months old today! We are having fun and staying very busy around here. Now that it is consistently nice outside, we are spending a lot of time with Kate outside. She loves to go for a wagon ride, walk or stroller ride around the neighborhood. She's also happy to swing or just play around and explore outside. She usually cries whenever it's time to go in.

Kate is also starting to try out more words and is doing better at trying to repeat things we are saying. She finally added "ball" which is usually one of the first words for most kids but Kate decided she'd do things a little differently and wait. But now everything that's round is a ball...apples, grapes, you name it. Some other new words are, "cuh-key", with a big emphasis on the hard c sounds, for cookie. She uses this for actual cookies as well as Cookie Monster on Sesame Street. It's either "chi-chin" or "kick-kin" for chicken. "Ddddss" for beads, as in Mardi Gras beads, which she loves to sport around the house. "Ock" for socks, "book" for all her books that she loves, "nigh, nigh" for night, night.

A few funny facts about Kate...first, she LOVES shoes!! Typical girl, I know. We bought her some new shoes fairly recently and after trying them on in the store (which she was happy to do) she insisted on wearing them out of the store. Her old ones were definitely NOT going back on her feet! I also ordered her some flip flops from Old Navy that have been in my office as I try to decide whether or not to keep them or get a bigger size. She brings them to me all the time wanting to put them on. Kate also LOVES Wheel of Fortune. She has for a very long time now. When she first learned to clap, she loved to clap when the audience clapped, and she still does that every now and then. Her big thing recently is that she knows when the show is about to go off, before Pat and Vanna even say good-bye, Kate starts waving to tell them bye-bye. She also has to know and be in the middle of whatever is going on. If I am working on dinner, she wants to be up to see (and have her hands in) what I am working on, if I am doing the laundry, she wants to be up on the counter so she can watch as I throw clothes in the washer. In her role as sous chef, she likes to sample whatever I am cutting/chopping. Some recent favorites are yellow peppers, sweet potatoes and zucchini, all raw of course.

Cheeeese

Ready for a wagon ride around the neighborhood

Swinging at the playground

Notice the pink flip flops. These are the ones I talked about above. She brought them to me one morning while she still had her pj's on and insisted on putting them on. Since the pj's had feet in them, I had to strip her down to let her sport her shoes.

1 Trimester Down, 2 To Go...

2011-02-17T09:41:00.005-06:00

And now for an update on baby #2. The newest Speyrer seems to be doing well all snuggled away in my belly. He/she is growing (along with me) by the day. We went to the doctor on February 2 for my 12 week appointment and got to get another peek at the little one. We have quite a mover and a shaker on our hands already! The baby was pretty much as busy as it could be for its size, waving hands and kicking feet. It was hard for the ultrasound tech to get the measurements she was trying to because the baby was so busy! And we thought Kate was busy! I specifically remember this same ultrasound with Kate (because it's such a drastic difference from the 8 week ultrasound...at 8 weeks it doesn't look like much other than a little flickering heart, at 12 weeks it looks like a real baby) and she was as laid back as ever. She looked like she was reclining and taking it easy but not this next one! So we are already getting prepared for another busy body :) But then again I know it could have just been the time of day, what I ate, who knows as to why this one was busy and Kate wasn't....guess we'll find out this next one's personality in a couple more trimesters! Everything looked good. The baby is measuring right on track and the heart rate was 168 (Nick still says that means girl all the way. Kate's was 158 at this point and the old wives tale is higher means girl). This pregnancy is flying by in comparison to my last. I guess we have Kate keeping us busy to thank for that! At this point just 6 more weeks until we can maybe catch a glimpse at whether this baby is going to be a little brother or a little sister.

Looks relaxed in the picture but those little legs and arms were moving!

This one shows the measurement. I was actually 11 weeks and 5 days and measuring 12 weeks and 1 day.

I thought this one was a cool picture. It is both hands. The one on top looks like it's reaching and you can actually count all five fingertips. The lower hand is folded some so you just see a top view of a few of the fingers. Amazing that it just takes less than 12 weeks to form a little baby with fingers and toes!

15 Months Old...

2011-02-16T13:11:00.008-06:00

Well I guess at this point Kate's about 15 1/2 months old but at least I am finally getting to this post! We've been a little busy around here mostly with the usual stuff but Kate and I also had a trip to Florence a couple of weekends ago. Once again she was a great traveler even with a pretty long and interesting trip there. We got a deal on a flight on Southwest from New Orleans to Birmingham and this was the day that Baton Rouge was supposed to get ice/freezing rain. We ended up good on this end but got surprised by ice north of Birmingham trying to make our way back to Florence. Put a couple extra hours on what should have been a 2 1/2 hour ride from Bham to Florence. Thanks Nonna and Papa for picking us up and braving the ice!!

Nick and I have said recently that now we totally get when everyone has been telling us that it just keeps getting better and better the more kids grow and learn. We are having the best time with Kate! She is fun and sweet and learning new things everyday! Still jabbering all the time but continues to add new recognizable words (at least recognizable to me anyways) and seems to be trying out how to say new things more and more. Some of the newest additions are "Duh-cuh" for duck and "cack, cack" for what the duck says, Nick is proud that he taught her to say "dog-guh" for dog...big emphasis on the g, "Nah-nah" for her Nonna but also a "nah, nah, nah!" that is her no, no, no!, Nick gets to share his name with Dora, Kate calls her "Dada" too. Kate has also become a big hugger and kisser. She does share her hugs and kisses with us but really shares them the most with her books and toys that she loves most. She has a couple of books where she will kiss every page sometimes when she's looking at it. Kate also picks up her favorite stuffed animals and toys, will put them on her shoulder with one and hand and slowly and gently pat, pat with the other hand. The funniest thing is if its something pretty small, for example her rubber ducky in the tub, she will perch it on her shoulder with one hand and then she doesn't reach all the way up with the other hand to pat, pat, she just gives herself a pat, pat on the tummy. Pretty cute!

Here are some recent pictures of our growing girl

Our 15 month old! I did take this picture on her 15 month birthday...just didn't get around to posting it until now :)

Checking out the iPod with Daniel at Nonna and Papa's

Sitting with Nonna and Liza playing with the Box / Simmons new puppy

Much to Nick's dismay Kate is a dog LOVER! I mean she thinks they are the greatest thing ever! When she has been around any of them she's pretty sweet with them but she also follows them around barking at them the whole time.

Kate playing with her friend Adi. Kate's in the background about to bust through the roof of her tent. She and Adi were playing hide and go seek in the tent. The girls have had a ton of fun playing together recently!

Hide & Seek

2011-01-25T14:31:00.004-06:00

Right now Kate LOVES to hide from us! We are getting to where we have to keep doors to a lot of our rooms in the house closed so that it easier to find her once she decides she wants to hide. It's all about being pursued though so she really won't stay in hiding too long if someone doesn't come looking for her. Her favorite spots to hide are in the curtains (in various rooms) and in the back of mine and Nick's closet. Our closet is an L-shape so there is an area where it bends where we don't have any clothes hanging. Kate discovered this area and will scoot back there and often when I'm looking for her she gets excited and will pull some of our clothes in front of her to try to hide better. It's hilarious!

This is how I will often find her...waiting patiently for someone to come find her.

Peek-a-boo!

And she didn't figure this all out by herself. My older child (aka Daddy) taught her about hiding in the curtains.

In the closet frantically pulling jackets in front of her so that I won't find her

Peek-a-boo!

Kate's Got a Secret!

2011-01-10T20:20:00.003-06:00

We have been sitting on a BIG secret around the Speyrer house for several weeks and Kate's here to tell you all about it--

If you can't read her shirt it says "Guess whoo has a secret?"

And on the back "I'm going to be a Big Sister!"

Yes, that's right! We are expecting Baby Speyrer # Deux! We are all very excited! Well Kate doesn't exactly know what she's in for yet but we think she'll be a great big sister! I am still pretty early in the pregnancy at just 8 weeks but we have been to the doctor and all things are looking good! The estimated due date is August 20, which will make our 2 little ones 21 months a part. Should be interesting! The heart rate was 173 which, according to the old wives tale, means that # Deux may be a girl! Nick was quick to point that out before we were even out of the doctor's office. He's quite certain that it's a girl but we'll just have to wait a few weeks and see! Here's a picture of the newest Speyrer

Baby Speyrer # Deux (we thought we'd call it #2 in french to go along with our cajun-ness just until we find out the sex) Doesn't look like too much yet but we saw the flicker of the heart and it even gave us a little wiggle. We love it so much already!

We told each of our families over Christmas using Kate's T-shirt as our big announcement. It was fun! Kate didn't know why she was getting so much extra attention all of a sudden!

This was at Pop Pop's on Christmas Eve. She looks kinda crazy because we just took her dress off and put the T-shirt on with her bloomers and tights.

Here's Pop Pop getting in close to check out what it says.

We are glad to have the news out in the open! Please say a little prayer that things continue to go well for our little bean.

14 Months Old

2011-01-10T19:15:00.003-06:00

Kate was 14 months old on January 2. She's now pretty much running all over the place. Kate loves to play peek-a-boo and hide from us. Lucky for us that she can't stay in hiding too long before she comes running out as fast as she can with her hands up in the air and a huge smile on her face waiting for us to scoop her up and swing her around. She talks ALL THE TIME...but we still can't understand the vast majority of what she's saying. I have become a Kate interpreter though and understand several things that she says. Kate calls her beloved blankey "Haydey" I think it may have morphed from saying "Hey blankey!". She is very good with her S sounds. She LOVES peaches and will point to them and say "Sssss" like a little snake. Kate also says "Chsss" for cheese, "Jsss" for juice and "Ish" for fish. She's obsessed with the phone and anything that remotely resembles a phone she will point to, put her hand by her ear (if she can't get her hands on the actual phone) and say "Hoh?". She also either understands a lot of the questions we are asking or picks up on the inflection of a question and if she doesn't know the answer she will cock her head to the side with both hands up like she saying "I don't know?". As always we continue to have a blast with her! Here are a couple of recent pictures.

"Hoh?"

Christmas (Part 3) at Nonna & Papa's

2011-01-03T20:47:00.002-06:00

We traveled to Alabama for a long New Year's weekend. We left Baton Rouge on Wednesday evening and drove to Jackson and stayed with friends Paul, Julie and Annie Grace Laperouse. It was nice not having to tackle the whole drive in one day and we had a great time visiting with Paul and Julie and Kate had fun playing with Annie Grace! We made it in to Florence on Thursday and had our first family gathering that night. Then we had our Christmas on New Year's eve day. No big New Year's eve plans. We ate Mexican and were in bed by about 10:30...boring I know but Kate wakes up between 6:30 and 7 no matter what so I get my sleep in while I can! We gathered again for another great meal on New Year's day and then headed back home to Baton Rouge on Sunday. We have had a truly blessed holiday season! We have been able to spend great time with all of our family!

All of the cousins

Kate ready to open presents with her Mardi Gras beads on. The beads were by far her favorite thing to play with at Nonna & Papa's house. She put them on herself all the time and wore them most of the weekend.

Opening gifts with Daddy

Everybody ready to get started

Mary Emma and Camden

Connor, Daniel and Liza

Langley very happy to have gotten her purple pillow pet

Harper playing with her tea set

Christmas (Part 2) at Pop Pop's

2010-12-28T21:09:00.002-06:00

We traveled to Port Barre on the 23rd to spend Christmas weekend with Pop Pop and the rest of our LA family. The tradition in Nick's family has always been to gather on Christmas eve for gumbo and we did just that. All of the brothers, sister-in-laws and cousins were there and we had a great time! We ate, drank and enjoyed every minute of our wonderful holiday with family. We had a blast watching all of the little ones play and dance and just have fun together. Then it was time for all of the kids to get ready for bed so that Santa could come. Santa found Kate in Port Barre and brought her a few fun things. Then we spent the rest of Christmas relaxing and taking it easy at Pop Pop's house. We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday as well! Merry Christmas from the Krewe de Speyrer!!

Kate with Nanny and Parrain

Pop Pop and Claire

Kate, Karoline and Ann Marie playing

We tried to get a picture of the little ones before we opened presents...guess who wouldn't cooperate. This is Kate's "I'm pitching a fit and I am NOT going to do what you want me to do" right now. She slides on her stomach like she's sliding into first base. It's hard not to be a little amused (of course without letting her know) when she does it

Opening gifts with Momma

And Daddy

Pop Pop, his boys and all their kiddos

Daddy and Uncle D and their little girls

The family

Kate happy to be putting on her Christmas PJ's so that she can go to sleep and wait for Santa

Kate, Braxton and Amelia dancing in their PJ's

Kate's gifts from Santa Christmas morning. She's wearing a ladybug hooded towel.

Looking at gifts from Santa with Daddy

"Hello? Thank you Santa for my new cell phone!"

Looking at her Mickey ornament that she got in her stocking

Looking like a big girl with her sucker and cell phone

Laid back in her wagon ready for a ride!

It was cold outside so Daddy took Kate for a ride around the house in her new wagon

Christmas Part 3 still to come as we travel to Florence this week for Christmas with the Johnson Clan!

Welcome Claire Marie

2010-12-28T20:44:00.003-06:00

Kate's 14th first cousin was born on Sunday December 19th. Miss Claire Marie Speyrer was welcomed into the world by her loving parents, Derrick and Brandi Speyrer. We went to visit Claire on her birthday and I thought we would share a few pictures from our visit

Claire Marie

This is about as close as we let Kate get since she can be a little feisty at times these days. She was somewhat interested in the baby but not too worried about Mama and Daddy holding somebody else.

Christmas Part 1

2010-12-27T20:25:00.004-06:00

We had round one of our Christmas festivities a couple of weeks ago in Leonville and Port Barre with Mama Speyrer and Mama LaHaye. It was a great day with lunch at Mama Speyrer's and supper at Mama LaHaye's. We exchanged gifts at both and enjoyed kicking off our Christmas fun with a day filled with family, food and fun. Here are some pictures from our day--

Everyone gathered at Mama Speyrer's

Visiting with cousins Amelia and Karoline

Kate and her goodies. I was pleased to see that Kate got a stuffed elephant to keep her tiger friends company.

Best shot after several attempts to get a picture of Mama Speyrer with all of the great grandchildren

Kate and Mama Speyrer

Uncle Stewart playing Santa at Mama LaHaye's

Amelia and Ann Marie checking out Kate's new Mickey Mouse book

Christmas Traditions

2010-12-15T20:53:00.006-06:00

I absolutely love this time of year! I love having Christmas decorations around the house, buying presents for loved ones and spending time with family and friends! Since we have been married, Nick and I have tried to establish a few family traditions. As I'm sure most people do, we have brought some traditions with us from our families and started one or two of our own. I thought I would share a couple our traditions and how we are getting Kate in on them.

The first is our Christmas tree decorations. I think everyone has their own idea of how a Christmas tree should look...what type of ornaments, lights and other decorations should be on the tree. Nick grew up with gorgeous trees that were coordinated with matching ornaments that followed a theme and/or color scheme. My tree, while also gorgeous if I do say so myself, was a hodge podge of all types of ornaments that my mom received from her students as a teacher over the years, ornaments that my sisters and I made (yes, even those almost unrecognizable ones from Kindergarten) and ones that we were given over the years. When we were all living at home and decorating the tree there were so many ornaments you had to start on the inside of the tree next to the trunk and work your way out on the branches so that all of the ornaments would fit. Each of us had our own box of ornaments and by the time I left home and had my own tree it was full to the top with all of the ornaments that I had made and received over the years. Nick and I have brought this tradition into our family. We have all of my ornaments from my childhood, Nick's collector LSU ornaments (we get a new one each year) and we have added ornaments since we have been together--one with a dated picture the year we got engaged, one from St. Lucia where we went on our honeymoon, one from San Francisco where we went on our 1 year anniversary and last year we added a family ornament with a picture of our little family with our addition of Kate. We added ornaments from some of those that used to hang on Nick's trees growing up, mostly ones that his mom hand painted. We also started an ornament box for Kate last year and plan to add at least one ornament to her collection each year. It is a lot of fun to pull out the ornaments each year and remember where they came from and what was going on in our lives at the point in time that we added them to the collection.

As with most southern families food has also always been a big part of the holidays. There are a few things that I always remember being made around the holidays--cheese balls, chex mix and Christmas Fruit Cookies (aka Fruit Cake Cookies) just to name a few. This is yet another tradition that I have tried to bring into our family. The Christmas Fruit Cookies are the "biggie". For as long as I can remember, I remember these cookies being made to have on hand and give as gifts for Christmas. I also remember these as always being made with other family members...probably because they are some labor intensive cookies...but I also think as an excuse to spend some extra quality time during the holidays with the ones we love. It started with my Mammaw, my Mom's mom. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table chopping fruit and nuts into this big yellow tub for hours while she and my mom talked and all the regular hustle and bustle of the house went on around them. Then after my Mammaw passed away it became something that we did with my Granny, my Dad's mom. The first couple of years of marriage I was able to help out with the cookie baking as we would come in town around the holidays but once we moved to Baton Rouge I wasn't able to be there when they were being made and I decided that I would carry on the tradition and bake them for gifts. Well this year I decided that this was something that I was going to get Kate in on. Now of course there's not too much that she could do but she did help me mix the fruit and nuts. It must be done by hand so she was excited to get her hands into it. However she ended up mostly sampling the fruit. Then she helped sample some of the first ones that came out of the oven to make sure that they were turing out all right.

Well I hope you all are having as wonderful and blessed a holiday season as we are! And I hope you enjoy some pictures from our traditions.

Our Christmas Tree

Snowman ornament made by me I think in Kindergarten or the first grade, ornament from our honeymoon and one of the 12 Days of Christmas ornaments from my Mammaw's tree

One of Nick's LSU ornaments from his collection (we get a new one every year), an ornament hand painted by Nick's Mom and Kate's ornament from last year

My helper during the Christmas Fruit Cookie process

Cookies in process

And the finished product. Yum!

Santa stopped by our neighborhood while we were baking our cookies. He rode through the neighborhood posing for pictures and handing out candy to all of the children in the neighborhood

Kate was not a big fan of Santa...check out the look she's giving him. When he tried to hold her for a picture she grabbed onto me for dear life so the 3 of us got a picture. I know I look rough but remember that I had been baking all day

13 Months Old

2010-12-15T20:31:00.002-06:00

Kate was 13 months old on December 2 and is more fun than ever! We are constantly entertained and amused by what Kate is coming up with. We are also in awe of how smart we think she is, although I'm sure all parents feel that way. She really hasn't added too many new words to her repertoire. One that I have mentioned in earlier posts, "Hot", has been perfected. Kate was saying in an almost whisper as more of a "Huh" with no T on the end but she has recently started emphasizing the missing T. Now it is a definitive "Ho-tuh". She is also big on animal sounds. She is great at the sounds that a dog, cow and tiger make. For the Christmas season we have been working on what Santa says. Most of the time we get a "Ho" and some times a "Hohohuh" all run together. Kate also knows a few body parts. She knows her ears, hands, teeth (because we brush them every night and she's not a big fan of it), belly and hair (she loves combing, brushing, pretending like she's drying her hair or anyone else's hair). She can find eyes and belly button on someone else but doesn't yet find them on herself. Kate is still quite a busy little bee. You can tell there is always something buzzing in her little brain. At night our routine is to drink some milk and then rock her for a little while before putting her in the bed. When Nick is in charge they mostly giggle and play instead of settling down and rocking. When I am in charge I try to get her to snuggle and settle down so I usually sing and hum a little. She has started humming along with me, I almost think to make sure I know she's still busy...and to keep herself from falling asleep. It's pretty cute! Finally, our little dancing queen has some new moves. Her latest we refer to as the spin move or the twirl. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Belated Happy Thanksgiving!!

2010-11-30T20:57:00.008-06:00

We have stayed quite busy lately chasing our little walker around! That's right Miss Kate finally decided that she prefers walking over crawling. I'm a little late getting this update on the blog. She decided literally the day after we had her birthday party. Nick was saying for a couple of months leading up to Kate's birthday that he wanted her to be walking for her party...well I guess she showed him! Monday morning my Mom and Dad packed up to head back to Florence and Kate got up from her afternoon nap that day and decided she was done with crawling and walked all over the place.

We also traveled to Florence for the Thanksgiving holiday and were lucky enough to spend the whole week with family up there. We had a perfect week! Kate had a great time visiting with Nonna and Papa, Granny, Aunt Anna and Uncle Jason and all her cousins! In addition to visiting with family we also did some fun things around Florence. Nonna and I took Kate to visit the lions, Leo and Una, at UNA where I went to school. Kate is CRAZY about animals right now so getting to see the big cats was right up her alley. Nick and I also got to go to the Iron Bowl with Anna and Jason while Nonna and Papa watched all of the kids. It wasn't quite the outcome we had hoped for but we had a great time anyways! Even got to see out good friends Brad and Christie Berry while we were in Tuscaloosa.

We hope that all of you had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We are so thankful for all of our family and friends and our precious Kate! We couldn't have a busier, chattier, funnier and sweeter little girl and we are so thankful to be so blessed!

Enjoy some pictures from our Thanksgiving week

Kate at UNA making our way towards Leo and Una

Kate stopped to check out the pansies. Purple and Gold for UNA also like another school I know...

Nonna and Kate checking out Leo

With Una

And Leo again

Kate liked trying out this lion riding toy

Family photo for Thanksgiving

With Daddy

Nonna took Kate for a ride in the wagon a few times over the weekend. Kate absolutely loves it! I think she's trying to give Santa a hint about what she might like to have for Christmas.

Nonna and Papa helped us snap some family pics in hopes that we'd get some good ones to use for Christmas cards. I've saved the Christmas card hopefuls but thought I would share a few from our shoot. Here's one of Kate and Daddy

One with Momma

And the family

First Birthday Party!!

2010-11-10T16:26:00.010-06:00

Kate's First Birthday Party was on Sunday. We had a great time! Kate was great for the entire party except for when it was time for her cake. Even with our practice during the week before her party she really wanted nothing to do with her cake. She didn't mind it if we gave her a few bites but she didn't want to dig into it with her own hands. Kate got a lot of great gifts! She has LOVED having new things to play with this week! Thanks again to all of our family and friends who were at the party in person and those who were there in spirit! Kate knows that she is loved by each and every one of you and loves you too!

The birthday girl!

The family

Playing with Candace and Adi Levy

Kate loved the decorations for the party. I thought she would like the balloons the best but I think she liked the banner a little more. She was reaching for it all day.

Kate's cakes

Looking like she's ready for her cake...

Still looks like she's interested in the cake...

And now she just wants to get away from it

She kept turning around in her seat and burying her head in her high chair cushion

After we got her out we finally convinced her to try a bite of the cake and she was pleasantly surprised

We coaxed her back into her seat to see if she would try the cake now that she had a taste but she was more interested in feeding it to Daddy

Kate finally got a little messy but it was from playing with and not eating any of the cake

All cleaned up and ready for presents

Helping Momma open gifts

Kate was excited to see everything that we opened and starting playing right away with all of the toys

Adi showing Kate how to use her ride on toy

And here's Connor giving her tips on another ride on toy

All the kids enjoying the new toys

Adi, Kate and Connor testing out the "house"

After all the guests left Kate and Papa kept playing outside with all of her new toys

The pictures above gave a short play by play of the cake experience but I thought that I would also share the video.

Big Weekend!

2010-11-09T20:15:00.006-06:00

This past weekend was a big weekend! Nonna had been in town all week and Papa got in town on Thursday night along with all of the Jungs--Aunt April, Uncle Alan, Camden, Owen, Langley and Harper. So Friday Kate and I decided to go to the Baton Rouge Zoo with Nonna and the Jungs (Papa and Pop Pop stayed behind to cook gumbo for Saturday's tailgate while Nick worked). Kate had a great time! The weather was perfect for a trip to the zoo and all the kids had a great time! Kate had fun watching the animals that she could find/see and had equally as much fun watching her cousins enjoy seeing the animals. Kate's favorites were the giraffes, goats in the petting zoo, birds of any kind (ducks, parrots and egrets) and the lemurs (like zoboomafoo). It was a great day and we are excited to know that the Baton Rouge zoo will be another easy, fun trip in the future.

Me, Langley and Kate strolling into the zoo with Nonna behind us.

Everyone checking out the tigers. They were pacing, perhaps in anticipation of the big game the next day.

The Jungs minus their Daddy checking out the bears.

Kate and Langley talking to a crazy looking bird

Kate was eating a snack when we went to see this donkey and he REALLY wanted a bite.

Owen checking out a prairie dog.

Kate trying to do the same. She loved it even though we didn't see any while we were in the bubble.

Friday evening we cooked burgers and hotdogs and hung out at our house. Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head out to tailgate for the Alabama vs. LSU football game. It was a big game by almost anyone's standards but it's especially big around this house. Nick was surrounded by Bama fans which led to an even sweeter victory for him in the end I'm sure. Despite the game, we had a great day! Last year Kate was less than a week old when AL played LSU and got in on the family rivalry (check out last year's post here). This year she did yet again. Nick left in the first car headed to the tailgate so I was able to dress Kate in the cutest outfit for the tailgate...her AL dress of course. Needless to say Nick was not pleased with it when we got there. I was nice enough to bring her LSU dress too and she had a wardrobe change about half way through the tailgate.

Me and Kate being tigerbaited by Nick

Nick showing us how much he loves us by posing with his Bama girls.

Kate and Papa cheering for Alabama

Despite all the noise and hoopla at the tailgate, Kate was able to settle in for a pretty decent nap so that she could have some more tailgate fun before heading home to watch the game

Owen, Camden and Langley at the tailgate. Owen loved the boudin balls!

Nonna and Kate

Papa and his two youngest girls. And you will notice Kate had her LSU dress on. Funny there weren't more pictures of her in the LSU dress...wonder who was operating the camera...

There's still more to come from this fun weekend. I'm working on the post from Kate's birthday party. It was the perfect end to a perfect weekend!

Speyrer - Johnson Bowl VII

2010-11-09T10:45:00.003-06:00

Speyrer - Johnson Bowl VII
LSU 24
Bama 21

Established 2004
Speyrer - 5 Wins
Johnson - 2 Wins

Best Year Ever!!

2010-11-02T21:45:00.010-05:00

Well, it's finally here. Our Kate turned one today. It's hard to believe how fast this year has flown by. Nick and I both have been overwhelmed repeatedly with love, joy and awe at this amazing little person that we created. Each day has seemed to get better and better as we have watched Kate turn from a baby to a little girl with quite a personality (and a little bit of attitude), a smile that melts our hearts and plenty of love to share with us and the rest of her extended family. We simply cannot get enough of her. Nick and I fight daily over who gets to be the one who gets her out of bed (you can't have a bad day if you do...she greets you with a big smile, a bounce or a little dance move and a big ole "Heey!") and who gets to put her to bed (to get all the great snuggles). We are looking forward to the many years ahead!

Now for recent stats--Kate is weighing in at 26.6 lbs. She's still not just walking all over the place but she's getting better and better at it every day. We think that she's not so determined to walk because she's such a good, fast crawler...and she's impatient like her Daddy. When she wants to get somewhere she doesn't have the patience to take her time and walk so she drops down and crawls. But she can do it and walks across the room at least once a day. Kate is also jabbering like a motor mouth. I sure do wish I knew what all she had to say! Some of the recent recognizable words are "Uh Oooh!" and she's uses it correctly when she drops something in the floor, "Hot!" which she says for things that are indeed hot but also for things that are cold and for things that we're not quite sure why she's saying hot, kind of a mix between "woof" and "boof" for what a dog says, and "Heeey!" as a greeting to everyone she sees. Kate is blowing kisses like crazy. She has a funny way of kissing the back of her hand with a "Mwah". She can also give a soft high five and wave bye-bye and/or night-night.

I am posting some pictures from her birthday today, which was pretty low key. Kate just hung out with me, Nick and Nonna, who's here spending the week. Kate's birthday party with family and friends is this weekend and there will be more pictures to come from those festivities.

We started off the day with Kate's current favorite breakfast, homemade waffles.

We ended the day similar to how we started except with a yummy cupcake. We thought that the practice with the candle might be a good thing. Kate wasn't too impressed by it.

Kate also wasn't too impressed with the cupcake. She really hasn't had hardly any sweets at all so I think it was just so different she didn't know what to think. This picture was after her first taste of the icing.

So just for a little fun--below are 1 year old pictures of all 3 of these Speyrers. My mom (Nonna) got us into this because she brought down pictures from my first year and subsequent birthdays up to 10 years old. I think it's obvious who is who in the pictures below. It has been been interesting that EVERYONE thinks that Kate looks just like Nick, but after seeing these pictures I think she looks a little more like her Momma than most people think. You be the judge...

And finally for the grand finale of the first First Birthday post, I have attached a video slideshow of Kate's first year. For those that keep up with our blog it is kind of a "best of" slideshow of pictures and videos from blog posts with a few "never before seen" pictures buried in there. I think this will probably be a version #1 because I plan to go back and add in pictures from the birthday party this weekend but I just couldn't wait to share. It has been in process for over a month and we watch it daily around here because Kate LOVES to see herself on the video. It's a little long (about 7 minutes) but of course we think its totally worth it!! Hope you enjoy!

Or click here if you want to see it on You Tube...just in case you need to enjoy Kate's beauty in full screen

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-30T20:11:00.003-05:00

We had a fun time today for Kate's first Halloween. Our little lady was a little ladybug and loved wearing her costume!! Our neighborhood had a get together this afternoon and Kate also enjoyed checking out the other kids in costume. We hope that everyone has had a safe and Happy Halloween! Here are some pics of our ladybug--

Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-25T11:28:00.003-05:00

Kate and I went to a pumpkin patch on Friday with friends Scott, Candace and Adi Levy. Kate had a great time! As always she was just happy to be outside and had fun checking out the pumpkins. She also LOVED riding in a wagon! Here are some pictures from our little adventure

At home before we left for the pumpkin patch

Checking out the little pumpkins

Kate and Adi

The wagon ride was her favorite part

First Steps!!!

2010-10-12T20:31:00.002-05:00

Big news around the Speyrer house! Miss Kate finally decided to brave her first few steps!! Over the weekend Nick went to the Florida/LSU game in Gainesville and he kept saying before he left that he didn't want to go because he just knew that Kate was going to start walking while he was gone. Well she didn't just take off walking, but she did start to build up her confidence a little starting on Friday afternoon. She would take about 2-3 steps as she kind of fell forward into my arms. We had a busy day on Saturday so no time for major practice and then as soon as Nick got home on Sunday she took like 4 steps where he got to see it. I tried to show off Kate's new trick to Mondy, the babysitter, yesterday and Kate was not having it and really wouldn't try all day. Then this afternoon, once Nick was home from work we gathered up a few items to try to entice her to take a few steps and she did great!! We were even able to catch a few video clips to share. Forgive us for the shaky video but remember our equipment is an iPhone and it took some coordination between the 2 of us to get her going. Our baby girl is growing up!

11 Months Old

2010-10-03T15:56:00.008-05:00

I cannot believe that we are less than 1 month away from having a 1 year old! Kate is weighing in at just over 26 lbs, holding steady with 4 teeth (even though I think she is working on another one right now) and is strolling her little legs off but still no walking. By far her favorite thing to do right now is push her stroller (see Strolling Along... post). We have had a great time lately playing outside in the evenings thanks to some gorgeous weather down here! Also, Kate and I have been jogging (Kate riding) most mornings for another chance to enjoy the nice temperatures. Kate is still eating great! She will try anything that we give her and regularly eats whatever we're eating for dinner. She is sweet and has gotten more affectionate over the last month handing out kisses to Mama and Daddy (we're working on kisses to others) often. Kate jabbers constantly and I know she's got a lot going on in that little head that she wants to tell us all about but she can't quite get it out. She doesn't really have too many new words. She's adding Mama back to the vocabulary after a long hiatus...Hooray!!...and is trying hard to repeat the things we're saying without much success yet but I know it won't be long before she gets the hang of it. We continue to have a blast with out sweet girl on a daily basis! Enjoy some of the recent pictures...

After one of our morning jogs. You can tell how much Kate enjoys it.

This was our third week in a row tailgating and since LSU had an early game (2:30) we were able to see the band march down the hill. Kate and Daddy really enjoyed getting to see this together.

Strolling Along...

2010-09-27T16:46:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Kate finally decided to put her stroller walker to good use. We've had it for a while and she's just been interested in the toy aspect of it but not really interested in trying to push it around. We got it out yesterday to play with and Kate decided to take off! She strolled all over our house probably several times over. We thought it was good walking practice. Anyways, we thought it was pretty cute and wanted to share. Hope everyone has a great week!

Kate's First Tailgate!!

2010-09-22T08:26:00.009-05:00

This past weekend Kate got to go to her much anticipated first LSU tailgate. Daddy could not have been happier and prouder! Tailgates have been a huge part of Nick's life in the fall since college. I don't know that he's missed too many home games for LSU (even when we lived in Atlanta) and there was a while where he didn't miss any away games either. While it is still a tailgate, we laughed on Saturday at how much things have changed! After a scan of beverages in hand at our tailgate, I noticed that there were almost as many sippy cups as beer cans in hand among the group. Kate loved the whole experience! She was happy to be outside and in the middle of so much activity. Enjoy some of the pictures from our fun afternoon.

Daddy and Uncle D went out early. Daddy was so excited when Kate got to the tailgate.

Kate has her very own tailgate chair that is just her size.

Another first at a tailgate--as we were trying to take this picture the Laperouses were singing "What's gonna work? Teamwork!" from the Wonder Pets so that Kate would look at the camera. My how things have changed!

With Uncle D

Kate and Daddy with Paul and Annie Grace Laperouse. We ended up getting one good one of the Daddies with their girls after some pretty funny expressions and squirms to try to get all 4 to look at the camera at the same time.

After we got back home and Kate got a nap we went back outside to take some pictures in the front yard.