Kate's First Christmas

Kate's first Christmas was so much fun and we were happy to be able to spend it with family. On Christmas Eve, we made our way down to Hawesville to visit my Mom and Dad. This has been what we have done since we have gotten married... it just took quite a bit longer for us to get packed and on the road this year! We spent Christmas morning with my parents and it was so much fun to watch Kate "opening" her presents... or her expression as she watched me or Nick open them. She loved all of the toys that she got from Grammy, Pawpaw, and Aunt Alysha! We spent Christmas afternoon and evening with Nick's family at his aunt and uncle's home. This Christmas was extremely different from years past at the Paulin's! This year there were five babies - actually five great-granddaughters! They ranged in age from 2 years old to 2 months old. It was so wonderful to see all of the new cousins together. As the night continued, it seemed that every room you walked into was being occupied by another sleeping baby. Kate fell asleep in her carseat around 7 and slept until we left, around 10:00. Then she was WIDE awake and ready to spend the last 2 hours of her first Christmas alert and playing! We had a wonderful Christmas away, but look forward to being at home with Kate for the Christmases to come.

Kate and I fell asleep mid-packing...

 On our way to Grammy and Pawpaw's!

Christmas Time with Kate

Since Thanksgiving came so late this year, we decorated for Christmas the weekend before. I put out all the decorations during nap time, then we put the tree up the next day during another nap time. Kate woke up before we finished, so she and Daddy got to watch me put on the ornaments. :)

Kate's first Christmas ornament:

We were so excited for Kate's first Christmas to arrive. We had always said that we weren't going to do much in the way of presents this year since Kate would be so young... That principle didn't stand. We ended up getting several gifts for her, even though it was really more fun for us than it was for her. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we were always on the lookout for good baby toy deals! Now that she's a little older, she's really starting to enjoy these toys so I'm glad we did get them for her. Christmas time has always been one of my favorite times of year, and Kate only makes it so much better!

4 Months Old

12-17-13... Four Months Old! Where has the time gone?

Fun Times with Kate's BFFs!

In the middle of December, we were able to spend lots of time with some wonderful friends. First of all, the Fowler's came to visit from Nashville! It was great to get to see their girls and to visit with Jana.

We also had our annual Christmas dinner at the Harrison's. This year's dinner was quite different than last years! For one thing, the "dinner" was at 1:00. Secondly, last year we had 8 adults in attendance and this year we had 8 adults, 3 babies and two on the way! Miraculously, all babies slept through the meal (which was amazing)! We exchanged gifts this year, but instead of doing Dirty Santa we exchanged gifts for one another's kids. Which I think was much more fun.

Rock and Roll - From Belly to Back!

On December 3rd, Kate decided to roll from her belly to her back! This was very exciting and was so amazing to see her make this development. We knew that she was close to rolling for awhile, so we had been working with her and showing her how to roll. Then the one time we lay her down for some tummy time, without putting forth the effort to show her how to roll, she decides she's going to roll. On her own. Unassisted. Her first little mark of independence. This video was after she had rolled about a dozen times. I think she was getting sick of showing off for us. :)

Back to Work for Mom...

On Monday, December 2nd, the dreaded day had arrived. It was time for me to go back to work. This was incredibly hard for me. I had thought that it would be a little easier, since Kate was able to stay home with Nick for the month of December, but it was still really difficult. I cried the whole way into work for the first 3 days. Then it did start to get a little easier, day by day. Nick and Kate would FaceTime me at lunch and Nick was always sending pictures and answering my relentless text messages of "How is she doing??".

On a positive note, it was good to get back to work and see my colleagues. I missed my 5th grade team very much and it was nice to have the adult interaction returned to my life. It also felt great to get up in the morning, put makeup on, and get dressed up. I felt like I had lived in my pajamas from August 17th until December (not necessarily a bad thing). Here are some of those precious pictures that brightened my days when I first returned to work. Note: all outfits and hair-dos were done by Daddy.