Daddy's Garden

Spring is my favorite time of year by far, I had Katie in the Spring, baby birds are chirping, baby geese and ducks are all over the place, and best yet, Bri's garden is looking fantastic!!! I miss gardening, I haven't had my finger in the dirt since Katie was born. Don't get me wrong, I didn't do a ton when I did have the time but i was always down to help out and pick flowers at the nursery and weed on occasion. I loved getting dirty, but as far as landscaping our yard, I can't take too much credit. Bri has done a beautiful job, and now... all his flowers are starting to bloom.
Here are a few snapshots from the recent blooms! Roses, Peones. and hydrangeas seem to be the favorite but we have tons of other things in the garden too! but these were my favorite!

understanding things

I feel like katie is really starting to understand what we are saying and for that matter she is starting to really be able to communicate with us more and more. Her vocabulary is expanding every week. She of course says MA MA and DA DA and UP has been one she has known for a while but she is starting to use it correctly like when she wants to get out of her high chair she raises her arms and says UP! Its really cute! Her newest words seem to include PUP PUH which means PUPPY but she can't quite get the Y sound so its more like PUP PUH, occasionally she will throw in a Y on accident and it really sounds like PUPPY but I don't think she means to do it. But she definitely knows it means dog. Every time she sees a dog coming up the street when we are on a walk she freaks out and starts saying Pup Pup Pup and then when he gets closer I say where is the puppy and she will point right to it. She also has a huge stuffed puppy and I say 'where is your puppy katie" and she will go right to it, even her stuffed animal dogs that are small she calls puppy so I know she understands the word which is really neat to see something we have worked so hard on she is now understanding.

Another word she is working on is BIRD and BALL but they tend to sound the same, usually just BAH BAH but she only makes the noise when she sees and points to a bird or when she wants you to throw her the ball so I'm thinking she gets it. Who knows. She is loving her balls that she has gotten for easter and her birthday, she loves throwing them back and forth to us and she loves when i hold her hands and walk her over to the ball outside and she will kick it over and over and over again. Good exercise and good learning I think.We have been spending a ton of time outside because the weather is so great lately. We were supposed to have storms all week and really only one day it made us stay inside!
Katie loves when we go on walks, her anti-stroller phase is just about over but I have gotten used to carrying her in the bjorn so i don't mind it so much, too bad my neck is all knocked out of whack from it but she sure loves feeling free! She loves seeing the birds and squirrels run across the street. One day when we were walking I stopped and picked a leaf off a tree and handed it to her, boy was that a MISTAKE!!! Now on every walk without fail, she points to the nearest tree and starts whining until I get her a leaf. she will carry the leaf around for a little while then drop it and want another one from the next closest tree, and when she is feeling goofy she wants to hold 3 or 4 leaves at a time! Makes me crazy, especially when she starts putting them in her mouth and i can't see cus she is facing forward, i usually catch her when she is chewing or starting to spit out the pieces but it makes bri especially crazy when she chews the leaves. When the three of us are on a walk, Bri usually catches her putting them in her mouth and he says "KATIE!!!" and she just laughs at him and takes a bigger bite. Its really funny. I swear she is really starting to understand what makes us jump which cracks me up!

happy mothers day!

my first mothers day was last year. katie wasn't even 2 weeks old! these were from last mothers day!


This year was my second mothers day but it sure felt like my first because last year i was so hormonal, tired, and in a tizzy about everything with a brand new baby that i didn't really take in the fact that i had a baby and i in fact was a mommy on mothers day. this year was different. i said HUH i'm a mom, this is my day, i'm gonna get dressed up and so i did. we had both sets of grandparents over, because after all they are mothers too, for a nice BBQ and a few gifts, along with some cake of course. no meal is complete in the herbert household without cake! here are a few photos from the evening. OH... and Happy Mothers Day to all the new mommies or not so new mommies out there. I hope your day was wonderful!!!

p.s. uncle bill came over to celebrate with us and guess what.... he is Katie's new favorite. the played together on the water table which made her giggle and he blew bubbles with her. she LOVES her uncle bill!

bri with his momma



me and my best girl!!! oh i love her!

the girls on mothers day!

Photo Shoot

A girlfriend of mine called me and told me about this spur of the moment free "pop up" photo shoot that her friend was doing locally and so i called the photographer and arranged for us to be there. I was so excited. Any chance I get to have Katie's photograph taken I jump on it just because , not that I don't take enough photos of her, I feel like she changes so much its great to have it all documented professionally so i remember how katie was at a specific age. Or maybe it's just that I like having her photo taken. Here were some of my favorites.




When we got home, Katie was in a good mood so I let her crawl around the front yard and of course snapped some photos.

Her face when I told her to stop pulling on daddy's plants

We have a climber!

We woke up today, mothers day! and katie decided she was going to start to climb onto things. she has been working on it for a while, she loves climbing over pillows and over us in bed or on the floor but she has been struggling with climbing into chairs, or into her truck or onto baskets or something like that but this morning i left her with her truck and all of a sudden she climbed right onto it. i was shocked! its always fun to see her do new things. then i turned my head for a moment and she had climbed into the laundry basket which was full of clean folded clothes. she usually just likes to take out the folded clothes and throw them everywhere but all of a sudden she was perched up on the basket and was giggling. it was really cute. i'll have to get a shot in the laundry but here she is on top of her truck! the last one was when i made her get out of the laundry basket, she was mad and i think she hit her little chin on the way out. poor thing. people told me... climber???... get ready for bumps and bruises galore!!!

Pudding Anyone???

We started self feeding and Katie's isn't too bad at it. she is learning of course but after her turkey and veggie meal i thought a little pudding cup wouldn't hurt. she had never had pudding so i thought it would be fun to try. here were the results ;)

busy busy busy

Sheesh we have been busy these past few weeks. We had easter, then katie's birthday the next weekend and tomorrow is mothers day and we are having everyone over to our house for a little celebration. I am tired!!!! its been so fun having bri home these past two weeks and come monday he is back to work at a NEW job!!! so exciting. It's also been fun having my parents in town from florida but come tuesday they are back to florida and i can get back to the swing of things. its been hard trying to juggle everyone being at home all at once!!! i wish bri had had two weeks off and we could have gone away or something but i must say for just having 2 weeks off to play and spend time with family, we def did that! he got to garden, which is his favorite thing and our garden is looking amazing! we had katie's birthday which he got to be hands on a huge part of getting ready, entertaining, and enjoying every minute of it and not having to go to work the next day, he got to be here the week after her party to play with her and all her new toys. it really has been a great few weeks but a busy few thats for sure!!! With bri's vacation coming to a close we are racing around getting mothers day things together for our folks and trying to clean up the house to have both sets of parents over for a bbq like we did last year for my first mothers day, so i must say this weekend for a last horrah before he has to go back to work is a busy one, but i think he has had plenty of rest in the past two weeks that he will be ready come monday! he told me today, "maybe i just show up to my old job on monday and act like nothing happened!" HA he wasn't serious of course but there was a little wishful thinking tone to his voice. i think he might be nervous, anxious, but excited too about this new adventure! we are all so proud of him and excited and supportive of this decision and can't wait to hear all about his first day! We love you bri, I hope you enjoyed your vacation with us!!!!!

ONE YEAR check up!

Well, we went to the doc's yesterday and katie is doing great. she has gained her weight back since she was sick, 19lbs 12oz and she is almost 30 inches long and her head circumference is in the 80th percentile! nice big brain! We love going to our well baby appointments because we get to see our favorite doctor! she just had a baby herself who is about 7 months old and she is just super cute with katie. she really is a wonderful doctor and you can tell she loves her job, OH, and katie loves her which is huge cus katie isn't a fan of being in the doctors office since she got sick. Anyway as we were working our way through the checklist and everything was looking ok the doctor asked us to show her how katie walks and i knew something might be an issue because katie is still a tip toe walker. when she rests, one foot is flat but i have never seen the other one flat on the ground and when she walks with her walker, like at the park this week, she is tippy toe all the way! Well, turns out it is a little problem. the doc told us we needed to go see a physical therapist a few times just to have her stretched. her tendon is too tight and katie can't put her heel down because of the tightness. She said it may be a few week process but assured me that it was most likely due to habit rather than some other neurological problem which is a slight possibility but katie isn't showing any other signs of problems so she thinks its an easy fix! Despite the small hiccup we loved seeing Dr Meghan and even with two shots katie didn't really mind. well now off to find a good pediatric physical therapists! we'll see how this goes!

cranky baby

katie was not happy when we made her leave the park!


well katie has been so fussy since her birthday party. she went to bed on her birthday and woke up the next day full of fuss! i don't know what it is but she has been cranky for a few days now. just not herself with a permanent scowl on her face, fighting naps, and bedtime is the worst! this has happened a few times before, bri and i were talking about it and its usually before something big, like a new tooth, crawling, or a breakthrough of somekind. maybe walking??? we got her this walker for her birthday and yesterday she walked down the hallway on her own with the walker. it was amazing! i was like OMG i wonder how long you have been able to do that and just didn't have the walker to help you. she still only walks with one flat foot and one tip toe so i think she needs to straighten that out before she can walk on her own but who knows.
we took her to the park this week out in mclean and it was amazing. we took the walker cus its all padded with rubber turf, like a track, dyed all different colors and its so much fun. she is still too small to do any of the activities there but we took out her walker and she walked back and forth for 45 minutes. it was so cute to watch and of course i took my camera!!! Here are a few cute shots!

Katie's Birthday

The photos are completely out of order but all in all we had a wonderful day. It started off super early at 530 when katie decided to get up and be super excited that it was her birthday. she ended up taking an early nap so i could get dressed and finish setting up. we did go on an early morning walk with daddy in her new wagon. she loved the wagon and we tied balloons to it and took her around the neighborhood on a birthday walk. When people arrived we had lunch, opened gifts, (lots and lots of gifts!!!) and then cake! katie LOVED her cake!!!! she ate so much of it i'm surprised she didn't get sick. After a quick bath and outfit change we played outside with her new balls, and took some cute photos. We had a wonderful day and katie held up great. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful baby girl and all our family and closest friends were here to celebrate with us. it was a day to remember and a year of love, laughter, and pure joy. Happy Birthday Princess!