Daddy Time

Here I am with Mommy's shades. I think they look great on me! Daddy was taking pictures, and I decided to go check out the camera up close and personal.
And here I was choosing a reading selection from my extensive library.
And after I picked one of my favorites, I sat down so Daddy could read it to me.

There she is... Miss North 9th Street

Saturday night was the Miss America pageant, and so Mommy and I went to a watch party at our friends the Marshall's house. That also happens to be Hudson's house, so you can see I got all snazzy with Mommy. Here's my best pageant girl grin!

Bath Time... Daddy Style

So I was minding my own business, letting Mommy give me a bath. And then Daddy thought he would improve my bath. In the bottom of the picture, you can barely see my regular bath duckie looking at me. He doesn't have anything to be worried about. I'm not replacing him with this big ugly thing. I don't know what to think about Daddy using my bath toys when he goes hunting.

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Just Another Day With Cate...

There are a couple of interesting things about this picture that you should know. First, Riley Cate has started picking out her own clothing. For example, notice how she chose the shiny black shoes to go with her footed pajama set. Not the standard shoe pairing, but we're trying to give her some feeling of responsibility. The other thing is the smile. And yes, what she's doing here is a smile. We first noticed over the holidays that Cate would use this face when (and only when) looking at her Uncle Richard. So now, when you say, "Riley Cate, give me an Uncle Rich smile," this is what you get. Here's Cate doing her version of "The Five Little Monkeys". When you get to the part about the monkeys bumping their heads, Cate makes this motion to indicate the action. Smart kid!
And I'm not sure what this is, but we think it's just her way of showing her approval of good literature.

Momma Notes

Riley Cate is just getting to be such a big girl! I can't believe how quickly she is growing up! Last week, we babysat 3-month-old Kyle and she was amazing! She never got jealous when I held him and she even gave him his paci and then his bottle when he cried! Oh, and she helped me pat him on the bottom to calm him down. It was so cute!

The other day, I asked her to go get her "Five Little Monkeys" book for me to read to her. I sang a little bit of it and she disappeared to her room. A few minutes later, she came back with just that one book! I couldn't believe it!

She is now signing 9 words: more, eat, all-done, bird, bath, milk, daddy, dog and thank you. It sure makes things easier when she can tell you what she wants!

One thing that she says is "night night". That means, let's get my blankie, my paci (night-night) and get me in bed! If you aren't quick enough, she just lays down on a pillow.

Oh, and she's obsessed with this one pair of khaki pants. Well, anything khaki. She'll dig around until she finds hers and then tries to put them on. That's not nearly as entertaining as when she finds my khaki shorts and wants to wear them...she has me put them on her then walks around holding them up!

We do have a few toddler issues...one is that she loves to open the "movie drawer" in the entertainment center and then toss every movie onto the floor. She doesn't even look at them...just throws them out!

As you can see, she also made it easier on herself by pulling out and climbing onto a game. Better reach! Oh, and I'm pretty sure that's our wedding video that she's being so gentle with!

Other things Riley Cate likes:

Raisins, PB crackers, cookies, The Wiggles, Cheney (who only returns the love when food is involved), trying to eat Cheney's food, trying on jewelry, putting on "make up", climbing the stairs onto the stage at church, riding her four-wheeler, reading books (after she's pulled them ALL off the shelf), feeding her baby doll, eating yogurt, taking baths, eating food from random people (not strangers, don't worry!) at basketball games and dancing. She also likes to laugh at herself when she thinks she's doing something funny :o)

She is such a blessing to us. I can't believe how in love we have fallen with this little person.

Papa Joe's Party!

We all met at a restaurant, and the nice lady gave me my own colors to play with! Here's me eating some bread. And a black olive. Yep, I eat black olives all by themselves.
After lunch we went over to the mall where they've got this cool playground just for kids. I loved this tube thing. I crawled through it and through it.
Here's me saying hi to this giant bear toy thing.
And after all that playing I was pretty tired and cranky. But I found this cool hat in my room and was trying to put it on. Mommy had to help me, but I finally got it on. I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to go on or not, but I think I might start a trend.

Cate's Christmas!

Here's me looking all holiday festive with Cousin Ben. We're just chillin' by the fire. I'm all excited about Santa. Ben...he's not so much excited here. Here's me at one of Daddy's photo shoots. I was picking out my favorite armament... ornament? You know what I mean. They're those breakable things that Daddy won't let you actually have.
Aunt Lissa and Uncle Daniel got me this awesome princess 4 wheeler. I've got my mean biker chick face on, because Ben's trying to take my ride.
Here's me with the whole Ross family. We went down to some place in Texas where they had a lot of Christmas lights. Even Meme came. She's the one wearing the hat made of pillow stuffing.
And here I am at the Carlton house, helping Granna open presents. This one might have even been my present. Who could tell?

Christmas with the cousins!

So here I am hanging out with the family! We had a great Christmas. I'll pass along some more pictures and update later, but I just wanted to let everybody know that I'm still around!