First Thanksgiving

Katerina celebrated her first Thanksgiving! She had a wonderful time visiting first with Yiayia and Papou and then Grandma and Papa Eddie and of course her uncles and aunts.

She even enjoyed some of the holiday meal--sweet potatoes, carrots, and green beans.

Over the holiday it also became obvious that she is teething! The poor thing has been in a bit of pain as she waits for the bottom tooth to poke its way through. Those teething toys really work, as does Motrin and baby oral gel. :)

It's now a week later and the tooth has poked through! It's pretty sharp, and only a little is showing at this point. It won't be long before it's fully in. Maybe she'll have two front teeth by Christmas.

Peas...Yukky

This weekend I made home-made baby food for the first time: sweet potatoes, pears, bananas, apples and peas! So far she has liked everything except peas. When I first gave her the peas, she made a face, held out her tongue then started gagging/coughing. It freaked me out, so I was ready to throw the peas out. Then Mike mixed the peas with some carrots...and well she ate it just fine. She was actually really hungry last night, and so we also brought out bananas and mixed peas with bananas. Yum!

Tonight she had sweet potatoes with a little peas mixed in. She'll get her greens some way!

6 months and counting

Katerina is a little over 6 months old now. Here is her monthly picture with Mickey. She is about the same size as he is now.

Yesterday at her doctor's appointment we learned she is 15 pounds 11 ounces and 27.5 inches long.

She is certainly not a little baby anymore. Below are some of her recent milestones.

• I think she will be crawling in a couple weeks--she gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth. She even moves her legs forward, but she doesn't quite understand how to balance and move her hands yet.


• She is sitting by herself for several seconds at a time.


• She is getting very strong too. It's difficult to hold her if she doesn't want to be held because she wiggles out of it.


• She is "talking" non-stop. She has "da da da da" down pat, and she is starting on her "mmms." The other day it sounded like she said "Hi"...Mike and I think that's going to be her first word because we say it so much.

This is such a fun age, because she is really starting to develop a personality. I can't believe its been 6 months already...where does the time go?

Katerina's Baptism

Last weekend was Katerina's Baptism. It was a beautiful weekend and we were blessed with the company of friends and family.

Katerina was very a good girl. I was nervous that stranger anxiety would set-in, but it didn't. She was a social butterfly most of the weekend--talking to people, showing off her skills, i.e. rolling, sticking her feet in her mouth and saying "Da da da da."

Katerina loved all the attention, but it certainly wore her out. She slept for awhile at the restaurant during lunch. Then, after cake and desserts as guests were leaving our house, she went down for another nap and slept for over two hours. Mike and I had to actually wake her up.


The Baptism ceremony was wonderful. Father Pat made it very relaxed.


Katerina began the ceremony wearing the gown that was hand-made for my mother, which I also wore. Katerina is the third generation to wear the gown. Then, after she was Baptized, she put on new clothes that her Nouno, Stratis bought for her in Greece. She looked so adorable!


She only cried once as she was being "dunked." The rest of the time she was fasinated by her dress, the people, or her shoes, which she kept tapping together.


She also did a great job taking communion for the first time, although she did dribble a little.


Strat, Katerina's Godfather, did an excellent job too in his role in performing the sacrament! We were thrilled to be able to honor Strat as Godfather and Meghan as the Witness for the ceremony. They both mean a great deal to us and we know that Katerina will have a special relationship with them.



It was a fun weekend spent with friends and family. Thanks everyone for making the trip to be with Katerina.

Happy Halloween

Katerina was a beautiful butterfly for Halloween! Yesterday there was a halloween party at school and all the babies dressed up! It was super cute. She actually liked her costume too. In this picture she is really getting into the character--do you see how she is sticking out her tongue?

Now, if you go to Katerina's blog you will notice she was dressed as a pumpkin today. That's because Mike and I couldn't agree on what she should be--sooo we compromised and she was both.

Either way, she was super cute.

On the Move (Almost)

We better start child proofing this house because Katerina is going to be on the move before we know it. She has mastered the "scooch" backward move. She can be in one corner of the room and before we know it, she has scooched backward to the other corner. She is also almost getting up on all fours too.

She's getting good at reaching for things too. Yesterday when she went down for a nap, I watched her spit out her binky, roll over, grab it and put it back in her mouth! This is such a fun age. She's doing something new every day.

Growth Spurt

Katerina is going through a growth spurt! We weighed her this morning and she's about 16 pounds. Some of her one piece 6 month outfits are also getting small. Instead of a pant outfit, she looks like she's wearing capris.

She's also been getting up some nights and appears to be starving. Then on Thursday night, Mike and I went out to an event and Meghan babysat. She dranked much more of a bottle than we had anticipated while we were gone and subsequently slept through the night!

She's still not too interested in table food though. She might take a few bites and then puts her lips tight together so nothing more can go in her mouth. She's also trying to hold the spoon and put it in her mouth herself. At first I thought it was cute and now I am realizing it's a bad habit to get into, unless I want these feeding episodes to take an hour.

We think she may be a lefty...although it may be too soon to tell, she always grabs the spoon with her left hand. Time will tell I guess.