Happy Birthday Katelyn

Katelyn celebrated her 9th birthday on November 25th. It's hard to believe that she is 9 years old. I can still remember when they laid her on my stomach after she was born. We were so happy to have our baby girl join our family! Katelyn was born on Thanksgiving day. With my pregnancy with Katelyn, I had gestational diabetes and had to be monitored at the end of my pregnancy. I remember being at the hospital for a stress test on the Tuesday before she was born. A nurse came into the room and told me that I was having contractions during the stress test. I told her that she didn't need to check me because I had a doctor's appointment that afternoon. When I went to the doctor's appointment, Dr. Prochnicki checked me and told me that I was dialated to a 3+. I was excited to finally meet my baby girl! He also told me not to have the baby on Thanksgiving Day. Katelyn must have heard him and thought that it would be great to be born on that day, just because he had said not to. When Dr. Prochnicki came in around 12:00 noon (we had been there since around 4:00 a.m.) to break my water, I remember telling him that it was his fault that we were there.

We had a great nurse for most of my labor. Her name was Seanna. She stayed a little after her shift so that she could be there when Katelyn was born. She attended the singles ward in our Stake and knew my sister April. Some time around 5:00 p.m. Seanna came in and said that we could try "practicing" pushing. She had only counted to about 4 when she said to stop because she could already see her head. She immediately called Dr. Prochnicki who came right down to the hospital for the delivery. My labor with Katelyn was pretty easy and the pushing was a cinch. Heavenly Father must have known that after my experience with Hunter, he had better bless me with an easy delivery. I only had to push two pushes before Katelyn was out.

When she was born, she weighed 7 lbs. 6 ozs. I thought she was tiny. She is not so tiny anymore. Some times when I am waking her up for school in the morning, I will "lay" her in my lap. She hangs way over now my lap now. It's hard to believe that she was ever my smallest baby. I am pretty sure that she will be taller than me. Thank goodness for that!

It's hard to believe that it has already been a year since she was baptized. Katelyn chose to go to Amazing Jake's for her birthday. I told her that she could invite one friend to go with us. She chose to invite a young girl in her class at school, Madison Klein. She has been such a good friend to Katelyn. She has been in Katelyn's class for a few years now.

Katelyn had asked to have cookies brought to her class to celebrate her birthday. She really loves the chocolate chunk cookies from Costco and that was what she chose. It was kind of funny when I took the cookies to her class, several of the students in her class came up to me and asked me if they could go with us to Amazing Jake's. I felt kind of bad when I had to say that she could only invite one friend. Can you imagine taking any more kids to Amazing Jake's? I can't, that would have been crazy.

We had been to Amazing Jake's one time previously with our Smith cousins. The girls knew what to expect and could hardly wait to go again. We enjoyed eating the buffet after when we first got there that afternoon and then we had a little snack later on in the evening. Their buffet is really good with lots of choices to enjoy.

After a few hours at Amazing Jakes, we headed home so that Katelyn could open the rest of her presents. She had previously opened her gift from Madison and her guitar from Rachel and Bridget. She opened a new Barbie, Alexa, from the Diamond Castle, a High School Musical Dance Mat, and a Dora "Adventure Globe" toy to play on the TV. Katelyn had also wanted to make chocolate milkshakes. About one week before her birthday, she had made chocolate milkshakes in Speech with her Speech teacher. She had been talking about how much fun that was and wanted to do it for her birthday.

We are so glad to have Katelyn as a part of our family. She is a great "big" sister to both of her sisters. We love you Katelyn!!