For Family

Katherine Shehane

1 Year Old Pictures

Her 1 year check up

Weight: 21 lbs 11 oz (50-75%)

Height: 29 3/3 (75%) Head: 46 (75%)

I'm pretty sure she's grown since this appointment a month ago!

My Love of Valentine's

When I was in Middle School Valentine's Day wasn't focused on whether you had a boy who liked you or not, instead it was a popularity contest. How many girlfriends would send you a carnation with a note attached? During the middle of class the door would open and a student would walk in and hand out flowers. Everyone would see how many flowers you got or if you didn't get any at all! Luckily we would all discuss before hand who was buying who flowers (who needed boys for Valentine's). Even worse than not getting enough flowers was if someone sent you a flower but you completely forgot about them!

High school followed the same tradition except with roses and now we bought actual gifts for our very close friends, aka BFFs. A new factor was thrown in though. Boys started to count and it definitely became important to have a boyfriend who would bring you flowers and candy and gifts then take you on a fabulous date. Luckily there was always a group of girls who were boyfriendless who hung out together and saw a romantic comedy at the movies. I saw many movies during my HS years :)

Valentine's Day changed forever in my mind on February 14th, 2001

This was my first "real" date with Jason. I say real because it was our first time not on a group date or double date, just the two of us alone. Jason started the date a week earlier by leaving a rose on my card with a note asking to be his Valentine. How sweet and wonderfully cheesy. The night of Valentine's a note and CD was on my card. It was a scavenger hunt! The CD had every song I loved and at the end it told me where to go next. His apartment where on his bed was candy and another CD filled with my favorite songs. Last stop was "our" bridge where he was waiting with a Teddy Bear and another CD with more of my favorite songs! We then went to a Korean restaurant in Atlanta where he ordered in Korean and I decided I would have to keep dating him! (I think I decided I loved him when I found out he had been making a list everytime I mentioned or danced along to a song on the radio) ♥

This began our tradition of eating at the same Korean restaurant for the next 7 years until 2008 when we drove up and it was closed! That was a very sad moment but I have since moved on and love our new traditions. We had a fantastic Valentine's and I love how Jason includes Kate now. I would share but it embarrasses Jason so I will have to wait until 8 years later and he no longer cares. I will share that we had a fantastic night with friends, playing games, while the kids played elsewhere with the babysitters. Our first time leaving Kate with someone other than my parents! I hope it still counts that the kids and babysitters were in the basement of the house we were at. It's definitely a step for us!

Domestic Bliss

How domestic does this sound? We only eat homemade bread! I read this book awhile age that talked about all the preservatives and unnecessary ingredients that are in most of our food. I'm not crazy or eccentric to the fact that we were only going to eat healthy non processed food. I mean we still love our Captain Crunch, chips, Lucky Charms, Poptarts... However, we eat an extremely large amount of bread. I figured I could take the main thing we eat and at least have that be healthy. Since November 2008 we have not bought a loaf of bread. Instead we make about 2 loafs a week. I do realize this means that 2 grown adults and 1 baby are eating 2 entire loafs of bread every single week. See what I mean by we eat A LOT of bread!

I mainly make whole wheat bread but Jason will try to sneak in a white loaf every once in awhile. I also discovered homemade pizza. It's so great and fun to make! Since pizza is Jason's favorite it would be wrong of me to make 100% whole wheat bread so I use a ratio of 3/4 bread flour and 1/4 whole wheat. Have to get a least a little in there ;)