Playing at Gram and Da's

Taking Off At Logan Airport

Kathleen worked out some energy before boarding a plane back to San Francisco. She's moving around a lot lately!

Nothing New Under the Sun

Digging In
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Arriving in Quonnie in time for the record temperatures, Kathleen tried to beat the heat on Central Beach. Her cousin Amanda supplied her with the cute sunsuit so that she wouldn't burn. (Too bad those don't come in Mommy's size!) Between the sunsuit and a gallon or two of sunscreen, Kathleen was set for hours of fun in the sun, sand, and surf.

Kathleen loved the sand. She'd fill her little fists with it and roll around in it. (She only ate a little, I think.) She was delighted with a bucket of sand and water. She not only enjoyed splashing around, she also used it to try to stand. Amanda shared lots of fun beach toys, which was great. Kathleen also enjoyed the surf. She seemed a little surprised that the water was cold, but she liked to stand with Mommy as the waves came in.

Sun, Sand, and Babies
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Kathleen's summer days on the beach were just what Mommy remembered from being little. I guess it's true: there's nothing new under the sun!

Kathleen Meets the Frosts

Gram, Kathleen, and Nana Frost
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Kathleen never got to meet her great-grandfather John Frost. He passed away a little more than a week ago. Sadly, it took her Poppy's passing to get Kathleen to the East Coast. Having made a hop across the Pacific, Kathleen then flew across the country to be with family in Quonochontaug, Rhode Island.

It was sad to say goodbye to Poppy, but it was exciting for Kathleen to meet lots of family for the first time. Kathleen got to visit with Nana Frost and to meet her great-aunts and uncles. And there's been a bit of a baby boom among the Frost cousins, so there were lots of little people to meet and play with.

Kathleen's Poppy had a long and full life, and left lots of people who loved him. We like to think that he lives on in our hearts, and in his great-granddaughter's blue eyes.

To Grandmother's House We Go

Gram and Girlie
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Kathleen and mommy are visiting California, spending time with Gram and Grampa O'Connor. Normally a little shy, Kathleen has warmed up to the O'Connors with surprising speed. She likes to sit on Gram's lap and she likes to listen to Grampa sing "The Teddy Bears' Picnic." She's just thrilled with the different toys in California, and she's been spending a lot of time playing on the living room floor. The extra time practicing seems to be paying off. She's gotten a lot better at rolling and sitting herself up. She gets closer and closer to crawling every day!

That's Just Ducky!

Biting Off More Than She Can Chew?

Bagel
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Kathleen's adventures in table food are beginning! She's not sure what she thinks of this new food, but she's willing to give it a try. She still prefers yogurt and jars of baby fruit, but we might make a bagel-eater out of her yet.

We miss you, Daddy!

Snuggling before Goodbye
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Jim deployed to Kuwait last weekend. His journey there was long (he went through crazy places like Iceland on his way!), but he arrived safely and is already hard at work.

It was hard to say goodbye, but it is comforting to know that we won't really be separated for that long. We think he should return in about two months. Kathleen's working hard at not growing too much while he's gone. We'll see how she does at that!

I Love Music!

I Love Music!
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Given Kathleen's love of paper, it's no surprise that a pile of sheet music headed for the recycling bin brought out big smiles. She happily crunched up the music, and waved it up and down, and chortled with glee. She's very industrious when it comes to destroying paper!

But aside from her fascination with paper, Kathleen has a real love for music. Singing is one of the few things that will calm her down if she gets upset while in the car. But don't try singing any lullabies. She'll cry right through those. Instead, try oldies. It's a little unbelievable, but "Hey, Baby" and "The Witch Doctor" have instant results. In fact, she's only quiet as long as you keep singing. We feel a bit ridiculous, but we'll confess to having sung those songs over and over for a whole car ride. (Thank goodness we live on a small island and don't have to drive very far!)

This week we also discovered that Kathleen likes praise music. Kathleen and Dad hung out during Mom's rehearsal for Sunday's service, and Kathleen loved it. Her current favorite is "Your Love is Amazing." She gets so excited when it's sung! She kicks and smacks her arms up and down, and as soon as she can talk, we're sure she'll be singing along!

On Her Own Two Feet

On Her Own Two Feet
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

This morning after breakfast, Kathleen was playing in her crib while I put away the clean laundry in her room. As I finished, I turned from the closet and looked over at her in the crib. To my surprise, she was standing at the railing, smiling back at me!

Kathleen has been standing hanging onto her parents for some time, but this was the first instance of her pulling herself up in her crib. (Thank goodness we'd lowered the mattress already!) In my excitement I yelled for her daddy to come see, which startled her and ended her brief stint at standing. Whoops! I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more, though, in the days ahead!

Hooray for Cousins!

Hooray for Cousins!

Kathleen has been quite distraught the last two days. She's upset because she has only her two boring parents to entertain her again; her cousins had to go back to Illinois.

After nine days of fun, sun, and excitement, life is back to normal...or as normal as it gets at the Golby house. We had a wonderful time with Craig, Margaret, Matthew, Alison, and Lizzie here. We went to the beach, celebrated the sacrament of baptism for Kathleen, went snorkeling at Shark's Cove, watched the fireworks on post, went to the beach again, hiked to a waterfall near Waimea Bay, golfed at some terrific golf courses, and went to an authentic Hawaiian Luau...all before going to the beach again. In fact, I may have understated the amount of time we spent at the beach. Just ask the kids, if you're not at the beach, everything else is just one big waste of time!

Daddy and Sleepy Leenie at the Luau

Actually -- beach or no beach -- the kids loved entertaining Kathleen, and Kathleen loved entertaining the kids. She really does miss them. We feel so blessed that we had the chance to spend so much time with them. Hopefully, it will be the first of many trips, by the Gustafson's and by everyone else. We love visitors...and Hawaii is a great place to visit.

For the Promise Is Unto You and Your Children...

I Love this Gown!
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

This morning Kathleen was baptized, and received the sign of belonging to the family of God. She wore the same christening gown that her mom, her Aunt Caroline, and her Uncle Kevin all wore -- the gown that was purchased by her namesake, her great-grandmother Kathleen. Since Kathleen is older than we had thought she'd be when she was baptized, we were a little worried that she might be too big for the family gown. But, to our delight, it fit like a dream. And Kathleen loves to play with the skirt, as you can see. She was an angel during the baptism. She didn't cry at all.

After Service
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Her mom, on the other hand, did tear up a little bit. We were glad of the opportunity to publicly dedicate Kathleen to God, and promised to pray with her and for her, to teach her the doctrines of the church, and to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We look forward to the day that Kathleen can declare her own faith in Jesus.

Having Margaret, Craig, and the kids with us made the day more special. We'll celebrate this evening with a special dinner in honor of Kathleen!

Six Month Statistics

Coming at you!
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Kathleen had her six month check-up yesterday. Here's the quick rundown on how she's growing:

Height: 27 inches
Weight: 18 lbs, 6 oz.
That puts her in the 97th percentile for both height and weight. She's a big girl!

The only other development of note: Kathleen has teeth! Her two bottom front teeth have finally broken through. She seems a lot more comfortable now that they're in, and we can appreciate why. Those little things are sharp!

The Hostess with the Mostest

Kathleen's been having a great time hosting her aunt, uncle and cousins. Everyone arrived safely on Wednesday. We greeted them with flower leis and lots of hugs and kisses. Since they were exhausted from a long, long day of traveling, we had quiet dinner and called it a day.

On Thursday, though, we were off and running! We took advantage of the jet lag to get the whole family up and out of the house before 6:30 am. (Who would have thought that was possible?!) We headed for Pearl Harbor and jumped into the line to visit the USS Arizona Memorial.

Our early start worked out perfectly; we were in the second group to tour the memorial. In addition to seeing the memorial itself, we watched a movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor and visited the museum, learning about some of the men who lost their lives that day. It was a fascinating morning. And speaking of fascinating, a group of Japanese tourists found Kathleen fascinating. They each wanted pictures with her! She's going to have a starring role in some Japanese scrapbooks, I think.

In the afternoon we finally indulged the kids in what they'd been wanting since their plane landed -- a trip to the beach!

They had a great time at Ko 'Olina and put their new swimsuits to good use. Kathleen loved watching them splash around in the water. She'll have lots of opportunities to do that more this week!

Kathleen, the Superhero

Kathleen, the Superhero
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Before Kathleen was born, Jim had a plan for our family. This plan included five boys, born within four years of one another (so that they could play on the same high school basketball team). These boys were to be named after heroes or superheroes -- Indiana Jones Golby, Bruce Wayne Golby, Flash Gordon Golby, etc. Once we'd fielded a basketball team, we could start in on the girls.

Fortunately for us, God had different plans for our family. But, as the picture above illustrates, that plan still seems to include superhero children! She's found a cape, and she's ready to begin crime-fighting. Kathleen Golby is just her secret identity -- she's still working on a superhero name. For now her super powers are limited to ripping up magazines in record time, eating enormous quantities of baby food, and performing Jedi mind-tricks on her parents. Perhaps new powers will emerge. We're pretty sure the Jedi mind-tricks are here to stay, though!

Getting Ready

Mischievous Grin
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

We're getting Kathleen all cleaned up for her aunt and uncle and cousins to arrive. She'll be pressed and dressed and ready to meet them at the airport this afternoon. Kathleen has leis ready for all of them, but she's still working on being able to say aloha. She can't wait to play with her cousins!

Giggling Girl

First Father's Day

Father's Day Dinner
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

Sadly, Jim didn't get much a break for his first Father's Day. We'd have planned a lot of fun things, but he had to work all night long! Instead we went to church and had a quiet afternoon so that Jim could stay awake until the morning.

We did manage to squeeze in a quick supper on the lanai, though. Kathleen enjoys sitting at the table with us, and made quick work of her strained carrots and rice cereal. In fact, she likes them so much that she thought we should feed them to Daddy for Father's Day. But we didn't have enough jars for Jim, so he had to settle for steak. Poor guy!

It was a real blessing to be together for the day. We know we won't be able to spend every "first" or every holiday together, so we treasure the ones we get. Happy First Father's Day, Daddy!

Splish Splash

Kathleen has logged another first this week: her first swim! We'd been eager to get her in the water, because she loves to take a bath and because obviously one can't own a swimsuit as cute as Kathleen's and not use it. So we took advantage of a warm, sunny morning and trekked down to the pool. Kathleen could hardly wait to get in the water.

Kathleen took to the pool like, well, like a fish to water. She absolutely loved it. She was happy sitting still or moving around. In fact, she liked it so much, we did it twice! We swam for a bit, then played in the shade for a bit, and then swam a bit more.

She figured out how to splash (something she hasn't done at bathtime) and would surprise herself when the water got on her face. She'd sputter for a moment, look concerned, and then simply resume splashing.

There was a trio of young girls at the pool (I'd guess they were twelve or so) and Kathleen was absolutely enamored of them. She smiled at them. She babbled at them. She watched them move around the pool. There's no doubt -- we've got a social little swimmer!

Keeping Up With Kathleen

Daddy's Girl
Originally uploaded by the golbys.

We can hardly believe how fast Kathleen grows and changes. She's eating a veritable smorgasbord of solid food now: squash, beans, peaches, pears, apples, carrots, sweet potatoes. She's gotten a little bored of rice cereal, I think, but she'll tolerate it as long as it's being served with something else. I'm consistently astonished by the volume our little girl can consume. She loves to eat!

Kathleen has her own sense of humor lately. She finds unpredictable things hysterical -- mommy sneezing, for example. Daddy singing is also pretty funny, particularly when he sings the "ooh-aah" in "Hey, Baby." ("Hey, Baby" was a favorite at fests and biergartens in Germany. Kathleen would've fit right in. Maybe she'll like "Country Roads," too.) And saying "Singha" (a Thai restaurant in Waikiki) practically guarantees a chuckle or two. Go figure.

Kathleen's developing her balance (something her mother hasn't quite mastered), and so she's getting better at sitting unsupported. For now, she can manage maybe fifteen or twenty seconds on her own before she topples over. Luckily, she finds the falling over fairly amusing. If she's lying down, though, and you offer your hands to pull her up to a sit, she'll bypass sitting altogether, preferring to pull up to a standing position. Only after she's stood for a bit and surveyed what's going on around her will she concede to sit. She still scoots around on her back and on her tummy, but only a little. She's been pulling her knees up underneath her when she's on her tummy the past few days, though. In a month or two we'll be dealing with a crawler, and then we'll really be working to keep up with Kathleen!