Now to catch you up a bit.
Play Day
We got into St. Louis last Monday evening and spent Tuesday showing off Catherine to various people around St. Louis, Catherine of course gathering a crowd wherever we went. We stopped by Grandpa's office where Catherine shut down all production temporarily and decided she could sit in Grandpa's chair any day. Then we had lunch with some friends, and Catherine had a very good time grabbing people's noses, eyeballs and hair. After a bit of shopping, Catherine and I had dinner with Aunt Melanie and Grandma Akey (you grandmas and grandpas need to pick names so I can differentiate here). Catherine is almost always very good in restaurants - she likes staring at everyone and playing with spoons, and Grandma showed her how fun it is to drink water from a spoon.
Shopping Day
Wednesday we went out to the mall to get Catherine an outfit to wear for the family photo, but Catherine kept pointing out to Grandma and Great Grandma lots of cute outfits and she ended up with a whole new summer wardrobe. She didn't seem to mind. Wednesday evening Catherine had a good time trying to eat all the crinkly stuff that the Grandmas were using to wrap baskets for the wedding. I think Catherine likes crafts.
Travel Day
Thursday after packing the cars to capacity we headed down to Springfield. Catherine liked Uncle Tommy's house, but she did not like when he played Smashing Pumpkins - she's much more into mellow music. She also was not very happy when the house filled up with boys. She doesn't trust boys, and she especially doesn't trust loud boys. Lucky for her, all the boys took off on their own bachelor adventures (after we had meat-on-a-stick for dinner) and we had a quiet evening at the hotel with Grandma.
Picture Day
I think by Friday Catherine was starting to become concerned by the masses of people taking specific interest in her. She did pretty well for the family photo, although I don't think she flashed any real smiles in the face of that huge black camera. She was also pretty calm at the rehearsal, and even agreed to hang out with some of Jena's family for a while, but she was a little frazzled by the rehearsal dinner. We paced around the room for a good part of the evening and she wasn't really interested in playing with anyone.
The Big Day
Even though Catherine had been sleeping pretty well all week, I think by Saturday she was starting to get a bit overwhelmed by our schedule. She was off-and-on cranky most of the morning, then threw a big fit when it was time to start getting ready for pictures. We went to the church around 3 so the photographer could take a picture of her, but she was in no mood for making memories so we went back to the B&B until it was closer to the ceremony time at 5. After those couple hours of quiet time Catherine managed to pull herself together pretty well for the wedding. She was clearly awed by Aunt Jena's exquisite dress (as were we all) and she only squawked once or twice during the ceremony, but I'm pretty sure it was a squawk of approval. I think the photographer did manage to get a good shot of Catherine after the ceremony, which is good because by the time we made it over to the reception I think she was pretty much done for the day. Between the general din, a couple random loud noises, and 200 people shuffling about, she was having some trouble getting her bearings. I explained to her that it wasn't the best evening to get extremely clingy seeing as so many of her adoring fans were meeting her for the first time and all they wanted was a little love, but she wouldn't even let Michael hold her most of the evening, let alone anyone she wasn't used to. Apparently this level of reasoning is above a 6-month-old, even one as smart as Catherine. I'm pretty sure her reasoning went something like "Crowd: Scary. Mom: Safe." She's a baby, she does what she wants. We left the reception pretty early so Catherine could get to bed, but I did have time to enjoy the dinner and toasts and make it around the room once with Catherine.
More Travel Days
Since we were halfway there already, we went down to Tulsa on Sunday to spend a couple days with some friends. Catherine seems to be much more inclined to accept new people when it's just a couple at a time and everything else is pretty normal. The 108 degree temperature in Tulsa really made us appreciate the cool even 100 back in St. Louis when we got back last night. Catherine slept about 5 of the 6 hours it took to drive home, so when we got there around 11 pm she decided she had slept enough and threw a monster fit when I put her to bed. I think she just wanted to make sure Grandma and Grandpa knew she was home.
Back to Today
This morning we took Catherine down to Grandma's office and then to Lion's Choice for lunch (you can't visit St. Louis without eating a roast beef sandwich at Lioin's Choice), and tonight we're having dinner with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Rennier for their birthdays.
You can visit the Daily Moose for more photos, and if anyone else also has good ones of Catherine or anyone during wedding week I would be delighted if you wanted to send them to me!
