Max, Jesse, and Damien's Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Max and Jesse's 5th Birthday and Damien's 12th Birthday. This was the first time that we did all three on one day. I think that it was nice to do it that way so that Damien didn't get so mixed up in the Christmas/Birthday mess.
So, my mom decided that she wanted to try out Skype this week after hearing people from church talking about it. She had Becca in Idaho sign-up and they had a 45 minute conversation. After hearing about that I had the idea of inviting Becca to the Birthday party. So, after trying and failing a few times we finally got both end of the video working and Becca, Owen, Lily, and Taylor got to "be" at the party.
We sang Happy Birthday three times, opened presents, and ate cake.







Damien took one look at one unlabeled present and said he knew what it was. He was hoping for a Star Wars book of some kind but ended up with a Diary of a Whimpy Kid book that he liked even better.


Jesse made some great faces when he was opening presents and I know that this isn't in focus but you still get the idea that he was excited. They probably have 100 Hot Wheels but they still get stoked about new ones.



Now the only things they have to look forward to over the next couple weekends is Disneyland and Christmas. So jealous of them going to Disney, again, without me! Hopefully in a couple years Katelynn will be ready for Disney.

Christmas Facts about me

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate, definitely. I think egg nog is gross.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? That depends on the gift. If it is too big it will just be out there. Wrapping something like a bike would be crazy! I love wrapping presents I just always delay it till the end. I also have a closet full of stuff that I need to wrap for Christmas and Birthdays. Probably next week I'll start during nap time.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I usually do a mixture of both. This year I just did white on the tree and have colored lights outside. I think that this years tree is the biggest we have ever had. It looks really nice except for the fact that a third of it isn't decorated! :) Crazy little girl. We finished it up right at her bed time so we shall see what she does with it tomorrow.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the week after Thanksgiving and we buy our tree on the 1st. I like that all our decorating is done. So we can enjoy it for a few weeks.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I really do like ham.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? One Christmas I remember wanting a clock radio and after all the presents were done I didn't get it. I really thought for sure I would get that. My family is big on time keeping stuff. I remember hearin some banging going on outside while we were opening presents but didn't think anything of it. After we were sitting around enjoying our presents we got a phone call. No one answered it and the answering machine picked it up. The call was from Santa. He forgot the leave some stuff and he had one of his elves drop it off on our patio. I remember standing around the phone in awe that Santa knew our phone number. The clock I wanted was in the items on the patio.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? When I found the stereos that Sarah and I had asked for in the bottom of the built in pantry. We were snoops.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope, never did the PJ thing either. I don't know if I'll start it with Katelynn or not. I might give her new Christmas PJ's on Dec 1 or something like that.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? It has no theme, no direction, nothing. It is just a bunch of ornaments that I have found and picked up through the years.

Our first Ornament that I still love


Katelynn's New ornament for the year.



11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I have never had too much experience with snow. I just know that it is freakin' cold. I would probably hate it. Ben Loves it though.

12. Can you ice skate? I can, but doesn't mean I do.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My most memorable gift was finding out that we were having a girl two Christmases ago. That was fun.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Making memories for my family. Hopefully good ones. And teaching Katelynn about Christmas. As she had been playing with her Little people Nativity I tell her who the people are, I hope that is building something for her.

Licking the beater after making pumpkin cookies today.


Katelynn Playing with her Nativity, (don't mind the hair, her hair doesn't get done until I finish cleaning up breakfast and I had just finished that)


15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Hershey Kiss thumbprint cookies. Yum! I'll be making those next week. And M&M cookies which my mom is making for Saturday's parade, woo-hoo!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We are still making traditions. We have the tradition of getting the Tree on the 1st. I want to start doing some more just haven't found what fits with us yet.

17. What tops your tree? An Angel.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Giving of course. I love to see when people like what I gave them and that they will actually enjoy it too. It makes me happy when others are happy.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Mary's boy child Jesus Christ.

20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Yuck. I don't like peppermint gum either.

21 Favorite Christmas Show? Mickey's Christmas Carol

22. Saddest Christmas Song? Momma's Shoes (don't know the real name, a boy is buying shoes for his mom that is meeting Jesus tonight)

Christmas is coming!

I am so excited for Christmas this year. We have our decorations out except for the tree which we will get tomorrow. The stockings are laying by the chimney with care as Katelynn has already pulled them down. So that temptation was taken away. I know that the tree will only be decorated halfway up this year. Hopefully the little one won't be too mischievous.
Ben put up the lights outside today and we have more stuff planned. I guess I am excited about it because of Katelynn but, I know that she has no clue what is going on except that things are looking alot different around the house. I am trying not to overwhelm her, but maybe I am and I don't know it.
I didn't realize it but I do have quite a collection of Nativity's. I have six totally different ones. One small one, a painting, a full stable, a homemade one, a statue and a play one for Katelynn. I don't quite have one for each year of our marriage but pretty close. I do love nativity's. I hope that you are feeling the Christmas spirit too.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seemed a little odd this year as we didn't have Thanksgiving on the actual day. On Wednesday we ate at my parents and had a very enjoyable time there. I was in charge of making the Green Beans, Sweet Potatoes and Rolls. I used the recipes from Pioneer Woman, Paula Deen and My Mom, in that order. Everything turned out really good. I didn't use cream of mushroom soup in the green beans and I just loved them. The sweet potatoes were SWEET. Ben has been raving about them since then.
Ben's family came over to our house for dinner on Friday and as Caleb was saying the whole time, "And I knew that you wouldn't screw it up." I don't know what there was to screw up, there was food for people to eat and dinner was ready when I had said and planned it to be. The only thing I would have changed would be to have another table out. I thought that we would be using both of our tables to eat at but it turned out that one table we at at and the other we had all the food on.
I made both dishes again for Ben's family on Friday and Ben still hadn't gotten tired of them.
Katelynn had a great time playing with her cousins. She was just running around in circles trying to keep up with them. I love to see her now interact more with them and try to do what they are doing.
I did do a little shopping for me mainly. I have most of Christmas done already, nothing wrapped though. Katelynn is too tall for her own good so we went to Old Navy on Thursday and got some shirts for her. I think she has about 30 pairs of pants that have been handed down to her from cousins so we were good there. She also has about 25 dresses in 24 months to 2T that she is wearing, so she is good there too. her shirts were just midriffs and 3/4 sleeves. She is covered now though. I also went to Micheals and got some stuff for my first Activity day with Primary that is this Saturday. We are doing a craft day so we shall see how that all turns out. I will be glad when it is over. There has been alot of things to plan for and make sure we have.
Friday I went to Bath and Body Works and got some more stuff for me.
We had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed the time that we had with our family.

Oh, yes! I almost forgot our drama for the weekend. The weather changed DRAMATICALLY last week and we had been doing some stuff in the garage so I didn't park in the garage like I usually do. Wednesday night it was 28 degrees for the low. I woke up Thursday morning to head over to my parents and hang out with them and the car won't start. The battery is dead. Since it is Thanksgiving everything is closed that would have a battery and Ben wanted to check ad make sure that it wasn't the alternator that wasn't working first. So, we jumped the car a few times Thursday and got a new battery Friday. I guess three years is a good life for a battery and we learned that extreme temperatures can bring out the bad side in batteries.

Friday Letters

I haven't posted one of these in a while but I really LOVED this topic so I knew that I needed to do it.
What did your child do this week that made you laugh?
This is something that she does every night. We read scriptures, say a family prayer and then I tell her to give Daddy kisses. She gives fart kisses or raspberries on his cheek then turns around and says as loud as can be "BYE" while waving her hand that is under her chin. She is such a cutie pie.
Sometimes Ben says to just take her to bed but I have Katelynn give him kisses and he just can't resist her silly little self.

We have a name puzzle for her and the tupperware shape ball and we have her trained that when she gets the right shape in the right spot with either the puzzle or ball she will stop and clap. It is funny when she is doing a puzzle at someone's house and she will stop and clap she just make me laugh.

18 Months

Katelynn is growing developmentally so much now. Her latest word is "no" she just picked it up this weekend. Her other words are shoes (choo), brush teeth (ruh tee), Elmo (e-mo), book (boa), Dada, open, hot, back, amen, beep-beep, bath (ba) and more that I can't think of right now.
As you saw from the previous post she is sleeping on the futon now and we will see when we get a bed for her if she will sleep there.
She love to color, do her name puzzle, play with blocks, play with the shape ball from Tupperware, read books, and sing songs. If she puts her two index fingers together she wants to sing itsy bitsy spider. She'll do most of the hand gestures for pat-a-cake and I'm a little tea pot. She will scribble all over her magna doodle and knows how to erase it. She will dance to songs she likes and spin in circles in the kitchen. She has learned how to walk around in Ben and I's shoes, but she gets so frustrated doing it. She loves to play with other kids and hasn't made it back to nursery since that first day a few weeks ago since she keeps on having a runny nose.
She is eating pretty well on her own now. She is definitely still a mess when we get done but she will try to eat with the spoon and fork. When she is done she will tip over her plate and give the plate to you and you better be ready to take it, or else everything will end up on the floor.
She keeps me moving all day and is always ready to go. We usually go and do something in the mornings after we do her hair and she knows it. So, she will whine and complain at me while I am trying to get things ready to go, until we get out the door. I couldn't imagine life without her. She brings so much joy and happiness to us. She is just a happy little girl, with some tantrums coming.

Things to remember

Katelynn's favorite spot in the whole house right now is in her top dresser drawer. First she opens the drawer, climbs onto the arm of the futon, and climbs into the dresser where she then proceeds to take all of her folded socks apart. After they are taken apart she then put one on her right hand. She can't cover both hands by herself and she can't get down from the dresser without calling for help. Since she is now sleeping on the futon we have separated the dresser and futon so that she can't get into the drawer in the middle of the night.

Katelynn has a new word...No. Right now she says it soft and sweet. I know that won't last to long. I asked her tonight if she wanted her bedtime milk, she thought for a second and turned to me to say, "no." I had to laugh since I knew she wanted it. The full concept of no hasn't sunk in yet.

Katelynn's understanding of things is growing so much. Tonight I told her it was time for a bath. She looked at me and said, "Ba." I then asked her where the bath was and she pointed down the hall. I got up and followed her to the hall and asked where the bath was and she looked at the two closed doors and went to the correct door to open it. It really seems like she is catching on to more things quicker now.

She is pretty amazing if I do say so myself.

Halloween

Halloween was fun this year. Katelynn was more interested in what was going on but still didn't quite understand all that was going on. We took her to our ward trunk or treat party on Saturday night and she had a blast chasing around all the little dogs that were there. Since Bruno and Cocoa (our dogs) are 80 and 100 lbs it is hard for her to enjoy them because they just push her around and knock her down with their tails. So, seeing all the little dogs just made her day. She just wanted to hang around them all night long. After visiting for a little bit the kids started coming around to the trunks. Katelynn stayed in our undecorated trunk with us and watched all the kids come around. She was quite entertained with that and the dum-dum that Daddy gave her.
We didn't make it to the pumpkin patch this year but she didn't miss it. We tried to go one day and got to the patch and found out that they didn't open until 11 and we were there at 10:30, we didn't want to wait around for them to open so we just came home. I carved some artificial pumpkins a few weeks ago and she has enjoyed playing bouncy ball with them. We had some pumpkins just not real ones this year.
On Sunday we were at home and passed out candy to the trick-or-treaters. When the doorbell rang for the first time Katelynn came running down the hall to see who was at the door. Then seeing the orange bowl full of candy she was even more excited and wanted that bowl. She caught on pretty quick that when the doorbell rang we would get the bowl and go to the door. She loved seeing all the kids come by and wanted to go home with a couple of them.
Katelynn was little red riding hood for Halloween and I thought that she was so cute.

What a week?!?!?!

I would like to know who flipped the switch in my daughter to make her a crazy woman when it comes to sleeping. Whoever you are, you will PAY!! Usually when we put her down for a nap or bed she is quite and we never hear a peep. This is not what happened this week at ALL! This all started on Sunday. We did our usual night-time routine and she starts crying and screaming and we go back and forth with trying to calm her and get her to sleep. She finally is asleep at 11pm. What is up with that? Then she decides to wake up at 2 in the morning and start the scream fest again. I end up sleeping with her, not what I want to do. She doesn't lay still for anything, she kicks and hits and moves all over ALL the time.
Monday, she has a normal nap 12:30-3:30 just fine maybe it was a fluke. Night-time comes and she screams and cries again this time she climbs out of her crib. Ah, crap! She climbs out twice. She can just heel hook it out of the crib, I watched her do it, amazonian baby that she is. Now we have to figure out what to do with that at 10:30 at night. Should we keep her in the crib, take down the side rail, or sleep with her? I ended up rocking her to sleep which I haven't done in at least 6 months. I get her in her crib put the rail back up and we are in bed at 11:30.
Tuesday, normal nap, normal bed. What in the world, who are you child?
Wednesday the worst one. I had work on Thursday, she knew that I needed sleep too, but we didn't get much of it. She finally fell asleep after her scream fest at 11, we all went to bed. 3am she starts again. Mind you all, I am trying everything, ibuprofen, rocking, singing, letting her cry, giving her some milk. Toning her out doesn't work so well. At work I can tone out the babies crying if I really need to, Katelynn, I can't. She makes me pissed, makes me sad, I just want it to stop. So, I again fall asleep with her at 4 and my alarm goes off at 5:15. Ben tries to transfer her to bed but, that didn't work she is up and poor Aunt Sarah gets to watch the crazy woman all day. Sarah tried to get her to nap to no avail, which I expected since she would rather play with the boys than sleep. Ben gets her after work and at 5pm she finds a binky climbs into his lap and passes out. Crap! He calls me at work and says we have a problem. (That is never good to hear) he tells me that she passed out at 5 and it is now 5:30 I told him to wake her up eat dinner, and get her ready for bed and keep her up until at least 6:30. He does it, she is still awake when I get home at 8. We do the bed time thing and she starts crying. I need sleep so at 9 I go in and we sleep together for the night.
Ben and I are both so fed up we don't know what is going on with her, I made a Dr appt for Friday to see if there is anything medically wrong that I have missed. We go and of course she is healthy, we turn it into our 18 month appt and since that was scheduled for a week later. He said that kids go through dependence and independence phases all through their teens so this may be her dependence phase and that we need to let her self soothe. So, we go in with another game plan. We will put her in her crib, let her cry for however long. We go for an hour and a half. 10 pm she climbs out of the crib. I go get her and we decide that we'll take off the side rail of the crib and let her roam in her room, with the light on and see what she does. I didn't hear her crying by 10:45 so I went outside her window and peeked in, since we don't have the video monitor (I want one) I wasn't sure where she would be, I thought she would be in front of the door. She wasn't she was face planted on the futon. I go in and turn off the light and let her sleep there.
Today, she started crying with her nap, which we will be keeping, at just 2 hours. She still needs it, I still need it. I rocked her and she was out in 10 min. Slid her into her crib. She didn't move in those 2 hours. For bedtime decided that we would let her roam from the beginning and see what she does. We did the bedtime thing and I laid her down on the futon and hoped for anything better. She was asleep within 20 minutes. The funny thing is, I thought that she would immediately get up from the futon and cry at the door. She didn't. We peeked again and she was laying right where I left her on the futon. If she keeps this up for a week we will be taking down the crib and looking for a twin bed. This is a whole lot sooner than I expected her to be moving to a twin bed.
Sorry this is so long and without pictures too. I hoped you liked our bedtime story.

Nursery

Saturday night Ben started to not feel good and by Sunday morning he still wasn't feeling good, which I didn't know he still wasn't feeling good until I arrived home from the Sunday morning meeting that I now have every Sunday at 7am because of my new calling. I got back home at 8:30 to Katelynn still in PJ's and no breakfast, but Ben thought I would just leave her home with him. I didn't do that, I let him get better without her yelling and screaming all around him. So, we charged through breakfast, and got us both out the door at 9am. We arrive and sit in the back where Katelynn is not contained AT ALL and is freakin' excited that she can run around so much. We pretty much stay in the foyer for most of Sacrament Meeting.
I had mentally made the decision that this was going to be Katelynn's first Sunday in nursery. I could not manage her and Primary at the same time. There would be no way that could happen. I had previously wanted to introduce her to nursery with me and Ben throughout October, but that wasn't going to happen now. I pretty much walked in to the Nursery room desperate that they take her a couple weeks early. They had no problem with that and I was then off and running, trying to run a Primary Program. HAHA!
I still don't know what I am doing yet. I am hoping that once we have a few regular Sunday's without program practice and HALLOWEEN! (I am worried that the kids are going to be wired from the Trunk or treat the night before or they could be so tired from the night before don't know) Whatever happens it will be okay but having the program on Halloween wasn't my idea.
Back to Katelynn, she did AWESOME in nursery. They brought her to me once for a diaper change and that was it. She didn't throw any fits about being left there without me. I knew that she would have a good time and that she would just fit right in. Now we will have to see if she will make it again this Sunday since she now has a runny nose (She didn't get sick at nursery) and runny noses aren't allowed in nursery. I just hope that we have a better night tonight than last night. No one slept well, even the dogs were up barking at 1am.

New Calling

At church I have been an adviser and a counselor in the Young Women's program for the past 3 and a half years. When we moved in February I thought that I would get a new calling pretty quick but it didn't happen, 4 months later I was put in Young Women's again. I have heard the saying that when you have perfected your calling you will be moved to something else. I guess after three months they decided it was time for another change, it also doesn't help that people move out and leave big vacancies that have to be filled. Sunday I was sustained as the Primary President. The past two presidents have moved out of the ward. The previous president was in the calling for two months when they moved a couple weeks ago. Ben is wondering if that means that we are going to be moving soon too...I don't think so, but you never know.
They are 40 kids in the Primary and a good twenty are active. The Primary program is in two weeks and so I was thrown into this calling running. For the past week I have been all over lds.org and sugardoodle.net looking for ideas and such to help me find out all that I can about what is expected of me and what needs to be done.
I haven't been in primary since I was in primary. So this will be fun and new for me. I hope things turn out okay. Let me know if you have any ideas or tid-bits that I should know. That's what is going on around here!

ooooOOOOoooo!

A week or so ago we noticed that our love seat was broken. It was leaning to one side and was feeling a little unsafe to sit on. So, we aren't the most motivated when we have to fix something and we are unsure of what it will all entail. We decided that we would look into fixing it on Saturday. We had family over for most of the day and we had dinner with Beth and Kevin at our house so we just hadn't gotten to it. Then we joked with Beth and Kevin that they broke the love seat when they sat on it, but telling Kevin that something was broken only made him want to check it out and see why it was broken. After dinner the couch was flipped over and the problem figured out.
Our couches were put together using only staples and a few brackets. So, it was to be easily fixed with screws and angle brackets. The hilarious part of this was Katelynn of course. She was Kevin's right hand woman. She would get herself in any position she could to see what Kevin was doing. Even if that meant blocking his view with her head so she could see the screw being driven in with the screw gun. Then, when the screw was in she would say, "ooOOoo!" I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of them working on the couch together but it was pretty darn cute with Katelynn making her sound effects.
So, it is now safe to sit in our love seat without the fear of it breaking even more. Thanks Kevin!

A Date

On Friday night we went out for our first date where we had someone outside our family watch Katelynn. We went to dinner with Nate and Emelie and had a long dinner. I could actually remember the conversation. We were there for about an hour and a half and it was really nice to have a slow paced dinner out.
We walked around farmers market saw a couple friends and then decided to go back to Nate and Emelie's. On our way there we heard a couple thuds against the car and then a pop and crash. Ben could see that the passenger back window had been cracked and shattered, we had been hit by a rock. Since the window is shatterproof it didn't brake the glass into the car.
Ben immediately turned the car around and tried to see the punks that did it. Since it was dark we couldn't find anything but we were pretty unhappy that it had to happen.
Ben talked to Kevin yesterday and they were able to find someone to fix it. It was less than our insurance deductible to get it fixed and didn't inform them about it.
I wasn't able to get a picture of it shattered, I was at work, but Ben was grateful enough to take this picture when they were fixing it. I am glad that it was fixed so quickly.


Our date otherwise was splendid. I am hopeful that we would be able to go out more often now that everything went smoothly for Katelynn too.

Picture Update

This was when we had just bought the new mattress. Katelynn and Ben enjoyed having the mattress available for laying on when watching Elmo's World and movies. Ben has missed having the mattress in the living room, I have not.


A visit to the park a month ago.





Playing in the front yard.


Swinging at grandma's

Bad Blogger

I have been a very bad blogger for August. We didn't really do anything or go anywhere and so I didn't really know what to blog about so I will just recap the past week or so.

Wheat
Last week I found a recipe for Banana Breakfast Muffins using wheat flour. I found it in the September issue of Family Fun. I thought that they were really good, I think I might have eaten most of them. The recipe also called for chocolate chips so Ben didn't think that they were a good breakfast food and he also thinks that all muffins are just mini cakes, which I can agree with. Anyways, that doesn't really matter, what the point about all of this is, is that I FINALLY used wheat. I don't know how much wheat we have in our storage, but I know that it is allot and we haven't used one can of it in out 8+ years of marriage. So, using the Kitchen Mill grinder that Ben's parents gave us years ago I milled an entire can of wheat into flour so that I can try and use it for something. I am on a mission to find good wheat recipes. So, let me know if you have any.

After milling the wheat all of the flour doesn't fit into the #10 cans so, I had a few cups of flour that didn't have a home and I needed to use it. I went to my handy dandy recipe books and the first recipe I found called for wheat flour, dry milk and honey. I was pretty stoked to use my food storage and see if it would actually taste good.

I must warn everyone, I am not a bread expert AT ALL. I have killed too many bread recipes and I was very worried when I made it. I made two loaves and they tasted great. A little dense, I don't know how to fix that. I was just excited that the bread actually turned out like bread and not a slab of rock. We have just a quarter of one loaf left.

I think that Katelynn might have felt the effects of wheat, she pooped 5 times yesterday and none of it was diarrhea.

New Mattress
We have wanted a new mattress for a while now and just never would do it. Finally, we weren't sleeping at all and we were waking up sore all the time so we gave in and bought the Costco memory foam mattress. We hated it. It was too warm and to firm for us. We tried it for a week and returned it. We bought the standard mattress that Costco also had and we love it. I am sleeping great now and Ben hasn't complained about it either.

Getting the new mattress left us with the old mattress and box springs. So, we asked around a little seeing if anyone needed a cal king mattress that was 10 years old. We didn't really have a way to get it to anyone so we had no takers. I knew that the city clean-up was coming and we would just put it out for them. It was on the 1st and so we would put the mattress out on the 31st and it would be gone by someone in the morning. Well, the clean-up came a day early and I was devastated that we would have to keep this mattress in our front room til who knows when.

When I left to run some errands on the 1st the clean-up crew was just down our street and I told them my dilemma and they said they were in the area for two more days and we could leave it out and they would pick it up today the 2nd. Woo-Hoo! As soon as Ben got home I VERY urgently made him get that mattress out of our house. I wanted out living room back. At 9:30pm someone knocked on our door wondering about the mattress. Since we put it in the plastic from the new mattress people thought that it was new and that we were nuts. No, we aren't that crazy.

We went to bed and it was out there and by 6:30 when Ben left for work it was gone. The mattress wasn't picked up by the clean-up though since I saw them roll by at 11:30. It is gone and that is all that matters to me.

Katelynn
We went to her 15 month appointment and she weighs 25 lbs and 7 oz and is 34 inches tall. So, you all know that thing where you double there height at two you can see how tall they might grow to be. If she is already 34 inches at 15 months what is she going to be at 24 months. I know that she should slow down now and of course Ben and I are extremely tall ourselves. Think that she is going to be taller than me. I hope she likes being tall. She may not for a while.

Scrapbooking
I ordered a 40 page book for 2009 yesterday. It goes from January to July 5th. I haven't touched 2008 yet. Someday I will.

There's a little/long update for you. Hope you are well and we are still alive.

15 Months

Katelynn is such a big girlnow. Katelynn has 11 teeth now she is working on 12. It seemed like 4 of them came within four days of each other. Everyday another tooth would come in, and that was right before she got sick with strep throat.
The kitchen will soon need to be off limits as she has learned how to turn on the dish washer and get into all of the drawers. It gets to be a little annoying when you just run a load of dishes that are dry and she gets them soaked again. We shall live though this.
Katelynn still loves to read books and we usually read 5-10 a day. She has her favorites which are any lift a flap book.
Katelynn is amazing me at what she knows. She doesn't talk much still she says dog, mama, dada and amen. Pretty much any animal is a dog, we are trying to differentiate the animals and all animals roar. I can tell her to brush her teeth, wash her hands, get her shoes, go outside, get daddy, change her diaper and she can go to the right places where those things happen. She surprised us on the 5th of August by folding her arms when it was time to say bedtime prayers. It really is amazing to watch her learn what we are doing and how to do things too.
She knows where her belly button is and maybe her mouth. She can clap her hands and stomp her feet on command and is learning to wiggle her fingers. She knows how to dance and loves to hear any music.
Elmo. She loves Elmo. We have three Elmo dvd's, we watch one in the afternoon and she is glued to the screen. She will stand at the doors of the TV holding on to the edge of the armoire watching with such enthusiasm.
She CLIMBS on to EVERYTHING that she can. We don't have the kitchen chairs set up because she will climb onto the table. She climbs onto the couches and onto the arms of the couches trying to get everything within reach. She has fallen a few times but hopefully after us telling her to not do that and a few more falls she will figure out that it isn't safe.
She is so much fun. I just hope she knows that we love her so much and that we would do anything for her. She is our gem.

Target and Car Keys

So, today after pulling some weeds in the back yard for a half an hour I decided to take Katelynn over to Target to check out their toy clearance they have going on right now. It is definitly hit and miss of what you might find in the clearance but I bought $160 worth of toys for only $42. I got some Christmas presents for Katelynn, I know, she already knows what she is getting since she was with me, I am such a bad mommy! And some Birthday presents. I thought I was doing pretty good until I was putting the toys in the car and Katelynn was playing with the keys. She was hitting the buttons and I didn't know which ones she was pushing since she pushed it multiple times. I put her in her car seat put the keys in the front seat, closed the doors to put the cart away and then it came, the beep that all the doors were locked and Katelynn was in the car.
Great!
Panic for a milisecond and then call Ben since he was working in Clovis today. He was in Clovis and was near the house. So, he went and got his keys from home and then came to Target to unlock the doors.
Katelynn was in the car for 17 minutes. I am just glad that it wasn't the hottest part of the day and when I put her in the car I gave her her sippy that she drank all of while we were waiting. So, she was hydrated. She didn't even care that she was inside and I was outside. There was no crying or screaming. Just her staring at me through the window wondering why I wasn't getting inside!
So, how was your day?

Strep Throat

Last Saturday the 17th I was at work while Ben was at home with Katelynn the day was fine and everything seemed fine until she kept waking up ALL NIGHT LONG. She started sounding congested throughout the night and by morning she was draining like a faucet. We were up for the day at 5:30am. We all stayed home from church as we were all beat from the night and runny noses don't belong at church. She slept for an hour that day and had a fever up to 100.3F. We were hoping for a better night and she did sleep better but I didn't since I was worried about her not being able to breathe well. We were up again at 5:30am but she had a better nap and wasn't as drainy, so, I thought we were doing better. Nope.
Tuesday morning she woke up with a hoarse voice and I made an appointment with the ped for Wed, they were booked for Tues, I knew I needed to get here checked by Wed since I was working Thursday and I didn't want her to get worse for the babysitters.
Wed I took her in an she was positive for strep throat. I don't know where or how she got it since she isn't around that many kids or even adults besides Ben and I. So, she started on antibiotics and she is better now and doesn't have a hoarse voice anymore and isn't draining any where near as bad as she had. I am just glad that we have medicine available to help her feel better.
I hope you all had a better week.

Baby Love Letters #141

Share the Story with your child about a cherished object from the past.

At Grandma B's there are two end tables. They were filled with JcPenny and Sears Catalogs. We always loved looking through the catalogs and seeing the new clothes for school and looking at the toys that were coming out this year too. Sarah, Becca, and I were always playing with these chests. We would dump everything out of the chests and play hide and seek in them. We would use them for our forts and a place to put our feet up.
Grandma still has the chests. They had been filled with photographs for years until Grandma and Grandpa took a few weeks and filled a few photo albums so they are now empty. Now the Grandkids play with them. They were such a fun part of my childhood.

Here is Lily and Katelynn playing on one of them.

Couch and a video

Katelynn learned how to climb on to the couches this weekend and she is so proud of herself. She gets up there and starts giggling and bouncing everywhere. There have and will be a few crashes, mostly hurt feelings. She is also leaning over the couch arms and reaching for her books.

She can also stomp her feet on command and loves when we all join in.

Fourth of July Weekend

For the Fourth of July Weekend we decided to take a trip to San Clemente. The drive down was pretty HORRIBLE it took almost 8 hours with a dinner break and a short shopping trip. We were doing pretty good until the shopping stop we shouldn't have done that since it was at peak LA traffic time when we got back on the freeway. We probably would have done much better with time if we didn't stop. I also don't think we will go stay over there again. It was nice but the driving through LA wasn't worth it. Santa Barbara is just at nice and the traffic is not as bad.

The best part of that night was that since she was so extremely tired she became psycho baby and didn't want to go to bed. She fell asleep at 10 and woke up at 11 screaming and wouldn't stop. She didn't have a fever, or show any signs of being sick. she wouldn't have any milk or take her binky. We finally went for a drive and she fell asleep immediately. We all got back to bed in the hotel room at about 1am. It was a great night! (Yeah, Right)

Katelynn and I were only at the beach for a couple hours and again I forgot her beach toys so we played in the sand and the rocks. Ben went body boarding. We ate some lunch and Katelynn was ready for a nap. So, Katelynn and I went back to the hotel for a nap and Ben met up with Micah and body boarded together until 5. Jennifer, Micah, Matthew, Ben, Katelynn and I all went to dinner together and then we were all ready for the night to be over and for Katelynn to get a much better nights sleep.

The Two Beach Pictures



Saturday we decided not to go to the beach again since Ben was beat from boarding all day Friday. So we made our way to Caleb and Heather's to stay a night with them and catch up with them. We went swimming there and Katelynn had a great time in the pool. She was also checking out all the bark and everything else in the yard that she shouldn't be playing with.

Jonah in charge of the hose


Little Diva


Fun Picture


Matthew, Katelynn, Eden, Jonah and Jackson Josh was taking a nap



We left early Sunday morning to get home and go a little recoop. We had dinner at Beth and Kevin's and Katelynn was ready for bed early. So, we called it a night and she didn't see one firework again this year. I would rather have a sleeping baby than a psycho crying tired baby.

Baby Love Letters #138

Tell your child what you love about your Country.

I love the freedom that we have here to be able to be who we want to be and do so many things that we want to do. Not to be told what we have to do. I grateful that I was born in America and raised in a family that also cherished being American. I love that I am able to worship how I choose and not be forbidden or chastised so much that I am unable to practice the religion that is so dear to my life.

I love that I was able to go to school and be educated in Nursing. I am ever so grateful for that freedom of education for all citizens.

I am grateful for the men and women that have fought for my freedom and that do all that they can either in politics and in the defending our country to keep all of our families safe. Even for me to be able to write this letter to you I have to have the freedom of speech and that freedom comes from so many that have served and fought for our country.

I love The United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. One nation under God.

The Island

Sarah has season passes to the Island and so with her pass I can get in cheaper and Katelynn is free. So, a few weeks ago we all went. We thought that it opened at 10 nope it's 11. We hung out for 20 min before they let us in. Katelynn had a great time the only problem was that Katelynn can't ride any of the rides, even with an adult she has to be I think 48", she is close to that but not quite. Maybe next year. So, we stayed in the kiddie pool area and went down the lazy river, ate some lunch and came home for nap time. We wouldn't be able to stay all day there she would go bananas.

Playing on the crab with Max and Jesse



I love this picture she looks like such a big girl


Mommy and Katelynn


Sarah Max and Jesse

Our pool

After thinking about this for a week back in June we decided to get an above ground pool. It is 12' x 33". It is a nice size for everyone to have fun in.

Giggling with Daddy


Being Hunted by Daddy


Mommy and Katelynn


Daddy and Katelynn

Stroller Time

The one toy that Katelynn loves when she goes over to Tara and Brynne's to play is their stroller. She just loves to race back and forth across the living room with it. So, Tara and Brynne went through all of their toys and decided that they were too big for stollers and so they gave it to Katelynn. SHE LOVES IT!!! I put some electrical tape on it so it wouldn't fold up all the time as she was racing around the house. She also doesn't like to put anything in it. If we put a baby or stuffed animal in it she looks at it walks around to the front and tosses it on the floor. Soon she might want a baby in it.

Scratches Bumps and Bruises

This week Katelynn has gotten more bumps and bruises than ever. Wednesday we were out in the front yard I was doing yard work and she was roaming around checking everything out. At one point I looked back at her and she was headed for a palm tree leave that had fallen and I went back to cutting roses. Seconds later she was screaming and crying with a huge scrap up her arm so that was the end of yard work for the day.

That same day while I was cooking dinner she learned how to push and then climb up onto the kitchen chairs. She was looking at something on the kitchen counter then leaned over to grab something and fell off the chair getting a huge goose egg on her forehead.

This morning Ben put her on our bed to play and her ran to the window at the head of the bed and hit the window sill with her top lip and got a fat lip. Somewhere in between she also got a scratch across her left eye brow and I don't know how that one happened.

She learned how to climb up onto the couches today and she is so excited about that one since daddy usually keeps the remotes on the top of the couches. I guess we will have to put them away now.

1 Beach trip down 2 to go

For Father's day weekend we took a trip to Santa Barbara. I don't remember ever going there and neither does Ben but we had both decided that we didn't want to spend another cold and windy weekend trip at Pismo. We added an extra hour to our trip and made it to Santa Barbara.
It was great. I was actually able to wear my bathing suit (with a little skirt) and not Freeze to death. I had forgotten my bathing suit at home but luckily enough we were able to stumble upon a Costco where I was able to find a bathing suit and a skirt, along with a portable DVD player for Katelynn. She wasn't uncontrollable at all, she was just a little stir crazy sitting in her car seat for 4 hours. Which is understandable since I was going a little crazy just being cramped in the car for four hours. We bought an Elmo movie pack and she watched most of it. She REALLY wanted to hold the screen, but I didn't want her to get into a screen mode that I didn't know how to get out of!
Since we didn't know where we were going it was a little difficult to have motivation to go, just in case everything sucked. We just didn't want a big disappointment. We finally made it to the beach after going to one "beach" that you couldn't access. So, we had a city map from the hotel and made it to "Boathouse Beach." We loved it. The weather was great. There was parking, if you got there early enough, there was a little restaurant called the Boathouse if we needed something to eat, plus showers and bathrooms. We both can't wait to go there again. Katelynn did pretty well she just wasn't really into anything except for sand! I also forgot our sand toys so that may help next time. I took her out in the waves a few times but she was getting a little nervous with the bigger waves. Ben went out bodyboarding and he caught a few good waves. We were there for just a couple hours before Katelynn really started loosing it, it was also nap time, which she never did take a nap.
Overall it was great to get away and have a great time with just us. We are going to San Clemente this weekend and Ben knows where to go so we will probably get out there sooner this time. I didn't get too many pictures but here are a couple I liked.