It's not fun unless it's messy!

Painting is one of our favorite activities to do together. I love crafty things and doing them with Katelynn makes it even more fun. For Christmas Katelynn got an easel and we drag out the paints and brushes quite often to have some nice messy fun. I know some moms don't like any mess, but I think it's too fun not to let them experience it! Here's Katelynn's masterpiece painting from today:

A Picnic Perfect Day!

I have a feeling this is going to be a newly requested thing at least once a week- PB&J, a picnic blanket, followed by some playtime on our swingset.

3 Months Already!

Justin is officially a big, growing, smiling little three month of baby boy. I know I'm a broken record here, but I just can't believe how quickly these days go by and how quickly my little guy is getting big. He is smiling and talking up a storm these days. Can you blame him though- if he doesn't talk up a storm than how is he going to compete with his big sister :) He also loves to stand up and has recently starting trying to pull himself up to "sit" in his carseat instead of lay back. Justin has been taking a lot more of an interest in toys and his surroundings too. He's not made a whole lot of improvements in sleep just yet. He still cat naps most of the day and only sleeps about one 4-5 hour stretch at night before awaking every three hours, but I'm not complaning. These days any sleep is better than no sleep! :)

Justin 3 Months Old

For comparision- Justin at 2 Months

Strawberry Picking

Strawberry picking season has begun, and we made sure that we went within these first few weeks to get some yummy strawberries. It has become a tradition since Katelynn was born to go each year with some playgroup friends and pick strawberries. This was the first year though that Katelynn really got into it. She thought it was lots of fun. Justin wasn't such a fan, but maybe in a few years he'll like it too!

Picking her first strawberries. I had to keep reminding her that we only wanted red ones!

"I'm just going to try one to make sure they are good, Mommy."

Proof Justin joined us (as he was calling it quiting time).

Perfect day for a photo shoot

I am currently in a photography class, learning more about my camera. This week my assignment was to take portraits. This may seem easy, but it is not quite so easy to take a picture of both kids at the same time. Today Justin just wasn't loving being in the basket that I had stuck in my head that I wanted him in, and then Katelynn was trying to be goofy and put leaves and sticks on his head, which just made him even more mad. It was quite a challenge, but I got a few decent shots.. not perfect, just decent.

And so it begins...

Anyone who knows us knows that we are all about the off-road sports. It's honestly what drew Jonathan and I close to one another almost 20 years ago and is something we have always done until we had kids. I knew our boat wouldn't be the only motorized sport we did after kids and that the itch for riding would hit Jonathan sooner or later. I was hoping it would be a little later when the kids were older, but it has hit. He has spent the past week going from go-carts to dirt bikes to four wheelers searching for Katelynn's first set of wheels. Now, I know some of you are about to panic. No worries- our little girl is not jumping on this and riding it just yet. If you remember my post from a few days ago, it took her this long to warm up to our tractor and be okay with the noise. She won't get near the four wheeler when it's running , and mommy also isn't a bit comfortable yet with her being on anything gas powered at this point (at least not without one of us on it too). Jonathan will spend plenty of time though working on this in the garage and "spiffing" it up, which I swear is half the fun of riding for him- getting to work on them and make them "cool".

This is Katelynn's new set of wheels. I can't even believe they make a four wheeler this tiny. I was shocked when he showed it to me. I hit the max weight limit on it, but I rode it since I'm the only one who can. It took a push to get me moving since I max it out, but it runs!

This is a bad picture- bad lighting, bad subject, etc but I wanted you to get an idea of how tiny this bike is!
Jonathan also purchased a dirt bike with training wheels this week in addition to the four wheeler. Katelynn will be able to ride the four wheeler way before the dirt bike as it is much bigger, but it's another "project" for Jonathan to work on and it's also something we can ride her around on in a while before she starts riding herself. This four wheeler is so tiny that I think it'll have to sit for quite some time before it gets ridden around the yard since it's too small for us to drive her on it with us. He didn't tell me about the dirt bike though. I walked outside the other day and Katelynn said, "Mommy, Daddy bought me a motorcycle!!" She was all grins and I was about to have a heart attack, but yes, he did buy her a "motorcycle."

Our 2.5 year old growing girl!

It hit me today that my little girl is already past her half-year birthday and I never even noticed it flew by! She is officially 2.5 years old now and way closer to three than I want to think about. Her personality is starting to shine through, and she is so much fun! I think it's truly about time to freeze life right here and enjoy her being younger than 3 years old for a few years! :)

It's looking more like summer!

We have some friends visiting from Georgia and decided to head to a park in Salisbury for the day. We had never been before, and it was a pretty neat park. They had a train ride, paddle boats, a mini-zoo, petting zoo, huge kid's playground, carousel, mini-golf, and more! We didn't even get to do everything because there was so many activities, and it was in the 90's today. We all left the park exhausted from the sun and feeling quite sticky from getting super hot, but we still had a great time!

(I may have some better pictures to post from my friend's camera when I get her pictures. Justin was in a lifejacket on the paddleboat for all of 2 minutes before deciding he was not having it so I didn't get any good pictures with my camera, but I know Jenn has some I can share when I get them from her!)

Katelynn at the petting zoo. Three seconds before I snapped this, there was a goat sticking his head out next to Katelynn. I just wasn't fast enough getting my camera on!

Daddy and Justin- trying to keep Justin from getting too much sun! He's too little to wear sunscreen so it's a challenge!
Katelynn LOVES riding the "horses"!

A New Toy!

We have just started pulling out some of the older baby toys. Today was Justin's first day in the exersaucer. He doesn't totally have the hang of it yet, but he was very interested in looking at the toys! I bet it won't be long before it's his favorite toy!

Overcoming the fear

Katelynn made some MAJOR progress today- MAJOR.. or at least it is around here. Jonathan has been dying to have her ride the lawnmower with him forever and she has been scared to death of it. We have tried time and time again to get her to drive it or get comfortable with it, but she just hasn't warmed up to it. This year she started letting him pull her wagon behind it and had no issues with it then, but yet the minute she wasn't in the comfort of her wagon, she was screaming and crying about it being scary. Just today Jonathan came around from the backyard and Katelynn started running toward me screaming and crying. He shut it off and we started telling her it was just like the "tractors" that are at Home Depot that she always jumps on. We finally got her to get on it without it running and turn the steering wheel. Then gradually we started suggesting she drive it around. It took A LOT of convincing and a compromise of her wearing Jonathan's earmuffs to drown out some of the noise. She also wanted mommy to ride with her at first... I think she knows how crazy Daddy can get at off-roading :). After a few circles around the yard, the girl was hooked! She mowed the entire lawn with Daddy and then kept asking to ride it some more. She went inside the house tonight upset that she didn't get another ride.

Family Dinner

We have a new dinner routine at our house. Justin has started to join us for dinner sitting in his hand-me-down highchair. He looks so teeny-tiny in it, but he loves sitting in it and being part of the table!

Drying the slides

We are still working on completely our swingset in the backyard. The other day I washed the slides off since they were beyond dirty. After getting them soaked, Katelynn dryed them off by cruising down them on a towel. She thought it was the best activity mommy had ever come up with!

Bringing out the Bumbo

I remember when Katelynn was little and the bumbos were a big deal. Before she was old enough for one, I used to think they were such a waste of money- 40 bucks for a chair?!! I soon realized how nice it would be to have one and went out and got her one (in pink of course). We used that bumbo so much, even for things like a traveling highchair. She loved sitting in it and it helped to have something so portable. We have actually kept hers and she still sits in it for fun when I'm doing laundry in the basement. (We'll get rid of it once Justin outgrows his but we figure she may want to sit in it when he is in his.) My mom brought Justin a blue one when she came this weekend and it already has been very useful. Justin hasn't already outgrown the newborn phase of just laying around. When we're outside, he wants to be able to see everything that is going on. It was nice to be able to plop him in the grass and have him be able to take in all the play his sister was engaging in. I think we'll be using this a lot for our park playdates!

We're still here!

I just wanted to send a quick update since it's been almost a week since I have posted. My mom is visiting from GA so we have been busy spending time with Grandma and enjoying her while she has been here. She leaves today... her visits are never long enough!! I have a bunch of pictures so hopefully I'll get those posted tonight or tomorrow. We do have some friends coming on Thursday for a visit for the weekend so I may not be posting again this weekend, but I promise to jump back into posting almost daily starting next week!!

Out to the Ballgame!

A great childhood memory for me was attending the Detroit Tigers games. I was one of their die hard fans when they weren't a very good team at all. My mom would take my brother and I.. and a lot of times some friends to the Tigers game every season, and I always had so much fun. Other than maybe one Braves game, I haven't been since junior high. North Carolina doesn't have a professional baseball team, but the Carolinas have a minor league team called the Knights. We went today with another friend from playgroup and had a really good time. There were 6,000 people in attendance, but it still wasn't very crowded and we got to be within the first few rows of the front at 3rd base. I have never been so close to the game before. It was great! This was Katelynn's (and Justin's for that matter) first game and it took her a bit to understand what was going on. She doesn't have it all down pat yet, but when we got home, she wanted to play baseball, and I was shocked at how much she had took in of the players holding their bat. She already had her very own stance down, much like she had watched today. At bedtime tonight she requested that we play baseball again tomorrow. I'll have a baseball fan in no time! :)

Goodnight!

Katelynn's Grandma and Grandpa Miller bought her some princess jammies and slippers that she had to make sure to wear to bed tonight. Here she is posing before going night-night.

Just thought I would share one of my favorite pictures of Justin asleep on his daddy a few nights ago too!

Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter! The Easter bunny came and left the kids lots of goodies and hid eggs. Katelynn was so excited about all the stuff in her basket that it was a bit of work reminding her to find the eggs. She would find one egg and say, "I got them all!" We would have to point her in the direction of another and then she would repeat herself. 40 eggs later, she HAD found them all. Since we're not huge on candy around here (well, we do love it, but we try to limit it), the Easter Bunny filled the eggs with money for K's piggy bank, stickers, little farm animals, and little squishy bugs.

I had Easter outfits for the kids, but we didn't even venture out past the back yard today so I never put them in their easter best. Oh well.. I guess at least they were a little dressed up for their visit with the Easter Bunny a few weeks ago.

Loot from the Easter Bunny

Katelynn's new swim goggles that she decided she had to wear for breakfast. Everything about this picture cracks me up. She had hair inside her goggles covering her right eye and her face was covered with candy coating from her candy necklace.

A fun-filled day!

Today was a busy and fun day! We started out by attending an Easter egg hunt at a nearby church. They had games outdoors, face painting, and a balloon animals. The hunt for Katelynn's age group was held indoors since it had rained the night before and was still pretty wet. They didn't want the kids to fall and get wet... well, leave it to Katelynn to still manage to slip and fall in a puddle BEFORE the egg hunt. I almost had her attend the older age group hunt since she was already wet, but I wanted her to have a good chance at getting a bunch of eggs.

Here's a picture of her wet butt after her run in with a very big mud puddle.
Mommy and the kids (One day mommy will have enough time to get herself ready so that she can wear makeup and not look awful in pictures.)

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After lunch, we went to Katelynn's friend Tanner's 2nd birthday party at a gymnastics center. It was super fun.. even for mommy who did a little trampoline jumping myself. There were lots of activities to do there, but Katelynn prefered to just hang out on the trampoline most of the time!

Daddy tossing Katelynn into the foam pit.

Let's dye some eggs!

That's exactly what we did tonight... well, we dyed easter eggs and we just might have had a bit

of a catastrophe and dyed our brand new tiled counter top pink too. Daddy is NOT happy with us for that one. I have tried about every cleaner in this house and there is still a pink tint in the grout. Oopsie. Anyone have a miracle cleaner that will take pink dye out of tan grout??

We had a blast coloring the easter eggs though! Katelynn mainly liked just dropping the eggs in and out of the different cups and making splashes. When all two dozen eggs I had boiled were done, she still wanted to dye more so I just let her keep dunking the same ones that were already done. We finally had to call it quits for bedtime though!

Justin even had a mild interest in the eggs as he was reaching to grab them while posing for a picture. He must have figured they were pretty neat since his big sister couldn't stop shoving egg after egg that she had dyed in his face!

Katelynn was so excited when she figured out how to pull the eggs out of the dye with the holder. She thought it was the coolest thing ever!