Back Deck Fun

The kids and I can't get enough of this gorgeous summer weather we have been having this week!  We spend every minute we can outdoors.  I have no idea why I have never utilized our back deck before.  We repainted it five years ago and maybe used it once or twice other than to grill out since then.  Now - of course now that the deck needs to be refinished again - I am finding the back deck a really great place for the kids!  We put the baby gate at the top of the stairs and have been eating lunch and playing out there.  It's been great fun!  We grilled out the past two nights too and the kids played while we cooked.  Katelynn keeps asking why we can't have breakfast out there too!  :)

Easter Bunny 2010

Jonathan was working late tonight so I took the kids to the mall for playtime, dinner, and to meet the Easter Bunny. 

We took some pictures while we waited our turn to see the Easter Bunny.  I love this picture.  It shows my kids personalities so well.  I wish I actually knew how to edit photos because I could make this picture so much cuter with some editing!!

Here's the famous (and expensive, I might add) picture with the Easter Bunny.  Are you wondering why Justin is not in the picture??

Here's your answer.....

He was so excited watching the Easter Bunny from afar.  He was wiggling out of my arms trying to get down and walk up to him.  He took about two steps when I finally did put him down and then he decided the bunny was a little too big and scary. 

Too Big for a Booster

At snack time today, Justin refused to sit in his booster chair at the table.  He cried and wanted out immediately and kept walking over to a chair and trying to get up.  So... we let him eat his snack like a big boy.  Now, I hate to tell this little guy but he is not going to eat every meal like a big boy yet.  Mommy is not ready for that, and really he's barely able to see over the table anyway!

(Sorry but his goofy faces never get old to me.  I just had to post it!)

Unexpected Visitors

What started out as a lazy morning turned into some craziness around here.  Jonathan was in training uptown this week so it was just the kids and I at home during the day.  This morning we made pancakes and were playing around the house when we heard a repeated beeping noise coming from the basement.  Being the paranoid mommy I can sometimes be, I rushed the kids upstairs to Katelynn's room and explained to Katelynn that she and Justin should play up there while Mommy went to make sure the basement was safe.  I wasn't sure what the beeping noise was, but it seemed possible it could come from someone's cell phone, which was freaking me out!  I crept down in the basement with my cell phone ready to dial 9-1-1.  As it turned out (thankfully considering what was going through my head of what it could be), it was just our carbon monoxide detector going off.  I say "just" but really that's scary all on it's own!  We have one on each level, but the basement was the only one going off.  Our basement though is on seperate gas heater so I was still concerned.  I had gotten the kids dressed (but as you can see by the picture, Justin was still styling his bedhead), but I was still in PJ's.  I quickly changed clothes, called 9-1-1 (as a non-emergency call ) afterall to ask for the fire department to come on out.  Katelynn was pretty excited that a big firetruck was coming to our house.  We had rushed outside as soon as I had gotten dressed just in case there was any carbon monoxide leaking into the house, but I have to admit that being a camera-crazy person, I was really bumming that I didn't have my camera to take pictures of Katelynn in awe of the firetruck (and Justin who cried when he saw it pull up).  The firemen were super nice, had stickers for both kids, and made sure to talk to the kids as well.  They tested our entire house and thankfully did not find any harmful levels.  They checked out detector and informed me to leave it outside in the fresh air for an hour, saying that it was possible it just got moisture in it from the basement and couldn't read correctly.  If it happened again, they suggested we replace it.  So far so good, but boy did it make for an interesting morning! 

March Birthday Madness!

The end of March/ beginning of April is a busy birthday time for us.  We have attended two parties this week and have two more to go the next two weekends!  Katelynn doesn't mind one bit though.  It just means lots of cake and cupcakes for her!

(This picture was from Owen's Chuck-E-Cheese Birthday party today!)

Messy Snack Fun

After playing outside all afternoon, the kids were hungry for snack time!  I gave them peaches, and they were still hungry and dug into some crackers too.  Justin had managed to get peach juice in  his hair while snacking and then for whatever reason, he thought sticking the crackers to his sticky hair would be hilarious!  I honestly have no idea where this kid came from.  He is hilarious!  He makes the goofiest faces I have ever seen and seriously knows how to put a huge smile on all our faces around here!

75 Degrees!

Please, please, please let this weather stay!  Mother Nature is really teasing us this year.  It's warm and beautiful one day and rainy and cold the next.  After the beginning of the week being one of those rainy, cold days, it was soo nice to get out and enjoy 75-degree weather today!

I took the kids on a walk on the trail today.  It wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done.  Justin was walking at a rather slow pace pushing his lawnmower and enjoying stopping to play in the dirt while Katelynn was riding at lighting speed on her three-wheeler way ahead of us.  She wasn't very excited about having to stop and turn around every two minutes either.  :)

The kids played on the swingset for quite a while too and then we finished our afternoon in the front where Justin loves to sit on the porch (and climb it too of course!)

We have this tree at the front of our house that blooms beautiful flowers really early each Spring.  They bloom for only about a week and then they are gone, but we love it every year.  I still don't know what kind of tree it is even after all these years of living here.  Katelynn has taken a liking to it this year too.  She has to pick a flower every time we are outside.

Lucky Duck

I was just telling Jonathan the other day that I feel like the age difference between the kids right now is kind of hard.  I can't really play with both of them at the same time very well.  Anything I try to play with Katelynn, Justin normally has his own way of playing that upsets Katelynn and I spend most of my time referring the two of them.  Today after naptime though we actually all three played Lucky Ducks together and had a great time!  Granted, Justin didn't really know what he was doing, but he was pretty good about following the "rules" of the game and only picking up a duck on his turn.  Ducks (and making a quack sound) are a favorite of his right now so this game was right up his alley!

Lounging around Saturday

Everyone wants to sit in Daddy's spot on the couch, and he's pretty good about sharing his spot most days! 

Beauty Salon Shampoo

Last night Katelynn was sick with some strange stomach bug.  She woke up in the middle of the night vomiting several times, and then woke up this morning completely fine.  Her hair was a bit yuck after the rough night, and since she had just had a bath the night prior, we decided to just wash her hair in the kitchen sink.  I don't think she's gotten scrubbed up in the sink since a few days after she came home from the hospital years ago.  She thought it was the coolest thing.  I mean who wouldn't when they get to lay on the kitchen counter?

Two pages

So I finally got a bunch of my lost pictures posted.  You have to go back to the second page to view all of them since I have them saved by the date they were taken.  My two faves of Justin on on the second page (click older posts at the bottom to go there).  Now that I'm all caught up on blogging, I need to get this layout changed.  I think we're way passed celebrating New Years!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The kids and I dressed in green to celebrate the Irish Holiday today!  I actually slacked quite a bit this year as I normally have "St Pat's" attire for the kids rather than just green shirts.  It took a lot for me not to jump in the car this morning and go buy our festive shirts for the year at Old Navy!

Big Girl Playdate

Today was a big day for Katelynn and I.  Okay, okay, maybe it was way more of a big deal to me than it was to Katelynn.  Today we went to Justin's playgroup (as usual on Wednesdays).  There are a few kids Katelynn's age as well that play together during the playgroup (typically two boys and two girls).  We happened to be at the other little girl's house today and when it was time to go, the girls were in the middle of playing "school" with their babies and both were begging to play with one another.  My friend suggested I just leave Katelynn there for the afternoon to play and come get her later.  I have to admit that I hesitated for probably way longer than neccessary.  Other than with her grandparents and daddy, I can count on one hand the times I have left Katelynn with anyone else and each time it was because of something I had to do (and not a very long time at all).   Today I had nothing specific to do and nowhere specific to go, and there I was without one of my babies!  It felt very, very weird.  I came home and put Justin down for his nap and the house was just sooo quiet!  I probably texted and called Carlee one too many times to check on the girls.  They did great and played so well together for FOUR straight hours!  Katelynn had a blast and told me that she was having so much fun that she didn't miss me.  She was asking if she could sleep at Camryn's house.  I don't think my heart is ready for that just yet, but I know I will have to let her grow up sooner or later.  This was enough for one day though!

I wish I had a picture to go along with this post, but I don't as of right now.  Hopefully I will get one from my friend of the two girls so I can record this "milestone" with a picture!

Convos with Katelynn

Here's two funny conversations with Katelynn tonight.... or at least they were funny to me.  She can shock me sometimes at how smart she is and how much she thinks things through!

At dinner:
ME:  "Katelynn, you need to eat some of your dinner if you want to have the ice cream you have been asking for."
KATELYNN:  "I want ice cream!"
ME:  "Okay, then fill up your belly with your chicken and then you can have some."
KATELYNN"  "No, mommy.  I don't want to fill my belly with chicken.  Then where would my ice cream fit?"

At bedtime I told her we might have a green treat at playgroup tommorrow.  Her response was, "We don't want to eat a green treat.  If it is green, then it is bad!"

She sure does know how to make me laugh!

Bump in the Night

I am sure I have posted about this before, but Justin has been out of his crib since about 10 months or so?  Somewhere around there anyway, but we just recently within a month or two ago moved his mattress from the floor onto the converted toddler bed.  He has been doing really well sleeping on it and just in case he were to roll off, I had it covered with pillows and blankets below the bed.  He has never fallen off though- at least not until last night!

Jonathan and I were in the living room below Justin's room watching TV when we heard a bang upstairs.  We waited a minute and heard one more.  Our first thought is always Katelynn getting out of bed (and 99% of the time that is it).  Tonight, however, we realized it must be Justin.  I expected to walk in his room and find him crying awake from falling.  To my surprise, this is what I found when I went in his room:

Not only had he fallen off the bed, but somehow he had wedged his body from his waist down underneath the bed, and the most shocking of all was that he was asleep after all of this!  It killed me to bother him since he is such a bad sleeper, but I had to get him out and put him back in bed.  He must have been really tired because he still never woke up during the transfer!

Update on lost pictures!

I'm doing a happy dance right now!!!  I think I have a whole new love for facebook to go along with it!  I posted last night how my pictures were gone on my facebook page and some of my friends helped me get them back all by myself... no money out of my pocket and my pictures are now on my computer safe and sound!  Woohoo!!  I never would have found a solution if I hadn't mentioned it on my FB page!  So.. if any of you ever have this problem, amazingly you can recover pictures that were deleted from your memory card through a FREE software download!!  Stay tuned for pictures.  I plan to get them posted tonight after bedtime!  :)

Okay- scratch the pictures tonight idea.  I had great intentions but as it turns out some of the pictures didn't recover.  I still got a ton of my good ones back, but I need to edit a few of them before I post them!  Hopefully tomorrow!  Goodnight all!

A flower shirt

The requests are different everyday, but today Katelynn's request was to wear a flower shirt.  Her grandma makes sure her closet is always full of cute clothes so she had a few different ones to choose from!

Bedhead & Personality

Justin has all kinds of hilarious faces.  He's especially good at bringing out some funny ones when he is being told to not do something.  In this case, it was to not put his feet on the table.....

Can I cry now?

I just "thought" I uploaded a bunch of pictures I took of the kids over the last few days... and not just any pictures either.  I got some really, really cute pictures that I was so excited about!  FRAMEABLE pictures!  I uploaded my rebel first (where the good pictures were) and then my not-so-great diaper bag camera.  I just came on to load them to blogger and my rebel pictures never transferred.  :(  That wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't deleted the pictures off my camera as soon as I pulled it off the computer USB.  I'm seriously pouting... almost crying.  They were such good pictures and they are gone forever!  I am sure my kids will not cooperate half as well in the next coming days as I try desperately to get a few of the lost ones back (which is really impossible.. just trying to make myself feel better.)  I will post the few crappy ones I got from our "diaper bag" camera below, but I'm oh so sad!!

Family Bike Ride

Wow.  What an event our first family bike ride was!  Where do I even begin?  Do I start with the fact that I haven't been on a bike in AT LEAST five years and boy did it show?  Or the fact that I learned very early on in the ride that this mama is way out of shape?  Or the fact that it took lots of bribing and pursuading to even get my kids to ride in the first place?  You all must be thinking the ride ended in disaster after hearing all that, right?  :)  Well, it was actually a lot of fun and something I think we are going to really enjoy doing this spring with the kids (and hopefully on a regular basis to get myself back in shape!).

Jonathan and I bought bikes the year we moved to North Carolina.  We were lacking friends after moving several states away from anyone we had ever known and it was something fun and different to do together on the weekends.  It ended up being a great idea since we bought a house on a huge greenway (biking/walking trail) only seven short months later.  However, as you all know life gets busy and somehow we have let our bikes collect a lot of dust in the back of the garage for several years now (way before kids even).  It was actually Jonathan's idea this year to get the kids the equipment we needed to all ride together.  Katelynn has her own bike, but we weren't sure if she would ride several miles all on her own so we found her the third wheel bike that we attached to Jonathan's bike.  She doesn't have to pedal if she gets tired but we still get her from point A to B without having to push her bike for her!  And Justin gets to cruise in luxury in his bike trailer that I pull behind my bike.  We thought we had the perfect setup and were so excited! 

Fastforward to today- a beautiful and breezy spring-ish day out.  It was perfect!  We loaded the kids up, packed snacks and drinks and headed out for a ride.  Katelynn and Jonathan tried out the bikes in the street first (and mind you, Katelynn only rides with training wheels normally so this was different.  Jonathan holds her weight steady but she still was lacking training wheels).  Katelynn felt like the bike was "shaky" and got scared.  We adjusted the bolts that held her bike to Jonathan's bike and assured her it was fine, but she was hesitant.  So what did I do?  I pulled that really bad trick that I know every single mom is guilty of from time to time:  I bribed her with chocolate.  Yes, I sure did.  Sure, she could have riden in the trailer with Justin, but I knew if she gave it a chance, she would loving bike riding with her daddy.  So, I gave her a bite of a Reeses' cup and told her if she gave it a try on the trail, she could have the rest of the cup when we got home.  This of course worked like a charm- she wouldn't be my daughter if she didn't love chocolate!  With that out of the way, we started loading up Justin and there's where problem number two surfaced.  He did not under any circumstances want to ride in that bike trailer.  No way, Jose!  He was screaming like we were abusing him when we tried buckling him in it.  I think we seriously spent over an hour getting prepared for this ride, but after putting Katelynn in it, showing Justin how fun it was, loading it with toys and snacks and his sippy cup, he finally got in it without a fight and we were off!

So, here's the thing:  whoever said something about you never forget how to ride a bike.. or however that saying goes... is WRONG!  I was a mess out there!  Sure, I could pedal and balance myself.... .okay, maybe I couldn't even do that.  I was wobbling quite a bit in the beginning there, but in my defense, I was pulling a bike trailer!  But oh my goodness.  We couldn't have gone a half mile before I knocked the chain right off my bike from not shifting correctly or even shifting in the right gears at the right time.  I completely forgot how to work it!  Take that and the fact that I was Miss Cautious, and I was probably giving everyone out there a good laugh today.  Somehow I lost my daringness the day I delivered Katelynn.  Seriously.  I have always been a more cautious risk taker, but there has still never been a sport I haven't been willing to try out.  I love the adrenaline sports.  Then I had kids and the whole fear of harming them or myself and not being able to take care of them took control.  The fact that I was pulling one of my children today made it worse I am sure.  I walked my bike down several hills and the ones I finally concurred, I had brakes on and my feet on the ground most of the way down.  What a joke I was!  And of course there was my husband and 3-year old in front of me pedaling themselves as fast as they could to see how fast they could go down them!  At least some of us still have the fun left in us!  Honestly, though I got much better near the end and I am sure I will be back to being a pro and taking a least a very small risk riding very soon!!  I think this is going to be a really fun activity for us this spring!

So... I HAD a ton of pictures before our ride, but I lost them all.  :(  These are all I have to show of our first family ride:

A Little Boy

It's very hard for me to admit this, but Justin is not a baby anymore.  He is a little boy in every way.  He is walking all over and getting into everything, and his personality is really coming through (and I'm pretty sure he's going to keep us running through the years!).  Justin is really starting to understand everything we say and do, and he's repeating a lot of what we say.  He loves to dance to music and play with balls and trucks.  His newest things are putting his dirty clothes in the hamper and throwing away garbage.  He thinks he's such a big boy when he helps us do these things!  His favorite morning food is bananas.  He requests a banana by pointing to where they are sitting and saying "Ba!"  And the newest of new things for him is wanting to sit on everything!  Of course he still prefers climbing, but he also just climbs up on the couch and sits back to relax for a few minutes.  I can't believe he's so big!!

Soo beautiful!

I find it rather amusing that I can sit and watch my children for minutes, hours, days, etc. and never get bored of watching them grow, learn, smile..... you know, the list goes on and on.  The older Katelynn gets the more fun it is to try to be a fly on the wall while she is having conversations with others (especially when it's with her peers!). 

Today we went to Chik-fil-a to meet some friends for lunch and some playtime.  It's something we do quite often with two other mommies and their kids so it's kind of a routine for the kids.  We always sit at the same table and the three 3-year olds sit next to one another on one side of the table.  Today Katelynn and her little friend were having a conversation about earrings.  Camryn was telling Katelynn how she has some pretty clip-on earrings at home and somehow this earring conversation turned into Katelynn pulling off her socks and shoes (in the middle of a restaurant while we are eating lunch of all places) so that she could show Camryn her pretty, freshly painted toenails.  I had stopped listening to her conversation with her friends for just a brief minute and the next thing I know my daughter is holding her feet up with no socks and shoes.  When I told her she needed to keep her socks and shoes on, she looked at me so innocently and said, "I'm just showing Camryn my pretty paint."  How could I argue with that?

She is really becoming so much more social (or maybe it's just that I'm just now realizing it).  In any case, Katelynn made a point of asking any child she didn't know in the playarea today what their name was.  I don't know why I found it so cute, but it just was.  What really topped it off though was when she asked one little girl her name and then said, "I like your shirt.  It is sooo beautiful!"  All the moms that were currently in the playarea stopped to smile and say, "Aww."  I have to admit I was proud to be her mommy! 

Blue Eyed Boy

I love this picture I captured of Justin the other day!  He had just taken a bath so his hair (that really needs a cut) was styled and he was playing on his bed in his diaper as I was chasing him around to get him dressed.

Goodnight Kisses

I have probably said it a million times, but my kids hate sleep.  Really, they do.  It's like pulling teeth to get them to actually go to sleep.  I have been working really hard to get Justin to sleep through the night lately.  While my parents were here, we weaned 100% from nursing, and I'm still hoping that is going to help us (although I have yet to see it do much good) and I have been trying to get him to slowly learn to fall asleep on his own.  He is now in a toddler bed (which he does like much better than his crib) so I have been rocking him for a few minutes while reading stories and then I put him in his bed.  I was laying in it with him, but this week I started sitting next to it and leaning over some onto his bed (and slowly but surely I'm hoping to move towards the door). 

Anyway, I say all that just to give you an idea of where we're at, but the point is that now he is pretty used to being put in bed awake and although I have to tell him and sometimes lay him back down several times, he is falling asleep eventually this way.  Last night though he thought of a way to keep getting up.  He would lay down for a minute and then pop his head up and make a smacking sound with his lips reaching over for a kiss from me.  He kept repeating this and of course it totally stole my heart for a few minutes until I realized he was never going to stop because he found a way to keep from falling asleep.  I finally had to say, "Okay, Justin, last kiss goodnight and then it's bedtime."  He tried to kiss me once more, and I had to tell him it was time to sleep, but he did crash after that.  It was absolutely adorable though!  I am sure one day he'll turn his nose up when I even ask for a kiss goodnight so I'm going to soak all these kisses up while I can!

Sun-shiny Day!

I love, love, love days like today.  It was sunny and around 70 degrees today, and the kids and I had a blast all day today!  We started our day off early with some errands so that we could get home to enjoy the rest of the day outside.  We were outside playing most of the day!  This was our first picnic of the year (something Katelynn loves doing so much that we do it in our own backyard A LOT).  I let the kids stay out late and then they took a late nap, woke up, and we went back outside to talk a walk on the greenway with friends to the park.  We didn't come in until 6:40 p.m. (which is almost bedtime around here!).  It was such a great day!  Come on, Spring!  Please, please stay!

I'm not sure if Katelynn was more excited about playing outdoors all day or the fact that I let her wear flip flops for the first time outside!

Justin loves the slides on the playset, but today he discovered the mulch and dirt, and I think that is his new favorite thing to play with outside.  Such a boy!

Corn on the Cob

Tonight was Justin's first night trying corn-on-the-cob, and he LOVED it!  I remember this being a favorite of Katelynn's (and really she still loves it) around this age too!  He ate his piece down to the last bite and then ate some of Katelynn's too!

Happy 5 years to US!

Today is our 5 year wedding anniversary.  Sometimes I can't believe it has been five years since we got married and then sometimes I look at how far we have come in five years and can't believe it has only been five years!  :)  This is going to sound really corny, I know, but in five years time Jonathan has made my dreams come true.  I have a wonderful husband, two beautiful kids, and the best job ever- staying at home raising them!  Sometimes with the stress of life it's easy to forgot how lucky we are to have everything we do!!

But.. enough with the gushy stuff.  So for our five year anniversary, my parents were here visiting so we left both kids at home and went out to dinner and a movie.  This is honestly the first time since Katelynn was born that we have done this, and it was so nice!  We really need to make a point to go out once in a great while together more often!

Uh-Oh!!

Those are seriously the cutest words ever right now!  It's Justin's new favorite thing to say, and I don't know what it is about it, but I love hearing him say it.  He'll say it over and over and over again, and it never gets old!  Of course everytime I try to video it, he stops talking, but hopefully I'll get to post a video of it soon!

To date, he says the following words:
- Katelynn (although it doesn't really come out exactly that way)
- Mum-ma
- Da-da or da-dee
- Hi
- Ball
- Uh-oh
- Cook-ee (cookie) [This just goes to show you how different life is with your second child.  Katelynn didn't have a clue what a cookie was at his age, but he knows all too well what they are thanks to his big sister.  He even knows that when he goes to the grocery store, he should be able to get one.]
- Ni-ni (night, night)
-vroom (for cars, etc)
- Bi-bi (bye, bye)
- hot (again, not completely the way it is supposed to sound but I can't think of how to type the way he says it)
-quack,quack (for a duck sound)
- sock

... and possibly more that I can't remember right now, but I'll update this list as they come to me!

One Track Mind

If you have been to our house in the past few months, you know where Justin's favorite place to play is.  He makes it pretty clear everyday with his requests to go play in the basement playroom.  He loves it down there.  From the minute we get up, he is begging to go down there by standing at the door whining.  A few times he has even said the word, "Down" if we pretend to ignore the fact he wants down there, and he's persistant too.  You can't really change his mind about going down there with any distractions.   We even have to watch when we say the word basement because as soon as he hears it, he's off to the door and ready to go down there that minute!  I really need to get our safety handle back on the door because he's pretty close to being able to reach the handle!