Gym Day!

So, Justin took a break from soccer after the 12-week course and started taking a "gym" class at Katelynn's school.  They are learning gymnastics basics (basically running/jumping/kicking/somersaults).  While it may not be a long-term sport for him, he loves it now and thinks it's pretty cool for him to get to have "gym" at K's school.  His class is all boys (all three of which have older sisters in K's class in preschool).  He really enjoys it!  Today was rewards day where they got a ribbon for such great participation.

Jeans? No way!

It has been over a year now since Katelynn turned into even more of a girlie-girlie and began wearing only skirts and dresses.  I remember at the beginning of the school year, it was such a challenge to get her to wear leggings or "biker" tight shorts underneath all these dresses and skirts she has to wear.  Imagine my shock today when she pulled out jeans and asked to wear them?!  I made sure to make a huge deal out of how cute she looked sporting some jeans!  We will see if the trend continues and I can get her to wear them more often.  I did mention how fun it is that jeans go with just about everything so her choices of shirts is endless that way!  (I think that scored some good bonus points on wearing them!)

A Pregnancy Halfway Done!

Wow!  Part of me can't believe I am already halfway done with this pregnancy (and how bittersweet because it's my last) and yet another part of me thinks July is just way to far away still!  This is a picture taken of me on Valentine's Day when I hit 20 weeks pregnant.  I feel huge for 20 weeks, but no one else seems to think I am. 

And just a belly shot:

Our little guy is growing.. that's for sure!  At first my belly was popping more than with my other two pregnancies, but now I think I'm probably pretty similar to Justin's pregnancy.  I will have to compare sometime soon!

Happy Valentine's Day: 2011!!

Somehow another year has passed us by and here we are again at Valentine's Day!  My two little valentines are growing up so quickly, and it's hard to believe that next year this yearly picture I take will also include a third little cutie (who will already be 8 months old come V-Day 2012).  How time flies when you have some cuties like these guys keeping you busy!

Can you believe how much they have grown in a year?  Below is our 2010 Valentine's Day picture.  I am almost more shocked at how much older Katelynn is than I am Justin. 

Over the weekend, we were very busy getting ready for Valentine's Day.  We had 13 Valentine's Day cards to make for Katelynn's classmates and two teacher gifts (which of course we had to make too- anything for some crafting excuses!).  We started off by making some cute heart suckers for Katelynn to share in her V-Day cards.  They are made out of left-over mini candycanes from Christmas clearance and candy melts and sprinkles.  The kids had a ball using the sprinkles!  (Sprinkle pictures were from my cell phone so they aren't great.)

Next we painted pots for Katelynn's teacher's gifts.  (Justin just painted an extra one for fun and K did both the teacher gifts.)

Justin was quite a mess afterwards.  Thank goodness he had his smock and his fireman rain boots!  I guess it's hard to see in this picture, but he even had some on his forehead.

This was our finished product for Katelynn's teachers. 

And this was her finished products for the valentine's cards and suckers.  She cut all the hearts by herself (28 total), wrote each child's name on each envelope, and signed her name inside each card.  I was proud of her for all her hardwork!

Katelynn got home today from her preschool party with lots of treats and cards.  We had fun going through each of them and reading the cards from all her friends.

.. and this was our surprise that Katelynn brought home from school that she made just for us! 

Other than K's V-Day party, we had a pretty normal day around here.  We did give the kids one little gift (a small toy that I have had on hand from the Target toy clearance), and the kids and I played outdoors all afternoon since we had some great weather this afternoon in the 60's.

We hope all our friends and family had a great Valentine's Day too!  <3

Bedtime Book

So, sometimes our routine gets a little crazy when Daddy is out of town.  Tonight was one of those nights.  Justin isn't feeling well, and he just needed to get to sleep as quickly as possible.  I told Katelynn she could sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed tonight if she would get on her PJ's herself, brush her teeth, and cuddle in my bed with her books until I got her brother to sleep.  This isn't the first time that I have had her do something like this when Justin desperately needs to go to bed before her (most of the time, I put her down first with him still in the room and then put him down), but this is the first time ever that she has crashed reading the books before I get in there.  She must have been really tired because Justin went to sleep really quick tonight too!

I took this photo on my cell phone so it's not great, but I couldn't stop laughing.  She had that book held so tightly and it never budged even when she fell fast asleep.  I seriously thought she was faking at first because of her position!

I'm never going to catch up!

Well, everytime I catch up around here, something happens that causes me to get behind again.  With this pregnancy among everything else, staying caught up on the blog is becoming pretty difficult.  I decided rather than continuing to wait on posting current events until I backtrack, I would just give up on catching up and start in the present.  Maybe I'll get lucky and find enough time to catch back up, but I might as well try to just keep you posted on what we are currently up to around here.

I am hoping to help out everyone that likes to read our blog by adding an email subscribe feature to the blog.  Everytime I post a new blog post, you will get an email to tell you that there is new stuff to read.  That way I can stop worrying that no one is going to keep coming on here to read it since I am so sporadic at times with my posts!  To be added to the email list, you just have to click the "Subscribe to.." link to the left of this blog page, enter your email, and then confirm your subscription when you get the confirmation email.  I assure you that no spam comes from this link.  It will just be my posts that you will get emails about!! 

I hope all our friends and family are doing well!  We are doing great over here and trying to get ready for our new baby to arrive.  On one hand, it seems like July is NEVER going to get here, but on the other hand, I can't believe that I am almost halfway done with this pregnancy... my last pregnancy!  I plan to start making non-picture posts to start giving updates on the pregnancy as it gets closer to the big "D" day!