Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today was Jonathan's 29th birthday.  I always love birthday celebrations and love to make the most of them, but I didn't do such a good job of that today.  Justin has been waking up all night long, and after only two interrupted hours of sleep last night, I had no energy to make my husband's birthday as special as it needed to be.  Katelynn and I were supposed to make a cake among other things, but we didn't even accomplish that.  So, out to dinner and a store-bought cookie cake followed by shopping at the mall for daddy to pick out his own gift were what his birthday consisted of.  Hopefully it wasn't the worst birthday ever, and he knows how much I wish I could have done more!  BUT.. next year is the big 3-0 and even though Jonathan has already said not to..... I bet I will come up with something big and over the top to make up for this year :)

Halloween is coming!

To Whom It May Concern:

Please forgive me for all the silly outfits and costumes that I am about to have to wear in the next coming months.  My mommy thinks dressing up for the holidays is so much fun, and even though I'm a boy, she figures she can get away with it this year since I'm a baby.  I have decided to let her have her fun for now, but it may be a long few months since Halloween is still two weeks away and she is already dressing me up in all these Halloween outfits.... and there's still Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner.  Just please stick up for me 16 years from now when she is pulling out all the baby books and showing them to my girlfriends.

Love, Justin

Cheap Entertainment

Katelynn received all those fun presents this week (which honestly have kept her quite busy) and yet we spent an hour playing with the cheapest toy possible today.  Both kids had a blast with a cardboard box that one of her gifts came in.  Who would have thought that we could have just gotten her one of these for her present?  :)

A Birthday Celebration!

Our baby girl is officially THREE years old.  It really seems like yesterday that Jonathan and I were very impatiently waiting the arrival of Miss Katelynn, who kept us waiting an entire week after her due date, and now we have had three whole years with her by our side.  Amazing how fast it goes.  It's so fun watching her get older and understand more and more, but it's bittersweet because I want her to stay my little girl forever.

This year we decided to do her birthday party on her actual birthday.  As usual, her party consisted of a million 2-3 year olds.  There were 20 to be exact (well, 21 including her).  I decided to avoid the craziness at our house this year so we had it at Chuck E. Cheese.  My parents came down for the weekend, and my mom helped me make Katelynn's cake and make her birthday outfit.  I am pretty ridiculous when it comes to our birthday themes, and I always have to make sure that her outfit matches the theme so I tend to make the outfit each year to make sure that is the case.  This year she had picked a flower theme at first, but as the party got closer and she seen her friend's party was a butterfly party, she decided that was what she wanted too so butterflys it was!

In addition to all her friends, both sets of grandparents and Uncle Matt attended the party.  It was lots of fun!

Katelynn got so many neat gifts this year that she has really been enjoying this week!

It's funny how quickly she has jumped into opening gifts- so much moreso than last year.  One of her friends attempted to help her open this gift, and she wouldn't have it.

It's the little things....

.. that make a mommy so proud!  I have no idea if this is even something to brag about.  For all I know, everyone else Katelynn's age is already drawing people, but this was a first in our house.  I have been working with Katelynn on drawing shapes and letters, but even so, most of the time she just scribbles as she draws.  We recently moved her easel into my craft room and some days she and I will go down there together during Justin's nap and do crafts.  Sometimes we work on something furn together and sometimes I get to sneak in a few minutes of scrapbooking and she works on stamping or coloring on her own next to me.  Today was one of those days where she was entertaining herself on the easel, and I jumped into scrapping.  When I turned around to check on her, this is what I saw:

She was drawing a person!!  She was quietly saying, "And another eye.. and a leg.. another leg.." as she went.  I was so impressed that I had to run and grab the camera.  She erased it after a few minutes, and I asked if she would draw it again for me.  She said, "No, but I can draw you a spider."

Clearly I need to teach her to stop at eight legs for the spider, but still I was one proud mama that she knew to draw more than two legs!  :)

Looking for Trouble!

As of this weekend, we now have a little mover.  Justin started pulling up to stand two weekends ago (and attempts to walk around the table, etc but he's still falling more than he is making it around), and then this weekend, he started army crawling.  He still isn't moving every which way yet, but when he wants to get somewhere, he does!  Of course, he mainly only cruises over to items he is not supposed to have, but I'll take it!  In a way it makes him less of a baby, and I'll admit that makes me a little sad, but I also love that he's starting to move around.  It's so fun watching how excited he gets! 

He also seems to find crawling UNDER the table and toys fun.  Of course in this picture, he had a second motivation as we were cooking outside that day and Jonathan had just walked in with a leaf on his foot that got left by the rug.  I snapped this picture and couldn't even get to him before he had it in his hand!

This is what he prefers to do- stand, stand, stand.  He will stand all day if you let him.

And here's his favorite new trick- climbing up the table!  Standing just isn't good enough for our dare devil.   I fear it won't be long before he's getting all the way on the table.  For now, he just jumps up one level and then falls back and onto his bum.  It doesn't ever stop him though.  He goes right back over to it and gets right back up and repeats the process!

5-6 inches

I can't believe we did it, but we did. We cut off Katelynn's hair! It was so long, and she wouldn't let us do anything to it. She kept getting food all tangled in the ends, and it was just so much to deal with. This was only her second time getting her hair cut, but she loves it. After we left, she asked if we could go back and do it again! Ha! I had tears in my eyes when the hair stylist made that first cut, and Jonathan now thinks we went a little too short. He says she looks too much like a little girl now, but oh well- it will grow back, and it's so much easier to manage! It is going to take some getting used to though!

Before Picture

After Pictures: