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Click here to return to the main page. 5 years, 5 months This month brought about lots of fun and lots of changes. Wednesday, July 28 was a big day for Kate. Kate had an appointment to have her hair cut. She has been asking when she can get it cut, so we made an appointment before school started. Mommy had her hair cut first, and Kate waited (rather impatiently) for her turn. This time, Ms. Jane washed Kate's hair prior to cutting it. Kate had about eight inches cut off, and we love the new haircut. She looks like she's ready to start kindergarten now! :) That evening, we celebrated Daddy's birthday. We bought Daddy Ratatouille, and Kate wrapped the movie up all by herself. Mommy cut the paper for her, and she folded and taped it all by herself; she was very proud of it! On that Friday, we went to Daddy's company picnic at Southern Adventures. Kate loves Southern Adventures and asks all the time when we can go (even though it was two years ago when we were last there). She was excited when the day finally arrived, and she had lots of fun at the picnic. The first thing she did was ride the go karts with Daddy. Then she went and rode the kiddie roller coaster a couple times, and then she rode the large swings. After she had lots of fun, she rode the baby pony rides with Anna. Then it was time to go eat dinner before putting swimsuits on. After dinner, Kate played in the kiddie pool and went down the large kids slide lots of times. It was enclosed in a tunnel, and Kate screamed every time she went down the slide, which echoed very loudly! Oh well, we still had lots of fun! Kate had her kindergarten open house at Columbia Elementary School on Wednesday, August 4. We arrived early for a presentation just for kindergarten parents, and then we went to Kate's classroom to meet her teacher. Kate has Mrs. Kim Adams for a teacher this year, and we are very impressed so far! During open house, we put all of Kate's school supplies in her cubbie, signed up for the PTA, and toured the school a little bit. We wanted to make the last weekend before school started a special one, and I think we succeeded. On Friday, we went to the Harmony Park Safari, a two-mile drive through expedition that Kate loved doing last year. We pulled up at the gate and bought our food, and then we went through the entrance. The rams, deer, emus, and goats were there waiting for us, and we used over half of our food during the first 100 feet of the safari. Kate loved feeding the animals and screamed with delight as the emus tried to attack us for food. We saw a zebra right up next to the car, which was pretty cool. After driving through the safari, we were able to get out of the car and look at reptiles and tortoises. Kate said her favorite part was seeing the baby tortoises and holding one in her hand. The next day was Lexi's fourth birthday party, and she had an Angelina Ballerina theme. The girls arrived in their leotards and ballet slippers, and then they were given homemade tutus to wear. They danced around the room to different music, ate chicken fingers for lunch, and had yummy birthday cake. There was also a ballet slipper pinata, and it was hilarious to see a bunch of young girls in tutus attacking this pinata to try to get the candy. It was a great afternoon, and a fun time was had by all! That afternoon, we also had a surprise visit from Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim. They just came down for the day, so Kate had lots of playtime with them before it was time for them to go home. On Sunday afternoon, we took the girls to see Shrek Forever After in the movie theater. Kate loves watching the Shrek movies with Uncle Tim, so we thought she'd enjoy this one also. We all enjoyed the movie and had a good afternoon spent together as a family! The next week brought about the first day of school. Madison City Schools had their first day on Monday, but Kate's first day wasn't until Tuesday, August 10. This is because the kindergarten classes started the first week on a staggered schedule; boys attended Monday and Wednesday, girls attended Tuesday and Thursday, and everyone attended Friday. Kate was very excited about her first day of kindergarten and didn't seem very nervous at all. She chose to have muffins and fresh fruit for breakfast that morning, so we got up in plenty of time to make fresh-baked muffins; we had pineapple and strawberries to go with them. After breakfast, Kate got dressed and we had plenty of time to take pictures at home. Then it was time to drive to Columbia Elementary School to drop our baby girl off for her first day of kindergarten. For the first day of school, Mommy, Daddy, and Anna walked Kate through the chaos and into the gym, where the teachers were waiting. Around 7:40, the teachers lined their students up and walked them to their classroom. Kate ended up being line leader that morning. One of the rules about walking in the hall is that students must walk on the third tile (not too close to the wall and not in the middle of the hall either). Kate, who is definitely her mother's daughter, watched her feet the whole time to be sure that she didn't accidentally step off that third tile. Too cute! After the students got to their classroom, we were able to take a couple pictures while Mrs. Adams gave the kids initial instructions. Then Mrs. Adams greeted the children individually, said she would take great care of our kids, and sent us home! Yes, there were some tears shed by Mommy, but we all survived the first day of school. When I picked Kate up, she seemed to have had a great day! Typical of Kate, it was like pulling teeth to get her to tell me anything, but she eventually told me more and more throughout the afternoon/evening. Mommy picked her up in car line that afternoon, and she came out like such a big girl when her number was called! So hard to believe! The next day, since Kate didn't have school, she spent a special morning alone with Mommy. Anna had her first day of school, so we took Anna to school at 9 AM. Then Kate and Mommy went to the grocery store and to run a couple other errands. Kate even decided what to buy for dinner that night...shrimp! After errands, Kate chose to go to Mellow Mushroom for a special lunch. We enjoyed our time alone together! We even got to go to Sonic and get slushes before picking Anna up from school! :) Kate went back to school on Thursday and Friday and continued to have great days. Mommy and Anna take her to school (via car line drop-off) around 7:20 every morning, and we pick her up at 2:40. Kate has been in kindergarten for three weeks now and she continues to love it! We haven't had the adjustment issues that we were expecting; bedtime is a little bit earlier, but Kate wakes up in a great mood every day and is excited about the day ahead! Kate seems to love Mrs. Adams (as do I!) and is making new friends in her class. Since she had such a great first week of school, we decided to reward her that weekend with a trip to Chuck E Cheese. We have never been there before, but Kate has heard about it and asked when we could go. We all loved eating pizza and playing lots of games (her favorite was probably skeeball) while we were there! Kate even saw Chuck E Cheese himself and had her picture taken with him. It was a fun afternoon, and Kate loved the cheap little prizes that she got to buy with her tickets. At the end of August, Mommy was able to come to Kate's classroom to read stories to her class. This was Mommy's first opportunity to meet some students in her class, and it was a lot of fun. Kate helped me pick out three stories to read; we read "Beep Beep Let's Go," "You Can Do It, Sam," and "If You Give a Pig a Party." The class seemed to enjoy the stories and the smile never left Kate's face. After story time, Mommy surprised Kate and went to the cafeteria to eat lunch with her. It was another opportunity to see into part of Kate's day and interact a bit more with the students and teacher. We're so thankful that Columbia is so welcoming of parental involvement, and we're thankful that Kate loves having us around! We're looking forward to a great year of kindergarten! 5 years, 4 months Our summer is quickly slipping away, and July has brought about another busy month. We celebrated our nation's independence with a cookout with friends in the late afternoon. Kate played outside in the inflatable pool, ate dinner, enjoyed a cupcake, threw "poppers" on the ground, and did some sparklers. Lots of fun was had by all, and then it was time to go to see the big fireworks. The area around Bridge Street was very crowded this year, and we weren't sure where we would park. But we ended up finding a great place to park and watch the fireworks from a large field. We brought our folding chairs and drinks and waited for the show to start. Kate was so excited about seeing the fireworks that she almost couldn't stand the wait. Finally, the fireworks started and Kate couldn't contain her excitement any longer. The facial expressions that I caught on camera were priceless! It was a late night and a long day, but what great memories we made! That week, Mommy did something really cool. The ice cream truck drove by our house, turned around, and then stopped in front of our house. Kate asked if we could go get some ice cream. Anna was taking a nap and I actually had some cash, so I decided to treat Kate to a popsicle. She got this humongous firecracker popsicle and was a complete mess when she finally finished it. It took about 24 hours before the blue from the popsicle completely washed off her hands. We never get ice cream from the ice cream truck, so this was a rare and special treat. On Friday, July 9, we drove to Atlanta for the weekend. Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Terrie, Lexi, and Blake joined us on our excursion. We took it easy after getting there on Friday in preparation for our big day on Saturday. We tried to put the girls to bed early that night, but they had other plans. Anna, who still sleeps in a crib at home, was jealous that Kate was sleeping in a big bed while she had to sleep in a crib. Kate tried to be a good big sister and calm her down, but Anna just wasn't happy. At some point, Kate pulled Anna's crib right up against the bed so they could be close. Well, that wasn't close enough for Anna, because she then decided to climb out of the crib and get in bed with Kate. We could hear that two of them talking and giggling in bed together. Such sweet sisters! Unfortunately for them, we had to end their little slumber party shortly after it began to try to get everyone asleep and well rested for Saturday. After breakfast in the hotel on Saturday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium. Kate remembered this from the last time we were there...three years ago! She was so excited to see the different fish, penguins, and otters. She loved the penguin tunnel that went under the penguins and then being able to pop our heads up through little holes in the exhibit. But Kate's absolute favorite part of the day were the stingrays. She could not wait to touch the stingrays and asked about them constantly until we finally walked over to them. She stayed with the stingrays for at least 20 minutes, touching them as they went by. She was there so long that it got to be feeding time, and she was able to help Daddy feed them one small fish. After lunchtime at Mellow Mushroom and lunch back at the hotel, we went back out and drove to Stone Mountain. We picked up a bucket of chicken on the way and then reserved our spot at Stone Mountain to view the nighttime laser show. We enjoyed our picnic dinner, and then Daddy treated us to Dippin Dots for dessert. After we sat down with our Dippin Dots, the laser show began. Kate seemed to equally enjoy watching the show and playing with her glowstick bracelet. We put the girls in their pajamas after the lasershow was over, which was good because they both fell asleep on the drive back to the hotel. There were no problems getting them to bed that night. On Sunday morning, we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel. Then we packed all of our stuff up and checked out. We wanted to do something fun before we drove back home so we went to the Imagine It! Children's Museum. Kate could have stayed here all day long if we were able to! She milked a pretend cow, went grocery shopping, loaded boxes on a delivery truck, played with magic sand, and dressed up in tap shoes and danced. Her favorite thing to do was the large ball contraption that they had. You can load the balls at different places, watch them move along a track, and use a crane to move the balls around. Kate went back to this a couple times while we were there. While we were at the museum, we even got to see Mommy's old college roommate and friend, Mrs. Carol, along with her husband and son. When we finally had to leave there, we went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch, and then drove home from our fun weekend. On Wednesday, July 14, Kate had a very big day. This was the day that she took her kindergarten assessment at the Madison City Schools office. It only took her about 10 or 15 minutes to complete, and she didn't tell me much about it. She did tell me that she had to point to pictures of certain things. Also during this month, in preparation for kindergarten, we went to Target and bought school supplies. Mommy always enjoyed buying and organizing supplies in preparation for a new school year, and this time I got to enjoy it with my daughter. Of course, Kate was much less excited than I was about it; for her, it was another routine trip to Target. But we got everything on her supply list (including 8 jumbo glue sticks, which cost almost $15 total!). We spent the next weekend in Murfreesboro. Aunt Kellie was in town visiting Mama and Papa, and Kate was very excited to see her. We slept at Mama and Papa's house, and Kate even got to share a bed with Aunt Kellie. On Friday night, she thought it was quite funny that one of the kitty cats slept in bed with her too. We got up early Saturday morning and went to pick blueberries at The Blueberry Patch. Kate remembered picking blueberries last year, and she was excited to do it again this year. Last year, though, Kate quickly grew tired and uninterested. This year, Kate picked over one pound of nice-looking blueberries all by herself! On Saturday evening, we went to some friends' house to go swimming. Kate was thrilled to see they had a waterslide and a diving board in their pool. She went down the waterslide once, and then we couldn't stop her! She would go down feet first, head first, sitting up, laying down, and do flips in the water at the bottom; she LOVED the slide. She also found that it was fun to jump off the diving board into the deep end. Kate has really become comfortable in the pool this summer. She can swim unassisted, float on her back all by herself, do flips, dive for things at the bottom of the pool, etc. We all had fun spending the evening by the pool! Gramma and Grampa came down to our house to visit the following weekend. On Friday, we had a very fun morning planned. Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination has made its first appearance ever in the southeast at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. Daddy has been looking forward to seeing this exhibit since he heard it was coming. We got to the Space Center and got our tickets for the 10:30 entrance to the exhibit. Then we walked around the exhibit area for a couple hours looking at the cool costumes, models, and interactive exhibits from the movies. Kate took her picture next to a wookie (after we convinced her that it wasn't real) and built and tested her own robot before going over to see the rockets in the space museum. It was a very cool day and a fun experience! The next morning, Kate got up and went to her friend, Samantha's, birthday party. It was a pool party at her neighborhood pool. Kate enjoyed swimming in the pool with her friends (no swimmies during the entire two plus hours swimming) on this 100-degree day. We had pizza for lunch, enjoyed a yummy Barbie birthday cake, and watched Samantha open her presents. It was a fun morning, and Kate actually took a nap that afternoon. After naptime, we decided to do something fun as a family. We have been talking about taking Kate to see Toy Story 3, and we finally went that evening. The four of us saw the 5:00 showing of Toy Story 3 (non-3D) and shared a large popcorn. After the movie, Kate asked if we could "do something fun like go get ice cream." So we all went to Dairy Queen and enjoyed a treat. Kate was especially excited because we let her get a cookie dough blizzard. Yum! It's been a fun and busy month! It's hard to believe that school is going to start in less than two weeks. Kate seems to be looking forward to going to kindergarten at Columbia Elementary School; it will be interesting to see what she thinks after school actually starts. 5 years, 3 months Wow, Kate has been busy in June! I get tired just thinking about all the stuff that we did! Kate began swim lessons at the Madison Wellness Center on June 1. She took four weeks of lessons, two days a week. Kate remembered taking swim lessons here last year, so she was excited to resume them again this year in the Beginner class. The class is technically for 6-10 year olds, but since Kate did so well in the Preschool class last year, they told her to move up this year. She was definitely ready for the Beginner class and learned a lot over four weeks. She practiced touching the bottom of the pool, swimming with her head in the water, jumping in and swimming across the pool, and floating on her back. We could definitely tell improvement in all areas of her swimming this year! At the beginning of June, we took a weekend trip to Murfreesboro to visit family. We saw GiGi and Aunt Stacie, who were both in town visiting Mama and Papa. We also got to pet the kitty cats and the neighbor's dog, Gracie. While we were in Murfreesboro, we went to Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave's new house to celebrate Dave's surprise 40th birthday. Kate loved walking down to the creek behind their house and playing horseshoes in their yard. The next week (June 7), Kate began summer dance classes at The Dance Company. She is in the 5/6 Combo Class, and summer classes last six weeks. Kate loves her teacher, Miss Danielle, and she continues to love her dance classes, especially when working at the barre. During June, Kate took her five-year professional portraits at Mr. Glenn's studio. Kate looked absolutely beautiful during the session! She had such a natural smile and posed perfectly for the camera. The next weekend, we had some visitors on Saturday morning. Gramma, Great Gramma, and Great Grampa came down to visit for a few hours before going to a wedding later that day. Great Grampa brought harmonicas for the girls. Initially, Kate was too shy to play it, but after a couple days, she got the hang of it and was driving us crazy with the noise! From June 21-25, Kate attended Vacation Bible School at Asbury UMC. The theme this year was High Seas Expedition, and we took a voyage through God's Word. Mommy volunteered as a Crew Guide in Kate's kindergarten classroom with sixteen five-year-olds. We had a fun week, but we were all exhausted when the week was over! Each day, we went to Sing & Play Splash, had Bible Adventure time, played games or went on the playground, had snack, did a craft, and went to Chadder's theater. We learned that God's Word is true, comforting, surprising, life-changing, and for everyone. Let's Go! Kate sang lots of songs at Sing & Play Splash and did most of the motions too. Bible Adventure was a great interactive time to teach the kids a specific story from the Bible in a way that was both entertaining and educational. One of Kate's favorite parts of the week was Chadder's theater, where she saw Chadder the chipmunk (a hand puppet) and watched a short video that emphasized our Bible point for the day. We even had a surprise fire alarm on Wednesday and had to evacuate the building! We learned a lot about God and had a ton of fun in the process! That afternoon, Kate had her last swim lesson of the season. She learned a lot in four short weeks. I think she is most proud of the fact that she learned to float on her back all by herself. Up until this year, she hasn't been relaxed enough in the water to float unassisted, but she finally did it on the last class. She also showed us how far she could swim all by herself. We are proud of Kate and how much she learned in swim lessons this year! As soon as swim lessons were finished, we drove up to Murfreesboro for a very special weekend. Camp Gramma and Grampa lasted from Friday, June 25 to Monday, June 28. Kate had lots of one-on-one time with Gramma and Grampa, and she had a blast! Kate made lots of fun crafts and even homemade playdough. She got to eat at yummy restaurants like Chick-fil-a and Donut Country (our favorite!). Kate also had fun with lots of swimming, both in a small inflatable pool and their neighbors' large inground pool. While she was at Camp Gramma and Grampa, Kate also went on a field trip to see Aunt Julie's dalmation in an agility dog show. She fed the fish in the pond, went on a bug hunt, and even made s'mores one night before bed! It was such a fun weekend; I think we will make this an annual summer event! 5 years, 2 months The month began quietly, but we became quite busy as the end of the school year approached and summer began. On May 7, Kate's four-year-old preschool class hosted Moms and Me, a special event just for the preschoolers and their Mommies. Mommy had such a special time visiting Kate at school on this day. When I got to school, I saw my beautiful Mother's Day gift - a handpainted flowerpot with a pretty plant inside. Kate also gave Mommy a beautiful bead bracelet that she made. Last but not least, I had a special note from Kate. It read: "Dear Mommy, I love you as much as a cupcake. I really like to help you make food. When I grow up, I want to be a mommy, like you! My favorite toy you gave me is my birthday present. I love it when we go to Disneyworld together. My favorite food you cook is peas. I think you are really good at cooking. I know you love me when you stay with me at night when I'm scared. You are silly when you tell jokes. When I go to bed at night, you always read books to me." So sweet! I had tears in my eyes as I read the precious things my baby girl said about her Mommy. After being presented with my gifts, we shared lemonade and cookies together. Finally, all of the kids in her class sang a special song for their Mommies, and then it was time to go home for the day. We left school, and we came home for last-minute preparations for our weekend camping trip. Mommy, Daddy, and Kate went camping to Desoto State Park with Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Terrie, and Lexi; Anna stayed home with Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim for the weekend. We finally arrived at the campground and found two perfect campsites right next to each other. We ended up putting the picnic tables, food, and campfire on one campsite, and setting up our two large tents on the other. It worked out great for the weekend! At Daddy's suggestion, Mommy bought bug catchers for Kate and Lexi. They had so much fun trying to find bugs while the grown-ups set up camp. Last year, Kate found several roly poly bugs and caterpillars; she was hoping to do the same this year. This year, the girls mostly found beetles and spiders. During the weekend, though, Kate did manage to find a couple of caterpillars and even an inch worm. She was fascinated with these bugs, and we even had to bring our bug catcher home (Mommy made sure it didn't tip over in the car drive home!). After Daddy got the tent set up, Kate and Lexi spent much of their time playing in one of the tents. I'm not sure what they played, but those girls played well together the whole weekend! We grilled hot dogs over the campfire for dinner, but the girls were too tired to stay up for roasted marshmallows. On Saturday morning, we woke up and made pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast, we got dressed, packed the backpack full of snacks, and went on a short hike to Indian Falls. We did this hike last year, and Kate was excited to do it again. We saw a small cave, hiked to the top of the falls, and then walked down to the bottom of the river. We ate snacks along the trail, stopped for lots of pictures, and let the girls (and Daddies) have fun playing with sticks in the water. When the girls were sufficiently worn out, we went back to the campsite and had sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, it was supposed to be naptime. Kate was apparently not tired (unlike the rest of us), so Mommy and Kate ended up taking a walk while everyone else napped. We found a shortcut to the camp store, hiked down the dirt path, and purchased ice cream sandwiches for a special afternoon treat. Later that afternoon, we all drove over to Little River Canyon to see the huge waterfall and let the girls play in the river. The river was very cool, but Kate was quick to get in and get all wet. She had fun jumping and splashing for quite some time. Again, by the time we finished dinner that evening, she was too tired to roast marshmallows and chose to go to bed instead. A cold front was coming through, and that night was supposed to get down into the mid-30's. We bundled Kate up in lots of layers and blankets, so she slept nice and toasty all night long. It was indeed cold that night, and we woke up the next morning to Daddy having started a nice fire to keep us warm. After a relaxing morning of sitting by the campfire, the girls swinging in the hammocks, and more bug-catching, it was time to pack up camp. We then drove to do the Azalea Cascade Boardwalk Trail before heading home. We walked along this trail, saw a trickle of a waterfall, and were able to get some nice pictures. It was such a fun weekend; we're already talking about another camping trip in the fall! The next weekend was another special weekend. On Saturday, May 15, Kate had her dance recital, "A Night to Remember." Mommy picked her up from school on Friday afternoon and we drove over to the Von Braun Center for dress rehearsal. Kate did a great job in the rehearsal, and Mommy was even able to video the performance (no video was allowed for the recital itself). Kate's recital was at 10 AM on Saturday morning, and she had to be there by 9:00. We all arrived early and got great seats. Mama, Papa, Uncle Tim, Gramma, Grampa, Mrs. Heather, and Carter all came to see Kate perform. Kate's class did an adorable tap routine to "It's In His Kiss." Again, Kate did a great job, and we were all very proud of her. Mommy and Daddy presented Kate a bouquet of flowers after the performance for all of her hard work. After the recital and lots of pictures, all of the family went to Phil Sandoval's for lunch. What a great day! The next week, Mommy decided to go to the Botanical Garden with the girls. We invited Mrs. Terrie, Lexi, and Blake to go with us, and we spent several hours at the gardens. Our first stop was the butterfly house. Kate desperately wanted to hold a butterfly, but the butterflies were not being very cooperative. Kate then took Lexi to play in her favorite fairy tale garden. After that, we explored some treehouses, played in the ball pit, ate lunch, and found a couple more treehouses. It was a great morning spent outside with friends! That night, we decided to have even more fun and try out Concerts in the Courtyard at Bridge Street. We picked up chicken for dinner, and the girls had a blast dancing, running around, and chasing each other at the concert. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay for the entire concert because Kate still had school the next day. But Kate's last day of school was that Friday, May 21. Not only was this Kate's last day of school before summer, but it was also her last day of preschool at Asbury CDC. Mommy and Daddy decided to make it a special day for Kate. Daddy picked up donuts for breakfast (definitely a treat), and Kate had a chocolate-iced cream-filled donut. We also got Kate a special preschool graduation card. At school, the celebrations continued. During the school year, the class practiced counting by counting the number of school days. Well, they were in school for 100 days, so they had a one-hundred party! This happened to coincide with the end-of-the-year party, so the class had an ice cream party! Yum! Kate had a great year with Ms. Barbara and Ms. Amie, and while one chapter closes in her life, we're excited to see what kindergarten and a new school bring in the fall! On Saturday, we went to Bridge Street to do a little shopping. Since it was so hot, we let the girls wear their swimsuits and play in the water fountains. It was so much fun to hear their happy squeals and see the joy on their faces as summer has finally arrived. We celebrated the beginning of summer break by going to our neighborhood pool for the first time on Sunday. Kate was excited to swim in the big pool and practice swimming without swimmies again. The pool opened on Friday, and as soon as she found out it was open, she begged us to go to the pool! The next week, Mrs. Terrie invited Kate and Anna over to her house for a tea party. Kate dressed in her finest dress (Mommy's pink flower girl dress when I was her age) and bright red sparkly shoes. The girls sat at their special table and enjoyed cheese, apples, grapes, petits fours, and juice. It was a fun morning for an "all dolled up Tea Party." We're glad summer has begun so we can do more fun things together. This will be a special summer since it's Kate's last before beginning full-day kindergarten in August. 5 years, 1 month The beginning of this month was filled with birthday festivities for Kate! We celebrated her birthday on Sunday with just the four of us. Kate chose to go to McDonald's for lunch on her birthday, so that's exactly what we did. She ate her whole cheeseburger happy meal and chocolate milk shake. What a great birthday treat, huh!?! After we got home from lunch, Kate opened her birthday presents. From Mommy and Daddy, she got a Bibbidi Bobbidi Beautiful picture frame from Walt Disney World with all of the princesses and Kate's picture in the middle. She also got a special Belle nightgown that is like her Ariel nightgown that she picked out in Disney World. She was so excited; she put that nightgown on and wore it the rest of the day! After dinner, we sang Happy Birthday to Kate and each enjoyed a birthday cupcake. It's so hard to believe that Kate's cupcake had five candles in it! The next day Kate celebrated her birthday with her classmates at school. Kate picked out Hello Kitty plates and napkins, and she brought in homemade sugar cookies with frosting and pink and purple sugar sprinkles. Mommy and Anna were able to go to her class to sing Happy Birthday to her and visit with her classmates. Kate's birthday party with family and friends was on Saturday, April 3. We had 26 people for her birthday party. Kate's friends that came were Jack, Carter, Megan, Maggie, Lexi, and baby Blake. Since the weather didn't cooperate again, we began the party inside and the kids played upstairs. It started raining around 7 AM and finally stopped around 11 AM. Daddy was able to grill hamburgers and hot dogs outside without getting soaked. After lunch, the sun had come out and Daddy set the inflatable up. Kate requested that we have the same Kingdom of Bounce inflatable that she had last year, so that's what we did. It was very similar to shopping on Black Friday as the kids waited for Daddy to set the inflatable up. They had their faces plastered to the door just waiting for permission to run outside and play. Too cute! The kids all had fun jumping on the inflatable when it was finally blown up and they got to get in. The theme for this year's party was Snow White. The local stores don't sell Snow White partyware, so I had to order everything online. After playing for awhile, we came in to sing Happy Birthday to Kate, eat yummy birthday cake, and open presents. Kate got lots of great gifts...thank you to everyone who came to the party to help us celebrate! The next day was Easter Sunday, and Kate looked beautiful in her Easter dress. We took several pictures outside in front of the blooming Bradford pear trees before church. After celebrating Jesus' resurrection at church, we came home to find Easter baskets. After lots of looking, Kate finally found her basket in the foyer behind the plant. The Easter bunny left Kate a new Littlest Pet Shop, flower seeds, fruit snacks, and other small toys. She was excited to find her Easter basket, but she was very disappointed that the Easter bunny had not hid eggs in the house. Well, as we were going outside to set the inflatable back up, we saw that the Easter bunny hid the eggs outside in the backyard this year! That silly Easter bunny! Kate ran all over the yard looking for eggs; some were in the grass, others were in her playset, and some were even on the tree branches. After finding all of the eggs, Daddy set the inflatable up, and Mommy, Daddy, Kate, Anna, Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim all enjoyed lots of jumping. We finally ate our Easter meal around 2:00 that afternoon. It was a yummy ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and carrots, deviled eggs, rolls, and strawberry jello. After Mama and Papa left to go home, Kate spent most of the afternoon on her inflatable. Guess what...Mommy and Daddy were so tired from it that we were glad that it had to go back on Monday. Before we went to bed on Sunday, we had to color Easter eggs since we hadn't found time to do it yet. Kate was very worried about cracking the eggs, but she did a great job of gently putting the eggs on the spoon and dropping them into the dye. She even made a few "magic" eggs with her name on them. Cool! On Tuesday, April 6, Kate had her five-year checkup with her pediatrician. The doctor was very pleased; she continues to grow and is right around average size for her age. She has about 20/25 vision, which is normal for her age (and very good considering she has two parents who are nearly blind!). She thought it was quite funny, however, that she had to do pee-pee in a cup for her urine test. The next week was pretty uneventful, but we have had several fun playtimes. We had a playday (as Kate calls it) with her friend, Lexi. We went over to their house for lunch, and the girls even got to plant flower seeds in their own flower pots. Kate has been watering her pot every day in anticipation of it growing beautiful flowers! On Thursday, we didn't have anything to do all day, so Mommy decided to surprise the girls and go to the Botanical Gardens. We thought we'd take advantage of our new season passes, and it was a beautiful day. We picked up chicken fingers on the way and ate a picnic lunch in the gardens. We then walked around and played on some of the different treehouses they have on exhibit. The gardens were not very crowded that day, so we enjoyed taking awhile to play on the swings by one of the treehouses. It was a great way to spend what would have been an otherwise boring day! On Friday, Kate had her very last preschool program. Gramma and Grampa came down to watch Kate sing. She did a great job singing with her class; it's amazing to see how much she has improved at singing in front of an audience in three short years! For this program, each class designed their own t-shirt. Kate's Bible hero was Esther, so they all wore purple shirts with large E's on them and royal crowns on their heads. They sang, "Esther is a SHE-RO," "Fruit of the Spirit," and "TBD." Throughout the year, the children have learned about the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. What an awesome thing to learn at such a young age! After Kate's program, we went to lunch with Gramma and Grampa and had some playtime before they had to go home. Later that evening, Papa and Uncle Tim came down to our house. Papa delivered a new dishwasher, and he helped Daddy install it on Friday night. We had a fun time with Papa and Uncle Tim, and we even got to go to Chick-fil-a for lunch on Saturday. When Papa asked Kate if she wanted to go there, she said, "No, we only go there on Tuesdays!" The reason behind her response is because kids eat free on Tuesdays so it's the perfect time to go…a girl after my own heart! The rest of the weekend was pretty calm and relaxing, but Monday was a big day. On Monday, after Mommy dropped Kate off at preschool, I went to register her for Kindergarten. I had to go to the Madison City Schools office with a ton of paperwork. The registration process was quick and easy, and the next step is Kate has her assessment test mid-July. School starts the beginning of August! On Wednesday, Mommy and Kate spent a fun day together. Kate's class went on a field trip to Burritt on the Mountain, and Mommy was able to go as a chaperone. Chaperones can't ride the bus, so me and another mom drove up to Burritt and met the bus there. We had a great tour, and we got to see lots of different historical things. We saw 19th century buildings and homes, old toys, a spinning wheel in use, and lots of barnyard animals. Then we all enjoyed a picnic lunch and some running around before the kids got back on the bus to go back to school. It was so much fun to spend this time with Kate; she wanted to hold Mommy's hand as we were walking, which was so nice! I realize we won't have times like that forever! When I asked Kate what her favorite part of the day was, she said "everything!" The next day, Kate had a dental check-up. Kate was excited because she got to play on the indoor playground before her appointment. They have a huge slide inside their new office, and Kate screamed with excitement every time she went down the slide. How fun! Kate was very excited that Anna was able to come with her this time. Before the appointment, Kate was constantly telling Anna that the dentist wasn't scary; he was just going to brush her teeth. Big Sister Kate went right back and had her teeth brushed and flossed like a pro. The dentist came in and was proud to say she had no cavities or other problems. Great job, Kate! Kate continues to grow and amaze us with all she's learning at school. She has just a few short weeks of preschool left...our baby girl is growing up so fast! 5 years Happy 5th Birthday, Kate! Where has the time gone? It is so hard to believe that Kate will be starting kindergarten in just a few short months! It makes us appreciate the time that we have to spend with her now. We went to Dessert Night Out at church on Friday, March 5. Kate was excited about going to get yummy desserts, but she really wasn't sure what to expect. We arrived a little early and had to wait before we could get our desserts. When it was finally time, Kate chose a chocolate cupcake (of which she only ate the frosting), some mixed fruit, and some large strawberries. Later she went back and got another mini-cupcake. We all thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment too! Our plan was to leave at intermission since it was already past the girls' bedtime, but Kate wanted to stay. Both girls were so well behaved that we stayed for the entire show and didn't even get home until 10 PM! She must have had fun because Kate has asked me several times since that night if we can go back to Dessert Night Out again! The next week, Kate had a choir performance on Wednesday evening. Kate did very well and sang her songs with the rest of the four-year-old Cherub choir. On Saturday, Kate and Anna stayed at home with a babysitter while Mommy and Daddy went to a wedding. Kate was very excited to have Miss Lisa come over to play! She had the afternoon completely planned out, and Miss Lisa did not disappoint. I think she may have been ready for a nap when she left, but she was great with the girls. In fact, Kate had so much fun that she cried when we got home and asked us to go back out. We'll have to have Miss Lisa come back to babysit again real soon! The following week was Spring Break, so Kate had the week off of school. Unfortunately, the weather at the beginning of the week did not feel much like spring. It was cold and rainy, but the weather did eventually improve. On Wednesday, we went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in downtown Huntsville. Kate enjoyed watching the parade, even though she was pretty chilly. When Kate woke up on St. Patrick's Day morning, she saw that Louie the Leprechaun had once again visited us. He turned the toilet water green again, turned Kate's OJ green, messed up the toys, and put shamrock stickers all over the house. What a mess! On Friday, we went to the Botanical Garden. The first thing we had to do was go to the children's gardens, which was Kate's idea. The girls ran around and played in the fairytale garden for awhile, and then we walked around to see the many treehouses that they had on exhibit. Kate really had a great time climbing in the different treehouses and swinging on the various swings! She was a little bit disappointed (and so was Daddy) that the Star Wars Ewok treehouse wasn't on exhibit yet (can you tell she's Daddy's daughter?!?), but since we have a season pass, we can go back and see it later this summer. We all enjoyed a picnic lunch on the beautiful spring day before leaving the gardens. That afternoon, we drove up to Murfreesboro to visit our families. Kate enjoyed spending time with Gramma and Grampa on Saturday while Mommy and Daddy helped Mama and Papa move into their new house. She loved playing outside and getting to ride her bike in Gramma's driveway! Kate also had fun playing with Mama and Papa on Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday, she loved running through their empty house and yelling at the top of her lungs. On Saturday, we went to Papa's apartment and she was able to see the kitty cats and eat a special snack of strawberry sorbet (Kate's favorite!). We came home on Sunday, and Kate had a field trip to the Cook's Bug Museum in Decatur, AL on Monday. They were supposed to go to the park after the museum, but the rain and cold weather moved back in so they came back to school early. Kate still enjoyed riding on the school bus and seeing the different insects, butterflies, and animals at the museum. Later that week, on Friday, we went to Daddy's work to have our annual Easter egg hunt and movie night. We arrived early and got ready to find eggs. Kate found several eggs in the 4-7 year age group, and she even got to pick out a piece of candy or two to eat. Then it was time for pizza, followed by popcorn and the movie, Planet 51. Lots of fun! On Saturday morning, we went to another Easter egg hunt at our church. Kate searched for eggs at 10:20 with the four-year-olds in the big field. She completely filled her basket with eggs, and there were still lots of eggs to be found. After hunting for eggs, we walked over to the youth building where we saw a cool puppet show. Also, there was lots of play money hidden in Kate's eggs (in addition to candy), and Kate was able to donate that money to different mission groups. Asbury's children's ministry would then match that play money with real money and donate it to the real mission. After the egg hunt and mission opportunity, we went to lunch with two other families. Kate loved eating lunch with friends, and it was a great way to spend her last day as a four-year-old. That afternoon, we did something very special. Daddy converted Kate's toddler bed to a full-size bed. She was so very excited to get her big-girl bed and sleep in it that night. She went to bed as a four-year-old and woke up in her big-girl bed as a five-year-old. The next week will be filled with birthday festivities for our five-year-old!!! 4 years, 11 months It has been another busy and eventful month for Kate! On January 29, Kate's 4-year-old preschool class hosted Dads and Donuts. This is a special time between the 4-year-olds and their Dads only (Kate said numerous times that Moms and sisters were not allowed!). Daddy and Kate got to school at 8:30 that morning for about 30 minutes of fun! Kate made Daddy a special tie that he got to wear for the morning. She made him an award certificate for being the best Dad, and they enjoyed lots of donuts together. Kate was very excited to have Daddy in her class, and enjoyed showing him her classroom. Her class even learned a special song for the occasion. They sang "The Donut Shop" song for their Daddies, complete with the motions. Even though Kate knew all of the motions, she suddenly became shy when all of the Daddies were watching. Daddy and Kate both enjoyed their special morning together, though! The next weekend Gramma and Grampa came to visit to celebrate Anna's birthday with us. Kate had fun making special Valentine's cookies with Gramma and helping Mommy decorate Anna's birthday cupcakes. This weekend was very busy because after Gramma and Grampa left, we took the girls to Early Works children's museum. Kate enjoyed playing in the water table, playing on the huge boat, and building things with blocks. After the museum, we went to McDonald's for lunch (Kate's choice). After lunch, we had to get home for naptime because Daddy and Kate had another very special evening planned. It was our church's annual Daddy-Daughter banquet, and this year's theme was a sock hop. Kate dressed up in a little skirt, sweater, and had her hair tied in a high ponytail. She and Daddy looked very cute together! They enjoyed dinner, dancing, and hula-hooping together, and they both had lots of fun! The next week at school included a Valentine's Day celebration. Kate signed her name on 13 Disney princess valentines and brought them to school with a lollipop for each child. She and Mommy also had a special project to do in preparation for Valentine's Day. We had to decorate a box for her to put her valentines in. Mommy covered a shoebox with pink paper. Kate cut out construction paper hearts, and then she glued those and lots of festive stickers to the box. She was very proud of her box when it was finished! Kate brought home lots of yummy treats in her Valentine's box this year! We had a long holiday weekend with two days off of school because of a teacher work day and President's Day. On President's Day, we woke up to another round of snow on the ground. It had rained the night before, so not only was there snow, but there was a layer of ice underneath. This made for yucky driving conditions, so Daddy went to work late that morning. He and Kate were able to go outside to play around 8:00 that morning, and they had fun! After playing in the backyard for quite awhile, they decided to have more fun in our front yard. Daddy was looking for a sled to use down our hill in the front yard, but he couldn't find anything plastic. Well, we had just bought a new box of diapers for Anna, and Kate fit in the box perfectly. The box worked great for sliding down the hill...until Kate tipped out of it at the end. She had lots of fun going down over and over again, though, so that's what matters! The next weekend was another fun one. On Saturday, she was invited to a fifth birthday party for one of her friends. The party had a Fancy Nancy theme, and she even dressed up in her fanciest ensemble! She wore a fancy dress (which is the dress she loved twirling in on the cruise last year), frilly socks, Fancy Nancy shoes, armbands, four bracelets, two rings, a tiara, lots of necklaces, and butterfly wings. When she got to the party, she went to the makeup station to put on eye shadow, blush, lip gloss, and press-on earings. She then got to go decorate her own purse with fabric markers, paint, and adhesive jewels. For lunch, the girls had fancy butterfly or heart shaped sandwiches that had been sprayed pink or purple. They even had pink lemonade to drink with fresh raspberries in their cups. Very posh! The following week was a very special week at school for Kate. Kate was the Star of the Week for her class. We worked on a special poster for her to bring to school on Monday. The poster had lots of pictuers of Kate's family and things that Kate enjoys doing. She got to show her class the poster and talk about all of the pictures on Monday. On Wednesday, Kate brought in a special snack of Knox Jello Blocks. The kids enjoyed the yummy treat that Kate brought. On Friday, Mommy and Anna were able to come eat lunch at school with Kate. It was very enjoyable to spend about 30 minutes spending time with Kate and talking with her classmates and teachers. During Kate's Star of the Week, she was able to bring in show and tell every day. She has been looking forward to show and tell all year long, so this was a treat! During the week, she brought in her light-up Cinderella shoes, an otter that she got at the Georgia Aquarium, and a play camera that spits out Princess cards as pictures. Kate's teachers said that she really opened up and talked a lot in class this week, which was great to hear about our shy little girl! During this same week, on Thursday, we were able to go to a Bridge Street Buddies event...ice cream pizza decorating with Maggie Moo's. This was a lot of fun, as each child got to decorate a slice of ice cream pizza with red frosting, white chocolate curls, oreo crumbs, marshmallows, and cherry chocolate bites. Kate had fun decorating her pizza and then eating a little bit of it too. The highlight for her, though, was to have her picture taken with Maggie the Cow. How exciting! The next day we went to Movie Night at Daddy's work. The last movie night was cancelled because of bad weather, so we were excited to go to this one. We ate pizza with Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter, and then we all got our popcorn and went into the auditorium to watch the movie Up. Kate sat by Mrs. Heather during the whole movie and really enjoyed herself! It has been such a fun and busy month, and we look forward to what the next month brings as Kate prepares to turn five years old! 4 years, 10 months Just after Christmas, Aunt Kellie and Uncle Justin came to our house to visit for a couple days on their way back home. Kate was so excited to see Aunt Kellie, especially since it had been six months since we last saw her. All day long she waited excitedly for Kellie to arrive, and she was standing at the door when they finally got here. Kate wore Kellie and Justin out, playing constantly with them, but I think everybody had a good time! We spent the rest of Christmas break taking it easy. On New Year's Eve, we went over to our friends' house for dinner and playtime. Like most parents of young children, we ended our New Year's celebration by 9 PM to put the kiddos to bed. On New Year's Day, we enjoyed our annual tradition of making fondue for dinner. Kate remembers doing fondue in the past, and she was very excited that we were going to do it again. While she ate all of the meat, seafood, and veggies well, her favorite was the strawberries dipped in chocolate fondue! Of course, I think that's my favorite too! :) We enjoyed a relaxing and fun weekend, and then it was back to a routine (sort of) on Monday. Daddy went back to work on Monday (after being home since before Christmas), dance class started back on Tuesday, and Kate went back to school on Wednesday. Our weathermen had been forecasting snow all week, and the big "Winter Storm 2010" (yes, this was the actual name that our local news gave the storm) arrived on Thursday. We woke up to snow falling, and it snowed off and on all day Thursday. Kate kept begging to go outside and play, but I wanted to wait until there was at least SOME snow on the ground. After lunch the snow began to accumulate on the ground, so we all bundled up and went outside to play. Kate was so excited! She began throwing snowballs at Mommy (who was holding Anna) and running around like there was a lot of snow on the ground! We stayed outside for about thirty minutes and then came in to put Anna down for a nap. Mommy and Kate then made hot chocolate and warmed up with yummy hot chocolate and homemade cookies. Daddy came home from work a little bit early and we were able to go back outside again. The three of us made a cool snowman, and then it was time for more snowball throwing! Kate ended up staying outside for over an hour this time! Since we had our huge winter storm (actually, we didn't even see an inch of snow), schools were closed on Friday, so we got to stay at home and play. Fortunately it was Daddy's Friday off work, so we had a fun day. But after being cooped up in the house all day Thursday and Friday morning, we decided to venture out for lunch. Even though it flurried all morning on Friday, most of the roads were clean and dry, so there were no travel problems by the time we went out. We spent most of the next week preparing for our big trip to Disney World. Kate was very, very excited to go to Disney World and has been for months. Her teachers said she had a super great week at school prior to our trip. One day, she even got a special candy cane treat for being so well-behaved and such a great example to the other kids! Every night before bedtime, Kate's thank-you prayer to God would be to say thank you for going to Disney World. Click here to read all about our magical trip to Disney World. When we returned home from Disney, we spent Monday unpacking and getting clothes washed and everything put away. On Tuesday, we drove up to Murfreesboro to celebrate Grampa's retirement with him. Congratulations to Grampa on retiring from the Murfreesboro Electric Department after 37+ years of service! 4 years, 9 months Merry Christmas! Wow, we've had quite a month of seemingly non-stop Christmas festivities. On the first Friday in December, we attended the Happy Birthday Jesus party at Asbury. This has been a lot of fun in years past and a great way to remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas. The kids got to wear their pajamas to the party. We began with Chick-fil-a for dinner (which the girls love) and a puppet show. After dinner, we did a mission project where each table was responsible for filling a holiday food box for the food pantry. Kate and Shelly, another four-year-old at our table, had fun filling that together. They even had to go to the makeshift food pantry to get a jar of applesauce. After our mission, Santa Claus came in and read the Christmas Story from the Bible. Kate listened attentively this year, and then enjoyed some yummy birthday cake for Jesus. Finally, Kate was able to sit in Santa's lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. The next morning we woke up to snow on the ground! Kate decided to sleep later that morning, so we had to go wake her up before the snow melted in the sun. Initially she didn't want to get up, but once she saw there was snow on the ground, she was ready to go outside and play. Before we even ate breakfast, we got all bundled up and went outside. Kate had so much fun playing in our little bit of snow! She threw snowballs at Mommy and Daddy, made a snow angel, and just had lots of fun running around. We stayed outside for about 30 minutes before Kate got cold and wanted to come in. The next morning was Sunday, and Kate's choir, the Cherub Choir, sang at the 10:30 worship service. They stood on the risers and sang Away in a Manger, and Kate did a good job singing all three verses. The next weekend we decided to have a little bit of fun and take a road trip to Nashville. We went to Opry Mills and ate dinner at the Rainforest Café. Kate loved the inside of the restaurant, although she didn't want to get too close to any of the animals. She ate a great dinner of dinosaur-shaped chicken pieces, and then it was on to our next adventure. We went over to the Opryland Hotel to see the beautiful display of Christmas lights. Kate loved seeing the lights hanging all over the hotel. A favorite for her were the animals that were hanging from the ceiling. Kate enjoyed the lights and the special treat of gelato and a chocolate chip cookie that we got before we left! On Sunday afternoon, we went to the Madison Christmas parade. We ran into Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter there, so we were able to park next to each other and back our vans right up to the parade route. We had a fun time visiting with friends as we waited for the parade to start, and we all enjoyed watching the short parade. The next week at school, Kate enjoyed several holiday festivities. The class made out their Christmas wish list, and Kate decided that she wanted a kitty cage for Christmas. Apparently she saw somebody in her class that had a cage for her cat (not sure if it was real or stuffed) and Kate wanted a cage for one of her beanie baby kitty cats. They had their class party on Monday, and Kate brought in a Happy Birthday Jesus cookie cake to share with the class. She also had a McDonald's happy meal for lunch and brought home lots of goodies from other kids in her class. On Wednesday, which was her last day of school for the year, she had her Christmas Program. This year it was entitled The Legends and Stories of Christmas. The kids all wore their Christmas pajamas, and Kate's class sang three songs: The Robin's Christmas, Glory to God, and Alabare. For Alabare, each child had two colorful scarves that they waved in the air. Kate did a great job of singing and doing most of the motions this year. After Kate's class sang, they sat down and had to "help" the younger classes sing all of their songs too; she learned a total of 13 songs this year. After the program, we went to have cookies and lemonade and see Santa Claus. Kate had no desire to sit on his lap again because she already did once at the Happy Birthday Jesus party. That evening we attended our church's Christmas Carols and Christingle service. It was a neat time when we were able to sing Christmas carols and light our Christingles; afterwards we had more cookies and hot chocolate. The next day, Gramma and Grampa came down for a visit and to stay with the girls while Mommy and Daddy went to our company Christmas party. On Friday afternoon, they all went to Early Works Children's Museum while Mommy and Daddy enjoyed some relaxation time. They stayed at Early Works for a few hours and had lots of fun there. After Mommy and Daddy got home on Saturday afternoon, we went to Mr. Jason and Mrs. Heather's for our annual Christmas dinner. This year we had a yummy summertime meal of burgers, chips, fruit, and macaroni and cheese...and apple pie for dessert. Kate got a couple books and some sing-along Bible song CD's for her Christmas gift. On Sunday, we went to Spring City, TN to celebrate Christmas with Great Gramma and Great Grampa Gibbs and family. Kate had lots of fun there playing with her second cousins, Madison and Kylie. We also heard Great Grampa tell the Christmas Story, sang Christmas carols together, and even got to open a few gifts! The next week we busily prepared ourselves for Christmas. This year we did something extra-special for Christmas. Rather than spend lots of money on family gifts, we got smaller gifts for the family and took the extra money and spent it on a local family in need. In lieu of the more expensive gifts, Kate made several homemade gifts for everyone. One of our favorites were homemade ornaments. Kate helped mix the dough, cut out snowmen, candy canes, gingerbread men, and Christmas trees and bake them in the oven. She also painted every single ornament and decorated it with different colors of paint. It was a lot of fun to make these ornaments with Kate, and she was very proud to give them to everyone for Christmas this year! As mentioned, though, we sponsored a family for Christmas. After asking around, we were given the name of a family through our church. The family had three children, ages 6, 2, and 4 months. Kate had fun helping us shop for gifts and even picking out gifts for the 2-year-old girl. Kate excitedly helped wrap the gifts, and on Christmas Eve, we had the privilege of delivering the gifts directly to the family. The children didn't know they were receiving the gifts, so we hid them in the garage so they would be surprised on Christmas morning. But we did get to stay and visit with the family for a little while and meet the kids. It was a true blessing to be able to help this family this Christmas! We also spent the afternoon on Christmas Eve decorating Christmas sugar cookies and preparing other food. We later went to the 6 PM candlelight Christmas Eve service at Asbury. We got some great family pictures before church and even got to church in time to sit in Mommy's favorite place, the second row. After church, we came home and ate our yummy hors-devours for late dinner. Then it was time to put pajamas on, put out milk and cookies for Santa (and carrots for his reindeer), read Twas the Night Before Christmas, and hop into bed. Before going to bed, Kate wrote a note to Santa...it said "Santa bring presents...Kate." Short and to the point! The next morning, Kate woke up around 7:00 and stayed upstairs until Daddy went up to get her. After covering her head with a blanket, he carried her downstairs into our room until Anna woke up. We started opening gifts around 8:00, and it still took us quite awhile even though it was just the four of us. Kate had so much fun opening her gifts this year and seeing all of the wonderful new things that she got. One of her favorite gifts was her kitty cage that she had asked Santa for. She immediately ran upstairs to get one of her stuffed kitty cats to see if he fit in the cage. Her other large gift was from Mommy and Daddy - a Cinderella gown, glass slippers, and crown for her to wear in Disney World when we go. She looks like a real princess in the gown, and she loves to wear it around the house. In fact, I think she wore the glass slippers all day long on Christmas day. That afternoon, Gramma, Grampa, Aunt Julie, and Uncle Dave joined us for Christmas dinner. We had a yummy dinner of beef tenderloin and lots of good sides. We very much enjoyed our Christmas celebration this year as we celebrated Jesus' birth! 4 years, 8 months Kate has had a fun month! We ended October with Halloween. On Friday, Kate had her Fall Festival at school, complete with inflatables, a special snack, and goody bags from the other kids. On Halloween morning, we carved our pumpkin. Kate thought the inside of the pumpkin was disgusting, and she made certain to let us know that. As Daddy scraped the pumpkin guts out, Kate decided to draw her own picture of a jack-o-lantern. She did a great job, and it looked very similar to the jack-o-lantern that Daddy ended up carving in the big pumpkin. That night, we went to our friends' house for dinner and trick-or-treating. We ate a yummy chili dinner, and then the kids got dressed to go trick-or-treating. There were five girls between the ages of one and five. Kate wore her rainbow fairy costume, complete with rainbow spray-painted hair. As we first began trick-or-treating, Kate led the group of girls going from house to house. She was so excited! After several houses, though, Kate decided she was cold and tired. And when Kate gets cold and tired, everything is over. Hence, she was done trick-or-treating and didn't care about getting any more candy. We ended up putting her in the stroller and bundling her up nice and warm. On the following Tuesday, Kate had parents' week for her dance class. We were able to watch her entire class. First she warmed up with stretches and several ballet moves and some tumbling. Then the girls did a short ballet routine that they have been working on. Finally, they changed into their tap shoes and practiced several tap steps. It was a wonderful opportuntity to see Kate dance and see how much she enjoys herself when she dances! The next day, after school, we drove to Gatlinburg for a long weekend spent with Gramma and Grampa. Kate watched movies and colored in the car on the long trip there, and she was excited to get to the cabin on Wednesday night. The weather was absolutely perfect the whole time that we were in Gatlinburg - blue skies and highs in the low 60's. On Thursday morning, we went to play Old McDonald's Miniature Golf. We had fun playing mini-golf and seeing the silly farm animals at the golf course! We also got to go to the nearby Disney Store, which is a four-year-old princess' dream! Friday was such a fun day, and Kate was especially looking forward to it! We started the day by eating pancakes for breakfast. Afterwards, we took the aerial tram up to Ober Gatlinburg, where we got to ride the alpine slide. Kate remembered this from last year and specifically asked if we could do it again. This year, Kate got to ride it three times, and it was so much fun! She rode the chair lift up to the top with either Mommy or Daddy, and then she went down the slide with one of us as well. It was lots of fun, and Kate had a great time! We were also able to see several black bears and other nocturnal animals in the wildlife encounter. On Saturday morning, we walked around downtown Gatlinburg. A fun thing that we got to do was go through a mirror maze. There were several times when Kate was excited to move forward and walked right smack into a mirror. Hilarious! We also got to go to the candy store and watch the man make taffy. Kate picked out a blue raspberry lollipop to buy, and we all got some yummy sour gummies to share. For lunch, we drove to a nearby stream and had a picnic with Gramma and Grampa. Kate loved digging near the stream with a stick that she found, and she even found a salamander in the water. We had such a fun time in Gatlinburg again this year! On Veteran's Day, Mommy took the girls to see a parade in downtown Huntsville. We saw lots and lots of soldiers march in the hour and a half long parade. It was a beautiful day for a parade, and we had a good time honoring the men and women that serve(d) our country. We continued to enjoy beautiful weather throughout the week, and the next weekend we celebrated Carter's fourth birthday. Carter had his party at KidVenture, a new indoor play area in Huntsville. Kate loved playing on the giant pirate ship, playing skeeball, and sliding down the inflatable. And of course the yummy cake and ice cream were a treat! Carter's birthday had a Cars theme, and so his cake had black and red frosting on it. Kate got a piece with black frosting, and it was quite funny to see her mouth when she was finished with her cake! Also this month, we filled a shoebox for Samaritan's Purse's Operation Christmas Child. Each child at school was asked to fill a box for underprivileged children throughout the world. Kate picked out lots of fun things to put in the box, including a coloring book, markers, Smarties, dress-up bracelets, toiletries, and other special treats. Then she decorated the box with stickers, drew a special picture to put inside, and brought it to school. This particular box will go to a young little girl between the ages of 2 and 4. Kate was very excited to fill this box, and she knows the little girl who gets the box will "love it!" On November 20, Kate had her Thanksgiving celebration at school. She made her special Thanksgiving placemat at school, on which she said she was thankful for her baby sister. That evening, we went the Christmas Tree lighting at Bridge Street. It was a pleasant temperature outside, so we enjoyed the evening very much. We ran into some of our friends there, so Kate and Anna were able to ride the carousel with Megan and Noah. We also treated ourselves to some frozen yogurt to end the evening. Since we had such a fun night and were in the Christmas spirit, we let Kate stay up a little bit later after Anna went to bed to watch a short Christmas movie. It was a fun night! On Sunday afternoon, we put up our Christmas tree and Daddy put the lights on it. Kate had a lot of fun this year helping us put the branches on the tree. That evening, we attended the Advent Workshop at our church. Just like last year, we enjoyed a barbecue dinner, saw a puppet show, and then put together our candy house. Kate had fun spreading frosting on the house and decorating it with marshmallows, skittles, gumdrops, and candy canes. The next night, we finished decorating our Christmas tree by putting the ornaments on it. Kate loved looking through the box to see all of the ornaments that belong to her. She hung lots of ornaments on the tree and helped Anna hang some also. Then we had the tradition of putting the angel on top of the tree; Kate was very proud of herself this year because she "didn't need Daddy's help" to put it on! Tuesday was a very fun day because Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim were coming to visit us for Thanksgiving. Kate was very excited that they were coming, so she quickly got dressed and had her hair combed as soon as she got up (of course, they didn't get here until around dinnertime). The next day we took advantage of the pretty weather and went to the park. Kate had fun playing on the seesaw, swings, and slides with Mama and Papa. We even got to go out to get yummy cheeseburgers for lunch after Daddy got off work. That night we had movie night with everybody; Mama and Papa gave Kate Santa Buddies, and we all enjoyed watching it together. We celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday with the traditional meal...turkey, gravy, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, stuffed mushrooms, peas, corn, strawberry jello salad, and cranberry relish. The food was delicious, and we were so thankful to be able to spend the holiday with family. What a great day and a great way to end the month! 4 years, 7 months Fall has definitely arrived, and we have really enjoyed the cooler weather this month! Gramma and Grampa came down to visit during the first weekend in October. Kate had lots of fun with them - playing outside, decorating Halloween cookies, going out for pizza and ice cream, and going to the Madison Street Festival on Saturday. What fun the Street Festival was this year! The weather was perfect...cool in the morning but warm and sunny by the afternoon. We made hot chocolate and arrived in time to watch the parade at 8:45. Kate got lots of candy from the parade this year! A super-fun thing that Kate was able to do this year was get her hair styled by one of the vendors. She chose pink hair spray with sparkles, and she even had purple sparkle nail polish put on. Wow, she was something else! She was also able to play on a few of the inflatables that they had there. She ate pizza for lunch, and then she got a yummy treat of blue raspberry Italian ice. What a fun day we had together! That evening, we took Uncle Tim to Tokyo (Japanese steakhouse) for his birthday dinner. Kate has always been very nervous about going to this type of restaurant because she's afraid the fire is going to be loud. Well this time, she was such a big girl and didn't worry at all; she simply put her hands over her ears when the chef made the fire. On Monday, October 5, Kate went on her second field trip for school. This time her class went to the Huntsville Botanical Garden. It sure was cold that morning! Kate wore a long sleeve shirt, her school t-shirt, and her coat with her hood. Mommy wasn't able to go on the field trip, but I heard she had a great time seeing the scarecrows and various other features of the garden. It was a busy week for us because, on Thursday, we flew to Wichita to visit Mama and Papa for fall break. As always, Kate was an excellent traveler! We left 80 degree weather at home, and we arrived to 40 degree weather in Wichita (and it only got colder). Brr! Since it was so cold, we weren't able to do too much outside, but we still had fun. Kate loved to pet the cats, and they were even more receptive to her this time (gentleness goes a long way). She and Anna also had lots of fun playing with the special doll house that Mama has at her house. On Friday afternoon, after the sun came out and warmed everything up, we decided to go to the zoo. Kate had been very excited to go to the zoo, and it did not disappoint! It was cold, so Kate wore her long sleeve shirt, her jacket, and one of Mama's heavy sweatshirts. The animals were very active that afternoon; we saw the rhinos running, the hippos were up out of the water, and we saw several lions (that's a first!). We took our usual picture in front of the giraffes, which is something that we've done since I was 26 weeks pregnant with Kate. The highlight for this zoo trip was the tigers. Sedgwick County Zoo opened their new tiger exhibit since the last time we were there, and Kate was very excited about seeing them. She got very lucky because one tiger was right up next to the glass, and there were hardly any other people there. Kate was able to get up close and personal with the tiger, and she loved it! On Saturday, Kate and Papa were supposed to go see a movie together, but Kate was not acting like herself. I took her temperature and found out that she was running a fever. This fever lasted the rest of our trip in Wichita. It got up over 103 degrees at times, but we were able to treat it with Tylenol. She also had other symptoms like runny nose/congestion and coughing. We had to fly home on Tuesday with both girls still running a fever. On Thursday, I took Kate and Anna to the doctor. It turns out that Kate tested positive for swine flu! After running a fever for six days, her fever finally broke on Friday. Kate missed two days of school after fall break because of the swine flu. On Sunday, we were ready to get out of the house and do something fun, so we went to Sci-Quest, a science museum here in Huntsville. We had never been before, and we had a great time! Kate enjoyed experimenting with some of the science exhibits and playing in the large tree house. The following weekend was also busy! It started on Friday night with Halloween Movie Night at Daddy's work. Kate decided to dress as a rainbow fairy this year for Halloween, so she got all dressed up to go to Daddy's work. She even had rainbow spray paint in her hair! We went to Daddy's work and ate pizza, popcorn, and watched a Charlie Brown Halloween movie. We even got to take home a treat bag filled with candy. The next morning we got up early and went to visit Tate Farms to pick out our pumpkin. We got there just before they opened, and we had a fun morning! A cold front had come through the day before so the temperatures were only around 50 degrees Saturday morning. We first went to the corn crib, where we were able to play in it all by ourselves. Kate had fun jumping in the corn and being buried under the corn. After that, we went to do one of Kate's favorite things, which was to pet the bunnies. Kate got to hold a couple of different bunnies, pet some puppies, and see goats, a llama, and pigs. After playing on some other things, we went for our hayride and to pick out our own pumpkin. The hayride was very cool and breezy, but we had fun picking out a pumpkin. We found the perfect pumpkin to put outside for Halloween! Kate also picked out two small pumpkins that she could have for in the house. We had so much fun on our annual trip to Tate Farms! On Sunday, Kate and Daddy made a birthday cake for Mommy. They baked the cake together, and later that afternoon they put the frosting on. Kate decided to decorate it with a sun and blue and pink flowers. The cake was beautiful, and they did a great job with it! It has been such a fun month spent together with family! 4 years, 6 months On Wednesday, September 2, I was called to pick Kate up from school early because she started to run a fever at school. Her temperature was 102 that afternoon, and the fever lasted for about 12 hours. Because of her school's new policy on being fever-free for 48 hours (thanks to the swine flu), she couldn't go to school on Friday either. But we had a fun weekend to look forward to. Kate was excited that Gramma and Grampa came to visit us for a couple days. On Saturday, we visited the Botanical Garden. We weren't sure about the weather because we woke up to rain, but it ended up being beautiful. It drizzled for the first several minutes that we were there, but then the rain stopped and it just remained cloudy. The nice thing was that the temperatures were in the mid-70's instead of upper-80's that were predicted that day. We went to the butterfly house first, but we were very disappointed to only see a couple butterflies this time. Then we walked around the Children's Gardens, where Kate loved to play in the fairytale area and go to her fairy house. We also walked to the back of the Gardens, where we weaved our way through the sorghum maze. Kate thought this was really cool, and she even came out with a souvenir plant! :) Friday, September 11 was an exciting day. At school, they observed Patriot Day, where the kids were able to see a man shoot off some cool water rockets. Later that afternoon, we went to the airport to pick up Uncle Tim. Kate became so silly as soon as she saw him, and she's had lots of fun playing with him (and bossing him around a little bit too)! The next day, September 12, was a really big day for Kate. She had her very first haircut that afternoon! We made sure to take lots of pictures of Kate's baby curls before we had them all cut off. :) But that afternoon, Kate and Mommy went to see Ms. Jane to both get our hair cut. Mommy went first so Kate was able to watch and see what would happen. Then Ms. Jane got the special booster seat out for Kate. Kate was not nervous at all (unlike Mommy)! Ms. Jane got her hair wet and proceeded to cut off a 10-inch ponytail for us to keep! Kate felt like such a big girl getting her hair cut, and she did such a great job sitting still the whole time! She no longer has her baby curls at the bottom, but her new shorter 'do does still have quite a bit of wave to it. And it's so much easier to manage! The next weekend, Kate went to her friend Megan's sixth birthday party at Pump It Up. Kate had so much fun jumping on all of the inflatables for over an hour! She was tired and worn out and glad when it was time to go have birthday cake. It was a lot of fun! The next week, Kate had another big first at school. This time it was her first field trip…on a real school bus! The four-year-old classes went to the Madison Fire Department; they got to watch a fire safety movie and see where the firefighters slept and ate. She had lots of fun riding on the big school bus with NO SEATBELTS! I'm glad she had fun because Mommy was a nervous wreck! :) But she made it back safely and enjoyed telling us about her field trip. The next weekend she celebrated Jack's sixth birthday at Jump Zone. The whole family had fun jumping on the inflatables for over an hour and singing happy birthday to Jack. Another big thing that happened at the end of the month was Kate moved to a different carseat. She reached the maximum height for her carseat, so we had to get a new one for her. This particular carseat will convert to a booster seat when she gets big enough for that. And best of all...it's pink! Kate loves her new pink carseat! Finally, I just have to share a funny story about Kate. We've had our fair share of disciplining lately, and she was disobeying yet again when we were in a restaurant one day. I said something to her about her behavior, and she looked right up at me and responded in the most serious tone, "I'm mad at you, you guys are not nice. Do I look happy to you?" Oh, the things that come out of her mouth sometimes! Mommy and Daddy had a good (hidden) laugh about that one, and fortunately she began to obey a little bit more after that. Our little girl is growing up way too fast, but we look forward to all of the challenges and new adventures that lie ahead! 4 years, 5 months We ended the month of July by celebrating Daddy's birthday. Kate wanted to have an extra special birthday party for Daddy this year, and she wanted to make him an Elmo birthday cake. Now this was the same cake that she had for her second birthday party. If I remember correctly, she wanted to make one for Daddy last year too, but we didn't do it then for whatever reason. This year I had no excuse, so we had a full-blown Elmo birthday party. We made homemade frosting, baked the Elmo-shaped cake, and put all of the frosting on it. Kate helped with everything, but she was especially proud to help squeeze the red frosting on Elmo. Kate also wanted to decorate the walls with pictures of Elmo. We pulled out the picture that Mommy had made for Kate's second birthday, and we also printed off some pictures for Kate to color. She helped me hang them on the walls, and she was so excited to show Daddy his surprise when we got home from work! Kate also picked out a very special birthday gift to give to Daddy this year. She said she wanted to give him his own Littlest Pet Shop animal so he can play pet shop with her. Needless to say, Daddy was quite surprised to open his gift, but I'm sure it was one of his favorites! :) The next week was fun because it was our last week of summer before school started. On Monday, we went to Bridge Street to play in the kids' water fountain. Every time we're at Bridge Street, Kate asks when we can bring her swimsuit and play in the fountain. Since it was nice and warm (but not too hot), Mommy decided to surprise Kate and take the girls that day. Kate had so much fun playing in the water, and it was especially nice because we were the only ones there. We also enjoyed a yummy pizza lunch after playing in the water. That night, we enjoyed another evening of Concerts in the Park in downtown Huntsville. Kate helped Mommy make brownies that afternoon, and we took them with us for dessert. Kate asked if she could feed the fish and the ducks, so we took the extra bread from her barbecue sandwich and fed the fish with it. It was a beautiful and fun evening! The next day was extra-special. After Daddy got home from work, we picked up pizza and went to the pool for dinner and swimming. We had lots of fun swimming together. After Mommy and Anna got out of the pool, Kate took her swimmies off and began to swim with Daddy. She started off by pushing off the steps and swimming a couple feet to Daddy. Daddy kept backing up further and further, and Kate would swim all the way to him and back to the steps every time. After about 15 or 20 minutes of doing this, Daddy suggested that Kate try to swim halfway across the pool. Much to our surprise, Kate was able to swim all the way across the pool ALL BY HERSELF! Swimming lessons obviously paid off earlier in the summer, and Kate is now able to swim on her own. Once she decided she could do it, she didn't want to stop either. We are so proud of Kate that she has learned how to swim! On Friday of that same week, we took a day trip to the Tennessee Aquarium. This was our last summer trip before school started back. We spent all day at the aquarium, and we all had lots of fun. Kate touched a snake and and got to pet the sturgeons and stingrays. She also was able to hold several butterflies in the butterfly exhibit. One even landed on her shirt, which she thought was pretty cool (but she made sure that it didn't try to crawl up toward her face!). Kate's favorite exhibit by far was the penguin exhibit. We went back to that one four times over the course of the day! We were able to see the three-week-old baby penguin, and a seven-week-old baby as well. Kate also got a kick out of feeling the very cold water that the penguins live in. And she loved to play with the life-size penguin statues in the exhibit area. Other highlights included the seahorses and the sharks. After a yummy lunch at Sticky Fingers, we let Kate play in the water area outside for awhile. She loved putting her swimsuit on and running around in the shallow water! To end the day, Kate used the money Gramma gave her to get some blue raspberry Hawaiian ice as a treat. It was such a fun day, but we were all exhausted at the end of it! Since we had so much fun on Friday, we wanted to do something fun on Saturday as well. This is why we decided to try out the Harmony Park Safari in southeast Huntsville. We weren't really sure what to expect, but we sure did have fun! We arrived at the gate and purchased a bucket of food for the animals. Then we entered through the gate to begin our drive-thru safari adventure. As soon as we entered the gate, the animals immediately began to come toward us. We saw lots of deer, emus, rams, and goats. Kate was very excited to throw cupfuls of food out the window to them. She was even more excited when she just poured one cup directly into a deer's mouth. After emptying half of our food bucket, we drove on and saw a monkey, a pig, cows, horses, some geese, and a zebra. We fed some of these animals along the way, but we were beginning to ration our food. Then we drove on to see some alligators and feed the llamas. We also saw some humungous buffalo right up next to our car. We had so much fun (and we used all of our food) so we decided to purchase another bucket of food and drive through again. Kate was more daring this time, and she let a deer and a horse eat the food directly from her hand. Wow! The second time through, we had the giant buffalo licking the food off of our car. Yuck! Needless to say, when we were done with our awesome safari adventure, we had to go to the car wash. Kate had her first day of school on Wednesday, August 12. On Monday, we went to Open House at her preschool to meet her new teachers, Ms. Barbara and Ms. Amie. She has one little girl in her class from last year, and there are fourteen children total in the class. Kate was very shy on Monday and didn't want to play with any of the other kids that were there. On Wednesday, though, she was very excited to go to school! It sounded like she had a really fun day, although she was ready for a routine to start with Music, Spanish, etc. The routine will start soon enough, and this school year will also include a new highlight...fieldtrips! She has continued to enjoy school, her new teachers, and the new friends that she's made this year! The weekend after school started, Kate was invited to a birthday party for one of the girls in her class last year. She had lots of fun at Samantha's birthday pool and pizza party! We had beautiful weather the following weekend; it was actually cool for mid-August. So we took Kate's bike and went to the greenway. Kate rode her bike down the greenway, and Mommy and Daddy pushed Anna in her stroller. Kate did such a great job riding her bike, and then she was able to put her feet in the little river when we came to it. We had another fun day to conclude the fun month! 4 years, 4 months Wow, it's been a busy month, as usual! After we got home from Aunt Kellie's wedding, we tried to get settled into a normal routine again. Kate began swim lessons the afternoon that we got home from Florida. She takes swim lessons right around the corner from our house at the Madison Wellness Center; she had classes two days a week for four weeks. Mommy and Daddy got to watch the first and the last class, and then we were able to watch the last ten minutes of the other classes. Kate was obviously very comfortable in the water for her first class. She did a great job kicking her feet, putting her face in the water, and jumping in at the end of class. On Friday afternoon, we went to a concert featuring Mercy Me in downtown Huntsville. The concert was lots of fun; it lasted over four hours! We ate pizza for dinner, and we had fresh-squeezed lemonade to drink (which was very refreshing on such a hot evening). Unfortunately, though, the concert was held in a gravel parking lot, which wasn't exactly the best place with young children. We were all covered with dirt and dust by the end of the night, so we had to come home and takes baths after 10:00 that night! The next day was the fourth of July. Kate and Anna looked adorable in their matching red, white, and blue outfits, and we spent a fun day together as a family. Kate helped Mommy make a special red, white, and blue jello for dinner that night. Kate and Daddy spent part of the afternoon playing in the backyard and doing fireworks. Kate loved to throw the little poppers on the ground. She actually remembered doing those last year in Wichita and asked if we could do them again. Another treat for Kate was that she got to do some sparklers with Daddy's help. Finally, Daddy got some rockets to shoot off in the yard, and Kate thought those were really cool. After grilling out for dinner, we headed to Bridge Street to watch fireworks. Mommy made brownies (another special request from Kate because she remembered eating brownies last year), and we took some drinks and headed to Bridge Street. We actually decided to park in an adjacent parking lot, and we had a great view. We were just behind where they shot the fireworks off, so that was really cool. Kate sat in her chair with her hands over her ears for the first few minutes. Then she decided that the fireworks weren't loud, so she took her hands off her ears. At any rate, she watched the show and had a big smile on her face the whole time. It was such a fun day! Mommy and Kate participated in our church's Mission Week again this year, which was the next week. Each day focused on a different area of missions. On Monday, we heard from several different speakers who had taken international mission trips. We looked at pictures of children from other countries, saw a puppet show in Spanish, and even got to sample authentic Ethiopian food (which Kate did NOT like). On Tuesday, we took a field trip to a local nursing home. There, we sang a few songs for the residents and passed out homemade puzzles to each resident. On Wednesday, the children learned about the Downtown Rescue Mission. Kate colored a special backpack with a rainbow, sun, and a couple of butterflies, and then she filled the backpack with toiletries that we purchased for children who come to the Rescue Mission. On Thursday, we went to the local fire station. There, we watched a short video about fire safety, and then it was time to wash the fire truck! The kids got to wear their swimsuits, and they had so much fun washing the fire truck. On Friday, we had a fun day at Pump It Up, which is an indoor building with lots of inflatables. Kate enjoyed going down a big slide, going through an obstacle course, and jumping on other inflatables. Mommy and Kate had lots of fun at Missions 'n Me this year, and we learned about lots of different ways that we can serve God. On Friday afternoon, we drove up to Murfreesboro to have some fun playtime with Gramma and Grampa. We all woke up early on Saturday morning to go pick blueberries at The Blueberry Patch. Mommy and Daddy both remember picking blueberries when they were a lot younger, and now this was a fun thing to do with our girls. Kate helped pick lots of blueberries...and she ate just as many as she picked, I think. When she got tired of picking, she was able to play on a small playground that they have, and she had lots of fun! After that, she discovered some cows in the adjacent field. She got the idea that she should try to feed the cows, so she held some long blades of grass through the fence. All of the cows, who were a pretty good distance away, came within 5-10 feet of Kate and stood there for the longest time. None of the cows ate Kate's grass, but it was still neat to watch them so close; there were eight cows in all. We also enjoyed lunch at Toot's (yummy wings place in Murfreesboro) afterwards with Aunt Stacie, and then we drove back home. On Sunday, Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim arrived for a few days. We had lots of fun visiting with them. A highlight for us was that Kate was finally able to take Mama to the high mountain on Saturday. I say finally because she has been asking to take Mama to Monte Sano State Park since last October. But every time that Mama has visited since then, it has rained! Mama finally brought nice weather this time, and we went to Monte Sano on Saturday. The temperatures were in the upper 70's, and it was sunny with a light breeze. Believe it or not, that was really our weather in mid-July (for a couple days). So we took a picnic lunch up to the mountain, ate lunch, and then Kate got to play on the playground there. While we were there, we ran into Kate's friend, Olivia, from her preschool class this year. Kate enjoyed getting to play with Olivia (especially when it was time to do the see-saw and she had someone her own size). Kate also had a bit of a cold while our company was here. On Friday morning, she woke up and told Mama that her ear hurt. Well, Mommy got her in to see the doctor, and sure enough, she had a middle ear infection. Fortunately, she told us about it so we could get her on antibiotics quickly! When we were at the doctor, the nurse weighed her and she's up to 32 pounds. Kate ended the month with her last day of swim lessons. What a tremendous improvement she has made in just four short weeks! During her last lesson (and at least one other one in the middle), her instructors took off her bubble. Kate was able to keep herself above water and swim a short distance between the two instructors. We were so proud! Her teacher said that next year, she will be ready for the beginner swim class instead of the preschool class since she's done so well! Kate seems to be getting so big lately, and Mommy has been telling Kate to stop growing up so fast. Kate responds by telling me that she wants to grow up so she can be a Mommy and she can cook. She then adds on that she'll always be my "little girl." Aww, how sweet! But can I get that on tape to remind her of that when she's a teenager?!? Time is quickly flying by, and she'll be a teenager before we know it. One month at a time, though, and next month brings the start of a new school year (her last year in preschool)! 4 years, 3 months Wow, it's been a busy month! Kate started summer dance classes at a new studio this month. The summer class runs every Monday for six weeks, and she has really enjoyed it so far! At the beginning of June, Kate received an invitation to her friend Harrison's fourth birthday party. The party was at Jump Zone, and she's been to a couple parties there in the past, so she was very excited! Kate had so much fun going to Jump Zone and playing on the inflatables with her friends. After lots of jumping, it was time to go upstairs for pizza, birthday cake, and presents. Kate and Carter were quite the twosome at the party! At one point in time during gift-opening, Carter put his arm around Kate like a sly teenager, and then he even tried to steal a kiss! It was too cute to watch the two of them interact. Kate attended Vacation Bible School at Asbury during the week of June 15-19. The theme this year was Crocodile Dock, and Mommy was a crew leader in Kate's four-year-old classroom. Since we were out of town last year, this was our first experience with preschool VBS, and we had a blast! We began each day with free playtime, and then the craft team came to our classroom. We made various crafts during the week, including making a rainbow bookmark, painting prayer rocks, making cute picture frames, and planting grass seed. After crafts, someone from the Bible Adventure team came to tell a Bible story. After storytime, it was time to go to the Sanctuary with all the other classes for Sing & Play Swamp. We had purchased a CD with all of the VBS songs on it prior to VBS, so Kate knew all of the songs, but of course she didn't sing along with them. She did, however, learn the motions during the week, and she now does the motions in the car when we listen to the CD...as long as nobody looks at her. After Sing & Play Swamp, we had snack time back in our classroom. Kate's favorite part came next, which was Chadder's theater. We went to a different room and saw Chadder, the chipmunk puppet, and we also got to watch a short movie clip featuring Chadder. After Chadder's theater, it was time to go outside to the playground. Unfortunately, the week brought about temperatures in the upper-90's, so playtime outside was miserable. After playtime, we ended each day by going to music, where we sang and danced to more of the songs and just got to be silly. Mommy had a lot of fun spending the week with Kate, and Kate had so much fun during her first year of preschool VBS. The weekend after VBS, Gramma and Grampa came to visit us. They watched Anna on Saturday night so that Mommy and Daddy could take Kate out for a special date. We went to go see the movie Up in the big theater. This was Kate's first movie in the theater, and it was extra special because we got to see it with 3-D glasses. Of course we got popcorn, and we all enjoyed watching Up together. After the movie, we walked around Bridge Street and Kate saw a stand that sold Hawaiian shaved ice. Since we "never get frozen ice," as she said, we treated Kate to some shaved ice that afternoon. It was yummy, especially since it was so hot outside. After our treat, we took Kate to ride the pedal boats. Again, this was a first for her, and we all had fun. Kate got a little warm in her life jacket, but I think she had a good time riding the boat around the lake. Then we got to enjoy some yummy pizza before heading home. It was a fun evening spent alone with Kate, and we look forward to many more date nights with our girls! The next day was Father's Day, and Kate made a special card for Daddy at school earlier in the year. The card said, MY SPECIAL DAD by Kate My dad is the most wonderful Dad in the world! He is as handsome as my dress up and smells like a flower. He weighs 60.5 lbs and is 28 feet tall. His favorite food is chicken. In the good old days when Dad was little, he used to play with toys. I think Dad looks funny when he puts a tutu on his head. I know he's really angry when he doesn't pick out the right clothes. I like to play in my room with Dad and wish he would do this with me every day. I wouldn't trade my Dad for anything, not even my teddy bear. How sweet! She also made a special coffee mug for Daddy with her fingerprints on it. At the end of the month, we traveled down to Melbourne, FL for Aunt Kellie's wedding. We began the 12 1/2 hour drive around 3 AM on Wednesday morning, and Kate was so good in the car. She slept for the first several hours, watched movies, colored, and even took another nap later in the afternoon. She was so excited to get to the beach. The first thing she wanted to do when we got to the hotel was go to the beach, so Daddy took her to walk on the beach while Mommy unpacked the suitcases. Daddy left with specific orders to not get wet...guess what, Kate was all wet and sandy when Mommy came down after unpacking. At least she had fun! We spent several hours at the beach on Thursday and Friday. Kate built sand castles, she loved for Daddy to take her in the "deep" ocean, and she liked playing in the shallow water, too. We were all covered in sand, but we had so much fun playing together! We were joined on the beach by Aunt Kellie, Aunt Stacie, Mama, GiJo, GiGi, and Aunt Lisa for some of the time. Kate was even able to spend some time on the beach on Saturday with Daddy, Papa, and Uncle Tim, although she got tired after about 30 minutes and wanted to go take a nap. On Saturday afternoon, we went to the hotel where Kellie's wedding would be for the rehearsal. Kate practiced walking down the aisle as the flower girl, and she did a great job. She wanted to know when she would get the real flowers. After the rehearsal, we went to the beach for the barbecue rehearsal dinner. We had a special visitor at dinner...a snake...and Kate wanted to touch it! She also had fun walking along the beach with Uncle Bobby and looking for shells. That evening after dark, we took Kate to walk along the beach and catch crabs. She remembers catching crabs with her net last time we were at the beach (before Anna was born), and she wanted to do it again. Daddy caught a couple of big crabs, so that was fun. On Sunday, Kate had a restful morning in preparation for the wedding later in the day. She spent the afternoon with Aunt Kellie and the rest of the bridesmaids in Kellie's hotel room. She got dressed in her beautiful white Strasburg slip dress, and Mama french braided her hair. Then the ladies came to deliver her flower ball, and Kate was ready to go! At 5:00 pm on June 28, Aunt Kellie was married to Uncle Justin. Kate did an excellent job walking down the aisle as the flower girl. Kate made the most beautiful flower girl! As Kellie and Justin were saying their vows, Kate noticed an ant crawling on Kellie's dress. She kept moving around to get a better look at it. I think she was trying to kill it, but she couldn't figure out how to get it without stepping on Kellie's dress. After the wedding, we had lots of fun at the reception, and Kate was excellent throughout. We had so much fun in Melbourne playing on the beach and celebrating with Aunt Kellie and Uncle Justin! Congrats! 4 years, 2 months Kate has had such a busy month! Kate was supposed to have her four-year checkup on Thursday, April 30. However, on Wednesday night, it was announced that the city of Madison had two probable cases of swine flu. Schools were cancelled, and the doctor's office called Thursday morning to cancel Kate's appointment as well. Gramma and Grampa still came to our house on Friday as planned so Mommy and Daddy could go out to celebrate our wedding anniversary. On Saturday, Mommy and Daddy planted a couple of trees outside, and Kate wanted to help. Daddy dug the holes, and then Kate came out to help plant the trees and fill the holes with dirt. She also put on her garden gloves and helped Mommy later in the day pull up weeds around our other trees. What a good helper! On Sunday afternoon, it was announced that there were more cases of swine flu in Madison and that schools would be closed for at least another week. What were we going to do?!? On Monday, Anna had her scheduled doctor's appointment. Fortunately, Dr. Cartwright was able to squeeze Kate in at that time as well. Dr. Cartwright was very pleased with Kate's development; he said she was at a kindergarten level based on her survey. At this appointment, Kate had to get four immunizations. Even though we didn't have time to prepare her for these shots, she was such a big girl! She cried when the nurse stuck her, but she sat very still and got it over with quickly. She even brought her own Hello Kitty bandaids for the nurse to put on. Of course, little Miss Drama Queen could barely walk out of the doctor's office. But she was miraculously okay once we got to McDonald's for lunch. On Tuesday afternoon, the CDC changed their recommendations on school closings for swine flu, and Madison City schools announced that they would reopen Wednesday morning. Woohoo, Kate got to go back to school! On Thursday of that week, we went to pick up Mama and Uncle Tim from the airport. Kate was very excited to wait for them to come through security. That weekend, we took Kate on her frist camping trip, and it was a blast! We were praying that the weather would be nice because it had been raining so much the week before and the forecast was not looking good. Well, we had beautiful weather! It rained for about ten minutes on Saturday morning, and then it rained during the night Saturday night, but that was it. We left to go camping after picking Kate up from school on Friday. We went to DeSoto State Park, which is about an hour and a half from here. The day before, at Chick-fil-a, Kate got a bug catcher in her kid's meal, and she put the bug catcher to good use on our camping trip. She ended up finding three caterpillars and putting them in her bug catcher. It took quite awhile to get our new family tent set up, and Kate played very patiently. Once we got everything set up, it was time to cook dinner. This is where our problems began. We were going to cook hotdogs over the campfire, and Mommy was going to make baked beans to go with them. Well, in the couple years since we last used the stove, the o-ring rotted on it so the stove didn't work (we discovered this after Daddy nearly singed his eyebrows off). Okay, no baked beans for dinner. So Daddy tried to start the campfire. Since it had rained so much the week or two before, all of the wood was very wet and it took forever to get the fire started. The sun set before we could start cooking our hotdogs. Well, everything finally worked out, and we stuck our hotdogs on our sticks and cooked them over the wonderful campfire. Yum! After our hotdogs and chips, we got everything ready to make S'mores. Kate put her marshmallow on her stick, but she didn't want to get too close to the hot fire to actually roast her marshmallow. So Mommy did it and then Kate got her S'more. She enjoyed it and ate about half of it. By this time, it was about 10:00 and she was ready for bed! She slept great in the tent both nights. On Saturday morning, we woke up and went to McDonald's in Ft. Payne for breakfast. Remember, we didn't have a working stove, and we had to get a new o-ring. After breakfast, we came back to the campsite, and this is when we had our short period of rain. After the rain ended, the sun came out and we got our stuff together to go on a short hike. We did a short hike to Indian Falls, and Kate did such a good job. She walked the whole way on the rocky, hilly terrain. We hiked to the waterfall, and then we walked back to a small cave. We also did another boardwalk trail. After our hiking, we went back to the campsite and made sandwiches for lunch. Kate ended up taking a nap that afternoon, and it was a nice time for Mommy and Daddy to relax in the hammocks. After Kate woke up, we drove over to Little River Falls. Despite my best judgment, Kate and Daddy got in the Little River (fully clothed) and played in the river. Kate had so much fun, but she was freezing cold after about an hour in the water. We drove back to the campsite, and enjoyed a nice dinner. After dinner, Daddy started another campfire (much easier tonight since we found dry wood) and we roasted more marshmallows. On Sunday morning, we enjoyed a yummy breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and toast on our now-working stove. After breakfast, it was time to pack up and head home. Despite some mishaps in the beginning, we had so much fun on our camping trip! Kate has already asked if we can go back camping in the fall. We came home on Sunday, May 10, which was Mother's Day. We took Mama out to Carrabba's for a yummy Italian dinner. After dinner, we came home and opened presents. In school, Kate painted a special plate for Mommy with butterflies made out of her fingerprints. Too cute! On Saturday, May 16, Kate had her first dance recital. We had dress rehearsal that morning, and Kate did an okay job dancing on the stage. The lights were bright, and I think she was a bit overwhelmed. However, at her recital that night, she did great! She had her hair curled, and Mama put makeup on her little face. She did her tap routine first, and then we rushed backstage to change clothes, and then she had her ballet routine. She danced beautifully, and she had fun doing it! On Sunday, we drove up to Murfreesboro for Aunt Kellie's Bridal Shower. Kate was able to come with us to the shower, and she was very well-behaved. She ate a great lunch, and then she helped everybody play a couple of fun games. After games, Kate helped Aunt Kellie open her gifts. Then it was time for cake, and Kate was very excited to eat that! Whew, what a month! We're looking forward to going to Florida next month for Aunt Kellie's wedding! We can't wait!! 4 years, 1 month Kate has had a fun month! After such a fun fourth birthday party, Mommy and Daddy went to San Diego for about a week. We took Kate to school on Friday morning and said goodbye. Mommy had a hard time, but Kate was excited about having Mama and Uncle Tim stay at our house for a week. And Mommy and Daddy were excited about taking a vacation by ourselves! We had lots of fun in San Diego, and Kate had lots of fun at home too! On Saturday, Mama took the girls to Asbury's annual Easter egg hunt and puppet show. Kate found several eggs hunting in the field with the other four- and five-year-olds. The next day, Mama took the girls to the Botanical Gardens. This was a special request from Kate, and Mama was happy to oblige. They had fun walking around the gardens and seeing the beautiful flowers and historic dogwood tree in bloom. It's hard to believe that later that week the temperatures were below freezing at night! Kate had her Easter egg hunt at school on Wednesday, so she found more Easter eggs with more candy. That afternoon, Mama and Kate worked on a special surprise. They decorated a candy house complete with green coconut that looked like grass. Kate had a fun time decorating the house and was excited to show it to Mommy and Daddy when we came home. We came home on Thursday night; our flight was supposed to get in to Huntsville at 9:00. We were a bit delayed because of weather, but Kate had a nap so we let her stay up to see us when we got home. Well, our slight delay ended up being over two hours, and we didn't get home until about 11:30 Thursday night. Guess who was still awake! She was so excited to see us, and we were excited to see her too! It was after midnight before we got her to sleep that night, but I'm glad she stayed up. On Friday morning, Kate went to the airport to pick up Papa, who came in to visit for the weekend. We colored Easter eggs on Saturday night, and Kate had fun. Daddy decorated a "magic egg" with white crayon, and Kate thought it was really cool that her magic egg had her name on it after it came out of the dye. We celebrated Easter Sunday by going to church, and Kate got to come to big-girl church with us. Before church, Kate found a few eggs that the Easter bunny hid throughout the house. After church, Kate came home and found her Easter basket. She got some princess dive sticks, a new book, a pretty headband, and some yummy treats. After lunch, Kate saw some eggs that the Easter bunny hid in our backyard, so we went outside and she found more eggs. She's an expert at hunting for Easter eggs after this year. The next week at school, Kate had wacky day, and she had to dress silly. She picked out Halloween pants, a pink Caribbean shirt, one purple Easter sock and one pink striped sock, one black shoe and one white shoe, and one red hairbow and one blue polkadot hairbow. I even combed her hair with one high pigtail and one low pigtail. She looked pretty wacky! Kate had her spring program at school on Friday, April 17. She has never sung for any of her programs, but Daddy asked her if she was going to sing for this one, and she said "yes." Believe it or not, she sang every song this time and did several of the motions. Of course, if she caught us looking at her, she stopped singing. The program this spring was called "School Daze," and each group of classes sang songs relating to a particular month of the school year. Kate's class sang "Chubby Little Snowman," "Buenos Dias," and "Behold." Her class dressed in homemade ponchos and sombreros. She looked too cute! The next weekend, we got to go to Panoply, which is a local arts fair at Big Spring Park. Kate was very excited to go, and the first thing she got to do after arriving was to get her face painted. She, of course, got a butterfly painted, as usual, then she got to go paint her own picture to take home. We walked around for a few minutes after that, but it was obvious that Kate didn't want to do anything because she was hungry. So, we broke for lunch and got some yummy fair food. After lunch, Mommy had some bread left over from her sandwich, so Kate got to go feed the fish in the pond. Now Kate was finally ready to go make some things. She got to build a foam rocket, a shaker, and a yarn-covered egg. Kate's other favorite thing here was the fresh-squeezed lemonade, which she kept asking for the whole time we were there. We even had to get a refill, which Kate drank most of. We all had a great time at Panoply! We have enjoyed some beautiful weather this month, and we look forward to many more warm and sunny spring days in the month ahead! 4 years Happy 4th Birthday, Kate! I can't believe our baby girl is four years old already! Where has the time gone?!? It's been a VERY busy month for Kate. On February 28, we went on a seven-day Caribbean cruise with Mommy's family. Click here to read more details about our cruise. We came home from the cruise, and Kate had a week of school before Spring Break. On her last Friday before Spring Break, the kids celebrated St. Patrick's Day at school. They had to wear green to school, and they were in for a huge surprise when they got to school that morning! Louie the Leprechaun had made a huge mess of their classroom. He messed up all of the toys, left footprints on the walls, etc. There was even a hole in the ceiling that he must have come through. He left a special gold snack for the kids, and Kate said she could even hear him sneaking around on the roof that morning. It was a fun day, and Kate thought that the leprechaun was really cool. Since Kate liked Louie so much at school, he paid us a surprise visit at home on St. Patrick's Day. Kate woke up that morning and she saw that Louie turned Mommy's water bottle green, and he even turned the toilet green too! He made a huge mess in the living room by dumping out the toy bag and turning Kate's little chairs upside down. Kate thought all of this was hilarious! The funniest part was that he even turned Kate's orange juice green that morning. Yuck! But she thought it was quite funny, and she was excited to tell everybody about Louie the Leprechaun that day. Mommy had heard that they were having a St. Patrick's Day parade in downtown Huntsville that morning. We stopped and picked up lunch at Panera Bread, and then we went to the parade. Kate got some cool green and white beads, and she enjoyed watching the parade. Since it was Spring Break, Mommy took Kate and Anna to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens on Wednesday. The weather was absolutely perfect for an outing to the gardens, and apparently everyone else in Huntsville agreed. The place was packed! We walked around and looked at their big bugs exhibit for a little while, and then we found a nice secluded area to enjoy the picnic lunch that Mommy had packed. We all ate our lunch, and then I let the girls play together for a little while before we moved on to the Children's Gardens. At the Children's Gardens, Kate had a blast playing in the water features, the maze, and the sand box. After Kate played in the sandbox for awhile, she decided that she had to rinse her feet off. So she took her shoes and socks off and walked over to one of the water features. Fortunately, it was just about time to go since Kate got ALL wet. We all had a great afternoon together! The next week, Kate had her dance pictures in her recital costumes. For her tap picture, which was first, she had to have her hair curly. Kate spent all afternoon with curlers in her hair. She actually did well with them in; I wasn't sure if she would get frustrated with them. She did great, though, and her hair looked very cute for her tap picture. After tap, she had her ballet picture, and I had to put her hair in a bun. The pictures went well, and I can't wait to see how they turned out. Mama and Uncle Tim arrived at our house on Thursday afternoon in anticipation of Kate's fouth birthday party on Saturday. On Friday, we all took cupcakes to Kate's class at school. Kate chose to make vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting and purple sprinkles. It was a real treat to sing Happy Birthday to Kate with her classmates and watch them all enjoy the cupcakes! Her party was originally scheduled for Saturday at 11:00 AM. All week long they were predicting rain and severe weather for Saturday. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but we had rented a 13' x 13' inflatable for the backyard. We looked at a couple different locations for her party, but nothing worked out. After watching the weather forecast all week, we decided on Friday afternoon to change her party to Saturday evening instead of Saturday morning because the weather looked better then. We all slept in a little bit on Saturday, but when we did get out of bed, we saw that it was gorgeous outside. It had rained in the middle of the night, but the sky was blue and the sun was out! After some quick thinking and planning, we ended up moving the party back to its original time at 11:00 (by now they were predicting bad weather for later Saturday afternoon). We hustled and bustled to get everything ready for a party in just an hour and a half, but we did it. Daddy got the princess castle inflatable set up, and our guests arrived between 11 and 11:30. Besides family, Kate had her friends Jack, Carter, and Megan over to play. The kids (and some adults) jumped on the inflatable for awhile, and then we all enjoyed a yummy lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs. The weather remained beautiful throughout the day, and Kate's birthday party lasted for almost six hours! Talk about a day full of fun! We all had so much fun jumping on the inflatable, and the weather was gorgeous with perfect temperatures and a sunny sky! 3 years, 11 months Kate has had a busy month. At the beginning of February, we had some very nice spring-like weather, so we were able to take advantage of it and play outside. Several afternoons we were able to take Kate to the cul-de-sac behind our house and let her ride her bike. It's much less restrictive than riding on the sidewalk, so she doesn't have to worry quite so much about steering. She does such a great job pedaling now. She has asked us several times if she can ride her bike in the cul-de-sac. One weekend, we took the girls to Dublin Park to play on the playground. Kate had so much fun running around and playing on all the equipment. After she got tired of playing, she suggested that we go get ice cream at Bruster's. We all agreed that was a good idea, so we went to Bruster's, where Kate got her typical strawberry sorbet in a bowl. Yum! The next week, Kate's choir sang during Wednesday night service at church. The 3-year-old choir sang three songs, "Sweet and Wonderful," "This is the Day," and "My God is So Great." As usual, Kate didn't sing a word. But she knows all of the songs and she can sing them at home. We had a very nice Valentine's Day as a family. That morning, we went to decorate cookies with Mommy and Daddy's Sunday school class at church. Kate decorated several heart-shaped cookies with lots of frosting, sprinkles, and chocolate chips. She even got to enjoy one of her creations while we were there. That afternoon, Mommy and Daddy gave Kate her special Valentine's gift. We got her a nice bouquet of pink carnations, which she has proudly displayed on her bedroom dresser. That evening, we had a special Valentine's steak dinner. The following week, Kate got her first serious sickness of the year. She started with a small cough. On Saturday, she went to her friend's birthday party at Chick-fil-a, but she wasn't very interested in playing with the other kids. She was not acting like herself. Well, when we got home, we realized that she had a 103 degree fever! Oops! She rested on the couch most of the day, and she had to miss school on Monday. Mommy took her to the doctor Monday morning, and he thinks it's just a nasty cold. Fortunately, she's no longer running a fever, but she is still trying to get over the yucky cough. We hope and pray that we will all get well and stay well for the next month! 3 years, 10 months Kate has had a fun month! As part of our family tradition, we celebrated New Year's Eve by making fondue. We set up the card table in the living room, and we cooked our yummy dinner in the fondue pot while we watched Shrek on TV. Kate really enjoyed being a part of the tradition this year. With Mommy and Daddy's help, she skewered her meat and veggies and cooked them in the fondue pot. We all enjoyed some fruit with chocolate fondue for dessert! Kate didn't get to stay up until midnight, but she did get to stay up past her regular bedtime. Kate started back to school on Wednesday, January 7. She continues to love going to school three days a week. School has become even more exciting because her class now does show and tell every week. Kate's day for show and tell is Friday. Kate chose what she was going to bring, and she picked out a singing Hallmark card that she has (with hamsters). The kids loved to pass around and listen to her silly card. The next week she chose to bring another singing card...this time it was a Star Wars card that Mommy gave to Daddy for his birthday a couple years ago. Another fun thing that the kids did in school this month was PJ and Pancake day. The kids all got to wear their pajamas to school. They watched a Veggie Tales movie and the teachers cooked pancakes for lunch. Kate thought this was really cool! Besides all of the fun, Kate is really learning a lot in school. She can now recognize all of her letters, and she can even write most of them. Each week of school they study a new letter, and she can write every letter they've learned so far this year. She is also learning Spanish in school, and her teachers have said that she does a great job participating and saying her colors in Spanish. Kate is also continuing in dance class this year. Kate is doing so well in the class and continues to get Star Dancer almost every week (a few of the girls in the class get named Star Dancer if they do really well that week). We're so proud of Kate and all that she is learning! A fun thing that we did this month was to go to the Early Works children's museum in Huntsville. Kate loved to play at the water table, crawl through the big cushy blocks with Anna, play musical instruments, do puppet shows, and just run around and have fun! We all had a really great time. The next week, Mama and Uncle Tim came to visit us for Anna's birthday. Kate was excited because we got to go to the "new" (remodeled) airport to pick them up. She waited in the chairs and entertained everyone until Mama and Tim came through security. She kept them busy from the time they got here until the time they left a week later. Kate has been looking forward to Anna's first birthday party for quite some time, and she was such a great big sister during the party. Kate, Jack, and Carter ate their lunch on the little picnic table that we brought in the house. After lunch, Kate helped Anna open some of her presents, and Kate was just as excited to play with the dolls and other toys as Anna was. The girls love to play with toys together...as long as they are different toys. Kate really is a great big sister, though, and she is always watching out for Anna. If Anna has something that Kate doesn't think she should have, Kate will take it away from her and hide it in another room. I find things in the strangest places now! Kate loves to hold her sister, although Anna doesn't seem to like it too much...maybe because Kate holds her tight and doesn't let go! Otherwise, they get along pretty well. We had a great start to the new year and are excited about the year ahead! 3 years, 9 months Merry Christmas! It's been an exciting and very busy December for us! We ended November by decorating the house and putting up our Christmas tree. Daddy spent one day putting up the outside lights, and Mommy and Kate spent the afternoon decorating the inside of the house. Kate helped me figure out where to put all of the decorations this year. The next day we decorated our Christmas tree. Kate was very excited to put the ornaments on this year, and she decorated the bottom part of the tree all by herself. She loved seeing all of her Christmas ornaments and hanging them on the tree just right. She even got to get on Daddy's shoulders and put the angel on the Christmas tree again this year (a family tradition from when Mommy was a little girl). Later that week, we attended the Hanging of the Greens ceremony at our church, where the Nativity was brought in, garland was hung, etc. All of the children's choirs sang, and Kate's choir sang two songs. Of course, Kate didn't sing again, but she did stand on the stage with the other boys and girls. On Friday of that week, we went to the Happy Birthday Jesus party at our church. Kate loved watching the Charlie Brown Christmas movie (Kate told us to be quiet during the movie), eating chicken fingers for dinner, watching a puppet show, and doing crafts. The highlights were sitting on Santa's lap and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus (and eating cake too)! She loved talking to Santa, and she told him that she wanted a Mickey book for Christmas. The next day we went to the Christmas Parade in downtown Huntsville. It was cold, but we all drank hot chocolate and stayed nice and warm! That evening, Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter came over for our annual Christmas dinner. Kate got a beautiful red dress with her name monogrammed on it (thank you, Mrs. Heather!). We all had a good time playing, eating, and playing some more together! Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim arrived on December 11. Kate woke up that morning and began asking me if they were here yet. She had to call them a couple times to ask them where they were. She was very excited when they finally arrived around 5:30 that evening! Mama and Papa came early enough so they could see Kate's preschool Chrismtas program on December 12. Her class sang three songs by themselves, and they had jingle bells to shake too. Kate didn't sing a single word, but she did occasionally shake her bells. Maybe one day she'll actually surprise us and start singing! One place she isn't shy is dance class. The following week Kate had her dance open house where all of the parents got to see her class dance. Kate demonstarted a flip, a bracelet, and then the class did their ballet and tap routines. Kate is doing such a great job in dance, and we enjoyed watching her perform. She is really starting to learn her routine because there were several moves that she was anticipating before the teacher called them out. We look forward to her recital in the spring! The next day was her last day of school before Christmas. Her class had a pizza party and each student got to decorate his/her own cookie. Kate had a great time and brought home lots of goodies from other kids in her class. She was excited to be off school for a couple weeks and have lots of playtime at home because one evening before bedtime, she wanted to thank God for Christmas break. We had lots of fun in the week leading up to Christmas. Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim were still here, and Kate kept everyone busy. Kate again said that she wanted a Mickey book for Christmas, and she also made it clear that she didn't want anything else. When we asked why, she said because she already has lots of toys. How sweet! Christmas Eve was a busy day. We woke up early, and Kate helped to make a birthday cake for Jesus. She also helped make lots of desserts for the next day, including Christmas cookies. She had fun cutting out the cookies with cookie cutters and putting frosting on the cookies with Aunt Stacie and Uncle Tim. That evening, we all attended the 6 pm Candelight Christmas Eve service at Asbury. It was a nice way to stop and remember the true reason for Christmas and celebrate Christ's birth. Kate was very good during the service, and then we all came home and ate lots of yummy food. Kate was wound up that evening in anticpation of Santa Claus coming. I think it was after 10:00 before she finally settled down and went to sleep. Fortunately, Kate slept until about 9:00 the next morning, though, so we didn't get an early start. We spent several hours opening gifts. Kate was so excited to see all of the presents that Santa left for her. She opened quite a few gifts, and asked to play with several of them. After about half of her gifts, she got tired and took a break while the adults opened some of their gifts. Then she came back for Round #2 and opened more gifts. She got so many great things for Christmas (thank you, everyone!) and she has been playing with everything. Her big gift from Santa Claus this year was a dollhouse that's even taller than she is. She had so much fun playing with it and all of her other new toys. Gramma and Grampa came that afternoon, and we all enjoyed a big Christmas dinner together. It was a wonderful way to spend the day together with all of our family. 3 years, 8 months We ended October with Halloween. After Kate got out of school, she wanted to help Daddy carve our pumpkin...until she saw the gooey seeds inside. She wasn't interested in helping anymore after that. She did want to roast the pumpkin seeds and eat them, though, because they had pumpkin seeds in school earlier that day. That evening, we went trick-or-treating. In the past, we have always gone to Trunk-or-Treat at our church, but they didn't have it this year. So we invited Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter to come to our house. We ordered pizza for dinner, and then the kids went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. We found a nice cul-de-sac with a lot of houses, and the kids got TONS of candy from there! In fact, Kate even told me that her bucket was too heavy and she couldn't carry it anymore. Before we went trick-or-treating, Kate said that Mama was going to say "trick-or-treat," and then Mama would give Kate the candy. When we were going around to houses, Kate told us that her mouth couldn't say "trick-or-treat." It sure could eat lots of candy, though! Kate chose to be Tinkerbell for Halloween this year. Originally, she just wanted to be a fairy, but then she narrowed it down to Tinkerbell. Kate even got to wear glitter in her hair and sparkly makeup! After Mama and Uncle Tim left a couple days later, we had to get ready for our mini-vacation to Gatlinburg with Gramma and Grampa. We left after Kate got out of school on Wednesday, and she watched movies during the entire drive there. She was very excited to see the cabin that was going to be our home for the next four days! On Thursday, we went out for a pancake breakfast, and then we walked around downtown Gatlinburg. We saw how they made taffy, and Kate even got to buy some to bring home. We walked in the candy store, and she was absolutely amazed. She said, "Maybe I can get some candy." We had already decided that she could, and she picked out an assorted box with taffy, lollipops, and gummy bears. When we went back in the candy store later that weekend, Kate promptly informed us that her candy box was getting empty and she needed more stuff for it. Kate really enjoyed going to the aquarium on Friday morning. She loved seeing the sharks and the sting rays. She even got to touch a horseshoe crab and a sting ray! On Saturday afternoon, Mommy and Daddy were able to take Kate out for a couple hours by ourselves for a special time with just her. We went back to downtown Gatlinburg and rode the aerial tram up to Ober Gatlinburg. Then we got to ride the ski lift up to do the alpine slide, which was a first for both Mommy (at least that she can remember) and Kate! It was freezing cold outside at the top of the mountain, but we all had a blast! It was such a fun afternoon spent together! We arrived home on Sunday, and we got right back into our normal routine. On Tuesday, Kate had dance class, but there were only five little girls in her class (perhaps because it was Veteran's Day). Whatever the reason, we appreciated it because her teachers let the parents watch the girls dance for most of the class. Our typical shy daughter was not shy in dance! She did all of her ballet routine as well as her tap routine. Her teachers even asked her to demo some specific moves, and she did a great job! We really enjoyed being able to see Kate participate in something that she loves so much! On the Friday before Thanksgiving, Kate celebrated her Thanksgiving Feast at preschool. The children made their own placemats for the feast. This year's placemat said, "What Kate is thankful for..." and Kate listed Baby Anna, stars, chicken, sky, and Mommy. We were talking about it in the car on the way home from school, and Kate became very upset because she hadn't written Daddy on her placemat. We know that Kate is thankful for both Mommy and Daddy, and we are certainly thankful for her! At the Thanksgiving Feast, the children enjoyed a true feast of food provided by the parents. The kids also made special Indian headbands, and the teachers gave the kids special Indian names based on their personalities. Kate's was "Singing Sparrow," because even though she is typically shy, she loves to sing during free playtime at school! Later that evening, we went to the annual lighting of the Huntsville Christmas Tree at Bridge Street. They have a very large tree outdoors in the middle of the shopping area. It was FREEZING cold this year, but we made hot chocolate, bundled up, and went anyway. After some technical difficulties, they got the Christmas tree lit and Kate saw Santa Claus. She was able to have her picture taken with him, and an elf gave her a candy cane. It continued to be a busy weekend because we went to the Advent Workshop at church that Sunday. This is the first year that we have attended, and we will definitely go back! Anna spent the time in nursery, so Mommy and Daddy were able to have some individual time with Kate. We ate dinner, saw a puppet show, and then it was craft time. We chose to build a candy house, which Kate loved helping with! She helped put frosting (at least, what she didn't eat) on graham crackers, and then helped Daddy stick them to our "house." Then we all decorated the house with marshmallows, gumdrops, skittles, candy canes, etc. What a beautiful house we ended up with, and Kate is very proud to display it at home. We also made an advent wreath, which we plan to light during the advent season. To end November, we celebrated Thanksgiving on November 27. We spent the day at Gramma and Grampa's house in Murfreesboro. Great-Gramma, Great-Grampa, and Great-Uncle Randal drove in for the day, and Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave came as well. We all enjoyed a nice turkey dinner with all the traditional side dishes! We are so thankful for our girls and the wonderful times we got to spend with family and friends this month! 3 years, 7 months It's been a busy month for Kate! We began October by attending the Madison Street Festival. Kate loved watching the parade and getting lots of candy! At the street festival, Kate was able to play some carnival games and do lots of crafts. The highlight for her this year was being able to go on the giant inflatables that they had set up. She played on the giant slide, the big moonbounce, and a cool circus train they had set up. The next week was fall break, so we enjoyed the opportunity to stay at home and not be quite so busy. We were able to go to the library during the week, which has become a fun thing for us to do. Kate loves reading, so we like to spend time at the library reading books. Kate enjoys checking out books (and movies) to bring home as well. After fall break was over, it was back to our regular busy routine. The next weekend, we went up to Murfreesboro to help Aunt Kellie with some things at her house. Kate and Anna spent all day Saturday with Gramma and Grampa, and they all had a great time playing together. On Sunday, the girls came over to Aunt Kellie's house, where Kate decided she was going to be Alford's babysitter (Alford is Aunt Kellie's cat). Unfortunately, Alford had to stay at home without his babysitter when we left. Kate's choir class sang for the first time this year in the sanctuary on that Wednesday, October 15. Mommy helps in her choir class, so she knew what songs the kids were going to sing. Her choir (Joyful Noise) sang two songs that evening - "I Can Clap" and "Oh How I Love Jesus/Jesus Loves Me." As usual, Kate didn't sing, but she looked beautiful standing on the stage! :) A couple days later, we had tickets for Disney on Ice. Kate was looking forward to seeing ice skating all week long. We saw Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and the characters from Lion King, Little Mermaid, Lilo & Stitch, and Peter Pan. Kate got a big box of popcorn, which she was so excited to get, and we enjoyed eating that while watching the show. It was such a fun time for all of us; Kate's favorite characters from the night were Ariel and Tinkerbell. Kate even picked out a Tinkerbell t-shirt to buy. The very next day, we took our annual trip to Tate Farms. Kate remembered when we went last year, and the first thing she wanted to do was go to the corn crib, and she would not be deterred from her mission to get there. She had such a good time jumping in the corn crib and having us bury her in the corn. Then Kate wanted to go pet the animals. She asked to hold a bunny rabbit, and she held several during our time at Tate Farms. Kate also got to "play" with the goats. She tried to direct a goat into a small house (the "Goatel") that they had there, and the goat actually followed her and went into the house! Kate tried to follow him in and close the door behind her, but Mommy didn't like the idea of Kate and a goat being alone in a 4 by 6 foot house. I wonder why! Some other highlights were the hay maze, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and riding the corn train. Kate enjoyed picking out our pumpkin this year too. We went on the hayride, and Kate helped pick out a large pumpkin for the family, and then Kate picked out a smaller one for herself. She picked out a "lumpy" one, and she's very proud of it. She also wanted to buy tiny pumpkins for Anna, Mama, and Uncle Tim (since they were going to visit us for Halloween). As always, it was a fun day spent together as a family! The next Tuesday, we took Kate to dance class as usual. Her teacher surprised us, though, and said that we'd be able to watch the girls do a short ballet routine. What a treat that was to see Kate dance! Believe it or not, she acutally performed several of the moves that her teacher called out, and we really enjoyed getting to see her. Now, she loves to show off her dance moves at home; some of her favorites are first position (heels kiss; hold your beach ball), arabesque, plie, pencil roll, and bracelet. She continues to LOVE dance class! On Friday of that week, Kate had her fall festival at preschool. She was looking forward to it all week because they were going to have inflatables set up for the kids to jump on. Kate got to jump on a slide, a gumball machine, and a train. After the inflatables, the kids came back to their classroom and had a yummy snack of cookies, chips, and apples. And of course they got to bring home goody bags with candy. Yum! That night, we went to Daddy's work for their annual Halloween party. Kate dressed up as Tinkerbell, and Anna dressed up as a flower. We went to Lockheed and ate pizza, and then it was time for the costume parade. The kids got in a line and walked around in a parade to show off their costumes. Then it was time for popcorn and the movie, which was "Bedknobs and Broomsticks." It was a fun night! The next day was a fun day, too...Mama and Uncle Tim drove out from Wichita to visit us! Kate was so excited to see everybody, and we've had a fun visit so far. Aunt Kellie was able to join us for several days, so we had a full house. We celebrated Mommy's 30th birthday while they were here. Kate wanted to help Mommy open her cards and birthday presents, and she also wanted to help blow out the candles on my cake! It was special to get to share by birthday with my wonderful family! Kate is looking forward to Halloween on Friday. She has already informed us that Mama is going to say "Trick or Treat" and then give her the candy. We shall see! We've had such a fun and busy month, but Kate has also presented us with a bit of a challenge this month. I think it's finally time for her to give up her afternoon nap. She is still tired in the afternoon and she still needs a nap, but if she takes a nap, she isn't tired for bedtime at night. We've had several nights this month that she's been awake until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. One night, when we were staying at Gramma's house, Kate was wide awake until 3 o'clock in the morning! Fortunately, that only happened once, and she seems to do fine at night as long as she doesn't take a nap. At least she still rests, which gives Mommy a much-needed break in the afternoons. Kate is such a wonderful little girl, but she sure does have a lot of energy! 3 years, 6 months Kate is officially three and a half years old! Wow! She's getting so big, and it seems like there are so many activities for her to do now. Speaking of which, Kate started dance class on Tuesday, September 2. She's taking dance at Southern Sensations for one hour every Tuesday. She was so excited to start dance class, and she had so much fun while she was there! There are about 12 little girls (and one boy) in her class. The class is for three- and four-year-olds, and they learn ballet, tap, and tumbling. We didn't get to see Kate dance because they closed the studio door, but I spoke with one of her teachers afterward, and she said Kate did great. Kate was very shy and quiet at first, but then she talked to Miss Taylor and did some of the moves. She was so proud of herself after class! She continues to do really well in dance. I was able to peak in on one of her classes for a few minutes, and it was adorable to see Kate tapping in her tap shoes with her hands on her hips! Her teacher said that she doesn't talk at all, but she is really learning the dance steps. Most importantly, though, Kate LOVES going to dance class! Kate continues to enjoy choir as well. On Kate's second day of choir at church, she was chosen to be Ms. Carolyn's special helper for the evening. She still doesn't sing during practice, but she knows all of the songs and enjoys singing them at home. While she may not sing at choir, she is becoming much more involved at school. She loves school this year, and her teachers tell me that she participates in a lot of the songs and fingerplays now. One day in the middle of the month, we were playing on the floor and Kate stopped and said that we needed to say a "quick prayer." Kate told me to repeat after her, and this was her prayer: "God, You are always here with us. You are here with me. You protect me. Amen." It brought tears to my eyes as I was repeating this precious prayer after my daughter! Kate says these short prayers quite often now, both randomly during the day and at mealtimes. In the middle of September, Kate went to a 5th birthday party for her friend, Megan. She had so much fun! The party was at Megan's house, and she had a carnival theme. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, so we had to have the carnival in the garage...but it was still fun! After the kids arrived, they all got to decorate goody bags with stickers and markers. Then it was time for games. Kate did a bean bag toss, a ring toss, a fishing game, a lollipop tree, and Mr. John even made a balloon poodle for her! At each game, she won prizes to put in her goody bag. After that, it was time for dinner and cake. Mrs. Christie let the kids each decorate their own cupcake. Kate chose a white cupcake, white frosting, and lots of sprinkles. She then proceeded to eat all of the frosting and sprinkles off the top of her cupcake and none of the cake itself, as usual. And since she was decorating her own, when she ran out of sprinkles, she just added more! To top off a fun carnival party, Kate participated in a cake walk, where she won a bag of chocolate chip cookies. Daddy returned from his long business trip that week, and so we decided to spend some fun family time together the next weekend. For several months, Kate has asked us when we can go to Monte Sano mountain for a picnic. We were driving along the interstate one day, and she could see the mountain in the distance, so she asked what it was. When I told her, she wanted to go immediately! Well, we were not going to have a picnic in the 90+ degree weather, so I told her we could go when the weather cooled off. Fortunately, fall has arrived, and we were able to plan a picnic. We packed our picnic lunch, and we went to Monte Sano State Park after church on Sunday. We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather! Daddy grilled hamburgers for lunch. After lunch, it was time for dessert. Kate helped Mommy make cupcakes with chocolate frosting on the day before, so we had yummy cupcakes for dessert. After lunch, Kate asked if she could play on the playground that they had. She played on the swings, slides, seesaw, and climbing bars. After we went to see the lookout (which Kate didn't seem very thrilled with), Kate spent a good amount of time "performing" at the amphitheatre they have at the park. We spent over four hours at the park, and we all had so much fun! At the end of September, Kate was able to go to another birthday party for our good friends, Jack (5 years) and Carter (almost 3 years). Since Mrs. Heather and Mr. Jason are building a house and currently living in an apartment, they decided to make it easy and have one birthday party for both boys this year. The party was held at JumpZone, where they have six giant inflatables. Kate had a blast jumping/sliding/climbing on the inflatables for over an hour! We were all worn out after so much playing, and then we went to the party room to sing Happy Birthday to the boys. We all enjoyed yummy cake and got to watch Jack and Carter open their gifts. It was so much fun to celebrate this special day with these special little boys! This has been quite a busy month. We are looking forward to cooler weather and the fall season ahead! 3 years, 5 months We began the month with a spontaneous visit from Aunt Kellie. Kate was so excited that she was able to come; we took her to our favorite restaurant (Rosie's), and we had lots of playtime at home too. Kate insisted on playing with Aunt Kellie all by herself in her bedroom while everyone else was downstairs. Finally Mommy got to come up and play too, and Kate thought it would be fun to roll us (literally) across the floor. It was quite a sight! Kate also enjoyed using Aunt Kellie's camera to take pictures. She must have taken over 100 pictures in one day (half of which were pictures of herself)! A couple days later, we flew up to Syracuse for the family reunion. As always, Kate was a wonderful traveler. She was very excited to go to GiGi's house and play up there with everybody. GiJo had a special grape tomato plant at his house, and he saved the ripe tomatoes for Kate to pick when she arrived. Well, Kate loved picking the tomatoes...but I think she loved eating them even more! She ate every single tomato that she picked that day! Another highlight of going to Syracuse was the food, especially the ice cream. We went to an ice cream place whose specialties were soft serve red raspberry ice cream and black raspberry yogurt. Kate wanted the black raspberry yogurt (the purple ice cream). She took one bite of it, though, and said, "I don't like the purple ice cream; it tastes like MEDICINE!" After that, she really enjoyed the red raspberry ice cream that was pink. She continued to have a great time out in Syracuse, seeing all the family and eating great food (hot dogs, macaroni, cookies, ice cream, etc.). The day after we arrived home from Syracuse, Kate had her first day of preschool on Wednesday, August 13. This is her second year attending Asbury Child Development Center. She is now in the 3-year-old class, and attends on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Kate was so excited about school starting again this year, although it was a little hard to help her understand that she would have different teachers and kids in her class this year. She got ready for school like such a big girl, and we even had plenty of time to take pictures both at home and at school beforehand. Since we were in Syracuse, we missed the open house, so we didn't meet Kate's teachers until the day school started. I think she's going to have a great class this year! Her teachers are Ms. Holly and Ms. Celynn, and Kate has 14 children in her class. She has had a wonderful first two weeks, and she gets so excited when I tell her it's a school day. Asbury held a Back to School Bash on August 20. Kate had a blast! They had four large inflatables, free ice cream, cotton candy, popcorn, snow cones, etc. We arrived at the bash shortly after it began, and Kate went straight to the inflatables. She had such a good time running and jumping on those. After awhile, we decided to eat dinner, and then we could get the yummy treats. Immediately after our barbecue dinner, we went to get some ice cream. Kate was insistent on having cotton candy also, so we stood in line for cotton candy after we finished our ice cream. Kate tasted the cotton candy, but then she gave the rest of it to Mommy because she said it was too "hairy." I guess that's a good way to describe it! Grampa had business meetings in Huntsville on Thursday and Friday of that same week, so Gramma and Grampa came down on Wednesday night and met us at the Back to School Bash. The next day, while Grampa was working, we went to the Botanical Gardens with Gramma. We got to the Gardens around 11:30, and we stayed for six hours! Kate remembered the butterfly exhibit from when we were there a couple months ago, so that is the first place that she wanted to go. She insisted on trying to touch a butterfly, and she was finally successful with that. Some of the other highlights from the day were the sandbox and the play area with the balls. It was a really fun day spent with Gramma! One new thing for Kate this year is that she will begin taking beginning dance (ballet, tap, and tumbling) classes in September. We went to the store to buy her shoes and leotard, and Kate loved to try on the leotard. She picked out one that when she tried it on, she said "Mommy, I look like like the Olympics!" Yes, we have been watching a lot of Olympics around here, and Kate loves watching the gymnastics, swimming, and diving. Kate had her first children's choir rehearsal at Asbury, something else new for her this year, on August 27. She is in the 3-year-old choir ("Joyful Noise"), and they will perform at some of the Wednesday evening church services throughout the year. She loved going to choir and was excited to meet her teacher, Mrs. Carolyn. Of course, in typical Kate fashion, she was extrememly shy and didn't sing anything...she was even so shy that she didn't tell Mrs. Carolyn her name. On our way home from choir, I asked her why she didn't say her name. Her response, "I didn't have to; Mrs. Carolyn already knew my name, she said it was Kate!" Kate continues to love to hold Anna. She has also started to want to pick her up and carry her around the room, as well as helping her to walk. Anna thinks this is hilarious! Kate is also very protective and wants to make sure that Anna doesn't play with the wrong toys. If Anna is playing with one of Kate's smaller toys, she will promptly take it away from her, saying it's "too small." She's such a good big sister! Next month promises to be hectic with dance, choir, and school all going on at once, but we know Kate will have a blast and it will be fun to watch her grow in these activities! 3 years, 4 months Kate had a wonderful time in Wichita! Papa bought her a new princess fishing pole, and Kate was eager to go fishing in the lake behind their house. One afternoon, Papa and Kate went outside, and within a few minutes, Kate caught her first (and last) fish! She kept asking if she had caught a fish yet, and when she reeled in her line, we realized that she had indeed caught one. I think she was excited to catch the fish, but I don't think she expected a real live fish to be on there. After Papa got the fish off of her line, she decided that she was done fishing and was ready to go in the house. Another fun thing that we were able to do was to go to the park and feed the ducks. We stopped at a small pond and tried offering the ducks our Cheerios, but they really weren't interested. So we went to another area and tried again, but still no interest. So we decided to take a walk to see what else we could find. Well, we found some hungry geese! We walked to an area that had tons of geese, and as soon as they saw us coming, they started running toward us and making LOTS of noise. Kate looked at Mama and said, "Um, I think I want to get ice cream now." We ended up staying to feed the geese for awhile, which Kate enjoyed as long as Daddy was holding her. :) THEN we went to get ice cream. We also visited Tanganyika Wildlife Park, an interactive park that had its grand opening while we were there. Although the park was still under construction, we saw quite a few animals. Kate was able to pet a baby hedgehog, some bunny rabbits, a tortoise, a baby goat, and a camel. She even wanted to ride the camel...until it stood up and she saw how tall it was! On Thursday, July 3, we went to a concert and fireworks show by a small lake by a shopping center in Wichita. We all enjoyed our picnic dinner by the water, and then we relaxed and waited for it to get dark. Kate was a bit unsure of what to expect with the fireworks this year. She started the evening with her sunglasses on (as we all did), except she didn't remove them when it got dark. In fact, she wore her sunglasses through about half of the fireworks show. We had also told Kate that the fireworks would be loud, so she made sure she had her ears covered. Around 9:00, Kate laid down on the blanket and covered her ears (while wearing her sunglasses). She actually stayed like this until the fireworks started...at 10:15! She was perfectly content to watch the fireworks in this position. They were having some technical problems, so there was a break in the show about halfway through. At that point, Kate got up and took off her sunglasses. When the fireworks resumed, she sat down and watched them like a normal person would...and loved them! The next night, the actual 4th, we ended up sitting in Mama and Papa's driveway and watching the fireworks go off (illegally) around the neighborhood. It was a fun time! We drove to Kansas City the next day and spent the night in a hotel before flying home on Sunday. We must travel quite a bit, because Kate acted like she owned the place. The funny thing about this trip is Kate called it a "hutel." When Daddy corrected her and said it was a "hotel," Kate replied, "No, Daddy. It can be either a hotel or a hutel." We had a great trip home, and we were glad to be home and settled. On Friday after we returned home, Daddy's company had it's annual picnic at Southern Adventures. Kate had a fun time riding on the go carts (a first!) with Daddy and then again with Mommy. Mommy also took her to ride on a very small roller coaster, which she loved! Kate rode on some other small carnival rides; she also got to play on a kiddie waterslide and in the wading pool. She tried the big kiddie slide one time, but she either wasn't sure how to go down it or she got scared and tried to back out at the last instant. After seeing her go through the opening at the top, we waited and waited for her to come out the bottom, and finally she comes down on her back, head-first with her feet in the air. Not the way she intended to come down! :) We stayed until the park closed at 9:00, and Kate still wasn't ready to leave! Another fun thing that we did this month was go to an ice cream party for our Sunday School class. Everybody brought homemade ice cream, and we made peach ice cream with homegrown peaches. Yum! One family brought their new puppy, and Kate loved to chase the puppy around. If she wasn't following the puppy, she wanted to know where it was at all times. She also enjoyed playing with a couple of older girls. There were two girls who were both eight years old, and Kate wanted to do everything they did. Kate has quite the imagination lately! She's had imaginary friends in the past, but only for a day or two at a time. For the past week or two, Kate has had three imaginary dogs. Their names are Ali (girl), Maddie (girl), and Pad (boy). Ali is a little dog (who barks a lot), and Maddie and Pad are big dogs. It's fun to have small glimpses into Kate's personality! Next month will be another exciting and busy month since Kate will begin her second year of preschool in just two short weeks! 3 years, 3 months Wow, it's been a busy month! On June 9 - 13, Kate attended Mommy & Me Mission Week at our church. Anna spent the morning in nursery, and Kate and Mommy spent three hours each morning learning about missions. On Monday, we did mission work in our community, and we went to the local fire department to help wash a fire truck! It was so neat to see 25 three- to five-year-olds washing a fire truck and learning to do it for God. It was so hot that day, but Kate had a great time! On Tuesday, we made birthday cards for foster children in the area. Then we got to have some fun with water day, where Kate played in a little swimming pool and sprinkler on the church playground with her friends. On Wednesday, we made rainbow mobiles, and then we took them to the residents of a local nursing home. We also shared a snack with the residents and sang several songs. Of course, Kate was too shy to actually sing the songs, but she did stand up with the rest of the kids. On Thursday, a soldier who fought in Iraq came to talk to the kids, and then we put together care packages to send to another soldier who's currently in Afghanistan. Kate enjoyed going to Wal-Mart the previous night to pick out stuff to send to the soldier. Two of the things she picked out were goldfish and sour gummi worms. The kids also got to make special cards to put in the care package. On Friday, we had a fun day. After doing a prayer walk around the church, the kids got to go into the fellowship hall and play on two giant inflatables. Kate had so much fun (and so did Mommy)! We played on the inflatables for a little while, and then we had a pizza lunch. While we were eating lunch, Daddy surprised us by getting off work early and coming to play too. Kate didn't want any more lunch; she wanted to take Daddy to play on the inflatables. We ended up staying to play for another two hours! We all had so much fun playing together! On Saturday, Kate went to another one of her friend's (Harrison's) third birthday party. The party was held at Kid's Kingdom, a giant playground, and the theme was pirates. Kate really enjoyed playing on the large playground, and then we all enjoyed cake and ice cream. Kate even got a pirate's sword and patch for a party favor, and she was quite the expert pirate by the end of the day...aaargh!! :) The next week was busy as we spent our days preparing to go to Mama and Papa's house. Daddy had to travel to Hawaii for business, so Mommy, Kate, and Anna flew to Wichita. Kate was the expert traveler; she did a great job with all of the driving and flying that we did that day! She was very excited for Anna to have her first airplane ride, and she did her big sister "duty" and told her all about the airplane, pilot, etc. While we were at Mama and Papa's house, we had lots of fun! On our first full day in Wichita, we went to the zoo. Kate was so excited to go to the zoo, and she had two special requests: 1) to see the gorillas and 2) to NOT feed the giraffes, because she didn't want them to lick her hands (as they've done in the past). Fortunately, Kate was able to see the gorillas up close that day and she really loved seeing the animals. At the zoo, we also saw the lions, zebras, hippos, and giraffes (but not TOO close). It ended up being a warm afternoon, so we didn't stay too long. Since it was so warm there, we also enjoyed many sunny days at the pool where Kate got to show Mama, Papa, and Tim how she could swim all by herself! Kate has certainly enjoyed playing with Mama, Papa, and Tim. She kept them all busy because her favorite thing to say was, "Come!," constantly leading them around to whatever she wanted to do. Mama bought Kate a little ballerina tutu, and Kate has loved wearing it around and pretending to be "My Pretty Ballerina." One evening, we even had to all stand in a line (and Kate told us if we weren't in a straight line) and dance to the music. Kate pretended to be the teacher, and she showed all of us how to dance...we certainly know who the boss is! Her favorite type of music to dance to was rock and roll and every time Papa would change the song, she would say, "No Papa, I want to hear the rock and roll song!" :) Stay tuned for Kate's update next month to read about the second week of our trip to Wichita! 3 years, 2 months At the beginning of the month, Mommy, Kate, and Anna took a trip to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. We've been having beautiful spring weather, and this day couldn't have been more perfect! We spent about three hours at the gardens before we had to get home and get Kate down for a nap before swim lessons. We started our day at the Children's gardens, where Kate's favorite part was to play in the small maze. She loved it so much that she was even able to help Mommy find her way out when I got "lost." Our next stop was to the butterfly house, and we probably spent close to an hour in there alone. It had just opened the previous weekend, and Kate loved seeing all of the butterflies flying around. She tried to reach out and touch them, and she was very excited when one landed on her hairbow! She also saw some turtles and was able to touch those, and she saw a snake inside a glass tank. The gardens also happened to have their big dinosaur uproar exhibit, so there were life-size dinosaurs scattered throughout. We ended our day by walking around the rest of the gardens for a little while and letting Kate play in the small water area. Fortunately, Mommy brought a change of clothes, so she didn't have to wear her wet clothes all the way home! We had a really great morning, and we can't wait to go back with Daddy! Uncle Tim arrived on Friday, and he was able to stay with us for almost three weeks. Kate also had her last week of swim lessons this month. It's amazing to see how much she has improved over the course of the five week lessons. She can put her ears in the water, do arm circles, float on her back, and jump in the pool. At the beginning of the lessons, Kate did NOT want to jump in. One day she decided that she would do it, and she jumped in all by herself. She still didn't want to go underwater, so her teacher caught her. On the last day of lessons, Kate said that her favorite thing from swim lessons was to jump in, so she got to jump in at least three times that day! We're excited to be able to swim in our neighborhood pool this summer! Kate was quite accident-prone this month. One Saturday, she was walking on the sidewalk and tripped and fell, skinning both knees. The very next day, she was running around outside, fell face-first on the concrete, and bumped her teeth. As it turned out, she knocked her front right tooth slightly out of place. We were able to see the dentist Monday morning, where Kate had her very first dental x-ray. She did great sitting very still, and they got a good picture of her teeth. The dentist thought that Kate might be able to push it back into place by sucking her thumb, and that's exactly what happened. Whew! Mommy had emergency surgery to have her appendix removed that week as well. Mommy was told not to lift more than 10-15 pounds for two weeks, which meant I couldn't even pick up Kate. That was hard at times, but Kate did a great job and was very understanding! She even asked me several times if my tummy felt better yet. She is so loving and caring! On Mother's Day, we all went to Macaroni Grill to celebrate. Since Mommy had just had surgery a few days earlier, Daddy was responsible for getting Kate ready to go. Well, Kate was being less than cooperative that morning. She did not want to get dressed, and she made that fact quite clear when she said, "I'm not getting dressed, and I don't want to hear anybody talking about getting dressed." Okay, then. We did finally manage to make it out of the house, and I had a very enjoyable and relaxing Mother's Day! Luckily Kate did extremely well during the week with Mommy not feeling well while Daddy was at work. The first day that Daddy was at work, Mommy told Kate that she couldn't go up the stairs to put her down for her nap, so maybe she could just have "rest time" downstairs. Kate said, "No, I'm tired, I'll put myself down for a nap." She then proceeded to walk upstairs, go into her room, and wasn't heard from for a few hours! She did this two more days before Mommy was well enough to walk up the stairs again. The next weekend, since Uncle Tim was still visiting us, we decided to all go to a Tennessee Valley Vipers (arena football) game. We weren't sure how Kate would do, but she had a great time. She loved having a hamburger, her own tub of popcorn, and some of Mommy's ice cream. We were able to stay for the whole game, and as we were leaving, Kate said more than once that she had fun. When she was going to bed that night (at almost 11:30), she and Daddy were talking about the day, and Kate said her favorite part of the game was the food! Tuesday, May 20 was Kate's last day of preschool for this year. It has been amazing to see how much Kate has learned and grown this year! To celebrate their last day, her class had an ice cream party. Kate also had lots of fun walking to the special park near the church, where they got to play on the playground and eat lunch. A definite highlight for Kate! Mommy, Kate, Anna, and Uncle Tim all went to Big Spring Park the next day to enjoy a picnic lunch, feed the ducks, and blow bubbles. Kate had such a great time, and the weather was gorgeous! That weekend we officially kicked off the summer season by going to the pool on Saturday. The water was FREEZING cold, but it didn't seem to bother Kate at all. She loved splashing in the pool, swimming in her inflatable ring, and jumping in with Daddy! Mama, Aunt Kellie, and Aunt Stacie came down to spend Memorial Day with us. What a fun day we had! After lunch, we decided to try going to the pool again. Fortunately, two days of sunny and very warm weather warmed the water up enough so it was comfortable enough for all of us to get in. A huge accomplishment for Kate is that she put her face under water today...and LOVED it! She was so proud of herself, and she kept wanting to put her face in the water over and over again! We've decided that we have a little fish on our hands! Kate continues to do great with Anna and is so helpful to Mommy and Daddy. It seems some of the novelty of a new baby has worn off, though, because now if Mommy is holding Anna and Kate wants Mommy to play with her, she'll say, "Mommy, give that thing to Daddy and come play!" or maybe, "Put that thing down and come over here." Luckily, Kate does really wonderful with "that thing" and Anna continues to just love to watch her big sister dance and sing. It's been a very fun month, and we're looking forward to another fun month ahead as summer begins! 3 years, 1 month Wow, it's been a busy month! Kate enjoyed having so much company here for her birthday party and for Anna's baptism. On Monday after Anna was baptized, Kate developed a fever. She was dancing and singing with GiGi on Monday morning, and then she just laid down and wasn't acting like herself. Her temperature got up to 103 degrees! Fortunately, she had no other symptoms, but she was pretty wiped out for about three days. That Friday, Kate had her three-year checkup. This was her first appointment where she didn't have to get any shots. She did a great job sitting on the exam table and talking to the doctor, and he said that she's around a four-year-old level developmentally. We said goodbye to Mama, GiGi, and Uncle Tim on Sunday. Between Kate being sick and the weather being so cold and rainy, we didn't do too many special things while they were here. We did spend lots of quality time together, though, and Kate really enjoyed them being here. The next Friday, we were supposed to go to movie night at Daddy's work. However, since there were severe storms moving into the area, they cancelled it. Since we had already told Kate about movie night, we knew she'd be very disappointed to hear that it was cancelled. So, on his way home from work, Daddy picked up pizza and the movie "Enchanted." We ate pizza on snack trays in the living room. Then we turned off all of the lights and watched the movie. Kate really enjoyed watching the movie. We even made popcorn, so Kate had her very own bowl of popcorn to go along with the movie. It was a fun night spent together as a family! Kate had her spring program at school on April 17. The theme was Across America, and the children had to wear red, white, and blue. Kate looked adorable in her festive dress and special patriotic crown that she made in school. Although Kate didn't sing at the program (she knew the song because she sang it at home), she did turn around when she was supposed to during the song. This was definitely an improvement over her Christmas program, and we look forward to seeing her do even better next year! Since the weather has been so nice lately, we took the opportunity to take Kate to the greenway to ride her bike one weekend. She was actually able to pedal all by herself for a few seconds, but she got tired quickly. It will take a lot more practice, but I think Kate will really enjoy her bike. After Kate got tired of riding, we walked along the greenway. Kate loved picking the dandelions, stepping in the mud, and she even wanted to go in the stream (we said no to that!). We were tired after so much walking, and we all took a nap that afternoon! Gramma and Grampa came to visit us at the end of the month. They stayed home with the girls on Saturday night so that Mommy and Daddy could go out to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary! Wow! During the day on Saturday, we all went to Panoply, which is an annual arts festival in Huntsville. This is the first year that we've taken Kate, and she had a great time! They had many tents set up with children's activities. Kate had her face painted, did an easel painting, decorated a bookmark with stamps, played with clay, and many other things. We even were able to eat fair food for lunch, and Kate asked for a special treat of strawberry ice cream for dessert. Yum! Another highlight of this month is that Kate began swim lessons on April 7. She goes twice a week for five weeks, and she loves it! When we signed her up several weeks ago, she was very upset that she couldn't take lessons that day. When the day finally arrived for lessons, she couldn't wait! She has been doing a great job swimming with Miss Olivia. She doesn't like to get her face wet or go under water, but she will get her ears wet. She's learned to do arm circles, kick her legs, jump in, and float on her back (she wouldn't do that last year). She will be excited when our neighborhood pool opens up in a couple weeks! Kate's latest thing is to ask "Why?" for everything. One day, we were driving home as the sun was setting, and Kate wanted to know why the sun was going down, and she has asked us almost every night since then. One answer leads to another question, and on and on. Although it sometimes gets frustrating to answer a million questions, we're so glad that Kate has such a curiosity and eagerness to learn! Kate has also become quite sassy lately. One of the new things that she says is "Hush for a minute" if she doesn't want to hear us talk. Some other treasured phrases are "Oooookaaaaaay," "You're mean," and my favorite, "I'm going away so I can't hear you." Kate continues to be a big help with Anna. She loves to watch me change Anna's diaper, and she always reminds me that she uses the potty like a big girl. The first thing she does when she wakes up in the morning is look to see if Anna's awake yet. Kate loves playing with Anna and making her smile. However, she does get annoyed at her little sister also. One night on our way home from swim lessons, Anna was crying (she hates being in her carseat). We dropped Daddy off at work so he could pick up his car and drive it home. Kate yells, "Daddy, take the loudest one!" Well, Anna certainly was the loudest one in the car that night. Now any time we drive separately, Kate insists that the "loudest one" rides in a different car. Often while Anna is screaming in the car, Kate will cover her ears and try to yell louder. It makes for an exciting trip. Kate's biggest accomplishment this month is that she has stopped sucking her thumb during the day. She started sucking her thumb when she was around three months old, and she hasn't stopped. At her last dentist appointment, he was concerned that her thumb-sucking was beginning to cause problems with her teeth. We started talking to Kate about it, but we didn't force her to change anything yet. Then she got the idea in her head that three-year-olds don't suck their thumbs, so she said she wasn't going to suck her thumb after she turned three. Well, that lasted for about two hours. A couple weeks later, though, we were sitting on the couch and talking. I suggested to her again that she had to stop sucking her thumb, and I told her about the yucky stuff the dentist gave me to try if necessary. She hasn't sucked her thumb since! We do still allow her to suck her thumb at bedtime, but she has completely given it up during the day. And now she tells me that three-year-olds don't suck their thumbs. We are so proud of Kate and this huge milestone that she has reached! 3 years Happy 3rd Birthday, Kate! It is so hard to believe that our firstborn is three years old! What a joy she is in our lives! This month has been busy with Easter and birthday festivities. Kate had her first Easter egg hunt of the year at school on March 13. This was her last day of school before spring break, so they celebrated Easter a week early. She got to decorate Easter cookies at school for snack, and she brought home lots of eggs and candy. For craft, the kids even got to color their own hard-boiled egg! The next evening Kate had another Easter egg hunt at Daddy's (and Mommy's) work. Lockheed Martin hosts several children's activities each year, and this month was the egg hunt and movie night. There were a lot of kids there, but Kate found a few eggs. Afterwards, we got to enjoy pizza for dinner. Then we got our fresh popcorn and went into the big auditorium to watch an Easter movie. We all had a great time at movie night! Kate also hit another milestone that same weekend. Daddy converted her crib into a toddler bed! She never tried to climb out of her crib, but we decided it was time for her to have a "big girl bed." Kate has been so excited about and she loves her new bed. She has done a great job of staying in it until we tell her she can get up. The week after was spring break, but we stayed busy. Kate asked if we could see the Easter bunny, so Mommy took her to the mall one day. Also, Mommy and Daddy decided to purchase a minivan, which we went to pick up that week. Kate loves the new van, and I think she knows what every button does already, but she still asks, "Who opened my door?" when we hit the button to automatically open hers! The van gives us a lot more room and makes it easier to travel as a family of four. On Saturday, we attended another Easter egg hunt at church. The 2- and 3-year olds hunted for eggs on the playground. After the egg hunt, we went inside the church where Kate enjoyed songs, a puppet show, and she even got to see the Easter bunny again. It was a fun morning! That evening, we colored Easter eggs with Kate, and she loved dipping the white eggs in the food coloring and pulling out colored eggs. We only cracked about three eggs (out of twelve)! :) The next day was finally Easter Sunday. Kate and Anna both looked beautiful in their matching Easter dresses. We took LOTS of pictures before church. On the way home, we told Kate that the Easter bunny might have left some eggs and a basket for her; she really wanted to see the Easter bunny from the mall at her house. When we got home, we discovered that the Easter bunny had come, but he had already left for another house. He hid eggs around the house and left a special Easter basket for Kate, though. Kate loved finding the eggs and seeing all the candy and toys in her basket. We were invited to eat lunch with Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, Carter, and the boys' Nana and Papa. It was a delicious meal and fun afternoon spent with friends. In case the kids hadn't found enough eggs yet, Mrs. Heather hid some more eggs in their front yard. The three kids ran outside and gathered up all of the eggs; then they had a great time seeing the candy that was inside each one. They had so much fun, they decided to hide the eggs again and do it all over again. Kate knew that after Easter was over, it would be almost time for her birthday. She has been so excited about her princess birthday party! Mama, GiGi, and Uncle Tim arrived on Wednesday, March 26. On Thursday, she celebrated her birthday with her preschool class. Mommy, Mama, GiGi, and Anna brought cupcakes to school during snack time. It was so sweet to see nine other two and three-year olds sing Happy Birthday to Kate! Kate was sad to see everybody leave school, but as she puts it, "I cried and then I got happy." Papa and GiJo arrived Thursday afternoon, and Kate was very excited! On Friday morning (Kate's actual birthday), Kate woke up and it took her a minute to realize that it was her birthday. After Mommy reminded her, her face lit up and she said, "I have to go tell Mama that I'm THREE!" Mommy put a candle in Kate's cinnamon toast for breakfast, and we all sang Happy Birthday. Mommy and Mama spent the afternoon decorating Kate's castle birthday cake. Kate requested this castle cake for her birthday, so of course I had to make it for her. I think it turned out pretty well! We took Kate to dinner at Macaroni Grill on Friday night. Aunt Kellie and Aunt Stacie were able to meet us at dinner. Kate was excited about going to dinner, but she became very shy when the lady sang Happy Birthday to her in Italian. After dinner, Kate opened her gifts from Mommy and Daddy. Her special gift this year was a new princess bike with training wheels. She was so excited to get the bike and immediately began practicing riding it around the house. She still has trouble peddling on her own, but it won't be long before she can ride it herself. The next day was her princess birthday party. She seemed to have a really great time at her party! We had 28 people at the house, so we had a large crowd and a good time! Everybody enjoyed the barbecue for lunch and especially the homemade birthday cake for dessert! Kate loved opening her presents and seeing all of the great things that she got. Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate Kate's 3rd birthday with us to help make it such a very special day! 35 months A couple weeks after Anna was born, Kate went with Daddy to a Daddy/Daughter banquet at church. The theme was Fiesta, so Kate and Daddy got to enjoy a Mexican dinner and take pictures wearing a sombrero. Kate wasn't sure about the event at first since she didn't know a lot of the people there, but after dinner she began to brighten up. First they had all the daddies escort their daughters down the stage as they were announced. Then they had everyone get up and learn how to dance. Kate wasn't much interested in doing the dance they were teaching, but instead wanted to twirl "really fast" over and over and over. It's a wonder she kept her dinner down as much as she twirled! After the dancing was over, the event started to break up and that's when Kate REALLY started to have fun. She realized she could go on the stage and run around, and what a blast she had with that! She loved running in and out of all the fiesta props on stage for a while, and then she really started performing. She danced and sang back and forth on the stage over and over until we were about the only ones left except those that were cleaning up. We finally had to leave to go home, but all Kate wanted to do was stay on the stage. She really had a great time! Kate had a fun Valentine's celebration at school on February 14. A couple weeks prior to Valentine's Day, the teachers helped all of the children paint a special Valentine's shirt. The kids wore these shirts for Valentine's Day. Using a stencil, Kate painted a dog (made completely out of different size hearts) on her shirt. She was very excited to be able to wear her dog shirt! The children at school all exchanged Valentines, so Kate was excited to come home and see what her cards said and to enjoy some yummy candy too! Kate also attended two birthday parties this month, both for two little girls in her preschool class who turned three. Both parties had Disney princess themes, and she had a great time at each party! At the first party, she was able to decorate her very own princess crown and wand, she played in a princess castle, and of course she enjoyed cake and ice cream. At the second party, Kate decorated another princess crown and played Pin-the-Slipper-on-Cinderella. She is really looking forward to her own 3rd birthday party next month! In addition to all of the special activities that Kate has done this month, she continues to spend a lot of time with Anna. Kate has adapted great to us becoming a family of four, and she's been very cooperative and helpful since Mama went home and Daddy went back to work. She plays well by herself if Mommy is busy feeding Anna, and she loves to help out if we ask her to. One of the cute things that she does now is to "check on Anna." If Anna starts to cry (or makes any noise, really), Kate runs to look at her to make sure she's okay, and then she reports back that "Anna's okay." She also likes to rub Anna's head to try to console her. Kate continues to be an awesome big sister, and the love that she shows for Anna is amazing to us! We are so blessed to have two absolutely beautiful and healthy little girls! 34 months We said goodbye to Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim at the end of December since they left our house to go home for a few weeks. It was obvious that Kate had a lot of attention while they were here because it took several days to get her back to her routine. For a couple days after everybody left, Kate needed a constant playmate! On December 31, we celebrated New Year's Eve together as a family. We had meat/vegetable fondue for dinner, and Kate was able to cook her own food (with a lot of supervision and help!). Kate thought it was pretty neat that we put our food on sticks and stuck the sticks in the pot to cook it. For dessert, we all enjoyed chocolate fondue. Kate was able to stay up later that night, but we didn't let her stay up until midnight (I don't even think Mommy and Daddy stayed awake that long)! The first part of January was very quiet. We spent many free days finishing up final preparations for Anna's arrival. Kate continued to go to my weekly doctor's appointments and hear Anna's heartbeat. She has also become quite the musician this month. She enjoys standing on the "stage" in her little house and singing her lungs out. She announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls..." and then begins to sing or gives her microphone to somebody else to sing. Around the middle of the month, Mr. Jason and Mrs. Heather offered to watch Kate so Mommy and Daddy could have one last date night before Anna's arrival. Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, Carter, and Kate enjoyed a pizza dinner and brownie ice cream sundaes for dessert. Yum! While Kate was over there, she continued to develop her musical talents. Jack and Carter have a small toy guitar, which Kate LOVED playing with. She played for over 30 minutes, so Mr. Jason recorded her. Kate now has her very own music video, "The Making of a Legend!" Thank you, Mr. Jason and Mrs. Heather, for giving Kate such a fun evening with you! Papa decided to continue to develop Kate's musical talents by getting an acoustic learning guitar for her. She loves playing her new guitar, and now the "Legend" can continue! Although strange for north Alabama, we received a light snowfall one evening this month. Kate was napping when it started to snow, but we woke her up in time to play outside. She played outside and ran around the yard, made snow balls, and had a great time! After about 30 minutes, though, she decided it was pretty cold outside and was ready to come inside. We had fun, though! Kate's excitement about Anna's arrival has continued this month. She likes to put things in her belly underneath her shirt and pretend it's a baby. Then, she has us feel her belly to feel the baby kick, and she flexes her stomach muscles to make it kick. Mama and Uncle Tim arrived back in Huntsville a few days before Anna's birth, and Papa arrived a few days later. On the day of Anna's birth, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter came over to spend the day with Kate. Kate had a great time playing with the boys and waiting for Anna to be born. After Anna was born, Mama and Papa went to pick Kate up from home to bring her to the hospital. Kate brought a gift with her for her new baby sister, and she even got a special Cinderella doll from Anna. Kate was so excited to meet Anna for the first time! She came right in the hospital room with a huge smile on her face. We enjoyed spending time together as a family of four on Wednesday night. Kate went to school on Thursday morning and told all of her teachers and friends that Baby Anna "came out." It happened to be Pajama Day at school, so Kate had to wear pajamas and bring her favorite stuffed animal to school. Although she had picked out another stuffed animal to bring, she became instantly attached to a pink bear that Papa had brought for Anna. So she chose to bring Anna's bear to school on Thursday as her new favorite stuffed animal. Right after school, Kate came to the hospital to see her sister. By Thursday afternoon, you would have thought she owned the hospital. She was running up and down the halls singing "Jingle Bells;" they were probably about ready to throw us out. When we were ready to leave the hospital on Friday, Kate walked into the hall and yelled (very loudly), "Nurse, where are you?" Never a dull moment with a 2-year-old! We weren't sure how she would react to this new person that requires so much of Mommy's attention, but Kate has been excellent. She loves her new sister so much! For the most part, she's very gentle with her. If Anna cries, Kate says, "Anna, do you need Kate?" How precious! Kate also likes to pretend to be a baby. She loves to sit in Anna's infant carrier (and have Daddy swing her) and bouncy seat, covering herself with a blanket just like Anna. Kate enjoys holding Anna, talking to her, making monster faces at her, playing with her, and even playing her new guitar for her, which is a sight to see. It is such a blessing to see our two precious daughters interact with each other and love each other so much! 33 months We began the month with the first of many Christmas festivities. On Friday, November 30, we went to a Happy Birthday Jesus Party at our church. It's a very popular event with the children, and this is the first year that Kate has been able to go. The kids all came dressed up in their pajamas, and we enjoyed a pizza dinner to start the night. After dinner, the children's puppet teams performed several songs. Kate was a little bit nervous about what was behind the "stage," so she hid under the table as the puppets began. Mommy had to move her legs, though, so Kate could see the puppets from her spot under the table. After just a minute or two, she decided it wasn't so bad and she came out in her chair to sit and watch the rest of the puppet show. She loved it! Next, the kids had the opportunity to do a craft and take pictures at the nativity scene with Baby Jesus. We also sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, and of course, we had birthday cake! Finally, we had a special visit from Santa Claus. Kate and Mommy sat on the floor with the rest of the kids and listed to Santa read the Christmas story. Afterwards, Kate was able to sit on Santa's lap. We weren't sure how she'd do this year since she was so afraid last year, but she climbed right up without hesitating. She said she was going to tell him that she wanted a bear with a bow for Christmas, but I think her shyness kicked in, and all she did was respond "yeah" to some of his questions. We spent a wonderful evening together as a family, and it was a great way to kick off the Christmas season! The next morning, we went to a Cookie Decorating Party with Mommy and Daddy's Sunday School class. The kids all got a plate of several cookies, and they were able to decorate with frosting, sprinkles, etc. Kate had fun decorating her cookie...until she figured out that she could lick the knife and just eat the frosting. I don't think any more cookies got decorated by her, but she certainly got her fill of sugar that morning! Right after decorating cookies, we drove downtown to watch the Huntsville Christmas Parade. Since Kate enjoyed it so much last year, we decided to go again this year. The weather was nice and warm (mid-60's), and the skies were sunny. The parade lasted almost two hours, but we had a great time. Kate enjoyed watching the floats go by and thought it was so much fun to wave at the people that were waving back to her. She also thought some of the floats and animals were really funny, so she had to point those out to us and laugh. Another great afternoon spent together as a family! That night, when we were saying her prayers, we were talking about what we did that day. Kate said, "I had fun at the parade. That was my favorite!" The next weekend, we attended another Christmas parade in Madison. This one was on Saturday evening after dark, and Kate enjoyed watching the lighted floats go by. Mama came into town the following Monday, a few days earlier than planned. She wasn't supposed to come until Wednesday, but weather forecasters were predicting a large ice storm to hit the country's midsection on Tuesday. Mama decided that it would be best to go ahead and come out early, so we picked her up from Nashville Monday night. Kate was so excited to see Mama and to have all of the extra attention! Thursday was Kate's Christmas program at preschool. The kids had practiced for it for weeks, and they all wore their Christmas pajamas for the program. Kate's class sang two songs, "Jesus is A-Sleepin'" and "If I Had a Drum." After that, all of the kids sang "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Since Kate is so shy, we didn't really expect her to sing while she was up on the stage. Sure enough, she just stood there the whole time making faces at us, but she was adorable and we were so proud of her anyway! Of course, at home she has been singing all of her songs! After the program, we went to the Fellowship Hall, and Kate was able to sit on Santa's lap again. This time she was more talkative and told Santa that she wanted a bear with a bow and toys. Afterwards we enjoyed some cookies, chips, and punch together. It was a really fun morning, and we're glad that Mama was able to share this special time with us! That Sunday, Mommy's Sunday School class hosted a baby shower for her. Kate was able to go to the shower, and we had lots of fun. Mommy got many great gifts for Anna, and Kate enjoyed helping me open all of the gifts. She was very shy initially, but it didn't take her long to warm up. She was actually ripping into gifts and showing me what was in there before I could read the card to see who they were from! I'm so glad that she was able to be a part of this special day with me! Since Christmas was now only a week away, we decided to take one evening and go see the Galaxy of Lights at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. It's a drive-through tour that has more than a mile and a half of large light displays. Since Kate has been so excited about seeing Christmas lights in our neighborhood this year, we thought she would love Galaxy of Lights. Boy, were we right! She had so much fun pointing out all of the different light displays to us and telling us what everything was. It was a fun evening spent together listening to Christmas songs and seeing the lights. On Thursday evening, Kate spent her first night in her new big-girl room upstairs. Her crib had finally arrived earlier in the week, so we were able to get that put together and get her room finished up. Kate seems to be enjoying sleeping in her new room, and we haven't had any problems with her wanting to go back to her old room downstairs. Papa and Uncle Tim arrived that Friday, and Aunt Kellie and Aunt Stacie arrived on Saturday morning. We all enjoyed some family time together during the weekend. Monday was Christmas Eve, and Kate helped us with several things to prepare for dinner at our house the next day. First, she helped decorate Christmas cookies. She had helped Aunt Kellie make the dough the night before, but Monday morning she actually helped put frosting and sprinkles on the cookies. She had so much fun decorating the cookies...and eating the frosting too! :) Kate also helped Mommy make a birthday cake for Jesus. We decided this would be a fun tradition to help Kate know the true meaning of Christmas. Kate helped make a pink (strawberry) cake, and later she got to help me spread frosting on the cake. We even wrote "Happy Birthday, Jesus" on the cake, and Kate decorated it with more dots of green frosting. We attended the Candlelight Christmas Eve service at Asbury that night. Kate looked so beautiful in her Christmas dress, and she was excellent during the service. She was excited to light a candle for Baby Jesus, although she kept asking us where Jesus was. Before we went to bed that night, Kate chose two cookies and chocolate milk to put out for Santa Claus. She was very excited about Santa coming that night and bringing her presents! Kate slept until almost 9:00 on Christmas morning, so we got a little bit of a late start opening gifts. As she was coming downstairs, she asked "Where's Santa?", so we had to tell her that he had already left. As is tradition with our family, we opened one gift per person at a time, so it took over three hours to get all of our gifts open. Kate enjoyed opening her presents, and like any child, she wanted to play with everything after she opened it! It took a lot of encouragement for her to make it through actually opening her gifts. We had such a fun morning watching Kate open her gifts! Kate's favorite gift was a new pink digital camera. In the three days since Christmas, she has taken well over 100 pictures of various people and things. She takes pictures of her stuffed animals "posing" with her toys, pictures of her feet, and pictures of our family, among other things. Gramma, Grampa, Aunt Julie, and Uncle Dave arrived in the early afternoon, and we all enjoyed a delicious dinner together later that afternoon. After dinner, Kate opened more Christmas gifts. Thank you to everyone for being so generous this year! When all of the gifts were finally opened, Daddy read Kate the Christmas story out of her new Bible. Then we let Kate pick out some candles to put in the cake, and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family with whom to celebrate the holidays and remember the true reason for celebrating! 32 months NEWS FLASH: Kate is potty trained! She wears her big-girl panties all the time now and has no problems telling us when she needs to go potty. We do still put her in a pull-up at night, but she wakes up dry most mornings. We're so proud of Kate and how quickly she grasped the concept once she decided she was ready! We ended the month of October with Halloween. Kate asked if she could dress up like Belle for Halloween, so we went to the Disney Store and bought her a Belle dress, shoes, crown, and wand. She was so excited about dressing up like Belle and saying "trick-or-treat" to the people to get candy! Like we've done in the past, we went to Trunk or Treat at our church. Kate looked absolutely beautiful as Belle, and Mommy even gave her a special treat and let her wear a tiny bit of makeup! Kate went trick-or-treating to the trunks of cars parked in the parking lot at church. Occasionally, we got a "trick-or-treat" or a "thank you" out of Kate, but it was usually quiet and mumbled :). After we got through all of the cars, we went inside the building, where they had quite a few games set up. Kate enjoyed the duck pond, sifting through the sand searching for spiders, and throwing the toilet paper into the toilet. She also got her face painted (she wanted another butterfly). Kate had a great evening playing games and getting lots of candy! That weekend, we had tickets for the Fall Colors Train Ride operated out of the North Alabama Railroad Museum. It was a 90-minute train ride, which traveled about 10 miles in a vintage train. Kate was unsure at first; saying for days beforehand that she didn't want to ride the train that made noise (i.e., choo choo). Even on the way there, she kept telling us she didn't want to ride it, but as soon as she saw the train, she was excited to get on and ride! She had a great time sitting in her seat in the old dining car and looking out the window at all of the scenery and concrete animals along the track! We even got to walk up to the front of the train and hear the engineer blow the whistle. It was a great afternoon spent together as a family! The next weekend we celebrated our Godson Carter's second birthday party. He had a Curious George party, so Kate was very excited about going to Carter's monkey party! That afternoon, Daddy finished painting Kate's bathroom. We chose a light green to complement her adjoining pink bedroom. The bathroom looks great, and it's so nice to be finished with that project! Kate celebrated Thanksgiving at school the following week. All of the classes had a Thanksgiving feast (don't call it lunch, or Kate will correct you) on Thursday, so Kate brought in sugar cookies for dessert. The kids enjoyed a delicious lunch of ham, turkey, rolls, cheese, grapes, etc. She got to make a keepsake placemat for her Thanksgiving feast as well as a silly turkey hat! That weekend, we went to the Christmas Tree lighting at a new outdoor shopping area that has recently opened in Huntsville. The weather was chilly that night, but not too cold. We enjoyed listening to Christmas carols as a family and then watching them light the city's Christmas tree. After that, we walked around to the carousel that they have there. We went a few weeks ago for the grand opening, but Kate didn't want to ride. We thought she would love to get on it because of all the animals you could ride, but Kate wanted nothing to do with it. This time, though, she talked about riding the carousel all day before we went and kept saying she wanted to ride the bunny. She was so excited to get on, but after arriving, I think the animals intimidated her because she wanted to ride the spinning teacup instead. She and Daddy rode that, and I think Daddy was glad when the ride stopped! Kate wanted to ride again, so we decided that we'd let her ride one of the animals that goes up and down. She chose to ride on a kitty cat, and she loved it! After that, she wanted to ride the zebra (we said no) and probably would have ridden all night if we had let her! That weekend, Daddy also finished Kate's bedroom. The furniture is in place; we're just waiting for her new bed to arrive so we can move Kate upstairs to her new room. Kate is very ready to move upstairs, and she keeps asking us if her bed is here yet! The following week was Thanksgiving. We spent the day at Daddy's grandparents' house in Spring City, TN. We had a very nice visit, especially since Kate doesn't get to see her great-grandparents very often. We came home Thursday night, and Daddy spent the weekend putting up Christmas decorations. He put the outdoor lights and decorations up on Friday, and he put our Christmas tree up on Saturday. Kate loves driving around and seeing all of the Christmas lights, so she was very excited when she got to see the lights on our house! She kept saying, "It's Christmas!" this weekend while we were putting up decorations. Kate helped us put ornaments on the Christmas tree on Sunday. The entire bottom of the tree is decorated with her ornaments this year, and it was so much fun to share the tradition with her! Another tradition that we like is having Kate put the angel on our Christmas tree. Mommy actually got on Papa's shoulders when she was a little girl and put the angel on the tree. We have pictures every year (until I got married, I think) of all of the kids putting the angel on the tree. This has been a special tradition that we've been able to continue with Kate. We look forward to the month ahead and celebrating the entire Christmas season with our precious daughter! Kate decided to end the month with her first ear infection. She started running a fever on Saturday, and she began to develop a cough and stuffy nose. Mommy took her to the doctor Monday morning, and Dr. Jeff said she has an ear infection. She had to miss school on Tuesday due to illness, but we're hoping and praying the antibiotic works quickly and she feels better soon! Kate continues to be excited about Anna's arrival. She likes to put her hand on Mommy's belly to feel Anna kick. She also likes to give Anna stickers (by putting them on my belly) or show her one of her toys. Kate is going to make a great big sister in the next couple months! 31 months The great, big news this month is that Kate is potty trained (at home, anyway)! We've been encouraging her to use her potty, but she never really cared to do it. All of a sudden, on September 28, she decided it was time, and she's been wearing her big-girl panties ever since. After about a week, she transitioned from her little potty chair that we kept in the living room to the regular potty (with a small potty seat on it). She does continue to wear a pull-up at night and occasionally when we go out to the store. Recently, she's decided that she doesn't like the potties that make noise (the ones that flush automatically). It's been a challenge to get her to go on a potty when we're out, but she occasionally does, so that's progress. Kate has also began getting her two-year molars this month. On September 30, the first molar on her bottom left popped through. About a week later, I noticed the other bottom molar. Fortunately, neither tooth seemed to bother her much at all as they were coming in. Now she only has two teeth left until she has a complete mouth of baby teeth! Kate got her flu shot on October 10 at a flu clinic at her pediatrician's office. Of course, she cried getting the shot, but she seemed to be fine afterward. After her flu shot, we went to Story Time at the library. Kate didn't want to do the craft that day, and I had to hold her the whole time (she refused to walk). Well, she cried most of the way home that her leg hurt, so I gave her some Tylenol when we got home. She "couldn't" walk all afternoon. I had to carry her everywhere because she had a band-aid on. Even that night, after her nap, she could only sit or be carried. That night we had to take dinner to some friends who just had a baby. They also have a 2-year-old daughter who is in Kate's class at school. After Daddy carried Kate into the house, the girls were standing in the foyer. Well, Kate was miraculously cured and able to walk when the other girl took her hand and told her to go play. She hasn't had any problems walking ever since...simply amazing! Kate continues to learn new things in school. The big thing she's learned this month is the Pledge of Allegiance. They practiced it every day during circle time, and the teachers even put heart stickers on the kids' chests so they would know where their heart is. After about three or four class days, Kate could recite the entire Pledge by herself! The first weekend in October is the annual Madison Street Festival. We went last year when it was sooo cold outside. Not true this year...the high was supposed to be 88! We arrived in downtown Madison in time to walk around for a few minutes before the parade began. We got to see a marching band, fire trucks, police cars, and lots of other neat things in the parade. Kate even collected quite a handful of candy! After the parade, we walked around the Street Festival and headed over to the kids area. Kate got to build her own car (using wood and nails) and get her face painted. She asked for a butterfly, and she did a great job of standing still while the lady painted her face. After we were sufficiently hot and tired from walking, we stopped and enjoyed a nice lunch of festival food. We had a great time! Gramma and Grampa came down to visit during the second weekend in October. They came down so that Grampa could help Daddy put the crown molding up in Kate's new bedroom. The weather finally began to turn fall-ish this week, so we decided that it would be a great weekend to take Kate to Tate Farms. We've gone to Tate Farms every year since Kate was born; it is an old working farm that has a large (5,000-acre) pumpkin patch. Kate had such a good time this year! She was really old enough to do most of the activities this year. We got there, and she wanted to go down the slides, play in the sand box, ride the swings, roll around in old barrels, and pet the animals. She ran from one activity to the next for the first hour or so. She got to pet bunny rabbits, goats, puppies, and pigs, even though the goats were her favorite! After we finally managed to escape the petting area, we found the corn crib. Kate LOVED playing in the corn crib and having somebody bury her with the corn! After a nice refreshing cup of lemonade, we all took a hay ride to pick out our pumpkin. Kate helped Daddy pick out a large, beautiful pumpkin. In preparing to go to Tate farms, Kate talked about having Daddy pick a really big pumpkin and she would pick a little pumpkin. Well, there weren't any small pumpkins in the field, but when we got done with the hayride, Kate was able to pick out her very own small pumpkin. We had a great morning spent with family at Tate Farms again this year! We ended the month by taking another trip to Wichita to see Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim for about 10 days. Kate did a great job traveling to Wichita, even though it was a long trip. We had to drive up to Nashville, fly to Kansas City, and then drive three more hours to Wichita. Kate thought it was pretty neat that she was able to use the little potty on the airplane! We had a great time in Wichita, although we stayed busy most of the time. On Saturday, we went to the park in the morning. Kate was able to go down a really big slide, ride a tire swing for the first time, and ride her big-wheel bike through the park. After a refreshing lunch, we went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze. We had a lot of fun on Saturday, but we were all pretty tired that afternoon! After church on Sunday, we took Kate to the zoo. You can tell she has been to the zoo quite a bit because she kept saying, "let's go find another animal now." We had a lot of fun that weekend! We also celebrated Mommy's birthday while we were out in Wichita. We went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner, which Kate was very unsure of at first. After we got there and Kate saw the chef at the next table, she said, "I don't want to eat here, I want to eat at a different restaurant," and she even hid under the table for a few minutes after our chef arrived. However, I managed to get her to sit in my lap, and then she loved watching the show after that. After dinner, she helped Mama decorate my birthday cake and even got to pour sprinkles on top. It was a delicious cake! We had a great time in Wichita, but we were glad to get home and get back into a routine. Kate missed three days of school while we were gone, so she is very excited to get back to that as well. It will be neat to see what she learns this month! 30 months Kate is officially 2 1/2 years old this month! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by! We have had another busy and exciting month. Kate continues to enjoy going to preschool two days a week! At the end of August, her class had water day. The kids all wore their swimsuits, and they were able to play outside and get soaking wet. She had a blast! The kids also celebrated Patriot Day on September 11. They had a live water rocket launch, and Kate really enjoyed watching the rocket "shoot up and then fall down." She has learned quite a bit just in her first month of preschool. Her class learns a new letter each week, and she's now able to recognize letters that she didn't know before school started. She also comes home almost every day singing new songs that she has learned in school. Another cute thing that she has learned in school is how to say a blessing before meals. We have always prayed together as a family before meals, with Daddy usually leading, but Kate likes to say her own prayer now. She likes to close her eyes, bow her head, and say, "Thank you, God, for feeding me. Amen." We took a short family vacation to Panama City Beach, FL on September 6 - 9. We left Thursday afternoon after Kate got out of school and Kate did great during the 7-hour car ride down there. Fortunately, since it was her naptime, she slept for a couple hours. She was so excited to go, though, that she kept asking, "Where are we?" every couple minutes. Our response was always, "On the interstate." Well, one time she asked, and I told her the mile marker number that we were at. She said, "No, we're on the interstate!" How could I be so foolish!?! After being on the road for a few hours, we stopped for dinner and Kate pitched a fit, saying "No, I don't want to stop, I want to go to the beach!" We finally got to our hotel around 10:00 Thursday night. Since Kate was so excited about going to the beach, we decided to walk along the beach for a few minutes that night. It was a late night before Kate finally got into bed! The next morning we got up and went to the beach. Kate had a great time digging in the sand and knocking down the sand castles that we built. Unfortunately, there were quite a few jellyfish in the water, so we couldn't play much in the ocean that day. Our hotel had a fun toddler waterpark complete with fountains and slides. Kate enjoyed playing in that for a little while as well. We pretty much repeated the same routine on Saturday, except the jellyfish were gone, so we were able to swim. On Saturday, we saw four manta rays swimming in the water right near us. Kate enjoyed watching them as they swam right along the coast. Saturday night we went walking on the beach to look for crabs. We saw a few little ones, but Kate didn't quite understand the concept of looking for crabs near the water...she wanted to look for crabs closer to the hotel, practically in the grass, but she had a great time anyway! We had to leave Sunday around lunchtime, but we were able to spend a couple hours on the beach that morning. Kate had such a good time playing in the sand and the ocean; it was a great trip! Even a couple of weeks later during our nighttime prayer, she wanted to say thank you for "the beach and the manta rays and the fishies and the crabs." Gramma and Grampa came down to visit the next weekend. It happened to be a beautiful Saturday, so we decided to enjoy a picnic lunch at Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville. We brought plenty of Cheerios and bread to feed the ducks and geese with, and Kate enjoyed throwing the food to the animals. As usual, she also enjoyed chasing the geese around the lake. We had a great time and enjoyed a wonderful beginning of fall-like temperatures. That afternoon, Kate attended the first of two friends' birthday parties this month. We went to Megan's birthday party at Tumblebeez, a gymnastics studio here in town. The kids had about an hour to play around on the mats, trampoline (which Kate loved), and a giant pit of foam. After singing "Happy Birthday" to Megan, they were able to enjoy chocolate cake...yum! Kate enjoyed another birthday the following weekend when we celebrated Jack's 4th birthday. He had a Thomas the Train theme, and Kate loved playing outside with the other kids. They also had a small inflatable bouncer, which, of course, Kate loved jumping on! In other news this month, we have really begun working on Kate's new bedroom. If you haven't seen them already, we've created a new link on the left called "Kate's Room" where we will post pictures as her new room progresses. Mommy and Daddy (with a little help from Grampa) installed a ceiling fan in her room. Daddy spent the next weekend painting her walls pink. Kate has been so excited about having a pink room; she's been asking to help paint. Well, brave parents that we are, we decided to let her help for a couple minutes. We laid the dropcloths down, told her where to paint, and gave her the brush. She had a great time, and painted a nice pink design on the wall. She is so excited that her new room is beginning to come together. Finally, Kate found out that she's going to have another baby sister this month! She was able to go with us to the ultrasound, and she is so excited that Mommy is having a baby girl! Anna Caroline looked great on the ultrasound, and Kate frequently makes reference to Baby Anna in Mommy's belly. Since we are having another girl, we won't have to make too many changes to the existing nursery. Kate is excited about moving to her new bedroom with her new big-girl furniture (and being "queen" of the upstairs) and letting Anna sleep in her old crib downstairs. Next month promises to be another busy month as we hope to finish Kate's new room and get the furniture all set up for her to begin the transition. 29 months We began this month by celebrating Daddy's 30th birthday at the end of July! Gramma and Grampa came down for the weekend, and Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave were able to be here on Saturday. We took some nice family pictures on Saturday morning, and we went to Rosie's Mexican restaurant (our favorite!) to celebrate Daddy's birthday Saturday night. Kate enjoyed helping Daddy open his presents and eat his birthday cake. Daddy got a small remote-controlled helicopter for one of his birthday presents. Kate loves to fly it by herself...she makes it go as fast as it can go, crashes it into the ceiling, lets it fall to the floor, and then starts over again. She even got it tangled in her hair one day, but that didn't stop her...she still loves to fly it! The big event this month is that Kate began preschool at Asbury CDC on Thursday, August 16. Mommy, Daddy, and Kate went to Open House on August 14 and met Kate's teachers, Mrs. Kathy and Mrs. Cheryl, as well as several of the other kids in her class. On Thursday morning, Daddy stayed home from work in order to help get Kate ready for school. Mommy and Daddy made blueberry pancakes for Kate (her favorite!) so she would eat a good breakfast before going to school. We had to wake Kate up around 7:30, and we enjoyed a nice breakfast together as a family. After breakfast, Kate got dressed and took a few pictures. She seemed very excited about going to school. On the way to school, she told Daddy that she wasn't going to be scared, but some of the other kids might cry because they wanted their mommies. We arrived at school, and Kate carried her backpack and lunchbox all the way from the car to her classroom. Kate went right in and began playing with Mrs. Kathy. The school hosted a small breakfast in the hospitality area of the church to make sure everybody was comfortable leaving their children. That was nice, because we got to visit with other parents for a little while. They also had teachers checking on children for the parents, and both times they checked on Kate, she was playing well and appeared happy. What a big girl! She stayed at school from 9 AM - 1 PM. While at school, they went to the big playroom to ride on the toy cars and bikes. They also went outside to play for just a few minutes (the high was supposed to be 106!). In the classroom, the kids had a snack, colored, painted a picture, and ate lunch. When I picked Kate up at 1:00, all of the kids were doing the Hokey Pokey. Kate has continued to do well in school. During her first full week, she brought home paintings that she made of her hands and of the letter "I." She loves to show us her artwork on the refrigerator! She is so excited on Tuesdays and Thursdays to go to school; she carries her own backpack and lunchbox into school every day. She did tell us, though, that she doesn't like the other kids in her class. When we asked her why, she said "because they cry." Hopefully with time, the nine other boys and girls in her class will become comfortable and Kate will make some new friends. We ended the month with a short visit from Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim. Mama and Papa went to the NASCAR race in Bristol, TN for Papa's work, but Uncle Tim stayed with us in Huntsville. They arrived at the Huntsville airport on Tuesday night, so we all went to pick them up. Kate was so excited to see them, and acted silly (just like always) when they walked through security. Papa had to stand in a very long (and slow) line waiting for his rental car, but Kate kept us entertained. For about an hour (at 9:00 at night, by the way), she ran around in circles in the airport singing and dancing. I'm not sure what everybody else was thinking, but we sure did think she was cute! Kate enjoyed playing with Tim for a few days, but I think she wore Tim out! She wanted him to play with her constantly, and she would boss him around and tell him if he wasn't doing something right. On Sunday, Mama and Papa came to spend the day with us before going home early Monday morning. Again, Kate loved having everybody here to play with for the day! We've had an exciting and busy month, and we're looking forward to what the next few months will bring. We ordered Kate's new big-girl bed and furniture this month, so we've begun the preparations for our new child. Kate will be moving upstairs, and we'll leave the nursery downstairs for the baby. Kate tells us she is going to be the "queen" of the upstairs. Stay tuned for pictures and updates about Kate's new bedroom and other preparations as we wait for Kate's new baby brother or sister! 28 months What an exciting month this has been! This month we told Kate the exciting news that she's going to be a BIG SISTER! Yes, that's right...Mommy is expecting another baby on January 31, 2008! Every day since we told Kate, she has been reminding us that there is a baby in Mommy's belly. One day, we asked her if she wanted a baby brother or a baby sister. Her response..."no." :) Later, though, she said she thinks Mommy is going to have a baby girl. We'll find out in a couple of months (September 17) whether Kate will have a baby brother or a baby sister. Keep checking the webpage frequently for updates; we've already posted some ultrasound pictures, and we'll post pictures of Mommy's growing belly as time progresses. Now on to the fun and exciting things Kate has been doing. Kate began this month by taking another trip to Wichita, KS to see Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim. Since she turned 2 in March, we had to buy Kate a real ticket for the airplane this time. We talked to Kate about how she is a big girl and needed to sit in her big girl seat on the plane and buckle the seat belt. For the most part, she did a great job. However, on the first leg of the flight to Wichita, a little boy was sitting directly behind her and wanted to play with her. He popped his head between the seats and said "roaarrrrrr," which nearly made Kate jump out of her seat. She wanted to sit in Mommy's lap for the rest of that flight so the boy wouldn't say roar to her again. Other than that, though, Kate did a great job flying. We had quite a long layover in Dallas due to weather and other problems, but Kate was great waiting in the airport. We finally got on standby on another flight, which got us to Wichita around 8:30 PM. Our luggage, however, (with Kate's carseat and pack 'n play) didn't make it to Wichita until 11:30 that night. We ended up having to rent a car so we could have a carseat to get Kate to the house. Papa, Daddy, and Uncle Tim went to get the luggage when it arrived, but by the time they got to the house, it was almost 1:00 in the morning. Kate was still awake going strong when they got home. She crashed when we finally put her to bed, and she slept very late the next morning! The next day was the fourth of July, so we took Kate to the park to feed the ducks and play in the swings that morning. She had a very pretty holiday dress to wear, but she proceeded to spill bubbles all over the dress shortly after she put it on. That evening, we decided to go see fireworks, even though it was raining the whole way there. We ended up parking on top of a parking deck and watching the fireworks from the back of Papa's SUV. It was so cold and wet; Daddy had to take his shirt off and wrap Kate in it to try to keep her warm. The next day was beautiful, so we took Kate to the zoo. As usual, she had a great time petting the animals, and she even got to feed the giraffes. I think she remembered their long tongues from last time, because at the last minute she gave the food to Daddy and made him feed the giraffe. That night, we went to a concert and fireworks show at a small lake. Kate loved listening to the music and eating her popsicle like a big girl. When it got dark, the fireworks started. Kate said they were "sunny" so she sat in Mommy's lap and covered her eyes. She still saw the whole show, though, because she was peaking through her fingers the whole time. Also in Wichita, Kate got to go fishing in the lake behind Mama and Papa's house. Believe it or not, she caught a fish the first time she held her fishing pole in the water! Unfortunately, Mommy lost the fish while she was trying to reel it in. We had a great time visiting Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim! The day after we got home, we went to the Lockheed Martin family picnic at Southern Adventures, which is a small theme park in Huntsville. After a dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs, we let Kate swim in the pools for a little while. They had a very small waterslide there for toddlers, and Kate loved going down it over and over again! After playing on the waterslide, Kate wanted to ride the pony and cart ride. The lady strapped her in, and she held on to the reigns of the pony and had a good time riding on those. It was another fun evening! In other news, Kate used her big-girl potty chair for the first time on Wednesday, July 18. We spent the whole day at home, and she actually used it twice that day. She sat on the potty again the next day, but she didn't go. Oh well, at least we're making progress! Kate also went to the dentist for the first time on Tuesday, July 24. We had been preparing her for the experience and talking to her about what the dentist would do. When we got there, she loved the waiting room. They had a big rocket ship, and inside they were showing one of her favorite shows, "The Doodlebops." When the hygienist called her name, she took her hand and walked back to her chair. The hygienist had some rubber ducks waiting for her to hold. Kate let the hygienist look at her teeth, and she even let her brush AND floss (very uncommon for first visits)! Then she got to go pick out a toy, and she picked out some sidewalk chalk. We waited just a few minutes for the dentist to come look at her teeth, and she did great again! We had a wonderful checkup, and we're so proud of Kate for doing so good! Next month promises to be busy and exciting as well as she begins her first day of preschool on August 16! 27 months We began this month by taking a weekend trip to Atlanta, GA. Friday night, we took Kate to the Lasershow Spectacular on Stone Mountain. We told Kate that were going to see the laser show on the rock. After we got there and set our blanket up, Kate had fun running around the blanket and eating chocolate chip cookies. We bought Kate a glow stick, and she loved playing with that before the show started. When the laser show started, Kate sat on the blanket and sat amazed throughout the whole thing. It was a 45-minute show, and that included fireworks throughout. Kate had a great time at the laser show! On Saturday morning, we went to the Georgia Aquarium. Kate absolutely loved walking around the aquarium and seeing all the animals. You can tell she likes the movie Finding Nemo because we saw Nemo, Nemo's Daddy, Dory, and Mr. Ray at the aquarium. Kate loved walking through the water tunnel and seeing giant whale sharks, huge sting rays, etc. We also saw penguins, sea otters, and Kate was even able to touch a starfish! She loved the sea otters so much that we bought her a tiny stuffed sea otter from the gift shop. She was very excited that the otter was able to come home with us and he didn't leave her grip for another week! Also during the month, we spent several days at our neighborhood swimming pool. Kate loves playing in the kiddie pool, where she can walk around and splash by herself. She has also been practicing what she learned in swimming lessons last month. During the month, we've been talking more about potty-training. Kate still isn't fond of sitting on the big potty, so we thought we would buy her a small plastic potty. We asked her if she wanted to buy a new potty, and she said she wanted a pink potty like Molly Matthews (a character in one of her potty books). We went all over town searching for a pink potty. I saw a pink Disney Princess potty online, so I knew it existed. Kate went in the first couple stores with us, but it was getting late so Daddy and Kate waited in the parking lot while Mommy ran into store after store...after store. When I came out of the store, Kate would ask, "Mommy, did you buy my pink potty?" Unfortunately, I kept having to tell her no. Finally, at the very last store we were going to stop at, I found the pink potty. Kate was so excited, she wanted to open the box before we got home! She loves carrying the potty around with her...and she even wanted to take it to church with us the next day! She still doesn't want to use the potty, but she does enjoy sitting on it, so that's at least a start. One Monday night, we went to Concerts in the Park at Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville. We picked up sandwiches for dinner, brought our lawn chairs, and enjoyed some wonderful music outdoors. Kate enjoyed eating, blowing bubbles, and just sitting in her pink chair listening to the music. We ended the month by spending a week at Vacation Bible School. Once again this year, Mommy was the Nursery Director for VBS at our church. We had over 55 children just in the nursery (ages 0 - 2 years), and Kate was one of them. Kate seemed to really enjoy VBS this year and did so well at spending time away from Mommy throughout the morning! Each day, her class went to the playground, spent 30 minutes having music time, had a snack, did a craft, and ate lunch. I think Kate's favorite part of the week was music time. On Wednesday afternoon when she was supposed to be taking a nap, she was in her crib singing the new songs that she learned instead. In fact, we posted a new sound clip of her singing "Jesus Loves Me" so you can enjoy her singing too! On Thursday, her class did a craft with ink stamps. I'm glad we used washable stamps, because Kate stamped her entire forehead with blue ink! She said she was putting makeup on...she looked like a little blue Smurf! We had such a fun week at Vacation Bible School! One more month of summer fun and then Kate starts pre-school. What a big girl she is getting to be!! 26 months We began this month by Mommy and Daddy celebrating their sixth wedding anniversary on April 28. Gramma and Grampa came down for the day, so Mommy and Daddy were able to go out to dinner by ourselves that evening. Kate had a good time playing with Gramma and Grampa! On Tuesday of the next week, Mama and Uncle Tim flew back into town. Kate was excited to pick them up from the airport, and she acted silly when she saw them...just like always! She even told Mama at the airport that she left her imaginary monkey, "CaCa," at home behind her pink chair. We drove up to Nashville on Wednesday to pick up GiGi, who flew in from Syracuse. We had a busy couple of days getting ready for Aunt Kellie's college graduation on Saturday. Papa flew into Huntsville on Friday night, so we went back to the airport to pick him up. This time, Kate acted like a piggy when she saw him. She was so excited to see Papa and be able to spend the weekend with him! On Saturday, we drove up to Murfreesboro for Kellie's graduation. Since we didn't think that Kate would sit through the two-hour commencement ceremony, Gramma and Grampa took Kate to the Jazz Festival in downtown Murfreesboro that morning. There, she got a small piggy bank from one of the local banks. Gramma and Grampa helped her put a little bit of change in it. Kate brought her piggy bank to Aunt Kellie's graduation party and told us that she had to put money in it. She walked around from one person to the next asking them for money to put in her piggy bank. She emptied Papa's pockets, GiGi's change purse, etc. Kate ended up nearly filling the whole piggy bank in one afternoon! Of course, now the piggy bank is so full, it has a small crack in it; I'm sure it's going to break one of these days if she drops it on the floor! GiGi, Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim all flew back home on Tuesday. The next weekend was Mother's Day. Daddy gave Kate the cards to bring to Mommy, and Kate decided to open the one that she gave Mommy and say that it was hers. The next day, May 14, we started swim lessons at the local aquatic center with Kate. We had swim lessons Monday through Friday from 10:00 - 10:30 for two weeks. Kate was in the infant/toddler class, so Mommies (or Daddies) had to get in the pool also. Kate had about ten kids in her class. She learned how to splash the water, kick her feet, and blow bubbles. Of course, every time her teacher asked her to do these things, she would just stare back at her and not do them. But as soon as the teacher turned her back, Kate was busy splashing and kicking. She also learned how to "reach and pull" her arms like she's swimming, climb out of the water at the wall all by herself, and jump back in. She's a bit unsure about jumping in, but that will come with time! Daddy was able to come to swim lessons with us one day each week, and Kate loved having Daddy in the pool with her too! Last weekend, Daddy hosted a cookout for his software group at work. We had quite a few people at our house, but the weather was beautiful, so we stayed outside. Kate did great playing with some of the people there and also playing independently on her playset. The next day we invited Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter to come over and help us eat some of the leftovers from the cookout. As always, Kate had a great time playing with the boys. One night during the week, Daddy took Kate to the neighborhood outdoor pool while Mommy went out with some friends. The water was so cold! Kate stood in the kid's pool, shivering so much she could hardly stand up, but she insisted that she was not cold because she knew she'd have to get out if she admitted it. Another day this week, Kate gave me the phone and told me she wanted to call Mama. I pretended to dial the number and "talk" to Mama. I gave the phone to Kate so she could talk. When she realized that I was just pretending and that nobody was on the other end, she got mad at me and said, "No, really call Mama!" I guess I can't pull anything past her! We had the cookout at our house last weekend; this weekend we went to Jason and Heather's for another cookout. They had their small swimming pool in the backyard, but we didn't know to bring a swimsuit for Kate. That didn't stop her! She and the boys played in the pool...fully clothed with diapers on too! They were all dripping wet, but they had a great time. We're looking forward to many more wet days by the pool since summer has finally arrived! 25 months Kate began this month by spending a couple weeks at home with Mama and Uncle Tim while Mommy and Daddy were in Hawaii. Daddy had to travel to Hawaii for business, and Mommy had the opportunity to go with him this time. Mommy wasn't sure how she or Kate would do being apart from each other for so long, but we both did great! While we were in Hawaii, Kate had a blast with Mama and Uncle Tim. Mama took Kate to see the Easter Bunny, and surprisingly, Kate loved it. She sat on his lap and played with his ears, but I think her favorite part was the mini gummy bears that he gave her. Kate and Mama spent one morning at Big Spring Park, where Kate loved running around and chasing the ducks. The ducks couldn't get away from her fast enough! The beginning of April brought record-breaking warm temperatures, but they were able to go to Dublin Park a couple times to play on the swings and slides there. Mommy and Daddy came home from Hawaii the day before Easter. That morning, Mama took Kate to an Easter egg hunt at church. Unfortunately, the hot weather was gone, and the temperature that morning was in the upper 20's. Kate found a few eggs, but it was so cold that she was ready to come home. She met us at the airport that afternoon, and we were so excited to see each other! Kate jabbered and acted silly the rest of the day, just as she always does when she hasn't seen someone in awhile. That night we colored Easter eggs, and what a mess we made! Kate wanted to do it by herself, so she dropped (rather, threw) the egg in the cup, resulting in yellow food coloring all over Kate, the kitchen table, the chair, etc. On Easter Sunday, Kate was able to go to "big-girl church" with Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Tim, and Aunt Kellie. She did great during the service, and then she came home to see what was in her Easter basket. Mama and Uncle Tim had to fly home the next day, so it was back to a normal routine for us. We have enjoyed some beautiful weather over the past couple weeks, so Kate has been able to play outside quite a bit. She even got to eat lunch on her new picnic table that Daddy built for her. She thought she was pretty cool getting to take her lunch outside! Kate now has 16 teeth, which are all of her teeth except her two-year molars. She cut the two cuspids on her right side just before her second birthday. After a week of not sleeping well at night, she finally cut the bottom cuspid on the left side on April 21. The top tooth on that side wasn't far behind. In other news, Kate LOVES to sing. She sings very loudly throughout dinner every night. Sometimes she wants us to sing along with her, but other times it's "No Mommy" or "No Daddy" if we try to sing along; she wants to do it all by herself. She has also begun to talk on the phone a lot more too. Maybe this is because she talked to Mommy and Daddy on the phone twice a day while we were in Hawaii. Kate has had a busy month, but it's been fun. Next month promises to be fun as well as the weather continues to warm up and our neighborhood pool opens soon. Kate will have a blast playing in the water this summer. Just recently we washed cars outside and Kate had such a good time getting wet and running around the yard screaming while we sprayed her with the hose. We also bought her a Slip-n-Slide Jr. for her birthday, and we know she'll love that too. We look forward to seeing what the next month has in store for our busy little girl! 24 months Happy 2nd Birthday, Kate! What a busy month we have had! We began March by taking a seven-night family cruise to the Caribbean. We had such a great time again this year with Mommy’s family and some friends. Kate had the time of her life on this trip! We had a direct flight from Huntsville to Orlando on Saturday, and Kate was very excited to see everybody when we arrived at the hotel. We cruised from Port Canaveral on Sunday, and Kate was running around the ship like she owned it. We went on a different ship this year, but it was the same style as the ship last year. After dinner the first night, we were walking around the ship. Believe it or not, Kate remembered where the fishies were last year and asked to see them. Unfortunately, on this ship, they only had a coral sculpture instead of the aquarium they had on the other ship. Oh well. Kate was excellent sitting at dinner for 1 1/2 to 2 hours each night. She was completely shy around our waiters, and she would not talk to them or even smile at them. Rather, she got a huge scowl on her face every time one of them talked to her. Despite this, our waiter brought her her own bowl of fruit as an appetizer, and then she ate a good meal every night. For dessert, our waiter brought her either ice cream and cookie or jello every night. We spent two days at the beach, which she absolutely loved. She played with her buckets in the sand and enjoyed splashing in the water. We had such a good time just watching our precious daughter have so much fun! On our three days at sea, Kate we set up Kate’s inflatable swimming pool, and she spent quite a bit of time in that. At nights, she went to the shows with us. We thought she might fall asleep, but she enjoyed staying up late to watch the singing and dancing each night. When she was tired, she asked to go to the room. In fact, a couple days after we came home, Kate told me that she wanted to go back to the room. Another day after we got home, she also said that after she took a nap, we could go watch the show. How cute! After being home from the cruise for only 10 days, Mama and Uncle Tim came to visit in preparation for Kate’s birthday party. Kate was so excited to go to the airport to pick them up, and she immediately began to show off and act silly when she saw them. We had a busy couple of days preparing for Kate’s party. Kate was very excited about her Sesame Street birthday party this year. Mama spent Friday evening decorating an Elmo birthday cake for Kate. It looked great and tasted pretty good too! Her party began Saturday, March 24 at 11:00. We had about 23 people at Kate’s party, and I think everybody had a great time. We enjoyed hot dogs and hamburgers for lunch. After lunch, Kate opened her gifts. She was so excited to open gifts this year, and she had lots of help from her friends – Megan and Jack. All of the kids enjoyed some time playing outside on Kate’s playset since the weather was so beautiful that day. In fact, the temperature was in the mid-80’s and we had to turn the air conditioner on! After some playtime, we sang Happy Birthday to Kate. She had the Elmo cake that Mama decorated, and she had blue cupcakes with the letter K and the number 2 on them. The frosting made quite a mess, but it was good! Kate’s favorite gift at her birthday party was the Little Tykes cozy couple car from Mama and Papa. She still has it in the house for some reason, and she loves riding it all over the place. After celebrating Kate’s birthday on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy left Monday morning to spend almost two weeks in Hawaii on business. Mama and Uncle Tim are staying with Kate (and having a great time) while Mommy and Daddy enjoy a relaxing vacation! We missed spending time with Kate on her actual birthday, but she sounded like she had a great time. She spent the day in Murfreesboro with Mama, Uncle Tim, Aunt Kellie, and Aunt Stacie. They went to Toot’s for lunch, where they sang Happy Birthday to her and gave her ice cream and a balloon. Stay tuned for next month’s update when you can h ear all about the fun that Kate had with Mama and Uncle Tim while Mommy and Daddy were in Hawaii! 23 months After such a busy January, we enjoyed a relatively calm month at home in February. On February 8, Mommy signed Kate up for preschool at our church in the fall. Kate will attend Asbury's Child Development Center (CDC) two days a week starting in August. Because Asbury's program is so popular, Mommy got to the church at 4:15 that morning to get a spot for Kate! Although we can't believe she's old enough, we're looking forward to our little girl beginning school and interacting with other children on a regular basis. To get Kate involved with other children this month, Mommy started to take Kate to story time at the library. We go every Tuesday morning, and Kate has a good time! At story time, we listen to three stories, sing several songs, and do a craft. She was very shy the first week, but now she's starting to participate a little bit more in the activities. On February 21, Mommy and Daddy went to church in observance of Ash Wednesday. Kate went to nursery that evening while we went to the service. When we picked Kate up, she was fascinated with the ashes on our foreheads. She asked what they were, so we told her they were ashes. Later, when we were driving home, she asked to see Mommy's "rosies." At first, I could not figure out what she was talking about. Finally, I realized that she was associating the word "ashes" with the song, "Ring Around the Rosie." She still asks where Mommy and Daddy's rosies are. We've been enjoying spring-like temperatures the past week at home, so Kate has been able to play outside quite a bit. She loves her playset, especially swinging! Also, she is now big enough to climb up the ladder and go down the slide by herself, so she loves the slide too! We're looking forward to consistently warmer weather so we can play outside every day. Another sign that Kate is growing up is she likes to help pick out her own clothes now. She'll usually help me pick out a particular shirt that she wants to wear. Of course, another sign of her growing independence is that she usually doesn't want to wear the pants or shoes that go with the shirt. So far, we haven't had any mismatched outfits, although we do go out with different shoes on than I would have liked. Hey, we can't win all the battles, right? :) Speaking of her independence, though, she increasingly does not want us to help her with things; she wants to do things HERSELF. If she's building a block tower and we try to help, she'll say "No Mommy" or "No Daddy" and wave us off from touching her blocks. Sometimes if we help her too much (like getting into the car), she'll have to go back to where we started helping her and do it again all by herself. Kate has also really started to do better at having manners (as much as a 23-month old can have manners), although somewhat forced at times. She often says "please" and "thank you" for things, and if she forgets, she's usuallly good about saying them when prompted. Occasionally she'll pitch a little fit and shake her arms up and down while saying, "No please!!" or "No thank you!!" It is becoming increasingly difficult not to laugh at her. We're going to be taking a family cruise next month, and Kate is very excited. She talks about going on the big boat, going to the beach, and playing with her buckets in the sand. Stay tuned for her March update when you can read all about our fun trip! 22 months Even though Christmas is over, Kate has had another busy month! We began the month with one final Christmas / New Year's celebration in Murfreesboro with Gramma and Grampa Owen, Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave. The very next weekend, Mommy and Daddy went away with some friends to a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN. Kate had the opportunity to spend the whole weekend at Gramma and Grampa Owen's house. They did lots of fun things together, including making a visit to the Children's Discovery Center on Saturday. In case one museum during a week wasn't enough, Mommy and Daddy took Kate to Early Works in Huntsville the following Friday. We spent a couple hours there, and Kate enjoyed playing in the water table, playing in the pretend garden, and many other things. Daddy had to go to Hawaii for a business trip at the end of this month, so Mommy and Kate decided to go spend about ten days in Wichita with Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim Caronna. We had so much fun while we were out there! A couple days after we got there, Wichita got over 6 inches of snow within 24 hours. Kate has never seen that much snow before! We wanted to take Kate outside to play, but she didn't have a snowsuit (I don't even think they sell them here in Alabama!). So we dressed her in two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, two shirts, two coats, mittens, a hat, and her tennis shoes with baggies on top. She could barely move! :) We went outside to play for a few minutes, but it was so cold out there that we didn't stay out too long. The snow was still on the ground a week later, and everytime we went outside that week, Kate wanted to touch the snow. She enjoyed having Papa make snowballs for her that she could throw. We did several other fun things in Wichita while we were there. One day we took Kate to Exploration Place (yes, it's another children's museum!). Kate enjoyed playing in the giant castle, hearing the laughing sunflowers, and playing in another water table. We also took Kate to the zoo on Friday. It had been so cold all week, but Friday looked to be the nicest day...even though there was still snow on the ground. The sun was out and the temperature was warmer, but it was very windy. Kate did enjoy seeing all of the animals, though. She even got to see the monkeys eat snowballs! Of course, then she tried to eat a snowball herself after we got home that afternoon. In the petting zoo area, they had a large plastic cow that kids could pretend to milk - it even had real liquid that came out of its utters. Kate enjoyed doing this with Papa, and she still talks about "pulling the milk." While we were at Mama and Papa's, Kate loved terrorizing (oops, I mean playing with) the kitties. She followed those cats wherever they went, and she liked giving five to one of them and having her bat back at her hand. She also loved playing the piano again. She would sit on the bench, bang on the keys, and sing Farmer in the Dell or Old McDonald. How cute! We enjoyed the time that we spent with Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim, but we were glad to come home and see Daddy on the 28th. Kate's vocabulary continues to improve and amaze us! She tries very hard to pronounce words correctly, and she will continue to repeat a word until she says it right. However, there are still some things we just can't understand. If we repeat something back to her and it's wrong, she'll say it again to us and then say, "Is that what she said?" She'll also say to us, "Is that what she wants?" if there is something that we're not giving to her. Kate also has a great memory. She will ask us about something or tell us a detail about something several days after it happened that sometimes we didn't even remember. For example, we went inside a new restaurant for a couple minutes to pick something up before Christmas and there was a reindeer, as well as other Christmas decorations, inside. About two weeks later, we went again and Kate asked us where the reindeer and the candles were. Kate is very loving and loves to give hugs and kisses. She occasionally gives them to us out of the blue, and she usually gives us a kiss when asked. While she just puckers her lips with people, her stuffed animals get kisses complete with sound effects too. We're all glad to be home for a while after being on travel so much this month and look forward to the month ahead! 21 months This month revolved completely around the Christmas season. We began the month by driving through the Huntsville Botanical Gardens’ Galaxy of Lights. This is a mile-long drive-through tour featuring animated holiday light displays. Kate enjoyed seeing all the lights, but near the end she wanted to know if we were "almost home?" The next weekend we decided to let Kate help us decorate cookies. Kate helped with everything from mixing and rolling out the cookie dough (which involved getting flour everywhere), cutting the cookies with cookie cutters, mixing the icing (and licking the beater, of course), and then decorating her own special cookie. She had a great time playing with the icing and the sprinkles. She even decided to try eating a red hot. She put it in her mouth and sucked on it for quite a while. All of a sudden, she spit it out onto her plate, pointed to it, and said, "Ow! This is yuck." I guess the center of the red hot was too spicy for her! After we decorated cookies, we went to another local holiday event called Santa’s Village, where Kate enjoyed seeing the live reindeer, real snow, and even Frosty the Snowman. During the month, we also took Kate to sit on Santa Claus’ lap, although she was not very happy about it this year. She ended up sitting on Daddy’s lap while Daddy sat next to Santa. Kate’s picture with Santa this year also includes Mommy and Daddy! Of course, after we bought the picture, Kate went with one of Santa’s helpers and sat on Santa’s lap all by herself. She still wasn’t happy about it, but at least she didn’t fuss. We spent Christmas at home again this year, and we were very lucky to have Mama & Papa Caronna as well as Uncle Tim stay with us for the week. Aunt Kellie and Aunt Stacie also visited for a few days. We all went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church at 11:00 PM, which we figured Kate would sleep through since it was so late. Boy, were we wrong! Kate was awake throughout the entire service, so it was after 12:30 before she went to bed that night. Fortunately, she was an absolute angel during the service, sitting in our laps and looking around at everything. Since she went to bed so late, she slept until almost 10:00 Christmas morning! She was in a great mood when she finally woke up, though. We had so much fun opening gifts on Christmas morning! At first, Kate wasn’t quite sure what to do, so it took quite a while for her to get the first few gifts open. Then she started to get the hang of things, though. She would unwrap a few gifts and then decide that she wanted to play with something. A little while later she would come back and open some more gifts. Since our family opens one gift at a time, it took about three hours to completely finish opening gifts. Some of Kate’s favorite gifts this year included a kitchen set (with lots of food and accessories), Tickle Me Elmo, some Little Mermaid dress-up shoes, and a baby stroller. Kate enjoyed playing with all of her new toys while Mommy and Daddy prepared a delicious Christmas dinner. Gramma and Grampa Owen were able to join us for dinner, and we all enjoyed celebrating the holiday together! This was a truly special Christmas for our family and a great way to end a memorable year. Happy new year, everybody! 20 months Kate was not quite as busy this month, but she still continued to grow up just as fast. We traveled home from Wichita on October 30, so we had little time to relax and unpack before Halloween the next day. Just like last year, we attended Trunk or Treat at our church. Kate was a ladybug for Halloween this year and we even got her to wear her ladybug antennae most of the night. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, so all of the festivities were moved inside the church. We trick-or-treated through the halls at church and got lots of candy. Although she was her typical shy self, Kate had lots of fun. We practically had to drag her away from the duck pond that they had in the games section. We let Kate have a big lollipop before we left church, and she loved it! Of course, the sugar in it made her run wild, and she was up very late that night. :) A couple weeks later, Gramma and Grampa Owen came down to play with Kate so Mommy and Daddy could put up Christmas decorations. Aunt Julie also came down to visit that same weekend and brought her Dalmation, which Kate loved. Kate kept asking "What's on there?" while pointing to the dog's spots. We successfully put up Christmas decorations, and Kate had a blast playing with Gramma, Grampa, and Aunt Julie all afternoon. Although we got the Christmas tree up, it was a few days later before we were able to decorate it. Kate obviously likes to pull the ornaments off the tree and put them back on. Funny, but she never seems to get them back on quite the same way they were before she took them off, though. Kate is really excited about Christmas this year and loves all the decorations. She gets so excited when the Christmas tree lights automatically come on every afternoon, and she loves to point them out to us. Some of her favorite Christmas decorations to play with are the Hallmark singing snowmen. Kate continually wants to make them sing and she is always carrying them around the house. She is also fascinated with all the blow-up snowmen, Pooh characters, Santas, etc. that we see around town. She always gets a big smile on her face, kick her legs, and ask "Who's that?" when she sees Santa Claus. We ended this month with a nice Thanksgiving celebration. This year, we went up to East Tennessee to see family there and eat at Daddy's grandparents' house. It didn't take Kate too long to adjust before she was running around the house, enjoying herself and all of the attention. Surprisingly, she didn't get into too much trouble and was good the entire day. We had a great lunch and then drove back home since Mommy's family was visiting for the weekend. Kate enjoyed the extra attention all weekend long. MaMa thought it would be fun for Kate to paint a reindeer on a sweatshirt using her hand/footprints. Kate, however, did NOT like the idea of getting paint on her feet or her hands. It took us two nights, but we were eventually able to have Kate make her own cute little sweatshirt. Since the weather has been unseasonably warm, we took advantage of it and went to a local park/playground on Saturday. Kate enjoyed swinging, sliding, bouncing on the bridge, and climbing everything! Afterward, we all went to get ice cream, which was the highlight of Kate's day! We were glad to end this month with such a nice Thanksgiving holiday. We're so thankful for our beautiful and healthy daughter and all the loving family that we have! We are really looking forward to celebrating the Christmas season with Kate this year as we teach her what the season is about and watch her enjoy this festive time of year! 19 months Kate has had a very busy and exciting month! We did something special every weekend during the month. The Madison Street Festival is held every year on the first Saturday in October. We have never been before, but we decided to take Kate this year. They had a big parade, complete with a high school marching band, fire trucks, and, of course, lots of candy! Kate enjoyed watching the parade and eating a lollipop! After the parade was over, we walked around to the booths and took Kate to the petting zoo area where they had goats, chickens, pigs, and rabbits. Daddy took Kate inside so she could pet all the animals, but Kate only wanted to pet the goats. Kate has no fear of animals, and she loved petting them and doing "nice goat." Fortunately, she had the opportunity to pet many more animals throughout the month. The next weekend, we took Kate to Tate Farms, which is a large pumpkin patch and working farm just outside of Huntsville. We went last year, but Kate was just a little too young then to experience everything. She had a blast this year, though! Tate Farms had a petting area with goats, ponies, and bunny rabbits. Kate loved interacting with all of the animals. She tried to feed the goats (they weren't very hungry), and she also helped Daddy hold a bunny, which she loved. Since it was a pumpkin patch, we took a hayride to go pick out our own pumpkin. We actually got to cut our pumpkin right off the vine. We got a big pumpkin to put on our front porch, and we let Kate get a small pumpkin of her very own. She loves to open the door to the coffee table, put the pumpkin inside, close the door, and say, "Where's the pumpkin?" We all had a great time, and Kate didn't want to leave. The next weekend was very momentous - for Kate as well as for Mommy and Daddy. Mommy and Daddy went on a camping trip by ourselves for two nights, so Gramma and Grampa came to our house to stay with Kate. Kate did great and loved all of the attention. On Saturday, they took Kate to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. They spent over 6 hours looking at scarecrows on the Scarecrow Trail, watching a choo-choo train, playing in a sandbox, eating lunch together, and many other things. Kate was worn out after such a busy day! Mommy and Daddy enjoyed our time away for a couple days as well, but we were ready to come home and see our baby girl! The day after we got home from our camping trip, the three of us left for another trip. This time we flew to Wichita to visit Grandma ("MaMa"), Grandpa ("PaPa"), and Uncle Tim for a week. MaMa and PaPa have two kitties that Kate absolutely loved. She would chase them around the house all day saying "nice kitty" and "come here kitty." For the most part she did really well with the kitties and had a great time with them. Too bad we can't say the same for the cats! :) Uncle Tim also has a small aquarium, so every time we walked by the steps, Kate wanted to go downstairs to see the fishies. The highlight of our trip in Wichita was going to the zoo on Sunday. We went to the Children's Farms (the petting zoo area) first, which was a good decision. Kate's favorite animals here were the sheep. Again, Kate had no fear. She walked around chasing after the sheep, bumping up against them, and squealing in delight as they came toward her. We captured the whole thing on video, and it is absolutely precious! Kate also got to feed the sheep, as well as the ducks, fish, and even the giraffes! She wasn't too sure about the giraffes' long tongues, though. During our trip to Wichita, Kate picked up a new phrase. She has started saying "We don't do [something]" when she knows she is doing something wrong (for example, "we don't eat the book"). Each month, her memory continues to amaze us. She got a new book, for example, and the next day she knew what the first several lines of the book said. She can also recall things that happened several days earlier and tell us about it. Just recently she has started to tell us what happened in nursery at church and who she played with. As captured in the sound byte on her page, Kate is also learning her ABC's and can occasionally count to 10 (sometimes she leaves a few out). Finally, by the end of this month, Kate has twelve teeth! She has four teeth in the front each on the top and the bottom, and she now has all four molars. She can now chew up just about any food that she wants. What a busy month we've had. With the holidays coming up, it looks like we'll have another exciting month ahead. We can't wait to see what exciting changes this next month brings! 18 months Wow! Kate is a year and a half old already. Where has the time gone? Kate's fifth tooth (the next one on the top right) finally popped through on August 29. About a week later, on September 6, her sixth tooth cut through the gums on the top left. During this time, Daddy was out of town for about a week on business. Kate missed her Daddy so much while he was gone, and he missed her too! We stayed busy at home, though, because Kate and Mommy had to get ready to take our first long trip by ourselves. We flew up to Syracuse, NY for a week in the middle of this month. Grandma ("MaMa") Caronna and Uncle Tim went there for a family wedding, so Mommy thought it would be fun for us to go too. This would give our family in Syracuse an opportunity to spend some time with Kate and see how much she's grown. Mommy was a little bit nervous flying by herself with Kate, but as always, Kate did great on the plane (and waiting in the airport too). She colored, we read lots of books, and she even slept a little bit. We stayed at GiGi's (Kate's great-grandmother) house for the week, and we got to visit GiJo (Kate's great-grandfather) a little bit too. Kate even got to have some of GiJo's macaroni, homemade sauce, and meatballs - she loved the meatballs! The wedding was in Stowe, VT so we drove about 6 hours from Syracuse to Stowe on Saturday. The leaves were starting to change, and the weather was absolutely perfect! We did some sightseeing in Stowe, but Kate tired out on us and slept through the beautiful gondola ride to the top of the mountain. In Syracuse, some other things Kate got to do were eat Hofmann hot dogs (the best!), go to Hafner's for ice cream, and ride her first carousel. We came home on Wednesday and had a very busy weekend! On Thursday, Kate had her first real babysitter while Mommy and Daddy went out to dinner for a work picnic. Hannah, our neighbor, came over and played with Kate for a few hours, and Kate had a great time. On Friday, Aunt Kellie and Tate came down to Huntsville for the weekend to go to Big Spring Jam. Yes, I know it's the fall, but it's held annually at Big Spring Park in downtown the last weekend in September, and we have all gone for the past four years or so. It's a weekend full of outdoor concerts at several different stages, and we decided to try to take Kate this year. On Friday night, we saw Casting Crowns on the Christian stage. Kate loved listening to the music and seeing all of the bright lights on the stage. All afternoon she kept talking about how she wanted to go "listen music," and after we got there she would say "more music" whenever a concert ended. Of course, the concert didn't finish until almost midnight, so she fell asleep before it was over. Everything was rained out on Saturday night, but we went back on Sunday evening for some more concerts. Kate got to sit in her outdoor chair and eat chicken-on-a-stick, funnel cakes, and ice cream! Kate enjoys listening to any kind of music...and even making her own. She can now sing Itsy Bitsy Spider and do the hand motions to it. She also knows Ring Around the Rosie, Pat-A-Cake, and Wheels on the Bus. Another thing that has amazed us this month is Kate's memory. She has several books that are her favorites, and she can "read" the books by herself. She actually says the right words (most of them, anyway) in order. Some of her favorite books that she can read right now are We're Going on a Bear Hunt and Five Silly Monkeys. In addition to reading, she also uses three-word sentences all the time now, and she continues to put more words together. She's getting very proficient at repeating longer sentences back to you so that you can understand what she is saying. This is also the first month where Kate is really starting to learn her colors and numbers. She knows yellow, orange, green, and blue, and she can count up to five by herself. Kate ended the month by getting her seventh tooth on September 26. This tooth is her first molar on the top right and I'm sure the others will not be far behind! Next month promises to be another busy month as we look forward to fall arriving. 17 months This month began with a trip to the Tennessee Aquarium on Daddy's birthday. Since Kate loved looking at the fishies on our cruise in May, we thought the aquarium would be a great family trip. We invited Gramma and Grampa Owen as well as Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave to come along with us. We brought the stroller, but Kate ended up walking through most of the aquarium. She loved seeing all of the fish and splashing her hands in the water in some of the hands-on exhibits. Since it was Daddy's birthday, we all went to lunch at Sticky Fingers in Chattanooga. Kate was so tired after about four hours in the aquarium...she slept right through lunch! Uncle Tim was still visiting us when we went to the aquarium, and we thought it would be fun to drive down to Atlanta to see the Braves play baseball. The Braves lost that night (6-4 to the Mets), but we still had a great time. Kate stayed awake throughout the entire game. She sat on our laps and watched them "pitch" the ball, and she liked looking at the kids behind us too. After the game, they had a fireworks show in the stadium. Kate loved watching the "fire" and hearing them go "boom!" We didn't do too much the rest of the month. Uncle Tim stayed with us through about mid-August, and Kate continued to love playing with him. Now, at dinner, she likes to point out to us where Tim's chair is. Speaking of dinner, Kate has started to say "Amen" after we say the blessing every night. Sometimes she gets impatient and says it in the middle of the blessing or even before we've all sat down at the table! Even so, it's nice to see our baby girl starting to learn about God. Kate has also started to show an interest in the potty this month. One day while playing with Tim, Kate stopped what she was doing, stood up, and said "potty." She immediately started walking down the hall and stood by the bathroom door until Daddy opened the door. This was our first clue that Kate might be ready to start learning about the potty. We figured it couldn't hurt to try, so we bought her a Sesame Street potty seat. She isn't quite an expert just yet, but she has used the potty a couple of times and she sits on it every day just to get used to it. Kate's becoming such a big girl. Before dinner each night, Kate likes to have her own bowl and spoon so she can help Mommy cook. She also enjoys building towers with her blocks and playing peek-a-boo with Mommy and Daddy. She even says "peek-a-boo" now...it's so cute! Our daughter's vocabulary continues to expand every day. She's very curious, and she asks "what's that" about everything. As her vocabulary continues to improve, she is starting to begin putting together two- or three-word sentences on her own. Also, she has been trying to repeat everything we say for some time now, but now she is repeating EVERYTHING we say. She will attempt to repeat entire sentences, but often it ends up sounding like a bunch of gibberish. Sometimes she gets pretty close, though, and can repeat up to about three words so that you can actually make out what she is saying. Just in the past week or two, Kate has also learned what it means to smile. We'll tell her to smile, and she'll lean forward, squint her eyes, and give us her cheesiest smile. Regardless of whether it's cheesy or not, all of Kate's smiles make us smile. She brings such joy to our lives, and we are continually thankful for the gift God has given us. 16 months Although Kate isn't yet old enough for Vacation Bible School, she spent the first part of this past month there. Mommy helped direct the nursery for VBS this year, so Kate got to spend her mornings playing with other children there. She did great at the beginning of the week, but began to get tired of it near the end (as did most children and volunteers). During the week she got to paint, wear a sombrero, put together a wooden clapper, and spend time playing with other kids her age. After that busy week, we all headed out to Wichita to spend time with Mommy's parents and brother. Mommy and Kate stayed with Grandma and Grandpa for two weeks, but Daddy only got to spend one week there because of a week-long business trip. Kate loved spending so much time with Grandma and Grandpa, and they loved playing with her as well! Before Daddy left on his trip, we were able to do several things together. On Monday we took a trip to the zoo, and Kate loved seeing all of the animals there! Some of her favorite animals were the flamingoes and the peacocks. She was also excited to go see the gorillas...until two of them started throwing mud at the window. Kate REALLY didn't like this, so we quickly had to leave the gorilla exhibit. Our last stop on the way out was the petting zoo, which was probably her favorite part. Kate didn't pet any of the animals, but she loved looking at the sheep, cows, horses, and pigs since these are the animals from her books and videos. The next day was the fourth of July, and we went and saw fireworks that evening. Kate liked watching the fireworks last year, but we weren't sure how she'd do this year. Before they started, we told her they would go "boom" and be really loud. Much to our surprise, Kate loved watching the fireworks, and she would even say "boom" while they were going off. The wind was blowing toward us, so at one point Mommy covered Kate's eyes to protect her from the smoke, and Kate immediately pulled Mommy's hand away so she wouldn't miss the fireworks. Another place we visited a couple times on our trip was the duck pond. Kate loved seeing and feeding the ducks, although she ate almost as many of the Cheerios that we brought as the ducks did. Since the temperature was in the 100's most of the time we were there, we spent a lot of time inside. Grandma and Grandpa have two kitties that Kate absolutely loved to play with. She would often try to pick them up or pet them or even feed them her juice. If she wasn't playing with the kitties, she was probably playing on the piano. She really enjoyed banging on all the keys and hearing the "music." As a result, Grandma bought her a xylophone so that she could continue to play "music" at home. When we returned home after the two weeks, we brought Uncle Tim back with us to stay for a while. Tim has become one of Kate's new favorite people, and she often asks for him when she doesn't see him around. They love to build block towers together and play with all of Kate's stuffed animals. Also during our first week back, Gramma Owen came to stay with us so Mommy could go in to work for a few days for some training. Kate loved having Gramma here as they got to play together all day long. As far as Kate's development, she is really blossoming in her word formation and association. Kate now knows almost all her animals and the sounds that they make, most of her body parts, and names for many of the things around the house. Additionally, she has started to say "thank you" when we give her something and "bless you" when somebody sneezes. She also knows to ask for things that she wants by name or simply say "that" and point in order for you to get it for her. If you do not perform to her liking, though, she will grab your hand and push it towards the object that she wants. Because Kate has started picking up so many new words, we have lost track and may not even be able to keep her Words page up to date anymore. She is also watching us do things and knows, for example, that you need to turn the doorknob to open a door, you need a remote to turn the TV on, and that her DVDs go in the DVD player. She is getting to be so smart! Also this month Kate has started coloring, without eating the crayons for a change. Kate has already had a set of crayons in the bathroom that she is just now starting to use. We also bought her a set of crayons recently for her to color with while sitting in her high chair. Although she's not very good at it just yet, she knows just what to do with her crayons and enjoys scribbling on the page for a while. It has finally become apparent to us, though, that our little girl is growing and learning faster than we ever expected, or can keep up with. Each month we have with Kate brings us a new set of surprises, challenges, and joys every day! 15 months Kate has had another exciting month in which she has learned so much! We joined our neighborhood pool this year, so Kate has enjoyed spending many hours in the pool. We have a kiddie pool with about 12 inches of water in it, so she's big enough to stand in that by herself. She likes swimming in the big pool with Mommy and Daddy too. When she's not swimming in the pool, Kate loves to swing on her swingset outside. She recently discovered that Daddy can swing her by her arms also, and she loves it! She giggles the whole time and starts to fuss when he tries to stop. Being the mimic that she is, she has started to swing her stuffed animals and dolls too. Kate loves to play with her stuffed animals. She feeds her dolls (and some animals too) a bottle, she gives them medicine, and she helps them go night-night. When the animals are awake and playing, she loves to help them hop up and down. When they're not hopping or swinging, Kate rocks her animals in her rocking chair. She loves to rock back and forth in her rocking chair too. One of her favorite times of the day is movie time. She points to the TV and asks to watch one of her Baby Einstein movies. For the entire length of the movie, she is enthralled by the bright colors, pictures, puppets, and music. In the movies for her age group, they say the name of the animal or object that's in the picture. Recently, Kate has started to repeat those words and learn their meanings. Kate's vocabulary continues to expand. She can say over 100 words now. Since she knows so many words, she can usually tell us what she wants instead of whining or crying. Some other big changes with Kate this month are her sleeping and eating habits. Kate has given up her morning nap, which means that she is taking a longer afternoon nap. She continues to sleep well at night, usually about 11 hours. Also, Kate is completely on table food now - no more baby food! It's fun to be able to feed Kate the same meal that we're eating. She likes to eat just about anything, but her favorites are cheese, grapes, peas, potatoes, chicken, and bread. She likes to hold her spoon by herself, but we're still working on actually getting the food in her mouth instead of down her shirt. At Kate's 15-month checkup, she weighed exactly 20 pounds. Children must be at least one year old and weigh at least 20 pounds before they can ride in a forward-facing carseat. Since Kate finally met both requirements at her appointment, Daddy turned her carseat around at last! Kate seems to be growing up into a little girl more and more each month. We love watching her and seeing what she's going to learn and do next! 14 months At the beginning of this month, Mommy and Daddy celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary. We spent an evening in Nashville, so Kate had her first overnight stay away from Mommy and Daddy at Gramma's house. She did excellent, of course, and didn't miss Mommy and Daddy too much. We enjoyed a nice evening away, but we were very glad to see her the next morning! Although Kate has been able to walk on her own (a few steps at a time) for several weeks, she really started to take off this month! On Saturday, May 6, we took a trip to the mall, and we actually had to chase Kate as she walked around the food court! :) Kate has now given up crawling completely and is walking everywhere. About a week later, we left for Kate's first real vacation - a seven-night family cruise in the Caribbean. What a great time we had with all of Mommy's family! With nine other family members and friends, we had a lot of help for the week, and Kate certainly had plenty of attention! Kate had her first experience in a swimming pool this summer at our hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We flew down from Nashville a day before our cruise started, and we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon in the pool. Kate loved to splash in the water and play near the waterfall that fed into the pool. When Grandma and Grandpa finally arrived at the hotel a couple hours later, Kate went right to Grandma...dripping wet out of the pool! The next day we boarded our ship. While we were on the ship, Kate did wonderful at keeping up with everything that was going on. She was completely out of her routine the whole week, but she didn't miss a beat as we kept busy throughout the week. Although we thought that naptimes and early bedtime might be difficult, Kate slept in her stroller with no problems. We also weren't sure how Kate would do with the food on the ship since we didn't bring much baby food. Much to our surprise, Kate didn't eat any baby food the whole week that we were on the ship! The Windjammer (all-day buffet line) offered a great selection of foods for Kate to eat for breakfast and lunch. For dinner in the dining room, we ordered Kate her own plate every night. She always had a fresh fruit cup as an appetizer, and her dinners were either chicken and french fries, pasta, or turkey breast. And of course, our waiter always brought Kate a dish of vanilla ice cream for dessert! After dinner every night, somebody always took Kate to go see the "fishies" that she discovered on the ship. It didn't take Kate long to find the large aquarium on the ship, and every time we got near it, she had to go see the fish. Kate also made a new friend on the ship (a 21 month old girl) that she liked to show the fish to. One thing that we discovered that week was that Kate absolutely LOVES the water (beach, pool, shower, etc.). Since Kate is too young to get in the pool on the ship, we brought an inflatable baby pool. She loved splashing in that and playing with her toys. We visited the beach our last two days in port; once in St. Lucia and again in Barbados. Kate did great playing in the sand and could not get enough of being in the water and seeing all the boats. After our visit in Barbados, Kate spent her second night away from Mommy and Daddy. She spent the entire evening in Grandma and Grandpa's suite, which gave us a relaxing evening to ourselves. Our last day of the cruise was our day at sea as we sailed from Barbados back to San Juan. This day would have typically been spent on the pool deck playing in the water and relaxing. In a strange turn of events, however, the dome of a volcano near St. Lucia collapsed, covering a large portion of the Caribbean in a cloud of volcanic ash. Because of this, the pool deck was closed due to all the ash in the air. We still had an excellent day spent inside the ship relaxing and eating. By the end of the cruise, Kate knew everybody's name as well as a long list of new words. As part of her new vocabulary, Kate has started using "Mommy" and "Daddy" instead of "MaMa" and "DaDa." Kate's vocabulary is up to about 71 words now. Click here to see a list of all the words that Kate can say. It has been a momentous month for Kate with her worldwide travels, but she has settled back into a more normal routine since returning. The next month may not be as fun, but I'm sure there will be no lack of new things in Kate's life! 13 months We began Kate's 13th month by traveling 7 hours to North Augusta, SC. Our friends, Jason & Heather, had their son baptized on April 2, and we were asked to be Carter's Godparents. Once again, Kate did great traveling and slept most of the time. On our way there, we stopped for lunch at Firehouse Subs in Atlanta, GA. Kate decided that she didn't like her baby food that day, so we ordered her first meal in a restaurant. She ate almost all of her grilled cheese sandwich, and she loved the bites of oreos that we gave her! Daddy had to go on a business trip while we were in SC, so Kate and Mommy stayed an extra day to play with Mrs. Heather, Jack, Baby Carter, and Heather's parents. We went to Fort Discovery in Augusta, GA, and Kate and Jack loved playing at a giant water table, where they got soaking wet! By the end of the day, Kate wasn't acting like herself, and I noticed that she was running a fever. I also noticed that her fourth tooth (top right) popped through that day (April 3), so I didn't think much of the fever. Kate's fever continued for a few more days after we got home, and then she suddenly broke out into a rash overnight. Kate had roseola! Fortunately, the rash didn't bother her at all, and it only lasted a few days. Kate then experienced her first Easter on April 16. We went to an Easter egg hunt at church on Saturday, and Kate loved seeing all of the Easter "balls." We celebrated Easter Sunday by going to church in the morning; Kate stayed with us in the sanctuary, but she slept the whole time. Aunt Kellie was here for Easter, and Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter came over for dinner. The weather was beautiful, so the kids loved playing outside after lunch. Kate absolutely loves being outside. She likes to swing on her playset, and she loves going down her slide. When we're outside, Kate points out all of the airplanes and birdies that fly by. Kate also loves playing on her little water table when the weather is warm...she knows how to "splash splash" in the water and get everything all wet! In addition to "splash splash," Kate is saying all kinds of new words. Her vocabulary is up to about 41 words now, and it seems like she learns a new word every day. Click here to see a list of all the words that Kate can say. Kate also recognizes a lot of animals, and she can say their names or make their sounds. Not only is her vocabulary improving, but she is walking much better on her own too. She can walk across the room by herself now, although she still occasionally prefers to crawl. Because she is so active, mealtime has become quite a challenge. Kate does not like to sit in her highchair for very long, and she is certainly not interested in eating baby food anymore. Kate eats mostly table food, and her favorite foods are probably cheese and yogurt. Her pediatrician said it's okay for her to have cow's milk now, but she still doesn't care for it too much. Since Kate is primarily eating table food, she's learning to feed herself with a spoon. She has her own plate and spoon that she uses for most meals, and she's getting much better about actually getting food in her mouth with the spoon. Kate has had a busy month, and next month promises to be busy as well. We look forward to her next update to see how much more she has grown and changed! 12 months Happy Birthday, Kate! It's so hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since Kate entered our lives! What a blessing she has been to our family! We have enjoyed every moment of watching our daughter grow from a tiny baby into the beautiful and wonderful little girl that she is today. Kate decided that she didn't want to turn one year old and still have a toothless grin. So...on March 11, we noticed that her first tooth came in. Most babies get their bottom teeth first, but Kate wanted to be a little bit different. Her first tooth came in on the top left. Well, Kate didn't want just one tooth, so her second tooth cut through on March 17. This tooth was on the bottom left. And just in time for her birthday party, she cut her third tooth (bottom right) on March 22. We always said that when she did finally get teeth, they would come one right after another. Fortunately, her teething experience wasn't too bad. She woke up quite a few times during the nights when the teeth cut through, but thank goodness for Motrin! Other than this big accomplishment, Kate continues to perfect what she already knows. She is talking more and more, and she continues to take several steps at a time on her own. We had Kate's first birthday party on Saturday, March 25. We had planned a cookout, but the weather was rather chilly that day, so we had all of the festivities inside. Daddy grilled chicken and barbecue ribs, and everyone enjoyed the food and fun. Kate "helped" open her gifts, but she was more interested in playing with the paper and her new toys. After lunch, we all sang "Happy Birthday" to Kate. She had her own little baby cake, so we stripped her down to her diaper and put her in her highchair. She wasn't too sure what to think, and she certainly wasn't too keen on the idea of getting messy. We had a great time celebrating Kate's first birthday with family and friends! To celebrate Kate's actual birthday on March 28, we had another mini-party. Grandma Caronna and GiGi (Great-Grandma Kesel) were able to visit for a whole week, so they were here for Kate's actual birthday. Kate had some more presents to open, and then we sang "Happy Birthday" again. Kate did a little bit better with her cake this time, and she enjoyed eating most of the icing! The past year with Kate has been so wonderful; we can't imagine our lives without our precious daughter! We look forward to seeing what the next year brings and watching our baby girl grow up! 11 months Kate continues to amaze us as she grows and develops, and she's had a few new "firsts" this month as well. Kate took her first bath in a big bathtub (without any additional support) on February 3. Mommy and Daddy were a little bit nervous, but Kate loved it, and she continues to love her bath time! In fact, when she hears the water running for her bath, she will come crawling into the bathroom, ready to take her bath. She loves to play with her duckies and splash in the water! Another first this month was a very long car ride to Wichita. We decided to take a long weekend trip and drive 13 hours to see Grandma and Grandpa. Kate did great in the car - she slept most of the way (even though we drove during the day), and when she was awake, she was happy as long as she was being entertained. In Wichita, Kate loved to see Grandma's kitty cats, although they weren't too fond of her...especially when she tried to pull their tails! :) She would even point to them and try to say the word "kitty" when she saw them walk by. While we were in Wichita, Grandma taught Kate how to say "clock." Grandma and Grandpa have a pendulum clock, and Kate loved looking at it. Whenever she was near it, she would point to it and try to say clock. We thought she would only recognize the pendulum clock, but she knows all kinds of clocks now, and she loves to point them out to us. She even pointed to Mommy's watch at dinner one night and said "clock." Kate's language skills continue to develop; we've got a little chatterbox on our hands! She loves to talk and babble and try to say the same words that Mommy and Daddy say. Kate is also learning animal noises. She knows the noises for sheep, cow, and duck, and she makes the noises whenever she sees one of these animals. Kate continues to become more steady when standing on her own, although she will only do it when she wants to. She's also doing much better at walking while holding only one hand; she's almost as steady as when holding two hands. Kate's biggest accomplishment this month is that she has begun to take steps on her own. She started by taking only one step toward Daddy. After practicing a little bit more, though, she consistently began to take two or three steps toward him. Of course, it has to be on her terms, but she's doing a great job with it! We can't believe our little girl is beginning to walk on her own! We are excited to see what the next month will bring, and we're looking forward to seeing what new things Kate will be doing for her first birthday! 10 months This month Kate has continued to advance and is improving all of her skills while still picking up a few new ones. Kate has really started to try to mimic Mommy and Daddy when we do something interesting. One of the new skills that she has picked up while trying to mimic us is clapping. Whenever we say "Hurray!" and clap our hands, she'll stop what she's doing and clap her hands with a big smile on her face. She also loves to play patty-cake now that she can clap by herself. Another way she likes to mimic us is by trying to imitate words and sounds that we make. You can tell she is really trying to repeat the words and sometimes she even gets the first letter correct (like "da" for duck and "ca" for cracker). She likes to make up her own noises as well. She'll make a new noise and then look up with a smile on her face to see if we think she's funny. Of course she always is! :) Although Kate started waving at the end of last month, this month she's started to wave by opening and closing her hand. When we are out in public, she waves at strangers to get them to pay attention to her. At home, though, Kate is doing much better about entertaining herself. She loves to pull out books or toys from her toy bag or legos from the box and put them in her mouth. When she pulls out books, she loves for us to read them to her. She will pull a book out ("Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" is her favorite) and hold it in front of her looking up at us expectantly until we come read to her. Kate will also crawl all over the house by herself, which has prompted us to further baby-proof the house. We installed cabinet locks in the kitchen and bathrooms since she loves opening the doors and pulling everything out. We also put up baby gates to prevent her from getting to the fine china and the hall stairs. A new favorite this month is Kate's walker. She crawls over to it all the time now to pull up on it and push it around the house. She has not quite mastered steering yet, though, so we have to walk with her to get her unstuck from corners and obstacles even though she is determined to push her way through them. Although Kate is not yet walking on her own, she is making progress in this area. She can now stand unsupported for a few seconds, but once she realizes it, she promptly (and gracefully) sits herself down. She can also walk holding onto only one hand, even though she much prefers us to hold onto both of her hands. This month her pediatrician gave the go-ahead for Kate to have new foods, such as yogurt, cheese, eggs, tomatoes, and pretty much anything we have for dinner. Although she turns her nose up at some things (like apples if not cut small enough for her liking), she enjoys most foods that we give her. In fact, one of her favorite new foods is scrambled egg yolks. Kate also loves to drink her juice from a sippy cup and has decided that juice is much better than water. Every day (usually more than once) she'll eat her favorite snack of Cheerios and juice. We'll continue to give Kate more table food until eventually she won't be eating the jars of baby food any more. It's hard to believe that our baby girl is growing up so fast...Only two more months until Kate's first birthday! 9 months This month has brought about a few new skills, but mostly Kate has spent time improving the skills that she has already learned. Kate has become very proficient at crawling wherever she wants to go and pulling up on everything. She is cruising all over the place now! Kate has also started to climb over things, which prompted us to lower her crib mattress this month. She loves climbing over Mommy and Daddy while we're playing on the floor with her as well. Another new thing is that when we play with her, Kate has started to dance (bounce up and down) to her musical toys. She now loves to play peekaboo too, and she even knows how to do it herself. Kate also enjoys mimicking others. She will stick out her tongue or blow raspberries when others do the same to her. She's also learned how to wave this month, and she will wave back when somebody first waves to her. As far as eating, she continues to love to snack on cheerios. We're beginning to introduce other table foods to her also. She tried crackers this month, and she loves to munch on those. The month ended with Kate celebrating her first Christmas. Kate had her Grandma and Grandpa Caronna, Uncle Tim, Aunt Kellie, Aunt Stacie, and Gramma and Grampa Owen here to celebrate Christmas with her. We began our Christmas celebration by attending the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. Kate stayed in the sanctuary with us, and she loved listening to the music. She was very quiet and well-behaved throughout the service. We came home and had heavy hors d'oeuvres before going to bed early in anticipation of the arrival of Santa Claus. Kate woke up bright and early Christmas morning at 6 AM! As a tradition in our family, only one person can open a gift at a time, so it took us over 3 hours to open gifts Christmas morning! Kate got tired and fell asleep on Mommy's lap about halfway through. But when she woke up, Kate helped Mommy and Daddy open the rest of her gifts, and she loved sitting there and looking at her new toys and books. Kate enjoyed a Christmas dinner of ham, corn, and peas. The ham was certainly her favorite! Maybe next year she can have some dessert too. :) We enjoyed spending Kate's first Christmas at home and sharing it with all of our family! 8 months What a busy month Kate has had! She's had so many new firsts this month. Kate continues to enjoy walking all over the house while holding onto Mommy or Daddy's fingers. However, Kate has figured out how to become mobile on her own this month - Kate started to crawl on November 15. During those first few days, she would only crawl a few feet to something of interest on the floor (papers, etc.). Now she is crawling all over the place, including around corners to try to find Mommy. We have to watch her every second now, because Kate is pulling up on everything in addition to crawling. In the mornings, we usually find her standing up in her crib. She loves to pull up on Mommy or Daddy too, and she's even figured out how to pull up on flat surfaces like the refrigerator. It's time to baby proof our house! Kate has expanded her vocabulary this month as well. Besides saying "Ba-Ba," she's learned how to say "Da-Da" and "Ma-Ma." As for eating, in addition to cereal, fruit, and vegetables, we've added a jar of meat to her daily diet. She likes the meats as long as they're given in combination with a fruit or vegetable. Before or after meals, Kate loves to snack on cheerios and puffs, which is a great distraction for her. She can pick them up off her highchair or stroller and feed them to herself. She has also learned how to drink from a cup. We typically only offer her water because she's only supposed to have a small amount of juice at this age. She loves drinking her water, though, especially after a snack of cheerios. Kate ended this month by celebrating her first Thanksgiving. We flew to Syracuse, NY to celebrate Thanksgiving at Great-Grandma Kesel's house. Kate did great on the airplane - she slept most of the way and entertained the rest of the passengers when she was awake. On Thanksgiving Day, Kate ate turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, and peas that we cut up for her since she still doesn't have any teeth. In Syracuse, Kate also got to experience her first snowfall. Syracuse got a few inches of snow while we were up there, and Kate loved being outside to play in the snow. We had a great trip to Syracuse, and it was wonderful for Kate to meet so many relatives on Mommy's side of the family! We're looking forward to seeing what the next month brings and celebrating our first Christmas as a family of three! 7 months Kate had her 6-month checkup with her pediatrician at the beginning of the month. This appointment brought about a lot of changes with Kate. To begin, we found out that Kate is 27 inches long (90th percentile), which means that we can no longer use her infant carrier. She has now moved up to her larger convertible car seat, which she will stay in until she reaches 40 pounds. Since she is no longer in her carrier, she now sits up in a shopping cart or a highchair while we're out. It seems like she's getting so big! Eating dinner has become more exciting too, since the doctor gave Kate permission to try different foods. Kate is now eating Stage 2 baby foods, which are slightly thicker in consistency and have more combinations of fruits and vegetables. He also told us that we could start giving Kate table foods to play with on her highchair. In addition to fruits and vegetables, we've been giving her cheerios and fruit or veggie puffs on her higchair. She can put them in her mouth by herself, but she typically makes a funny face and spits them out. I suppose she's not too sure about the texture of these new foods yet. We think that Kate is teething, so she always has her fingers in her mouth...this makes quite a mess at mealtime. No teeth have popped through her gums yet, but she's drooling and biting things much more than she used to. Another big accomplishment for Kate is that she's experimenting with new sounds. Her vocabulary now includes "babababa" in addition to her coos and squeals. As she gets older, Kate increasingly enjoys being outdoors (like her Daddy!). She loves it when Mommy takes her outside to check the mail every day. We also took her to Tate Farms (a working farm and pumpkin patch), where she had fun playing in the corn crib and helping Mommy and Daddy pick out a pumpkin after a hayride. The temperature was so cold that morning, but Kate loved being outside and feeling the wind blowing on her. One of Kate's new favorite times now is bathtime. This month we gave her a book for her bathtub and some little duckies to play with. She loves playing with these and anything else within reach of her bathtub! She really loves splashing in the water and having the water spray down on her during bathtime. She typically gets everything around her soaking wet, but at least she gets clean in the process! Finally, Kate's most recent and largest accomplishment is that she has started to take her first steps. She is not crawling yet, but she loves to walk all over the house while holding onto Mommy or Daddy's fingers. She walks until she sees something that she wants to play with, and then she stops and sits down to investigate. We love watching our little girl grow up and are amazed by all of her new accomplishments! 6 months Kate is half a year old already! Where has the time gone? Our little girl is developing more and more of her own personality every day. She loves to smile and play and interact with anybody she meets. However, she has started to develop a preference for Mommy and Daddy over everybody else. If we both walk out of the room and leave her with somebody else, she'll start to fuss as soon as she sees us leave. A big accomplishment this month is that Kate can sit up on her own now. She loves to sit on the floor and play with all of her toys. In fact, she prefers to sit up now, as opposed to laying down and playing. That is unless she's bouncing up and down - then she'll giggle regardless. Kate is also doing very well at grabbing things, even if they are out of reach. If she sees something she wants, she'll reach, grab, twist, turn, roll over, and even fall over to try to get it. And if that doesn't work, she'll try whining at it to see if that makes it come closer. Finally, Kate has started to advance into more solid foods this month. Kate ended last month eating only rice cereal once a day. Then we started giving her oatmeal in the morning in addition to rice cereal in the evening. We have now added fruits and vegetables to her diet too. She has started eating squash, sweet potatoes, and bananas, and she loves them all. She was unsure about the squash (her first vegetable) initially, but she continued to open her mouth and eat it. Now we can't feed her fast enough...before we know it, Kate will be eating table food! 5 months Kate has had several firsts this month! To begin, Kate started eating rice cereal on July 29. She wasn't too sure about it and spit most of it out, but she humored us and may have even swallowed a little bit. She has continued to eat one bowl of cereal every evening since then, and we've been making it progressively thicker. Now she knows exactly what to do and has her mouth open and ready for each bite. The next day, July 30, Kate rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time. She rolled over again about a week later, but she hasn't done it since. Kate also found her feet this month. She loves to grab them and play with them, which sometimes presents a challenge when we're trying to change her diaper! She loves to suck on her toes too - she'll suck on her toes with or without socks on. :) Also this month, Kate has become a little chatterbox. She loves to babble and coo, and she makes a lot of noise! Not only does Kate talk a lot, but she has started laughing as well. Her little giggles are so cute and precious! Kate is starting to be able to sit up on her own for a few seconds at a time. She has to support herself with her arms, but she's getting better every day. If you can't tell from her pictures, Kate loves the camera now. Whenever we get the camera out, she loves to look at it and smile. Kate's newest accomplishment is that she has begun to scoot across the floor. If we put her toys out of her reach (Mommy and Daddy are so mean!), she will kick her legs to try to scoot across her blanket to grab the toys. It won't be long before Kate is moving all over the place! 4 months Kate has had a very exciting month! She took her first long trip on an airplane over 4th of July weekend. We went to Wichita to see Grandma and Grandpa Caronna, and Kate did great on the plane! On July 4th, we took Kate to her first fireworks show. We weren't sure how she would do, but she loved them! She sat in Mommy's lap and stared at the bright "lights" with huge eyes. Kate did several other new things in Wichita - she went swimming in her first pool, and we even went to the zoo to see all of the animals. We also took Kate to her first IMAX movie a couple weeks ago at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Again, we weren't sure how she would react, but she loved looking at the giant TV screen! She has started to play in her exersaucer a lot now, and that keeps her entertained for longer periods of time. She is doing a good job at grasping objects, although her hand-eye coordination isn't very good yet. And she loves to put everything in her mouth now...toys, burp cloths, Mommy's hair, etc. Kate hasn't rolled over yet, but she's sooooo close. She can push herself halfway over but never make it all the way. Kate loves to stand up with Mommy and Daddy's help. When we sing and make her dance, she always smiles and giggles! After such a busy day of playing, Kate is ready for bed by about 8 o'clock every night, and she sleeps for about 10 to 12 hours. She wakes up the next morning happy and ready to do it all over again! 3 months Kate continues to do well, and she's learning new things every day. When she wakes up in the morning, she lays in her crib and talks until Mommy comes in to get her. As soon as she sees Mommy every morning, she gets a big smile on her face! After she has her diaper changed, she stares at all of the zoo animals on top of her dresser. Daddy even lets her fly through the air so she can see them better! Kate loves to talk and make vowel sounds, and she especially loves it when Mommy and Daddy talk back to her. Kate still loves playing with her Baby Einstein activity mat and looking at her lights, and she even knows how to turn them on herself. During playtime, she loves to stand up while Mommy and Daddy hold her hands and help her balance. When she's finished playing, she likes to watch her Baby Einstein movies (or anything else that's on TV). Kate usually takes a long nap (3+ hours) in the morning and a couple of shorter naps in the afternoon. After an evening of playtime with Mommy and Daddy, she goes to bed by 9 or 10 o'clock every night. Kate is sleeping through the night on a regular basis.