Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we got Kate ready for church in her room, and then rushed her past the tree on our way to church. After a nice church meeting, we went home and let Kate have at it! She got very into it! She even started knocking the small presents out of the way so she could get to her big boxes! She is so funny! As she opens each gift she does sounds effects the entire time....so lots of "ohhs and ahhh's" were there to add even more pleasure to the experience.

Some of Kate's favorite gifts include her new kitchen and all the pots/dishes/food, Cabbage Patch doll and highchair, clothes for her baby, a baby blanket, and a bike (that she can't quite use yet, but she loves to sit on and make you push her!). She did start to get tired of the gifts, and wanted to stop and play, so it wasn't until our dinner that she finally got everything opened. It was such a great day to spend with family. And our friends the Dillers came by for dinner and stayed playing games with us till very late.

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Taking Family Togetherness to a whole different level:
Kate loves to play on my bed, and will very often have me in there playing peek-a-boo and other such things. She decided that we should ALL be in mom's bed! She would call someone's name till they came in, and wasn't happy till we were all in there, and most of us on the bed! She even took Granny's cane and put it on the bed and kept trying to get Granny on the bed too!

Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve Jon was busy doing something a little different! He found this bed pattern online and decided it was cheaper to build than buy bunk beds for Kate, so he went to the store and built it! I was pretty impressed, that, 1) he got them done in day(with some help from a friend!), 2) that they look really good, and 3) that including tools it cost $150. Now all that is left is for him to sand them down and paint them white! They come apart, so most likely we will only put one in Kate's room to start out....knowing her she would spend the whole night climbing if we went ahead and put them both in her room!
While he was finishing the beds, my family came! My Dad, Mom, brother and Grandma all came down to visit for Chirstmas. It was SO SO SO great to have them here.

Life at the ZOO

You know how sometimes as a stay at home mom life feels like a zoo? WELL yesterday I felt like that in a literal sense. I am dog sitting for my sis in law, and they had dropped their dog and fish off at my house at 8:30 in the morning. Not even an hour later I noticed that their dog was trying to get under my fence, and both dogs were covered in mud. SO I had to bring them inside to avoid the hole getting bigger. Two muddy, hyper dogs reeked havoc all over my house! I then moved on to taking care of my daughter who had peed all over her bed. While getting the wet items out of her room, I hear the dogs just about knocking over my Christmas tree. When I came to yell at them to knock it off, I found this:

A GIANT white rabbit! He came under the fence through the hole that Sadie had dug (trying to get to the rabbit). The dogs were FREAKING OUT!!! And my still naked daughter thought it was the coolest thing ever! All 4 of us were standing at the back door watching the rabbit. 2 of us were barking and howling, one was jumping shouting "ITS A BUNNYYY" over and over again, and one of us couldn't do anything except laugh and take pictures. Finally I got things under control and headed to the neighbors house to ask them if they were missing a bunny. Thankfully it was theirs and was easily put back in their yard, with the hole covered (mostly). However, I'm still cleaning up paw prints.

Speaking of cleaning paw prints, Kate decided that moping was REALLY fun. When I was finished she ran around just like this for a long time moping like mom. Unfortunately, she also made a pile of her own that I had to come clean up. Apparently mopping is important for a healthy colon.

ps---she doesn't have pull ups on because I'm trying to get more serious about potty training, and have found that without pull ups on she will run to the bathroom when the urge comes....with the exception of the mopping incident.

Cowgirl Kate turns 2

My baby girl turned 2 on Saturday! We decided to have a cowgirl party (thanks to a friend who pointed out the book series Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa). I have a million pictures because I couldn't choose! My dear friend took over 1500, so I had LOTS to look through!So for fun I made a Cow pinata.....poor thing looked pretty sad. But the kids had lots of fun!Kate liked the pinata so much she threw a fit when we told her she had to let the other kids have a turn! I guess that fits the 2 year old.Uncle Kenneth took her to swing to take her mind off the pain of sharing.Opening presents was lots of fun this year! Thanks to everyone who could come!

Kate really had a blast. I enjoyed putting it all together. I still am just in shock that Kate is 2. But the mess on my kitchen counters reminds me that I must get off here and get to work!

Here's your sign

So--- today I had another "Here's your sign" moment. I could hear Jeff Foxworthy commenting during the entire experience.

I took Kate to Target to get pull ups and look at shoes. I guess that was my first mistake; taking my almost 2 year old anywhere in public where acting like a crazy person is frowned upon.

Target was PACKED and I do mean PACKED with a large group of handicaped students. It was sweet, Kate kept waving to them. THEN cue the temper tantrums. 5 times I had to squat down and pick my screaming/thrashing/phyco of a kid off the floor! All the students/teachers stopped to watch. So as Jeff would say "when your child is more obnoxious than an entire store full of severly handicaped kids, here's your sign!"

I guess I will just have to keep her at home until she is a teenager! (she was crying so loud that when I got to the checkout line a sweet lady let me cut and pay for pulls ups! She must have felt bad, and knew she was doing the entire store a service!)