Kate goes to the Zoo and New Years Too!

Since my family had to head home right after Christmas, we got to go spend New Years with Jon's sisters in Ft Worth. It was nice to get to go see everyone! On New Year's Eve we decided to head to the Zoo. Kate was a little difficult, since by the time we got there it was her nap time, but she really enjoyed herself! On the 20 minute ride to the zoo she took a tiny nap.

Here is how the Zoo adventure started. She sat in the stroller and let Dad lift her up to see the animals. It was working out wonderfully.
Aunt Lorraine and Lauren. It was the first time in 2 years we had seen their family. Glad we got to see them again!And then we did the unthinkable as parents. We set the beast free to feed the fish:
And this was the end result. She had to push the stroller. That is one thing, but if you tried to help her not run into people she would scream at you for touching it and not letting her do it alone. Jon and I were over that real quick.Then a miracle occurred. We went to feed the birds! And my sis in law hid the stroller! YAY!!
Michael found a friend!

And after the birds we had our normal run-everywhere 2 year old back! Here she is with Aunt Melissa. Thanks to Michelle for letting us crash at your place! It was a great weekend to see family and relax.

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!)

New Obsession

Lately in the Walter home we have become obsessed with our baby. And by we I mean Kate. She wants to take the baby everywhere; to the bathroom (and yes the baby has to go potty every time Kate does), to the grocery store, on car rides (and on more than one occasion has been the cause of mom being distracted while driving. She will SCREAM bloody murder if she drops baby in the car) on walks with Chance, and to every room we go during the day. Not only does baby tag along everywhere, she has to be wrapped up in as many towels and wash cloths that Kate can get her hands on. And if one towel isn't on the baby she picks it up and says "Uh-Oh BABY!" and quickly adds that to the stack. She also enjoys putting the baby to bed in a laundry basket. Of course when baby goes to bed she needs a story and 3 stuffed animals....so as pictured above baby's 'bed' gets hectic! And pictured below is just an example of the baby roll! This picture only has 10 rags, which is a smaller than normal amount. She is so funny. I hope she is this in love with her siblings in the future!

Its a bird.......Its a plane......

ITS SUPER KATE! The best part is that she really dressed herself like that. I was trying to get her to eat dinner, but she wanted the bib as a cape, and brought me her glasses and yelled until I put them on for her. Then she scanned the living room for any unused toys. With her sippy cup as her weapon, and her sidekick Chance, she is off! Super Kate won't rest until every toy gets to play!


In a totally unrelated note: Kate actually sat still long enough for me to play with her hair today! I may be biased, but I think my kid has the cutest hair ever! It is 100% natural beauty! Never cut, but has a natural style. Most days I don't even use a brush on it!

Pajama Jeans

Today I think I have decided I want to be an almost 2 year old, and Kate can be the Mom. Here are few reasons I came to this conclusion:
- You can run around a store squealing at the cool stuff and people just think you are cute.
- You can throw a tantrum when it is time to leave the store and people laugh, or just say "someone isn't done shopping!"
- You can eat 3 lolly pops for breakfast and not get in trouble because mom didn't catch you in time
- You can burp, fart, and act strange at the dinner table with company and they think you are cool. (Well I guess in my family you can get away with that most of the time at any age! The only difference is that your company might still think you are weird!)

But the number one reason I have decided it would be cool to be 2 is wearing pajama jeans (you all know what I'm talking about! The infomercials were really big, and then everyone makes fun of them. Secretly I have always wondered if I could get away with them!) Kids have the pajama jean type pants for everything, and they look totally cute. If I were to wear pajama jeans I would be afraid someone would point them out and laugh. I already have a bad enough wardrobe that I live in fear of the What Not To Wear crew showing up. But my die-hard-bum nature longs to buy pajama jeans and wear them daily!

BOOKS!!

We are kinda into books at our house. We are ALWAYS found sitting in piles of books. She sits surrounded by books reading to herself, or she stacks them ALL on her lap and tries to hug them. If the stack falls over she frantically tries to get them all back in a pile. I hope this is a glimpse into her bright academic future! I would not be sad if she was a genius and repaid us for all of her medical bills ;)
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Modesty is a new issue in the Walter home. Kate's nursery leaders at church told us (jokingly of course!) that we needed to give our daughter a lesson in modesty. At church on Sunday she kept pulling her skirt up as high as she could. When the adults would try to pull it back down she would run away yelling "NO" and pull it back up! This picture is actually the skirt pretty low, when I picked her up it was up to the top of the heart! She must be showing off to a cute boy in her class :)

Trick or Treat!

This year we took Kate out Trick or Treating for the first time! It is a lot more fun than trunk or treat if you ask me! Kate really seemed to get the hang of it! She wouldn't usually say trick or treat, but she would make eye contact with each person after they gave her candy and say and wave "BYE!" and then scurry off to the next house. It was fun to watch her. Man is she getting so old. My little baby isn't a baby anymore! We went around town (really it was a block!) with a few other kids from our ward. It was lots of fun to hang out with our friends while Kate had fun with her friends. Here they all are at their first door.

Such a cutie! Holding dad's hand and being safe!
As her bucket got heavier and she got more tired she kept doing this...with the hand on her face. She was trailing behind all the other kids the last leg of our lap. But she was a champ! She didn't whine or complain at all!