Happy 1st Birthday Katie!

One year old. How did we get here so fast?

She's been growing up so fast the last few months, I just want to hit the pause button for a while. She had her one year check-up and is doing just great! She weighed 28.2 lbs and measured 31 inches which puts her in the 97+% for both height and weight! We may be big, but at least we're proportional :) She's been doing so much this month. She waves at everyone, sometimes a double handed wave if you're lucky. I have to say, it is the cutest girly wave. She's mastered the "uh-oh" trick. Drop it, say "uh-oh", someone picks it up, repeat. It was funny, when she first started saying it, she'd say it backwards sometime and give us an "oh-uh." We've also learned how to "moo" and "woof". I'm sure the rest of farm isn't far behind. Have I ever mentioned how LOUD she can be? When she wants attention, she knows how to get it. The girl has lungs like I've never heard before. I'm wondering if she's going to be a great singer someday and there is some greater reason why she's been blessed with this gift, but in the mean time the voice training is a little hard to take. Mostly, she does this during dinner, so you can imagine our fear of public restaurants. We bring plenty of Cheerios and things to snack on because you never know when she might break out in song. I can take it to some extent, but Daddy is another story. He's taken stock in ear plugs. No, I'm serious. He wears them at dinner. He knows how I love that, but if it keeps the sanity going, then so be it! Anyway, as for baby Aretha, she had such a great birthday. Nana and G-Daddy came into town early to celebrate on her actual birthday with us. She did not hesitate to dig into that cupcake :) She's definitely my daughter, you know how I love cake!









And we opened a few presents.....





Then on Saturday we had Grammy and Papa and lots of friends to help us celebrate again!







Her little buddy Anderson was here and since they both have the same birthday, we had little cakes for each of them. Unfortunately, the cake smashing lasted all of minus 30 seconds. Neither were too keen on the crowd of people surrounding them and then Katie decided to put out the candle with her hand and that pretty much sealed the deal. Both were in tears. Oh well, the best layed plans, right?

It was still a fun party, right Katie?





Happy 1st Birthday Miss Katie! We love you so much!

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Could it be?

I am officially caught up, almost 3 months in one night! I might have forgotten a few things along the way, but that's too bad! Now let's see if I can avoid falling behind. We all know what comes next.....Katie's birthday! Technically, today is her birthday as I sit here at 12:40 a.m. Happy Birthday my sweet little girl! We love you so very much!

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The First of Many

Gosh, I feel like we've been lucky so far! Although they do their best everyday to injure themselves in one way or another, we have managed to avoid anything major. We've had scraped knees, busted lips and a chipped tooth, but this one is by far the worst. Somehow we managed to avoid the emergency room.....barely. Ryan was out on the driveway running with his digger and it slipped out from under him with nothing to catch the fall but his sweet little face. Ouch! This one had me pretty worried because he hit his head so hard on the pavement. The pediatrician had me watch him closely for an hour and thankfully no signs of a head injury. We'll just chalk it up to the first of many, right? I know I can't make him wear a helmet 24/7, but I want to :) This is what he looked like the next day. My poor baby!

It hadn't scabbed over yet in this picture. It looked pretty nasty, confirmed by the cringing people when they see him when we're out at Target or the grocery store. It's now been a week and it looks so much better, thank goodness!

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The Big League

This Spring Kyle started playing Rec Soccer and he is loving it! I think Daddy is loving it just as much! I must admit, after the first day, I got a little worried that he would be frustrated. Let's just say the team wasn't exactly gelling on the field. I'm not sure half of them realized a game was going on. Anyway, that all changed the following week. They rocked! I don't know if everyone went home and practiced, but they truly rocked and they played really well as a team. Rick is helping out with coaching the team and Katie, Ryan and I cheer them on. Daddy gave Kyle a few pointers at home on how to play defense and man the kid is GOOD! I'm just so happy that Kyle is having such a great time with this!

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Snowbound 2011

We took our yearly winter trip up to Nana and G-daddy's to get our fill of snow. Who knew we would have already had two snow storms of our own. Well, at least I had help getting the kids dressed this time :) We had a great time. We built a couple of snowmen. The boys built one and the girls built one. I won't say which one was better, but I think Katie built a pretty mean snowman :)

(Hey Rick, I think I might know why you need surgery on that knee!)

The kids got in some sledding. Ryan was so funny. He would close his eyes every time he'd go down the hill with Daddy.



Katie even got her own sled :)



Kyle was big enough to go on his own. Speaking of going it alone. Kyle hit the slopes for the first time. We signed him up for a group lesson and off he went. He came back telling us he was going to ask Santa for a pair of skis next year. He loved it that much!





Since it was the weekend before Valentine's Day, the boys got a chance to bake some heart cookies with Nana! Yumm! They used LOTS of sprinkles. I'm sure Nana is still finding them on her floor :)



We had so much fun while we were there. Thanks Nana and G-daddy!

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My Three Stooges

Here are my three little goofballs! Just some silly pics of them together.

Of the three, these two are tied for the goofiest. They'll make a silly face for the camera any day!

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Two Down, One to Go!

It's official! We now only have one in diapers! Yippee! Ryan stepped up to big boy status. It was actually fairly easy. I knew he was ready and 4 days later, we were completely trained. I had my doubts on day 3 and then something happened and it was blissful after that! Only a mom can call peeing in the potty blissful. I used sticker charts like I did with Kyle, but I thought Ryan might need some additional encouraging, being how stubborn he can be sometimes. So, a friend of mine suggested that I fill Easter eggs with little surprises. Brilliant. So, although, Easter was about 3 months away, I dug into my bin and got out a basket and a bunch of eggs. I filled each egg with a sticker for his chart and a little surprise: sometimes candy, sometimes money, and even sometimes a new matchbox car. Well, the kid never had so much candy in 4 days, but it worked like a charm. We are so proud of him and I think he's pretty proud of himself :)

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