My 27th Birthday

Yuck... it kills me just writing that. I don't WANT to be 27. I can't believe I cried when I turned 25. I want to be 25 again.

Oh well. At 27, I have a very blessed life and I should be grateful. Right?

We started the day at the Mason's Pancake Breakfast.

Did you know Mark was a Mason? Well, he is. And it's really weird. He enjoys it, so I am supportive. It's still weird, though. If you click on the link above, notice the super cool web page Mark designed for them (and he took the pictures... he would never brag on himself, so I have to do it for him).

Our good friend, Ryan (i.e. Kate's boyfriend), was cooking in the kitchen at the breakfast. Kate saw him and ran right in there with all those old men straight to Ryan. She LOVES him!!

After breakfast, we came home, got ready, and went to meet my family at Chuck E. Cheese. Perfect for your 27th birthday, right???

Scott and Maddie were there. Brad and Vicky were there. Some family friends were there. It was great! Kate had a blast. She ran around like she owned that place, stealing people's Skee Balls, hitting people on the butt (one was a really cute dad... he probably thought it was me!), and dancing in front of the blue screen while we watched her on "t.v."

Soon after that picture was taken, she got all nervous and wanted out. So, until the ride ended it was just Papa up in the air in a tiny car. He still steered and everything... all by himself. :)

After we partied at Chuck E. Cheese, Kate went home with my parents while Mark and I got some time to ourselves. That NEVER happens!!

We hit up Barnes & Noble for some Mocha Frappucinos and magazine reading. I am now caught up on ALL of my celebrity gossip... ask me anything!! This has been a favorite past time of ours since college. We go to the book store, get some coffee, Mark reads smart people philosophy books, and I read US Weekly. That fits us well, wouldn't you say?

We stayed there until about 7 and then went for a late dinner. It was so nice to be able to talk just the two of us. We did miss our girl, though... just a little bit!

All in all, it was a great birthday. Three years from thirty, though?? I STILL don't like the sound of that.

Playing at the Park

A couple Tuesdays ago, I picked Kate up after work and realized how NICE it was outside.

I figured we had some time to stop by the park before we went home.

I called Mark to see where he was and as it turned out, he had taken the day off to work on his photography webpage. He came and joined us, too.

It was so fun and it made us SO ready for spring.

Kate hasn't been on a slide too much, so she was a little nervous.

See... can't you just SEE the nervousness???? :)

She made this face every time she went down.

I think she looks so much like my baby pictures in that one above.

Weighing In... Month 15

This is us on Valentine's Day... she was obsessed with these little party blower things that her Gran gave her.

Look how TALL she is, though!!

We went to her fifteen month appointment yesterday and she is a healthy, growing girl!! Dr. Rudloff is impressed with how smart she is... now, we just need to get her to say some REAL words!

Here are her fifteen month stats:

Height... 32 inches 87th percentile (basketball scholarship, maybe????)

Weight... 26 pounds 87th percentile

Head Circumference... 18.9 inches 93rd percentile (the girl's got quite the noggin... there are certain shirts her head won't fit through!!)

Poor girl had to get three shots in her legs and she wailed. I had to hold her hands real tight because she is at the age where she might try to grab the needle... it was SO sad!!

Cleaning with my girl

Seeing as how a recent post was titled, "Cooking with my girl", can you see what we do a lot of around here? Cooking and cleaning!

I got behind on the dusting in the living room, so last night, Kate and I went to work! Anytime I clean, I give her a little towel or something and she follows me around wiping the walls, the t.v., the carpet.

Last night was no different except that she was doing such a good job wiping the end table, I just went ahead and sprayed a little Pledge on it and let her go at it.

She was actually pretty good... she knows her way around an end table! She was very diligent. So diligent that half the pictures I took turned out blurry because she was wiping the table so fast.

She crawled up under it and scrubbed and scrubbed.

She would stop and fix her little dusting rag, then go on and dust some more.

Look at her still clinging to her dust rag... she takes her job VERY seriously!

She's very efficient, too. After she dusted the table, she dusted my foot. And the couch. And the Pledge bottle.

She's really into the broom right now, too. I need to get her a little broom and dust pan.

All I know is, this could be the start of something very beautiful...

Mouse in the House

*** For the record, the words in quotation marks came straight from Mark's mouth. ***

Okay, so not really IN the house, but kind of.

We've been hearing some scratching coming from the ceiling in our bedroom and the master bathroom for awhile now. I thought it was a squirrel and was worried about what we were going to do about it.

So, tonight, it got really loud in the bathroom, so we went in there, and I saw dust falling down from the exhaust fan (come on, NOBODY has a clean exhaust fan, right? RIGHT???). I looked up there, and I could see a little MOUSE through the grate. Sick!!!

Now, if you know Mark well enough, you know he has a huge, fairly irrational fear of mice. His friends in college told me that when a mouse was spotted in one of their dorm rooms, Mark jumped up on a chair and screamed like a girl. Probably not entirely true, but funny nonetheless.

On another side note, there was a mouse in the office at church one time. Mark could not get any work done that day and was so afraid he would be confronted with the mouse, that he built a barricade with Bibles at his office door to "slow the mouse down" if he tried to get in his office. It took everything I had not to bust up laughing when he told me that one.

So, back to tonight. We are standing in the bathroom knowing there is a mouse (or maybe more- ugh!) right above us and Mark is FREAKING OUT. Every time the mouse would start scratching, he would reach his arms up and clap loudly...like, that'll really get 'em, Mark. Good job CLAPPING at the mice! He seriously has NO coping skills when it comes to mice. It's funny in every sense of the word.

He is convinced that a"heavy mouse" is going to weigh the exhaust fan down and break it, and then, we will have a mouse in the house. In which case, Mark has basically said he will "die" if that happens.

His solution: duck tape...

around the exhaust fan...

because yeah, that'll totally work (whatever)... that'll keep that "heavy mouse" from falling in.

Not to mention, he then closed the bathroom door and put a rolled up towel along the bottom of it because mice can squeeze under doors, ya know?

Anyone want to come set some traps? Anyone? Anyone?

Life with a One Year Old

Kate was up at 7:30 this morning and neither Mark nor I were quite ready to be awake. I dragged myself out of bed since Mark let me sleep in BOTH days last weekend.

I layed on the couch and watched her play for a little bit. I guess I must've dozed off because moments later, I woke up and she had her tool bench hammer way up in the air right above my head and was about to POUND me with it!!!

She would've thought nothing of it.

Kinda like yesterday when she wopped me over the head with the handle part of the broom... on purpose... while I was bent over getting something out of the dryer. When I screamed, "Ow!!", she thought that was so funny and she did it AGAIN!!!

Life with this little girl is never dull, I can tell ya that right now!

Welcome Baby!!!

One of my best friends, Megan, had a baby yesterday at 4:59 p.m. Her name is Allie Reese and she is beautiful.

She was born 21 days early, weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz, and was 20 inches long.

Can you imagine how big she would've been if she went up until her due date?!?!?

We spent a few hours up at the hospital last night just staring at her. She's SO pretty.

That's Carli, Greg's sister

Ryan and Mark

Me and Hanna... and Greg's head

CONGRATULATIONS, MEGAN AND GREG!!!!!!