EXCITED!!!!!

Kate's excited!! Wanna know WHY???

Mama has less than 20 days of school left!!!

WOO-HOO!!

Countertop

Apparently, Kate sits on the countertop A LOT. I was looking through some old posts and realized how many pictures we have of her with her hiney planted on our kitchen counter.

She likes to be up high around all the action. It's no fun to be at knee level when Mama is cooking up there.

Here she is the other day banging on a pan with a wooden spoon. You know, that's just fun, right?? Not for our ears, but F-U-N to a crazy one year old.

Every time she would hit it, she would squint her eyes beforehand because she knew how loud it was going to be.

That's my crazy girl for ya!

HAPPY MONDAY!!

Just Reading The Paper

This was the morning Daddy gave her leftover lasagna for breakfast... well, more like brunch, but still, lasagna? Oh well, I'll let him slide this time.

And if you can tell by the pictures below, she has made the move to the table. She now pretty much exclusively sits in her booster seat. She loves being at the table with us.

So, Mark got her all set up with her lasagna (for breakfast) and mandarin oranges (of which she could eat for every meal for the rest of her life and be totally content), left the room to grab something, and when he came back, here she was just reading a part of the newspaper.

The paper was sitting on the table and she just, you know, wanted to have a nice read during her breakfast.

Seriously, should I pour you some coffee, Kate?

No wait, coffee and lasagna don't go very well together.

A Way Late Easter Post

It seems like Easter was forever ago...

Mark has been really busy with some photo shoots, editing, etc., so our own photos got pushed to the back burner. He finally uploaded them last night.

Finally, some Easter pictures!!

Let me back up a bit. We started the morning early, so Kate could get her Easter basket before church. She came out of her room and went straight to it. She got right to work opening plastic eggs, playing with the toys, and coloring in her new extra large coloring book!

See how she covers her mouth when she coughs?

Then, it was bath time and time to get all ready for church. We ended up going to our old church where Mark's family goes. It was so nice to see people we hadn't seen in so long.

After church, we went to Mark's grandparent's house for lunch. Kate got some books and a really cute doll. She had fun playing with all of her toys there, and ended up just skipping nap time all together... I was a little nervous how the rest of the day would go because that had only happened on one other occassion... but, she did fine.

After that, we went to my family's house. Some old family friends were there and it was so much fun to catch up. Uncle Scott and Maddie were also there, as well as some other family friends.

Maddie hid eggs all over the yard for Kate. We ventured out into the COLD to let her hunt for awhile. She loved it!

Can you even STAND her sweet little hand in that picture? I could just eat her up!

It was a busy, but great day!

Sick Day

Kate hasn't been feeling well and we had a rough couple of nights, so I took the day off to take her to the doctor.

It was SOOO nice to be able to be at home with her today.

Turns out she has a little ear infection. She's on an antibiotic now and hopefully, that'll clear it right up!

She feels kinda puny, but she's still the crazy, active, 17 month old we all love! Just with more snot and a crazy cough.

After her appointment, we went to Walgreens to fill her prescription and they said it would be about 45 minutes, so I took her to the Pasta House for lunch. Just me and my girl.

After I ordered, she took my menu and handed it to the waiter like she does this all the time. When he would come over to us, she would throw her hands up and mutter some jibberish just carrying on a little conversation with him. She fell in love with one of the waitresses and waved at her everytime she walked by our table.

She was such a big girl sitting there eating her lasagna. She drank her lemonade perfectly through the straw without spilling any. If you've ever been out to eat with Kate, you know that's a big deal because of course, she wants to do it BY HERSELF and ends up tipping the cup to drink through the straw... thus getting it all over her.

When I told her I would put a little butter on her roll, she picked up my knife and handed it to me. Seriously??? I swear the girl knows how to talk, and she's just holding it in 'cause she sure does understand a lot of language!!

AND, I let her go to town on her lasagna by herself and she would take a few bites, then pick up her napkin and wipe her own face... all prim and proper like. I laughed out loud on that one.

She was pooped and ready for a nap by the time we were done, so we picked up her prescription and headed home.

She took a great 3 hour long nap, during which I tackled about 5 loads of laundry and got my kitchen back in order!!

Oh, and see that little note there on the microwave?? That's the only way we will actually remember to give her the medicine. We're cool like that.

She woke up feeling pretty yucky, but walked over to the laptop and wiggled her booty. That's her way of telling us she wants to watch The Wiggles You Tube videos. The girl is OBSESSED!! I hear those guys in my sleep...

So, she got all cozy in our big chair with warm juice and rice cakes.

I said, "Say cheese!" and she showed me her rice cake instead. ha!

I left the room to go wipe down the bathroom and when I came back in, THIS is how she was now watching The Wiggles.

Let's not tell Daddy how she was "handling" the laptop, okay??

What a Day!!

I am exhausted! We had such a packed day, but it was so much fun.

We started the day with an Easter egg hunt at a local church. They advertise this as a 20,000 Easter egg hunt, so literally, there were a TON of people there. You had to register by 9:45, so after standing in a long line, we walked around the "carnival" until the egg hunt started at 10:30.

There was a parachute, a ball pit, a bouncy house (which Kate didn't participate in because there were lots of "big kids" in there... and the line was too long. ha!), a really scary Easter bunny, face painting, and lot of other games. We were pretty much content to just walk around and watch everyone.

Around 10:15, everyone started to go to their area (the egg hunt was grouped by age level) to wait for the egg hunt to begin. The area was roped off, but leave it to crazy Kate to go out there before it even began and start picking up eggs! We had to empty her basket and make her wait.

When the hunt did start, HOLY COW!! Some of the eggs were filled with prize vouchers instead of candy, so there were parents grabbing as many eggs as they could find and cramming them into their kid's basket. So obnoxious.

Kate did really well picking up the eggs she saw. She took her time with each one. She was absolutely adorable. She got about 10 eggs (literally, it was over in about 3 minutes!).

See her little green "wrist" band around her ankle? That was to show that she was in the 1-3 year old group and that think drove her nuts!!

After the egg hunt, we came back home for lunch and Kate's nap. Mark and I got all ready for the Cardinals game.

The game started at 3:00, so we left here around 1:30 to make sure we got there in time. Which meant we had to wake Sleeping Beauty up from her nap, which usually goes over horrendously. But, amazingly, she was in a great mood for the rest of the day!

We were a little nervous about taking her to the game. (How will we keep her busy? Do we take a stroller? On and on and on). Honestly, it all worked out great.

We found a parking spot for only $5, but we had to walk awhile to get to the stadium. So, I was glad we had the umbrella stroller. We were able to check it in at Guest Services when we got to the stadium, so we didn't have to worry about putting it under our seats.

It was Kid's Opening Day at the park, so all the kids got a voucher for a free ticket to a Cardinals game and a Cardinals hat.

Mark's company had given him tickets for the Redbird Club, which is up behind home plate. It is a section of just regular seats, but there is a big "food court" type thing with flat screen tv's, tables, lounges, etc. for only people sitting in the Redbird Club to go to. Pretty cool.

On our way up there, I ran into a local dj that I am mildly obsessed with... Cornbread from WIL. :) I have met him once before and acted like a blubbering fool that time, so why would we expect any less this time?? Hopefully, I will never see him again. Let's just say it involved me grabbing his arm and yelling his name and my face turning really red.

Kate was a champ during the game. She clapped when the fans clapped, threw her arms in the air when everyone stood up for homeruns, and even wore her free Cards hat for longer than 10 seconds.

We had packed lots of snacks, crayons, and a Binky, and that pretty much kept her occupied.

That and flirting with all the people around us.

Oh, and playing this really "fun" game after the people next to us left, called Play with the Springy Seats.

And... messing with our neighbor's soda after they had left. I kept telling her "No, no". Can you see the sneakiness in here eyes in this picture??

This is the only picture we had taken of all three of us there, and it's all dark. Oh well. I accidentally deleted the CUTEST picture of Kate and I at the game off of my phone and I could literally just throw up I'm so sick about it.

We came home and we were pooped, but we had time for this! :)

Hope you all had a Super Saturday!! Have a fantastic Easter.