Party Animals

This post should really be "Spring Break Fun: Day Six" - it was a blast!  One of Katie's best friends had a birthday party and we left there and headed straight to my friend Tanja's bridal shower.  It was Katie's first "big girl party" - she was the only little lady there...and she felt so special!

Here is Katie ready to go - she was SO excited about the day of parties! 

First stop was Annalane's party - a Strawberry Shortcake themed party!  Katie had been asking about it every day since the invitation was on the fridge.  These sweet girls have been friends since their first year of Mother's Day Out - Hannah Jo and Katie are still in the same class, but Annalane (in the middle in this picture) is in the one next door.  They still play on the playground together and then they love to play after school in the hallway or outside!

After the girls played and made bracelets and ate lunch - and of course the cake, we headed to Tanja's bridal shower!  It was so nice - every detail was taken care of!  And I got to show Katie the house where I grew up because Tanja's aunt and uncle live right next door...so crazy!  Here is a picture of Katie with Tanja!

And a picture of the three of us!  Katie did a great job while Tanja opened up all her awesome presents!  I think her favorite part was the fruit and cookies that she kept asking to eat though :)

And here is a picture of us before heading out.  What a fun day!  

And the fun didn't stop there for Miss Priss!  When we got home, she and Brad headed out on a Daddy Date to Chuy's!  I'd say that was a close to perfect day for Katie - friends, cake, special attention, Daddy Date, and Chuy's. 

Jesus, God, + Cupcakes (Spring Break Fun: Day Five)

Day five of our spring break fun was so much fun!  It was Good Friday, so we started the day trying to come up with the right words to talk about what Good Friday means.  I think we did a good job considering Katie is 3...we talked about people being angry at Jesus and that he died on the cross for all of us and his friends were all very sad.  We reminded her that Easter is when Jesus' friends found the empty tomb and that he had come back. (Whew!  She didn't ask too many questions, but it is such an abstract thought for a very concrete-thinking 3 year old!)  After Jack took a nap and we ate lunch and got ready, we headed to Cee Cee's house to decorate cupcakes!  She and Katie had been talking about doing that for a while, so we decided they could be Easter cupcakes!  Here the kiddos before heading to Cee Cee's house!

 Jack had taken his first header into the exersaucer - poor guy!

 Love that she wore a cupcake dress to decorate cupcakes :) It had come in the mail just the day before - perfect timing!

 And Cee Cee had some Easter goodies for the kiddos.  Jack finally started crawling that week of spring break, so he showed off some of his new skills while he investigated his basket of goodies.

 He loved playing with everything!

 And then it was Katie's turn to open her Easter goodies!

 After that, we put Jack in the walker and then Katie and my mom got busy with the pink icing and sprinkles!  Katie had the best time doing their project!  Thankfully, my mom had made the cupcakes the day before so they were ready for decoration...I don't know if Katie could have been patient enough to wait on cupcakes to cook and cool before decorating them!

 Jack was in his walker while they were having fun - he had a blast exploring my mom's house...and he loved seeing his reflection in her trashcan!

 After they iced all of the cupcakes, it was time for sprinkles - Katie took it very seriously and wanted to use different combinations of sprinkles on each one!

 After the decorating (and eating) of the cupcakes, we did a few easter egg hunts!  Jack's favorite part was the easter grass in his frog basket :)

 Katie loves hiding eggs for other people to find, as well as hunting for them!  

When they were decorating cupcakes, I asked Katie if she could remember what we had talked about with the meaning of Good Friday.  She said it was a special day because "Jesus loves God and Jesus loves cupcakes."  I'll take it. 

Spring Break Fun: Day Four

Now back to the fun we had on spring break!  Boy do I have some catching up to do...the rest of spring break, Easter, and some other fun we have had!  

On day four of Katie's spring break, we met some friends at an indoor play place for kiddos!  It has a ball pit and train table and slides and dress up area and all kinds of other fun things to do!  We actually were ahead of schedule when we left the house, so I made a stop and took a couple pictures of Miss Priss.  I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

And then it was time to meet Amy and her boys at the fun play place! They have an area for little ones - Jack loved the little ball pit!

And Katie was bound and determined to play dress up...she kept bringing me different things to help her put them on - and they were all too small.  Well a few minutes had passed and she was so proud that she found something that fit and she did it herself!  Doesn't she look so proud??!

And here are Owen and Katie!  They had so much fun playing together!  I think they most enjoyed the big ball pit for the big kids!

After the kiddos played for a while, we went to the party room to eat the lunches we brought...I love that some places let you bring your own things!

And of course I had to try for a self portrait of Amy and me...we have so many pictures like this from high school so it is only fitting!

We had so much fun - I love having friends that we may not see very often, but when we do, we pick right back up where we left off.

Favorite Children's Books

When I saw Kelly over at Kelly's Korner was going to do a link up with you favorite children's books, I got so excited!  I have a problem with buying books.  I don't often buy toys for the kids, but I have trouble saying no to a book - I want them to love reading!  So we have lots of books.  And by lots, I mean LOTS!  They are scattered all around - so that makes them more available!  We have them in Katie's room, Jack's room, the playroom/sunroom, the bonus room, and even the living room! I always have good intentions of making our collection smaller - I will go through them and if we don't really read them, I will set them aside to take to a local used book/movie/music place.  Well, when I do that, I usually end up buying even more kids books!  These are a few pictures of our book stashes along with a stack of some of our favorites right now.

I also have a huge stack of books to use as surprises when Katie has a week getting all her stickers...I can think of about 5 regular books and probably 10-15 early reader books.  I love that my kids are so entertained by reading a book - and I hope that love for reading and learning stays with them for a long time!

I can't wait to visit some other blogs and get ideas for some books to add to our collection - remember?  I have a weakness for books :)

Spring Break Fun: Day Three

On to day three of our fun spring break!  On Wednesday, we met my friend Kara and her crew at a fun children's museum type place!  I had been wanting to go there for quite some time, so I'm so glad we were finally able to!  And it was a hit for sure...I would consider getting a membership if it were a little closer (it took maybe 30 minutes or so to get there, which really isn't that bad)...I'm just not sure how often we would venture out there.  We will definitely go back though!  

Katie was so excited to get to play with Carter and Kaylin!

I seize the opportunity for pics of them together :)  I hope they are best friends for many years...

Katie loved exploring the fire truck they had inside...

The big water table was a big hit!  Of course there were kids there that were throwing water everywhere (I'm not saying mine would never or have never done that, but I watch them and pay attention unlike some of the parents there), but Katie loved filling the boat up with water and dumping it out!

They had a neat conveyor belt that the kids loved!  Katie sat on it and had a kid roll her to the end.  They also put fruits and veggies on it and had a basket on the end to catch it all!

Peek-a-boo!! They have a great area for kids under 5 with a special area for babies...perfect!

Katie and Jack were playing the drums together.  I love it when they play together!

And a picture of me with the kiddos...thanks for taking this, Kara!

Katie and Carter had a blast!

I found this to be very entertaining...Katie was trying to figure out how to change a tire on a car! HA!

After eating lunch together...

After we finished eating the lunch we took, we walked around outside and ended up at a playground!  The kids had fun running off even more energy!

They had a blast going down the slide together!

And we got Katie to take a picture of us together!  There's not much better than spending time with your  kids AND your friends!

Both kids fell asleep on the way home - a sure sign of a successful adventure!

Spring Break Fun: Day One + Two

Last week was Katie's spring break, so I wanted to make sure she had a blast!  We do fun things fairly often, but isn't the point of spring break to have fun (typically while traveling, but we opted to stay in town)??  So, on day one, went to a friend's house to play!  Katie met this sweet girly at dance class and they have such fun playing together (we didn't have dance class since it was spring break, so it was the perfect opportunity to get together)!  So the girls played and her momma and I chatted and Jack rolled around on the floor.  It was so nice and relaxing - and I know Katie had a blast!

 On day two of spring break, we woke up to this:

Pretty ridiculous, right??  It did melt very quickly, but still.  The fact that we woke up to snow at the end of March is just plain silly.

While I was up feeding Jack his bottle, Katie and company came in his room like this...

She had dressed herself and had gotten everybody a crown - herself, Sadie, and Snugglebunny (who is now the favorite buddy, I do believe).  SO cute!  We did have to change clothes since it was chilly outside.  She was alright with that because the fun activity for day two was going to play at Monkey Joe's!!  She was so excited when I told her what we were going to do.  She had fun jumping and sliding and climbing - she was worn out that night for sure!

She also had her first "arcade experience" - she did the ski ball game and won tickets to cash in!  We had to work on rolling the ball rather than throwing the ball - oops!  And she decided she wanted to cash in her tickets for a temporary tattoo and one of those grow dinosaurs that starts teeny and you put it in water and it expands.  We still have the glass full of water and a big dinosaur on the counter and she checks on it just about everyday!

What a fun start to spring break!  Stay tuned for days three, four, and five (probably separate posts for each because there are lots of pictures!

Whirlwind of Fun

Whew!  What a fun week we had last week!  Katie was on Spring Break and we stayed home...since we didn't go anywhere, I made sure we did something fun each day!  And we certainly did...I slept like a rock each night, but I had so much fun with both the kiddos!  I will be doing several posts from our fun last week, but for now, this is one of my favorites....

 And we had a great Easter too! We actually got up and made it to church at 7:30 for the 8:00 service...whoa!!!! Impressed?  We certainly were! :) Here are the cuties on Easter after church and after going through their Easter baskets!

I promise to do lots of updates with lots of pictures...you'd expect nothing less, right?? I've been exercising a lot lately and have been trying to get in bed earlier.  The combination of those two factors with two wild kids (one of whom is now a crawler!!), and blogging tends to take a backseat!  But I love it and find it quite therapeutic...plus, it is my way of documenting our lives, so I will make sure to keep things as up to date as possible!  Happy April!