Phone Phavorites

I realized I had several pictures on my phone of Katie Wynn that I haven't posted anywhere yet, so here they are!  This blog is about as close to a scrapbook as she'll ever get to "flip through" so I like including everything here.

Every afternoon when she gets home from daycare, first thing on the to-do list is to get a snack.  Girl gets hungry!  On this particular day, I was snapping pictures because her outfit was cracking me up.  Her slightly too big colorful t-shirt with her skinny leggings made her look like she was headed to a jazzercise class.  All that was missing was a pair of leg warmers and a scrunchie to tie onto her shirt tail.

Mimi purchased some new yard tools in KW's size so she can start pulling her weight around the yard.  

Below on the left is at the doctor for her 18 month check-up (one month late, oops).  She was too big for my shrinking lap but not quite brave enough to sit in a chair of her own.  On the right is a couple days later when she learned how to completely undo all the snaps on her outfit!  I bought three of these rompers so it may be a nude summer around our house.

These two were taken one Sunday after church.  She has on a dress that I wore when I was her age!  (Dress made by Mimi, of course.)

One Sunday afternoon we were invited to a playground birthday party.  My shy girl clung to me for the first hour and forty-five minutes and then she finally got brave enough to not only venture over to the playground equipment, but to go down the slide by herself for the first time ever!  And then she did it like 45 more times.  She was so pleased with herself, and her mama was pleased too because hopefully this means I don't have to go down the slide as often anymore!

Matt had tonsillitis a couple weeks ago and got in bed early one evening.  His bedside nurse was a big help with taking his temperature! 

On the Friday before Mother's Day, I was invited to Muffins with Mom at daycare.  Like most mornings when Katie Wynn helps me get ready, the day started off with lots of lotion.  I wish the picture on the left had turned out better; what you can't see is the massive amounts of lotion on her legs and on the bottle of lotion itself.  It's safe to say I go through lotion much more quickly these days.  On the right is a picture of us enjoying our muffins.  I promise she was happier than she looks to have me there.  :)

When the actual Mother's Day rolled around, my little sweet pea showed up with breakfast in bed for me (with some help from her Daddy).  She and I both got to enjoy a plate of chocolate chip pancakes.  

We have a friend who recently had to have an emergency appendectomy, so we sent our well wishes.  :)

Below on the left is evidence of Katie Wynn's first dabble in makeup.  She got a hold of some eye shadow and applied it like lip gloss.  On the right, I had just finished blowing up her inflatable pool and she hopped right in.  No water necessary!

First trip to Steak 'n Shake = big occasion!  I have always been a huge fan of Steak 'n Shake, especially in my college days, but we don't get to go often since it's so far away.  They have the kid entertainment down pat with hats, cars, and colors!  KW loved the tiny french fries and I would say that she loved the chocolate milkshake but I forgot to share with her.  :)

I just don't think I will ever tire of sleeping pictures, especially when they're all pink.  Now that the terrible twos have arrived, these moments just seem even sweeter.  

Summertime swimming!  We are big time now with a pool in our backyard.  Poor Katie Wynn doesn't quite have "summer" figured out yet, as she was very hesitant to get in the pool and refused the popsicle I tried to give her.  We'll definitely be working on that soon.  Oh, and she didn't want her swimsuit on so that had to come off.  I'm telling ya, it's definitely going to be a nude summer around here.  

Like I said, I just can't stop with the sleeping pics.  She is so her daddy with her head tucked under her pillow!  This was taken at 8:40 on a Sunday morning.  I didn't know what to do with her still asleep!

When she finally woke up, I treated her to a chocolate glazed donut.  I think this was another first.  She was so gentle with it; can't mess up that chocolate goodness!

Ok, that gets me pretty caught up on phone pics.  I finally have some nursery projects to share so pics of those coming soon!

A Day At The Farm

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a birthday party for my coworker's little boy, Sam.  Sam came to Katie Wynn's petting zoo party last September and LOVED getting to feed the goat, so his parents thought a birthday party on a farm would be very fitting for him.  And it was!

The party was held at Menagerie Farm which was quite the drive from our house.  As we were driving there, I told Matt no matter how fun it was we could not have a birthday party there because it would be so far away from where we (and most of our party guests) live.  By the time we left, I was trying to convince him that we could just borrow the church vans so everyone could ride together to a party out there.  It was so much fun, and perfect for little kids!

One of the reasons a party at this farm is so perfect for little (read: short attention span) kids is that you never stop moving from place to place.  We arrived a few minutes late so we missed the first stop - pony rides.  (Probably ok because I doubt Katie Wynn would've done that anyway.)  We almost didn't join the party at all because Katie Wynn was so enamored with the chickens that we passed walking up (photo below on left).  She just wanted to hang out with them!  We caught up with the party group just in time to throw fish food off a dock to all the catfish.  Oh my gosh, those fish were terrifying to me!  They were so big...and hungry!  I had a death grip on Katie Wynn so she wouldn't fall over the rail and be eaten alive by catfish. 

I didn't take pictures at every stop, but after feeding the fish the kids got to "dig for gold" in little pails of dirt and then cash their gold in for prizes.  Thank goodness for Matt helping Katie Wynn because you know she couldn't get her hands dirty.  There was also a cute little train ride that we sadly just watched because our shy girl hadn't opened up enough to ride yet.

The next stop was feeding goats and llamas!  Matt and I took turn feeding them while Katie Wynn watched and petted.  (She didn't want the food in her hands; I swear she hates for her hands to have ANYTHING on them.)

A lot of animals at this farm just wander around on their own instead of being in pens, like this duck below.  I was impressed with how calm it was with all the kids running up to touch it!  

Also roaming around was a miniature bull and a miniature cow.  I'm not sure I knew such things existed, especially not friendly ones!  

In case you're wondering from the pics, yes, I put Katie Wynn in a dress and new sandals for a party at a farm.  Poor planning on my part, but she looked cute!  Matt held her a lot since there were several...piles...to avoid.

After petting goats and bulls, can you believe that Katie Wynn wouldn't have anything to do with the cute, fuzzy little duckling?!?  Even with Matt holding it, she wouldn't dare touch it.  She just wanted to get down so she could chase after the chickens some more! 

I stopped taking pictures after the chickens but we wrapped up the party under a gazebo/picnic area where we had lunch and cake and ice cream.  It was such a great setting for a birthday party!  Maybe we'll be back for another one some day...

Thanks to the help of a Chik-Fil-A sandwich, we were able to keep Katie Wynn awake for the long ride home.  This was crucial so that she'd take a good afternoon nap in her bed.  And nap she did...froggy style!

More overdue posts coming soon, hopefully before her baby brother arrives! :)

Two Weeks Left To Go!

You know that phrase "Fat and Happy?"  I don't think it applies to women in the last weeks of their pregnancy.  I mean, definitely the fat part but probably not so much the happy part.  It's not that I'm unhappy, cause I'm not really that either.  It's more like I'm uncomfortable.  And tired and sore and kinda itching to get out of my own skin.  Sometimes I wish I could just take my giant belly off for an hour so that I could get a few really good deep breaths in and relax.  

All that's to say I'm a little over being pregnant at this point.  I have been trying to remind myself that this is a terrific blessing and that there are people who would love to be in my shoes, er maternity pants.  I need to remember to be grateful that my body not only is physically able to carry a baby to full term but that it also does pregnancy pretty well.  But sometimes I find myself unable to look past the other things, like how I can't really bend down long enough to tie my tennis shoes or that washing dishes in the sink will inevitably soak the entire front of my shirt from my belly getting in the way.

Ok, no more Debbie Downer for the rest of this post.  Like the title above says, we only have TWO weeks left!  That seems so close and so far away all at the same time.  Physically, I'm ready for this little dude to come on out!  However, I have LOTS of people (my mom, especially) insisting that I hold him in until after Memorial Day weekend.  No pressure, I guess.  Realistically, I know it's best if we make it the whole way so having him stay put a little longer is ok with me too.

• As of my last doctor's appointment, I had not begun to make any progress yet.  My doctor is traveling all this upcoming week, so that's even more incentive for him to stay where he is!  She estimates that he's already between 6 and 7 pounds and his heart rate was 140.
• The best part of my last doctor's visit is that we set a date!  June 1st is the official induction date unless he decides to come on his own before then.
• I have not been taking weekly pictures but I did take one a couple weeks ago for comparison's sake.  Go figure that when I went back to find the corresponding picture from Katie Wynn's pregnancy, it must've been a week that I skipped (probably because we were moving into our current house that week).  So here are two somewhat-close pictures from both pregnancies.  The one on the left is 37 weeks pregnant with KW.  The {really terrible] one on the right is 35.5 weeks with little boy.  I feel much, much bigger with him but the pictures don't really show it that way (at least, not in the belly).

• Katie Wynn is a little bit obsessed with my belly.  When she sees it, she says "Hi Baby!" and loves to pull up my shirt to give it kisses.  Recently, she learned how to blow raspberries on it which I have a hilarious video of, but I just don't think I can bring myself to post my bare belly here for everyone to see.  You'll have to take my word, it's pretty funny.
• My lap keeps getting smaller but that hasn't stopped Katie Wynn and Lolli from always wanting to be in it.  I like to text Matt pictures like these below and say something like, "Hey, can you see if anyone else wants to come sit in my lap too?"  I have a feeling the lap-fullness won't end in two weeks either; I just hope baby brother doesn't get as squished when he's on the outside.

• No need for a plate when your mama has a giant belly.  You can just eat your string cheese right off of it!  It can also hold a sippy cup and is a handy spot to rest your crayons during church.

• We have made big strides in the nursery over the last couple of weeks.  All of baby brother's clothes have been washed and put away in the new built-in wardrobe.  Mom, Anna, and I completed one craft project last night, and we still have one left to wrap up.  It's been painted and is currently in the woodshop drying.  Hopefully it will get hung up this week...except that's gonna be the hardest part of the whole project!  I have something I'm still waiting to get back from the framer too, but hopefully that will come soon and I can take pictures of the completed room.  Fingers crossed that happens before he arrives.
• We have also started pulling down all the baby stuff from the attic so Katie Wynn can get used to seeing it around the house.  We had less furniture in our room when she was born so it was really easy to fit the bassinet in for her.  This time, it barely squeaked in between two pieces with about an inch to spare.  Talk about wall-to-wall furniture!  We could technically do some rearranging but I've decided it's not worth it for just a few months of him sleeping in our room.  I did at least take the pictures off the wall so it'd look a little less cluttered.  :)

• Somehow, even without us prompting her or telling her, she knew this is where the baby would sleep as soon as she saw it.  She immediately stood on her tiptoes to look inside and then asked, "Baby?"

• Still on the agenda for this week is to pull out all the bottles, drying racks, and other kitchen paraphernalia and get them cleaned up.  I have enjoyed having clutter-free counter tops for the last year, but it's time to fill them back up!
• My biggest accomplishment this weekend was getting my rings off!  They really have not bothered me at all until I realized one day last week that my fingers were too swollen to take them off, and then it's all I could think about.  It's like they were choking my finger!  I decided I would wait and try early Friday morning in hopes that my fingers wouldn't be as swollen right after waking up.  Bad idea, they weren't budging at all.  The picture below on the left is after I had soaked my hand in ice and cold water, and lathered it in both soap and lotion.  I had even threaded a piece of floss underneath it to help pull it off.  It hurt BAD!  Thank goodness for the cold snap we got on Saturday.  I wasn't even thinking about it but I washed my hands and felt my ring turn on its own.  I realized the swelling was down, gave it a good yank, and off it came!  It's been off for almost 24 hours now and there's still an indention on my finger from where it was.

• Here are some other random tidbits from this point in my pregnancy: restless legs are still in full force; I eat a lot of baby carrots + ranch and applesauce; I constantly feel out of breath; I'm to the point where I can't eat as much at one time because there's no room for it; I'm still drinking gatorade like it's my job.

Hopefully the next pregnancy-related update will be that I'm NOT pregnant anymore and that our baby boy has arrived!  Let's just all pray that we make it to June 1st!

Five Years!

Today's our fifth wedding anniversary!

I was scrolling through our wedding pictures to find one to post, when I got caught up in all the pictures from the parties and events we had.  It was such a fun and exciting time and we got to celebrate with so many of our friends and family! 

Since I wasn't blogging back then, I figured we could take a walk down memory lane today and relive some of the fun moments leading up to our wedding.  The first shower we had was hosted by my mom's church circle.  The ladies outdid themselves, as usual, on the food and flowers and we received SO many gifts.  In fact, I think we received nearly all of our dishes at this party, and we still eat on them every single night!

Some of my parents' friends threw us a couples' shower, complete with karaoke!  Most of my pictures from that night are dark and blurry, which might speak to how much fun we had!  :) 

My coworkers hosted a nice shower for us too!  The picture below is one of my favorites...I was so dang excited when I opened the pan to make giant cupcakes in!  Still love it and use it all the time.  :) 

There was another shower, too, with all of my girlfriends at an awesome restaurant, but somehow I don't have any pictures of it!?  So sad, because it was another really fun day.  (Update: my sweet friend Dana sent me a picture to include!  I shared this shower with my good friend, Darbie, who got married two months after me and we were both spoiled by some of our best friends from college!)

For my bachelorette party, we had a girls weekend in New Orleans.  Man, I could write a whole post just on that trip!  It was so much fun and I was so grateful to my friends for giving up a whole weekend to hang out with me! 

Matt had a full guys day where they played golf, cooked out, and ended the night at the dog track betting on the races.  The weather that weekend was unusually cold and rainy but they didn't let it get them down!

Finally, the evening of our rehearsal dinner came and we were given the opportunity to thank so many people that had spoiled us and helped us celebrate along the way.  Clicking through the pictures reminded me how hot it was that night!  We suffered through the outside rehearsal and then went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for food and margaritas. 

The next morning started with rain.  Lots of rain.  When you've planned an outdoor wedding, rain is not what you want!  There was no time to panic or stress, though, because we had a busy day with too much to do!  My day was spent with my girls at the beauty salon getting ready for the evening, and then taking pictures in the late afternoon.  The hard rain stopped but it sprinkled on and off throughout the day.  Thankfully, it went away for good just in time for our ceremony and we ended up having the most perfect weather ever.  Not too hot, not too cold, and definitely not rainy! 

I know I'm biased, but it was the best night ever.  The ceremony went smoothly, with lovely music, great scripture readings, and a perfectly-delivered sermon.  Matt and I even made it through our vows without stumbling too!  Afterwards it was time to party!  The food was delicious, we had music from an awesome band, and two bars kept the drinks flowing (and the people dancing!).  Man, really makes me want to do it all over again!

As if we hadn't already had the best weekend ever, we got to follow it up with a week on the beach in St. Lucia!  I'd like to do that part again too!

Happy five years, Matt!  Here's to many, many more!

Easter Sunday

On the evening of Easter Sunday, I told myself that I would blog about the day before the next Sunday rolled around.  Obviously, I failed at that goal.  Ugh.  Now my goal is to crank this out before another Sunday passes us by!  Edited to add:  Oops, missed that deadline too.  I've been typing this thing for days!

Katie Wynn woke up Easter morning to a visit from the Easter bunny.  No, she had no idea what that was about.  As I scrolled through Facebook later that day, I saw that the Easter bunny rivals Santa Claus at a lot of my friends' houses.  Not so much the case at our house.  Katie Wynn got a coupe car (I wanted to get her one anyway so this was a good excuse for it), an inflatable pool for this summer (a $5 score from Bargain Hunt that I'd already bought for her anyway), and 7 empty eggs.  Yep, like the tomb, they were empty.  She brought them home from her hunt at daycare and I immediately ate all the candy out of them before realizing I didn't really have anything to fill them back up with.  She didn't seem to notice or care.  :)

She loved the coupe car so much that she insisted on eating her breakfast in it.  

I LOVE Easter Sunday...definitely my favorite Sunday of the year.  But this year, I was stressed about how it would all work out.  Matt and I were playing handbells during the service which meant we had to be at church early for a practice.  Someone (my dad) would need to watch her during that and then she'd have to make it through a long (and crowded) church service, lunch, and an egg hunt before nap time.  It really could've been a disastrous day with a cranky toddler, but it ended up being great!  My dad managed to get her to go down for a mini nap before church which was a HUGE help.  We just had to quickly get her dressed before heading back for the service.

There is one major rule after church on Easter Sunday: everyone has to pose for pictures in their Easter best before running off and changing clothes.  My big, fat, pregnant self included.

It doesn't seem right that one person should be allowed to have so many chins.  It's not fair for me to keep so many to myself when some people don't have one at all.

Cute, even though Katie Wynn has weird, comb-over bangs.  Darn wind!

Katie Wynn is definitely to the point where she's not a fan of my camera.  She doesn't want to look and she sure as heck doesn't want to smile!  I absolutely love the pouty picture below on the left.  Matt was just trying to coax that snack cup out of her hand but she didn't really wanna do that.  He managed to get her laughing, though!

One of my favorites from the day.  And you should be thankful that I cropped it the way I did...nothing about the position I'm in was flattering.  :)

The flowers were my (brilliant, if I say so myself) idea to get rid of the snack cup.  Added bonus: they made for such a pretty prop!  My mom made her Easter dress so I tried hard to get some good pictures of it.  I hate that I didn't get a close up of all the shadow-work embroidery she did.  I have about 50 photos from this five minutes to choose from, so here are my favorite 6.  So hard to narrow it down!

Just like last Easter, we invited the Thompson family to join us for lunch and the big egg hunt.  They're practically family anyway.  I don't think the twins, Anna Charlotte and Stuart, made it into any of my pictures last year since they were still so new and tiny and slept the afternoon away.  This year, though, they're walking and talking and into all the fun!

I'm sure my niece and nephews dread seeing my camera out!  :)  Here are my oldest brother's (Nick's) kids.  Jett is just days shy of turning 9 and Bren is 5.

And these two giggle worms belong to my other brother, Ben.  Parker is 5 and Ramer is 2 and a half.

We tried really hard for a picture of all five of the grandkids, but my moody toddler wasn't really up for taking pictures with her cousins.  The oldest four were about done with me and my smile requests, so I tried my old standby trick of having them scream as loud as they could.  The thinking behind this is that as the screams die down, their faces fall into real smiles as they're laughing and that's the prime time to snap the pic.  (Click here to see how this trick actually worked for our Christmas cards!)  After going back through all of these outtakes, though, I realize that I should have told the 5-year-olds that they had to hold still while screaming, no moving out of position!  Instead, I ended up with a lot of crazy pictures like the one below on the right.

This time they all stopped screaming and put their arms down at different times, so the picture below on the left is the best I could get.  Matt had the brilliant idea to just hold Katie Wynn into the picture while he hid behind them.  Uh huh.  See how well that worked out?  There's your Easter pic, Mom.  :)

We lined up for a full family pic too, sans our parents since Dad seemed to be MIA.  Poor Katie Wynn... #squished

We tried to do the scream trick again too.  This time, in addition to telling the five-year-olds to stay still, I also failed to tell the photographer (ahem, Emily...) to keep snapping after the screams stopped.  I don't think she got that memo so all I have are a bunch of screaming outtakes.  To be fair, this is probably much more representative of all of us together though.  Also, I so wish Nick (coral shirt) was on social media because I'd totally crop this to be his profile pic.

After that group photo, I just gave up.  No more trying for posed pictures!  With that out of the way, we could finally enjoy the awesome spread of food that (mostly) Mom had prepared.  Oh my goodness, we had enough food for the whole neighborhood! The kids all ate quickly and ran outside to play, which left plenty of room for fatties like me to go back for more! 

After lunch was cleaned up, it was time for the egg hunts!  I think Mom had stuffed about a thousand eggs.  At least that's what it looked like; I could be off by a few.

This year the first hunt was for the tiny kids - Katie Wynn and the twins.  We hid their eggs on the screened in porch and, as expected, all three walked in, sat down in the middle of the floor, and played with the first eggs they got their hands on.  Obviously they didn't know the game was to get as many into their baskets as possible.  #amateurs 

Thank goodness for the older kids who came in to "help" and get the show on the road.  They did a great job of filling up the baskets while the babies (I can still call them that, right?) just sat and shook eggs.  Katie Wynn did eventually put some in her basket herself thanks to some help from Mimi.

The BIG hunt was out in the front yard.  Since this is the first time Ramer and Alice got to go with the bigger kids, we gave them a minute head start.

Then we unleashed the others and they were off!  

The two pictures below totally crack me up.  Bren's basket got too full midway through the hunt, so she poured her eggs out into a pile so she could keep going.  Katie Wynn finally caught on to the point of this game and decided to capitalize on Bren's unsupervised pile-o-eggs.  Ha!  Look how innocent she looks.  "Finders keepers," she says.

As the oldest, it's no surprise that Jett found the golden egg.  Folding money for the win!  Alice's method of counting her eggs was my favorite...open the egg, eat all the contents, and then move on to the next one.  :)

After counting eggs, it was time for my very favorite part of the day...confetti eggs!  If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know cascarones are a staple for our Easeter Sunday so that we can all have good luck.  It doesn't hurt that they're also fun and colorful and really add to the celebration of the day!

And here are just a few more snapshots I took while we all hung out outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Just as everyone was getting ready to load up their cars and head home, I yelled at Matt to run inside and get the dessert I made.  Phew!  Close call!  I was gonna be really mad if everyone got away without eating the egg-shaped rice krispie treats I'd slaved over the night before.  :)

With everyone properly sugared up, then we could head out for afternoon naps.

Once again, it was another perfect Easter Sunday.  I really do think this is my favorite holiday.  Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed! 

Trivia question: how many times did you spot Katie Wynn's shoes on the wrong feet?