April Showers or is it April Snows?

April showers bring May flowers.  No, not this year.  April 8th brought us some snow.  Not that we've had much all winter, but it was still a shock to the system.

Someone was very willing to go out and shovel the sidewalk with her Dora shovel

 April 20th, brought us rain.  

The next day brought us more wet snow.

May has brought some much warmer temperatures, much to all of our delight.  Spring has finally sprung.

4 yrs old!!!!

April 29th was a special day for us as Katelyn turned 4 YEARS OLD!  I had to remind her of her special day, and I got the biggest smile.  Pancakes have been a breakfast favorite and today was extra special, so we made extra special pancakes with strawberries and whip cream!  For her birthday present, I found her a pink backpack with sparkles.  She has been wanting a back pack for a while.  Any bag she can sling on her back is a backpack, or a packpack is what she used to call it :)

 I kept asking her what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday.  She wanted a pink princess cake.  This is what I came up with.  We had a pink cake filled with homemade whip cream and strawberries and covered with pink buttercream icing.  I printed of the 3 princesses she wanted, Sleeping beauty, Cinderella and Belle. She's never seen these movies but she knows her princesses.

We booked her party at a local play place that has opened recently.  We've been there a few times and for a few other parties.  We got the party room for a hour and play time with friends for 2 hours.  We can't book the whole place privately but we had it on a Monday morning and no one else was there, so it worked out great.  Jason was even off that day and was able to come.

Katelyn with her friends, Oriah and Sam. 

Megan getting in on the play action

Sadly this was the only shot of her opening toys and blowing out the candles that I got.  So disappointed, but I was busy serving everyone cake.  

2 hours and it was over.  Goody bags handed out, thank yous said and we were home.  I was more disappointed it was over than Katelyn was.  We had a good time with all her friends and spent the opening every gift she got and playing with them all.  It was a good day completed with pizza for supper.

Mother's Day 2013

Mother's Day 2013 

Megan's 1st birthday

The last few days, Katelyn randomly comes up to me and says, "Happy Mother's day!"  The love of a child is so sweet!  Megan is busy crawling around, finding her boundaries.  We now have a toddler on our hands!

Gymnastics

For the past 5 weeks, Katelyn has been involved with the local Rec Department gymnastics program.  This was for 3 & 4 yr olds.  I thought Katelyn would like it since she was doing sommersaults at home already.  Twice a week from 4-4:40pm we ventured over to the middle school multipurpose room for some much needed get-out-of-the-house activity.  It took her a few lessons to really get comfortable with the way things worked.  She wouldn't do tumbling exercises when she was called on, she had to have some help from one of the helpers.  By the 3rd lesson, she was lining up for her turn and did what was asked when her name was called.  

Walking on the big beam

Warming up with some stretches

First attempt at a sommersault on the beam.

Uneven bar work.

Getting comfortable on the low beams.  This is where they worked on some footwork.  

They also did some tumbling on the floor mats.  Sommersaults, monkey walk, log rolls, and bunny hops.  She did great when she got comfortable.  She would run up to me after she was done at her station and give me a high five.  I was one proud mama.

10 Months Old

10 months old already!  What a sweetie pie! I think we'll keep her.  Katelyn would hate it if we sent back her "friend".

I love the crinkle up nose smile!  And yes, we are only sporting one tooth on the top and two on the bottom. The second top one is just sitting there below the gum line but refuses to cut through.  Oh well, we'll sport the red neck teeth just for a little while.

9 Months Old

I had bought a nice Christmas dress for Katelyn to wear at Christmas, but she didn't wear it.  I was lent a pretty red dress for Megan to wear, but again we just never wore them.  So, before they outgrew them, I needed to take some pictures.  

This is our monthly birthday shot to see her change.  The horse is sure getting small quickly.

This was the best I could get of both of them smiling.  Katelyn was not being very cooperative

Weekend at the Cabin

Our friends have a rented a cabin for the whole winter up in the Beartooth Mountains and allowed us to use it for a weekend.  Jason had a 3 day weekend and thought it would be fun to go.  I was excited to get away and just relax.  

The cabin is heated with an electric heater when they aren't there to keep the pipes from freezing but there is also a big wood stove that really gets the place hot.  Upon our arrival, the wood was brought in and a fire was made to get the place warm.

She couldn't wait to help

FIRE!

Waiting for it to warm up before getting out of her car seat

The next day dawned sunny and clear with little to no wind and a temperature around 30F.  We donned our winter gear and headed out to go sledding.  We had purchased an $8 inner tube and had to blow it up first.

Megan was in need of a nap but was unwilling to sleep

Blowing up our deal sled

They did have a couple plastic sleds which worked out to put Megan in to one loaded down with blankets.  She never moved or made a peep.  I think she may have enjoyed it.

The view from the cabin driveway

Jason thought it would be a great idea to tie Tucker to the tube and have him haul Katelyn up the driveway, which was the perfect sledding hill.

It was great and he really pulled her up the hill.  She laughed all the way.  What really sucked was what happened on the way down.  Tucker probably thought the tube was chasing him, he turned around and bit a number of holes into the tube.  It didn't last 5 minutes and we had to go in and repair it.  It was a good time to put Megan down for a nap too, which she did sleep and I could go out and join the family in some fun.

Jason became the photographer and stood in the road.

Our faces as we almost ran him over.

Daddy made us a fire to roast hot dogs for lunch.  A wiener roast in January!

The cabin and fire pit.  It was perfect, I could be outside and check on Megan through the window.  She must have slept for 2 hrs.

This girl was hungry.  She ate 2 whole hot dogs. They were so good after some sledding

Man's best friend and the best dog we know.

The first night we stayed, we all couldn't sleep very well.  Jason had the wood stove just a little too hot and made it quite uncomfortable to sleep.  We were also awakened around 2am by the howling of wolves.  A lot of wolves.  They sounded so close to the cabin.  I was laying there thinking that I didn't want to go outside the next day for fear of them.  That thought went out the window when the sun came up.  The second night, we all slept much better.  We kept the wood stove to a minimum heat.  Cooking was kept pretty simple.  Having not been there myself, I didn't know what to expect and I didn't want to cook too much. I was there to relax too.  We had a good time too just hanging out as a family.  We did have one accident.  Megan was sitting on a big easy chair with the ottoman on wheels pulled up to it in case she fell off.  She scooted to the edge and fell on where they meet.  The ottoman rolled away quickly and she landed on a floor.  She cried so hard, she let out all of her air and passed out for a second or two.  Katelyn has done this before too, so we knew she would come to, but it's still scary.  Other than that, it was relaxing and we still made it to church on time.