Love Sac for Babies!

 

 We love our new bean bag chairs. Whitney really loves them. I love how she sinks in them and just cuddles in there. Alma pulled her around for a bit which she loved.

Being a Sister means…

…always being there and supporting each other.

(Even while she is stuck in Time-out)

Houston Zoo!!

 

On St. Pattys Day we went to the Houston Zoo with one of Alma’s co-workers and his girlfriend and little girl. It was fun to go on that day. everyone was wearing green! I had actually never been to the Houston Zoo before and I was pleasantly surprised at how awesome it was. It was so beautiful with lots of green trees and there were tons of animals with their cute babies. I love going in the Spring-time. I was surprised at how nice the exhibits were, and their habitats were big as well. I definitely want to go back again. It was awesome and we saw so many cool things. Kaitlyn favorite part was the Elephants.

My Brown Eyed Girl

 

 

Oh Kaitlyn, I love everything about you. One thing that I adore about you is how stinkin’ cute you are. After you leave a room, I can’t help but smile with how much cuteness is oozing out of you. You are always all smiles and giggles. You light up my day in so many ways. One thing that I love about you are your beautiful eyes. I bought you a new brown dress and it just made your eyes POP all day. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love you. You have such a fun spirit. You are always understanding everything that is going on around you. You are smart. Oh, how you surprise me with your memory and knowledge of everything.

 

 

You are such a compassionate person. Always worrying about those around you. Making sure everyone is taken care of. And I love how you love to learn everyone's name and to truly pay attention to all those who are around you.

 

 

 

 

                          You are growing so fast and sometime I can’t believe how big you have gotten and how sometimes I wonder how those little baby legs turned into little girl legs. And when did that happen! They are getting so long. Oh, and your 3 year old little voice, oh how I adore your little voice. The things you say, the way to say them. How you repeat yourself as many times as you feel you need to. And of course, the way you say, “WHAT?!?! What mom? What-u-say”

 

 

I feel grateful and lucky everyday to be able to spend my days with you. You have a love for life that you bring into mine and I hope that I can continue to keep up with you and all your love for life. Never lose that love Kate. It is one of the best things about you.

Sometimes you like to try to show me that you are the boss, but I am learning how to handle you and make sure that you understand that I want what is best for you and I love you!

Thank you for being my little girl. My brown eyed girl.

My sweet YW!

 

I have had the wonderful opportunity to serve with the YW in my ward. It has been such an awesome thing and I know everyone says that but they are such awesome girls. They have such giant Testimonies and it just amazes me at all that they accomplish and how they are all trying their best to be like Christ.

During Spring Break we cancelled Mutal because of no school and a few girls asked if we could still get together. I am always wanting to be around them and get to know them better so I said of course! Instead of a few Laurels we were lucky enough to get a lot of girls from the whole YW! Beehive and Mia-Maids too! It is so great to get to know them better. I remembered at College for a Date night we wrapped our table with Plastic Wrap and put the ice cream and candy right on the table and mixed it all up like Cold Stone. Then you eat it right off the table. So we had a Ice Cream Party and a chick flick movie party and of course there was boy talk. It was so silly but fun and I enjoy being able to have these girls in my home.

I just got released as the Laurel Advisor and put in as the 1st Counselor in the YW Presidency. I am so glad that I get to continue to serve with these girls. I will miss being able to teach often but I am excited about the new Call. We are getting ready to go to Girls Camp and I am planning on being there the whole time. Pretty excited about it. What awesome girls!! I love being their leader!

Whitneys Allergies… or lack thereof

 

So I finally got Whitney tested. I am not going to tell the whole story of the Drs. Visit. Was not much fun, but I will say that we finally took her in to get tested and to see what she may or may not be allergic to…

They tested her for all common things. 6 were things like eggs, peanuts almonds… most common food allergies. The next 6 were common things all around us, pollen, dust. etc…

And then they did one more where they tested for Garlic. Since I have been avoiding giving it to her for the past 4-5 months. Which by the way, is in EVERYTHING!!!!

Anyway, turns out she was not allergic to garlic! HORRAY!!! I don’t know what I would feed her if she was, and turns out she is pretty severely allergic to house dust.

House dust. Yes, House Dust.

I guess my question is: Who isn’t?

I am pretty sure most everyone is. But they said it was pretty bad. Bad enough for her to break out in hives and all. And they gave me some meds to give her for when she is stuffy, which I will admit, happens a lot to this little girl. Poor thing. I guess it is a good thing I like to clean and vacuum.

Anyway, it was great to learn that she could have peanuts and eggs and milk! So the above pic is of her eating a piece of bread with peanut butter. I am not sure what made her break out so badly. I am not sure if she grew out of it. But they did give me an Epi-pin to carry with me in case it happened again.

So I am glad to be able to feed her pretty much everything, and it feels great to know that if something did happen, I am prepared and I can make sure she is taken care of.

Coming up with a title for a post is hard…

 

I love that Kaitlyn can be a photographer at our house. She took this photo of me and Whitney the other day. I mentioned something about me and Whitney both wearing brown shirts and so she took our picture. Not too bad if I may say so.

Whitney is 1/2 my size! Growing up so big!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went on a Friday Family Date night a few weekends ago and it was so fun to watch Kate eat the Fried Motz. It just keeps coming and coming and coming….

 

 

 

 

 

After our Date night Kate was running to go to the bathroom and slipped on the tile and hit her eye and face on the potty and floor. Not to big of a black eye but you could tell it was there for a couple days.

   

How I have waited for the day when they could both play well together and have fun doing it! They both have a baby and love and take care of them. Pushing them around. It is the sweetest thing ever! Kate is always in my heels.

Starting to Walk

 

I have finally buckled down and got going with being able to put videos on my blog. I knew how… I was just kind of being lazy. So here we go. Whitney is starting to take more and more steps!

Have to change my mind set…

  

I have to totally change my mind set since moving to Texas. You have to take advantage of the weather when it is awesome. Sometimes you feel silly going to the park in shorts in Feb and March, but if you don’t… you will miss the nice weather. I feel like it was 1 1/2 months of “Winter” which meant light jacket and pants and then there is around 4 months of awesome summer weather, then 4 months of Melting Hotness, and then a few months of nice fall weather.

I actually really love the weather here. All of it. Rainy, foggy, warm, humid and chilled. I would take extreme hotness over snow. It is so hard to bundle kids and keep them warm and driving in the snow is something I really dislike doing. I have never been really into snow sports so I don’t miss it much.

I love how one day it can be low 80s in Feb and then the next day is 52. You don’t ever feel stuck in a certain weather. Except last summer. 102 every day with no rain. Just swam a lot.

Anyway, I am trying to really enjoy this weather before it is too hot, I love being able to take my girls out to play.

****Can I just say how much I love the picture of Whitney going down the slide. She kept closing her eyes on the way down and she loved every min of it. Caught it on Camera too!!****

Kaitlyns Update

 

Kaitlyn is 3 years and 3 months

Things she says: Every thing that she says just makes us laugh. She is always listening to adult conversation so I love when she jumps in and talks about what we are talking about. Sometimes she doesn’t quite understand what we are talking about and I love to hear her interpretation of what we are saying. She always is randomly saying to us, I love you, Mom. Or I love you this much. She calls Alma by his 1st name more than she does to me. I think it is because I always call him Alma. One morning we said that we were going to make crepes, this was prob over 6 months ago. And she said grapes!!! and we said, No C-c-c-c-c-crepes. So now whenever she asks for them she calls them C-c-c-c-Crepes. Adorable. I need to write down more of the silly things that she says. A lot of what makes what she says so funny is her facial expressions. She has so many different facial expressions. The other day she asked Alma and I, “Where do we come from?” with the most serious look on her face. Random!

Favorite Toys: Her Kitchen and the food, Whitney, Her stuffed Monkey, her babies, I love how she could really play with anything. If there are ever anything that are the same but different sizes that would entertain for hours. Example I had a few lotions and they were all different sizes, so of course like most girls, you have a Daddy Lotion, A Mommy Lotion and a baby lotion. And they talk to each other. Everything talks to each other.

Favorite foods: Oatmeal, Pasta, Eggs, Rice, Strawberries, Smoothies, Pretzels, Chocolate, Pink Milk,

Things she does: She is always going with imagination. She has 2 imaginary friends. Gauck and Gaucka. Today she told me when I asked how they look, she said, Tall. Gauck has blue hair and Gaucka has pink. But Gauck is the tallest. Taller than Dad. I always thought they were little and could fit into my hand.  She is always giggling and has the most fun laugh you have ever heard. She is always someone else. Never Kaitlyn. So you can’t call her that. She is a great helper. 

Favorite things: Loves playing and being outside. She loves to make us laugh. She loves to sing, and she does so well with it. She loves to go see Grandma and Grandpa.

Sleeping Habits: After Potty training she would wake up probably 5 times a week to have us fix blankets, go potty or just show her that we are still there. But it has really died down a lot and she is sleeping better at night. Only waking if she needs to go to the Potty. She usually goes down around 7-8pm and wakes up around 7am. She has not taken naps since before her 2nd Birthday, and hardly ever falls asleep in the car or on the couch anymore.

We love you more than you will ever know Kate. You have become a light in our life and I love all the things you bring into our world.  I seriously am in Awe of you everyday with how understanding you are about the world and about everything. You remember everything, past events and I love hearing you talk about all the things you remember doing. You are awesome Kate.