Making Cookies

Is Christmas complete without making and decorating sugar cookies? This was Kate's first attempt at decorating them, it was practically mine. It's been a long time since I've done this. As you'll notice from the video I only had one shape cookie cutter. I bought the mix and used store bought icing, so I took a lot of short cuts in this project. It was fun and of course very entertaining for us to watch Kate totally into the whole thing. I'm sure she went to bed with a tummy ache with all the finger licking and m&m snitching she did.

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Our finished cookies, can you even tell which ones I did and which ones she did?

Here she is showing off one the cookies she decorated, she's already licked off all the decorations, I don't think she even ate the cookie part

Picking out our Tree

For the last few years we've gone to Christmas tree farms to cut our Christmas trees. This year I wanted to go down the street to Home Depot when Brock insisted that we go cut our own tree. I think it makes him feel manly to cut down a tree, but he says it because the tree lasts longer because it's fresher. I know he's right, I haven't had to vacuum up any needles yet and it's been almost 3 weeks.

Daddy and Kate on the hunt for the perfect tree

we found the tree!

Video of Brock cutting down the tree

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Here's a little video of her looking at the tree once we got it all set up and put lights on. We did this while she was napping so that we could WOW her once she got up. I was hoping for more of a reaction but she still seemed to enjoy it. She loved helping us decorate the tree with ornaments and she is constantly rearranging them still.

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A Kate and Daddy tradition

Brock's favorite food is steak, in fact it's been his little tradition that every Saturday he grill up a juicy steak for lunch. Well Kate has become quite a little steak eater herself, it's cute to watch Kate and the dog beg him for bites. I love it because I don't have to make lunch for either one of them on Saturdays. I've actually been known to on occasion beg for a bite myself or even ask for him to grill me up one too. Here's a little video footage. Normally I don't allow Kate to be on the kitchen table like this, but here it is late at night, they were both hungry, I was tired, so I just let them do their thing.

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We are growing by 2 feet!

Kate has an announcement....

And here it is our little guy or gal. This is around 13 weeks. Our due date is the last week of May 2009, (sounds so far away). We are telling ourselves that we are not going to find out the gender. Hope we don't cave. We found out with Kate which was fun, but we think it will also be fun to find out in the delivery room. Any guesses as to what we are having?

It sorta looks like the baby is sticking their tongue out at us, little stinker!

Happy Halloween

Here are a few Halloween pictures, it was hard to decide what Kate should be for Halloween this year. We had several costumes given to us and it was hard for Kate to choose just one! Emily made her the poodle skirt and as much as Kate loves dogs it just seemed appropriate, not to mention that we had saddle shoes to complete the look. We went to the town parade with a friend and then to a Halloween party a family from church was doing. It was cute to watch Kate go trick-or-treating. It took one time to figure out how those magical words work. She spoke very clearly, and always thanked everyone for their treat. She is a very polite little girl. Towards the end she was getting tired and would just hold out her bag and say "bag"!

Our little poodle skirt girl

Daddy went as a scary vampire to the party, I was suppose to be his victim but just ended up going as a devil

You are Special Today

I can't believe she's two! I'm not sure why I can't believe that because she sure does act two. She has become quite the drama queen and demands that everything is hers. She also makes sure to let you know that "I can do it" or that "I did it, mama", she usually says this when it's something not good like when she stuck a toy in the dishwasher, yet she is always so proud of herself. She is in to everything, and can make all important things, like keys, disappear! She loves girlie things like hats, clothes, baby dolls and stuffed animals and everything is "cute" these days. And she says the funniest things, mostly things she hears us say and repeats back. She still says "I'm sorry" every time she hurts herself, which is a lot. She also says "Ta-Da" any time she does something, like get a toy to play with or grabs a new crayon, it makes me laugh every time. She has learned to manipulate us at bedtime, as soon as we put her down she starts saying that she "wants to cuddle us" ok who can resist that, so out she comes for a quick cuddle, an evil trick she plays to get out of bed. She has become quite the clown, I look forward to what 2 is going to bring. We are so blessed to have this happy 2 year old as our daughter.

I made "awfuls" for breakfast, her favorite, she always asks for more

Opening a birthday card she got in the mail from Troy, Katie and Collin (thanks guys that was really sweet)

Pizza for dinner, another favorite

Her birthday cupcake (we are having junk all weekend so I kept it small) she didn't even finish the whole thing, in fact she ate the cake part and left the icing!


The aftermath, not bad right?


A comparison shot, this was a year ago, she looks like such a baby and I remember thinking at the time how big she was!

In case you are wondering the red plate is a tradition we had in my family when I was growing up. When it was your birthday or other special occasion (graduation etc) you got to eat on the red plate. This is the same one we used when I was a kid.

We Found The Perfect Pumpkin

October around here isn't complete without a trip to a pumpkin patch. There are so many to choose from in this area, but we love Great Country Farm the best. There is always so much to do there besides finding the perfect pumpkin. Here are a few pictures from that day.

Do you see the perfect pumpkin?

Daddy's Little Pumpkin

Mommy's Little Pumpkin

Riding a Pumpkin

Cute daddy daughter moment

Kate brave enough to feed a donkey

Going down the pipe slide

A fun air pillow for kids to jump on

My Rummage Sale Find

I went to a local rummage sale here sponsored by the hospital last week. This was my score of the day. I just love it. It's an antique china cabinet. I walked past it several times each time my heart started beating a little faster. Finally I just got it and I'm so glad I did. It's looks great in our dinning room and as you can tell I've already filled it up. I love a good rummage sale bargain so I just had to share.

Happy Early Birthday Party

We decided to do a party for Kate a couple of weeks early. The weather is usually much nicer early October then at the end of the month. We wanted to do something outside so it just made sense to have her party a bit earlier. It turned out to be the perfect day. We had lots of friends show up. It was so much fun to see Kate so happy. She loved the balloons and carried one around her the whole time. She loved all her gifts, especially the baby dolls and accessories. She pushed the stroller around the playground while carrying 3 dolls. She is going to make a great mom someday. We let her wear her Halloween costume just to be different and because she looked so cute in it. We went with a barnyard theme, because for about 4 or 5 months straight she would watch the Baby Einstein E-I-E-I-O video and nothing else, would often request it by demanding "I want E-I-O", so it just seemed appropriate we go with it.


Here are a few pictures from that fun day!


The cake: I made with the help of my sister, after several pounds of butter, a dozen eggs and hours in the kitchen I decided to not become a cake baker/decorator. This was hard hard work, a few pieces were eaten, everyone liked it but in the end I threw most of it out because I just couldn't stand to look at it anymore. I got the idea for the cake from familyfun.com


The food spread: kept it simple with homemade bbq beef, fruit/veggie tray, potato chips n dip

I love this picture of Cole and Kate, they are best buddies. Cole lived across the street from us up until 3 weeks ago when he moved. They also go to daycare together, and are just 3 weeks apart in age. Kate just loves Cole and as you can see I think I caught them sharing a secret. The other little guy in my nephew Ethan, also a cutie.


All the kids had turns hitting the pinata, but it was more like tapping the pinata. No one took any good whacks at it so my 8 year old niece had to bring it home by busting open the pinata. Here's a picture of Kate swinging at it.








This picture sums up the whole day. She opened her gifts and went nutso over everything she got, baby dolls, puzzles, a couple of cute outfits, play dough, and baby doll accessories. You can tell what was a hit with this little mommy to be! She didn't stop pushing this stroller around for a week.

Super Why = Super Smarty

About 2 weeks ago Kate and I were looking at a book together and she pointed to every letter in the title and told me the letter. I was shocked because I had no idea she even knew any letter let alone all these letters. I've heard her say letters and she sings parts of the ABC song but I didn't realize she could recognize letters. So at 22 1/2 months old we think she is the smartest thing ever. We know where she picked this trick up. She watches this show on pbs weta kids called "Super Why". She loves it, its her favorite show. It's probably geared toward older kids because the show teaches you how to read and make sounds but we aren't complaining if our almost 2 year old starts reading novels next week.

Here is a video, this is the best we got of her performing. She does know all her letters, but she still has the attention span of a 2 year old so she sort just craps out in the middle of this test. She does know every letter sometimes she is quick with letters and then the next day she'll act like she doesn't know what it is. Trust me we have quizzed her dozens of times now because we are fascinated that she does this, she really does know all her letters, she even knows some of the sounds the letters make. The video is really long so I totally understand if you don't want to watch the whole thing. I just am not sure how to edit it to make it shorter.

Thanks Super Why, you're a Super Hero for teaching our kid her ABC's!

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Beach Video

Here is a video of Kate at the beach. It's from when we first arrived and she was still chicken about the water and everything was new to her. My camera died before she warmed up to everything so I don't have footage of when she was running into the ocean. It's 2 minutes and sounds kinda bad because of the wind from the ocean.

Summer Daze are coming to an End :(

We are so sad that our summer days are coming to an end. We've had a great summer. It's been so different with a toddler, we found ourselves almost ever weekend toting her around to show her all the local grand attraction. We've done stuff every weekend as a family. It's been wonderful. We are amazed daily at our little toddler and how much she has learned. She communicates so well with us and can answer all our questions and she'll tell us all sorts of things.

Some of the cute stuff she's been up to lately is she plays this little game with me where she'll say to me "Your priddy" and I'll say back to her "Your pretty" and we bounce back and forth with that. It's really cute. Another cute thing is she now sings her ABC's she knows almost all the letters and parts of the song but things get kinda jumbled up. So she starts out singing ABC-then moves on to EFP and then "Now I know my ABCs" then MNO. It's really cute because she's singing this and it's all out of tune in cute baby voice. I'm trying to capture this on video which is much harder then it sounds. She has video camera radar and will stop as soon as I go to get it. Her favorite show right now is Super Why it comes on PBS weta kids and it's this really cute cartoon about a super hero who reads to "save the day" so she hears the ABC's a lot from this show. It's really educational and more for the level of a 3-4 year old, so of course we feel proud that she loves this show and is learning to read at the age of 22 months!

She is really funny, anytime you ask her something and she doesn't know she'll say "I don't know" which is a lot. Sometimes I ask her stuff on purpose that she doesn't know just so I can hear her say "Idohknow". She is also still a big time apologizer and will constantly say that she is sorry. Any time she bumps her head or falls down she says "I sorry". She spilled a cherry slushy all down her at Busch Garden's and she kept saying "I sorry". It was hard not to laugh (she was crying because it was so cold). She also is very good with her manners, she always says "Thank You", "welcome" and "bless you", she sometimes gets them mixed up as to when to say them but she tries and it's always so cute to hear. One of her latest little phrases is "I want it too" anytime she sees something she wants or gets flustered for words she says this and we're automatically suppose to know what she wants.

We also had a chance to take one last getaway before the summer melts away. We went to Williamsburg to see my brother Troy, Katie and Collin. Troy apparently has senioritis from Law School and took a break and played with us for the day. It was fun hanging out with them, we went to Busch Garden's together and then to Virginia Beach (just the 3 of us went). It was a great mini-vacation. It was really cute to see Collin and Kate play together. We were fascinated with Kate at Busch Gardens and all the rides she went on by herself. I had no idea 22 month old child could do this. Here are a few pictures.

Kate and Collin at Busch Gardens, Collin did such a great job assisting Kate with the rides, he was such a big helper and is going to be a great Big Brother when the new baby arrives!

Kate loved to play in the sand at the beach, and at first she was less then thrilled about the ocean and would run from it. After awhile she did warm up to the surf and she let us hold her in the water as the waves came in. We could've spent days there but all we had was the afternoon , it was so worth it. It was perfect beach weather, we didn't even set up our umbrella's or chairs we just sat down at the edge of the water and played with Kate.

Introducing All The Cousins

Here are all the cousins on Brock's side of the family. Notice how they are ALL being good (for the most part) except one little girl, I won't mention who it is! This picture is special because there is a new cousin here just 2 weeks old. Nana and Grandad are holding Kara Afton.

Brock with his new niece

Play Date with Allie

We had Allie over for a play date. She was a lot of fun and it was cute to see Kate as Allie's shadow. These girls are more like sisters then anything. They are in day care together. It was kinda funny I asked Allie if her dad worked to which she said "Yes" and then I asked her if her mom works to which she replied "No". I'm sure her mom wouldn't agree that taking care of kids all day isn't work. Allie thinks that kids show up at her house everyday to play with her! That's one lucky kid.