Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

Our little sweetheart turned 3 today! I can't believe that my baby is such a big girl. Here are some fun things about Kaitlyn:

• She reminds me of my little sister because she loves to make people laugh.
• She speaks very well and has a great vocabulary. Everywhere we go people are impressed with how well she speaks.
• She hates getting her eyes wet. This definitely impedes her swimming ability.
• She loves singing. I'm the worst singer and have a hard time remembering songs. Since I'm in Primary I'm constantly trying to teach her the songs and she always picks them up quicker than I do.
• Katy is constantly reading. I'm amazed at how I can read her a book once and she has most of it memorized the next time we read it.
• She loves hiding under blankets from something or someone called "king lion"
• She's a very thoughtful little girl.
• She needs a band aid every time she bumps her arm or has any kind of "ouchie"
• If she smells anything, whether it's good or bad, she says "what's that smell" in an incriminating way that makes you feel so self conscious. For example, I'll put on some perfume and she'll say "what's that smell" in such a way that somebody might think I haven't showered in weeks.

Here are a couple of funny things Katy has said recently.

-We're playing with her new friend at the pool and they are arguing over a ball. Katy splashes the little girl in the face. I reprimand her and then here is our conversation:
A: Kaitlyn, do you have something you want to say to Hadley? (Meaning I want her to say sorry)
K: Yeah, Hadley stay away from my ball!

-We're changing the kids after swimming and they are both naked.
K: Hadley, you have a cute little bum! (Yes, I have told her that before and she obviously remembers)

-We were in a crowded Target the other day and I was buying nursing pads. I throw them in the cart with Katy and this is what she says in a very loud voice:
K: Mommy, are these for your boobies so that you can feed Lulu some milk? (I heard many people chuckling)

Anyway, here are some pics of the birthday girl. Her party isn't until next weekend so I'll post some more then.Since her party is next week we just made homemade ice cream and stuck a candle in it.

Her first trike

Her new baby, car seat and crib

4th of July and a poke in the eye...

This year for the 4th of July we had some new friends over for dinner and did our own fireworks in the back yard. Kaitlyn and Hadley have become quick friends and we've had several play dates since then. Here they are doing sparklers and playing dress up.

On another note, while Jared was playing with Katy last week she accidentally poked him in the eye. Normally, you would think this was no big deal, right? Wrong. Jared said it felt like her whole finger went in his eye and it was in a lot of pain. After flushing it and putting drops in it we thought his eye was doing a little better. The next day it felt okay, but still felt sore. The real fun began Sunday morning. Jared woke up with a lot of pain in his eye, and could barely open it. We took him to urgent care, and they said there was definitely a scratch on his cornea, but that he would need to see an ophthalmologist, but he'd have to wait till Monday because none were working on the weekend. After suffering through Sunday we went to the ophthalmologist first thing on Monday and found out that not only was there a pretty bad scratch on his cornea, but that an ulcer had formed on top of that on his eye. Anyway, to make a long story short his eye will be fine, but he had to sit in a completely dark room for 4 days and not open his eyes! No reading and no watching tv! He's finally back at work and doing better after a long week. The moral of the story is be careful when playing with your children!

A Week of Firsts...

Lexie just turned 7 months old and has had a week of firsts.

• She finally can sit without falling over
• She started putting herself into the sitting position from the crawling position
• She started crawling really well out of nowhere
• We fed her finger foods for the first time and she loved it

It's like all of a sudden she decided she was sick of being a baby and decided to be a big girl. Last weekend we drove to Houston for a wedding and since there was bad traffic we ended up being in the car for 6 hours! Needless to say Lexie was not happy and as soon as we got to the hotel I put her on the ground and all of a sudden she got up on her hands and knees and just crawled across the room. It was almost like she was saying "if you promise never to put me in the car seat again, I'll start crawling". Here are some recent pictures of Lexie and a couple from the wedding.This picture is a little goofy, but I think it shows off her cute personality

This is at the wedding we went to. It was an Indian wedding so all the women were wearing their beautiful Indian dresses (I don't know what they're called).

Katy will no longer give us a real smile for pictures. As long as her eyes are open I consider it a good picture.

Vacation...

We decided to go on our first "real" vacation as a family before Jared started his new job. Orlando seemed like the perfect destination with plenty of activities to keep Katy happy. We spent an entire week in Orlando and didn't even come close to seeing half the attractions. It's hard to sum up everything we did, but here are the highlights!

Monday: SeaWorld / Arabian Nights Dinner Theater

That huge thing in the middle is a walrus. They are massive! My jaw dropped when he waddled out.

The Arabian Nights dinner theatre was my favorite. Food, not so good; show, totally amazing.

Tuesday: Magic Kingdom

In the gift shop Katy picked out several things she wanted, but when she saw this purse she dropped everything on the floor and ran to it. It was love at first sight! This is at the end of the day.

Wednesday: St. Petersburg Beach

The beaches here were great for little kids. Very mild waves, white sand and clear blue water.

Thursday: Animal Kingdom

I loved Disney's Animal Kingdom. They have a really cool safari in the park.Hippos are my favorite animal. They're just so funny looking.

Friday: SeaWorld

Saturday: Shopping at the outlets & swimming at the resort

Pictures of the House...

Here are a few pictures of the house now that I found my camera.

I've been waiting a long time for these babies! =)

Lulu turns 6 months...

Whenever I write Lexie's name I usually call her "Alexis" or "Lexie" but we actually call her "Lulu" most of the time. When she was born I started calling her Lexie Lu and then Jared shortened it to Lulu and now that's what we call her 90% of the time. Anyway, our little Lulu turned 6 months old this week and I can't believe it. She is seriously a little ball of joy with the cutest cheeks and thighs I've ever seen. It makes me so happy to see how well Katy and Lexie get along and how their little relationship is developing. It reminds me of how close I was with my little sister, but then I remember how much we fought when we were little and I start to worry about what's in store for us! Here are a few pics of our little Lulu.

I put Lexie under her little play gym and left the room. When I came back Katy had built a tent around them. (Yes, Katy is finally potty trained - well mostly potty trained =)

Try to guess what book Katy is reading

Bloom Where You're Planted...

Sorry I haven't posted since we moved, but we've been extremely busy. I have to say that having movers was so nice especially when you have two small kids running around. I'm definitely looking forward to never having to move ourselves again! So far we love the house and can't believe how nice it is to finally spread out! The girls finally have their own rooms, which I would have liked 6 months ago when Alexis was born! I eventually want them to share a room, but unfortunately Lexie still wakes up in the middle of the night and I don't want her waking up her sister. One of my favorite things is the backyard. I love letting Katy run around outside while I'm cooking or cleaning. The whole back of the house is windows so I can pretty much see her anywhere in the yard from the kitchen or living room. My second favorite thing is that I get to park in a garage. This might not seem like a big deal, but for the past five years I've had to park in a parking lot and trek all the way to my apartment and then climb stairs (all with groceries and small children in tow). Now I can just pull into the garage let Katy out and carry everything straight into the kitchen. It's fabulous! One of the hard parts about buying our first house is we didn't realize how much you have to buy just to move in. For example, in the last couple of weeks we have purchased a fridge, a washer, a dryer, blinds for the whole house, drapes/rods, a twin bed, a lawn mower, hoses, sprinklers and about a billion other things! Moving is expensive! We're pretty much unpacked, but we're not all the way organized yet if that makes sense. I was going to post some pictures, but I can't find my camera, so those will have to come later.

So far we really like the area we live in. There are a lot of parks and shopping. We just enrolled Katy in a sports class at Gymboree and are trying to get her into swimming lessons (I'll let you know how that goes). We went to church last Sunday and that was quite interesting. I kept being reminded of what a coworker told me when she found out I was moving to Baton Rouge. She knew I wasn't that excited (to say the least), but she told me, "you know, you just have to bloom where you're planted". I really thought about that and it's really changed my attitude about where we live. We feel so blessed that Jared had the opportunity to go back to school and that he finished with a great job in a struggling economy. I'm also so grateful that I get to stay home with my two precious girls and be a full time mommy!