The Incident

It's February . . . guess it's time to blog about Christmas!

Kate loved playing with our Christmas tree this year.

I could always find her with a Christmas ornament in hand . . .

One day, I was in the bathroom doing Emmy's hair.  I don't even think I heard anything, but I peeked my head out of the bathroom and saw the Christmas tree on it's side.  Yep, Kate knocked over the Christmas tree!  She must have been trying to get one of the ornaments off and pulled too hard.  Luckily she didn't get hurt.

So here's the tree before "the incident" (I found a pic I had taken a few days before):

Here is the floor after "the incident," with Kate looking a little distressed.  I'm sure my freaking out had absolutely nothing to do with it:

And the tree after "the incident," missing ornaments on one whole side of the tree!:

Kate was a little scared to take ornaments off after she knocked the tree over.  Luckily, we have mostly plastic ornaments, but one of my glass Disney ornaments wasn't so lucky (I'm an ornament collector, so when I'm in Disneyland at Christmas time, I get an ornament).  Eh, what can you do?  Kids will be kids!

We've also caught Kate coloring in magic marker all over the kitchen counter and chairs, drawing all over herself, painting on herself, getting into my make-up (almost a daily occurance - we have to keep our bathroom door locked most of the time), ripping paper into a million tiny pieces, and today, tearing flower petals (from my Valentine's Day roses from Jake) into a million pieces and throwing them on the floor.  She likes to get into trouble!

I whip my hair back and forth!

My kids have the best hair ever!

You see, when it's curly, it comes with frizz.

Believe me, I know from experience.

And when we do piggytails, sometimes this is the aftermath . . .

There was no additional fro'ing of the hair in this pic.  If there was, it would be much, much bigger.

Reminds me of this pic of Emmy, back in '09, about the same age as Kate is now:

Mmm-hmm!  That's right!

Summer Fun

Here's what we've been up to this summer:

{Hiking with friends}

(Check out that waterfall!)

{Playing in the sprinklers & eating popsicles}

{Having tea parties}

{Swimming & swim lessons}

{And taking lots of fun pics!}

What have you been up to?

Kate turns 2!

Our sweet little Kate {who, in fact, is not always so sweet, but very sassy!} turned two!  Can you believe it?

We had a family party for her with, what else?  A Tinkerbell party!  Our third Tinkerbell party in less than a year :)  What can I say?  We love Tinkerbell at our house.

I made her a delicious Tinkerbell cake {for reals - it was so yummy!}, which she loved.  And we had homemade peach ice cream.  Mmmm, so good.

{Kate loved the ice cream!}

{The Birthday Girl and mommy}

{Papa and Grammy}

Kate got some fun presents . . .

But her favorite, by far, was this Dora bath toy:

She carries it around with her everywhere!

{Uncle Derek thought something was funny . . .}

{Dawson loved the cake!}

{Aunt Lindsey and the Birthday Girl}

{Blowing out the candles!}

{Kate and her daddy - she is SUCH a daddy's girl!}

Here are Kate's two year stats:

{Height}:  35 inches (81st percentile)

{Weight}:  30 lbs (85th percentile)

She's slowed down a little!  She has always been off the charts in height, she's catching up to Emmy so fast.

 {Love this sweet little face}

Here are some things we want to remember about our Kate:

- Her favorite things in the world are a sippy cup of milk, her "cozy cozy" (a crib-sized comforter), her "lamby" (a stuffed animal lamb) and now her Dora doll.

- She totally can beat Emmy up.  She'll hit, pull hair and scratch.  And not only Emmy.  Jake and I have both had battle wounds, as well as a poor little boy at the gym :(  Naughty girl!  I finally had to tell Emmy to hit her back.  Emmy was not happy with this.  But, eventually, she realized she needed to defend herself against the sassy Katers!  And the hitting began . . .

- Despite her violence, she can be a sweet and cuddly girl.  She is so good at giving hugs.

- She is becoming a great little talker.  Sometimes she has to repeat herself once or twice, but we eventually can understand what she's telling us.  Most of the time, she talks in at least 4 or 5 word sentences.  She'll yell, "Stop it!" if she doesn't like what you're doing or saying (or in my case, singing . . .).  And she's really good at saying "thank you," even without being reminded.

- She loves eating broccoli, tomatoes, olives, blueberries, grapes and applesauce.  She's our good eater!

- She loves watching Diego.  When she wants to watch TV, that's what she asks for.

- She is becoming very independent.  She wants to do most things by herself.  If you don't let her, watch out!  The tantrums will begin!

- People ask all the time if her hair is naturally curly.  Honestly, what two-year-old is gonna let someone curl their hair???  I politely tell them yes, the curl is natural :)

- She's happy in the mornings!  Emmy, on the other hand, is not.  It's nice to have one child be a morning person!  She gets that from her dad . . .

- She LOVES to color!  She even colored with a permanent marker all over the counter, chairs and herself . . .

- She likes to sing (yes!).  She's got a cute little voice :)  One of her favorite songs is J Lo's "On the Floor" - that's right, she's turning to her latin roots.  Ha!

 {This girl loves the boat!  Grammy and Papa sold theirs, though :(  Anyone wanna take us out on the lake?}

{Sweet sisters}

We can't believe our baby is already two!
We'll keep her :)

Sisters, Sisters . . .

I had a little {photo shoot} with the girls back in January.

I love it when they play together and are nice to each other!

It makes a mother happy :)

I absolutely LOVE this picture!
Oh how I love Kate's little double chin :)

 Kisses!

 Hugs!

So precious

Katers!

 

Emmy!

What beautiful girls we have!

Kate {18 Months}

Kate turned 18 months in December - yeah, that's how far behind I am!!!

Here were her stats:

{Height} - 32.5 inches {75th % - which, by the way, the dr said was probably wrong since she's so. dang. tall.  The MA measured her wrong}

{Weight} - 27 lbs, 12 oz {88th %}

 {with grammy's reading glasses on}

This girl is full of life and sass!

She loves throwing tantrums and is really, really great at it.

She pulls Emmy's hair or hits her when she's mad at her.  Because of this, she gets put on time-out every now and then.  But the kicker is that she likes time-out!  After I take her out of time-out, she asks to go back . . . I don't think she gets the concept quite yet.

Kate is great at saying prayers!  We tell her what to say, and she does her best at saying all of the words.  It's so precious and so cute.

She is such a great talker and knows her animal sounds {dog, cat, horse, pig, cow, lamb, duck - the basics} and can sort of count.  Her counting sounds like this,

"one, six, nine, ten!"  I love it when she does that :)

She knows one of her shapes - the circle!  And she can sort of draw it.  She will keep drawing around and around and say, "circle!"

Her "lamby" {pictured in the top and bottom photos} is attached to her hip.  She can't go anywhere without lamby!  Needless to say, lamby gets washed every week.

Kate is a total daddy's girl!!!!  If daddy is home, she wants nothing to do with her mom.  If I try to pick her up or console her in any way, she denies me!  She just wants her dad.

She loves watching Tinkerbell and Diego.  They are her favorites!

Her favorite foods are berries {of any kind}, olives, hot dogs, applesauce and green beans.  She has always been such a great eater - SO unlike her sister.  Oh, and she LOVES her milk!

{swimming at the new aquatic center}

Kate Isabella is so spunky and so stubborn!

What are we going to do when she is a teenager?!

I'm a little worried about that one . . . 

But there's no doubt about it - our family would not be the same without this little ray of sunshine in it!