Singing Our Way Through the Weekend

On Saturday, Kaitlyn and I met Grammy Jill for the Fancy Nancy Ballet - oh la la! Kaitlyn really liked the Bonjour Butterfly part of the performance as we recently checked that book out from the library and frequently read it before bed.

On Sunday, Kaitlyn had her preschool performance. It was so stinkin' cute and my heart just melted! I have no idea where this little girl gets her spunk but she got right up there in front of everyone and sang her little heart out. My favorite part of the performance was when she mimicked rocking a baby during the 'Whole World in his Hands' song. So very, very sweet! The only thing I'm bummed about...we didn't get any video. And this was definitely one that should have been caught as a keepsake. We didn't get great pictures either but she's at the far right peeking over in the group one.

Later on Sunday, I met my Mom, Jen, and Emily to take in Mamma Mia! LOVE, LOVE that show! There is no way anyone could sit there and not bust up laughing and burst into song. Toe tapping, giggling, and being in the moment is exactly what I needed and what I got!

Friday Fun

This week has been such a hodge-podge of weather, from snow to hail to rain to plain grey. Thus, when Friday turned bright blue and sunny we had to take advantage of the day. Kaitlyn and I headed down to Coulon for the afternoon. (I soooo love my work's policy of Friday close at 2 pm!).

Kaitlyn had a blast playing on all the park equipment and then decided it was time to build a sand castle. A lot dirty, a lot tired, and very content is how the day ended. (And I'll just ignore the 3-year old drama that was somewhere in between all that. LOL!)

Holy Growth Spurt, Batman!

So a few weeks back we realized that a lot of Kaitlyn's pants were becoming more capri-style than pants style, which isn't the best thing considering we are still experiencing snow (boo!) and rainy, cold weather. So out came the 4T box from Emily. Those items along with a few shopping trips and we were back in business with the clothes.

Next, Kaitlyn says to me, "Mommy my shoes are hurting." So we take her to get fitted at Nordstroms and zikes, she's now a size 8 1/2 - 9. Considering that I was stuffing her cutie feet into size 7 shoes, no wonder she was feeling pinched. So, new shoes purchased and some ordered online too. And I thought, 'well, that's good. we should be good to go for a while now.'

Well, today was our first day back with swim lessons and guess what? Yep, ALL those adorable swim suits I bought last summer no longer fit. Considering we don't want her going to swim with a wedgie each week, I'm going to go swim shopping online after this post. And I'm almost giddy because it's so fun to buy her swimsuits. She already put in her requests of what she wants (and she's definitely a girl who knows what she wants).

As for the swim lessons, we've decided to go with a new place this year and I love it! The pool is at a private residence and currently Kaitlyn is the only one during her 1/2 hour session so she's basically getting private lessons for now. Her instructor, Ms. Erica, was quite impressed with her swim skills, especially her diving. Go, Kaitlyn!!

I'll try to get pics next week. The really cool thing about this pool is that it is 1/2 indoors, 1/2 outdoors. There is a door between that can be opened up for warm weather and closed during cooler weather. I'd soooo love a pool like this at my house. So although there was touch of snow on the ground still, Ms. Erica opened up the door for us to see and Kaitlyn, for a bit, was swimming outdoors. Good news - water is 92 degrees and Kaitlyn said she never felt cold! My favorite thing of all today...the adorable teeny, tiny flippers that she has to fit KP's feet. Seriously, hands down one of the cutest things.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Check out our cuties in green! Big thanks to Grammy Jill for the great shirt KP is wearing. Although you can't really see it in the picture it says, 'A Wee Bit Irish!' And that she is!

Conversations With KP

Kaitlyn is extremely chatty these days. Like she'll go on 3-5 minutes rants. It's amusing most the time but exhausting as well sometimes. LOL! Anyways, although I have tons to speak of here are my three favorites from this week:

On Being Little
Kaitlyn: Mommy, I don't like being little!
Me: What?! But when you're little you get to....(and I proceeded to list all the cool stuff that littles get to do/experience).
Kaitlyn: Mommy, I want to reconsider my answer.

Chainsaws
Setting: For some reason the word chainsaws came up in a conversation that Ryan and I were having. I stopped and said to Kaitlyn, 'Do you know what a chainsaw is?' And here's how it went:
Kaitlyn: No
Me: It's something used to cut trees and wood. It's really sharp. In fact, your Papa Dirt use to take a chainsaw to work everyday. One day he actually cut off his ear with one.
Kaitlyn: So he's a one-eared guy?

Privacy
Setting: Kaitlyn is going potty
Kaitlyn: Mommy, come keep me company
Me: Um, ok.
Kaitlyn: But I need a teeny-tiny bit of privacy so I need you to stand over there (and she points to the far corner)
Me (to myself): Really??!! This coming from the kid who was just running around naked for 1/2 the day?
Me: Okay, Kaitlyn.

I *Heart* Valentines

I've never been a huge fan of Valentine's Day. Too forced, too commercial, too cheesy. BUT this year all that changed because of Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn has a ton of points accumulated at Little Gym (we've been going there forever) and because we are getting a free summer from them, I decided it was time to use the points. What better way than to throw a Valentine's Party there!

We had so much fun planning for it. Kaitlyn helped me every step of the way and it was seriously so much fun. On a side note, I'm a little surprised at how much I'm enjoying party planning.

We found such great finds/deals from the dollar bins at Target. My new favorite thing! We found some great things at Joann Fabrics as well. Anyways, details:

• Invitations: We made the invitations using ribbon, heart stickers, and party stamp
• Food: Strawberries on heart skewers; heart plate of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries; yogurt squeezers; heart-shaped brownies; pink and white cupcakes with heart toppers (using the same heart stickers used for the invites); apple juice in cutie milk bottles that I decorated using ribbon and the heart stickers plus a polka dot drinking straw - adorable!
• Treats: XO boxes for the boys and pink polka dot boxes for the girls filled with valentines pencils, erasers, paper tablets, bubbles, heart shaped crayons (we made!), and a butterfly valentine (we also made)...and of course, candy
• My favorite, favorite: We made heart chair envelopes for each kiddo. They turned out great and hopefully will be reused every year with the Moms and Dads leaving little love notes for the kiddos around Valentines Day. (HUGE thanks to my Mom for helping out with the sewing on these!)
• Fun play: The Little Gym is GREAT! They planned out 60 minutes of fun based on Kaitlyn's favorite things including the parachute, the aerotrack, and of course, hide and seek.

The only bummer...it was so high energy and fun that I didn't get many good pictures. Boo! Here are a few though but I really don't think they capture how stinkin' cute this party was!

Heart crayons that we made!

The Valentine's KP and I made

Heart chair envelopes - my fav!

A Bit Chilly Unless You're a Penguin

Today Ryan threw out the idea of heading to Woodland Park Zoo. Kaitlyn immediately jumped on it...literally, as in jumping up and down! I was a tad surprised at his suggestion but then smiled when I heard Ryan suggest we swing through Dick's Drive-In for lunch. Now it all made sense. LOL!

Anyways, it was one of those days that we just weren't sure how the weather would go. It had been raining off and on but it looked like the clouds were trying to clear up. We decided to chance it and so we packed up/bundled up and headed out. As mentioned in a previous post, we have zoo memberships at both Point Defiance and Woodland Park and it's totally the way to go because you never have to worry about spending a whole day there to get your money's worth. A few hours here and there and if rain showers loom we simply pack it in and head elsewhere.

It was the perfect day (although a tad cold especially when the wind would blow through). Parking lot was fairly empty, no lines, and surprisingly, a lot of the animals were out. The weather pulled out and was in the low 50s with no rain and even a couple of sun breaks coming through.

Kaitlyn's favorite was the jaguar. No surprise considering she LOVES Go Diego Go! right now and his sidekick, baby jaguar. It's really sweet to hear her practicing her spanish as she tries to fall asleep at night. Gotta love Diego for that fact alone.

Anyways, as we headed home we couldn't believe our eyes. The temp dropped drastically...like 15+ degrees and by the time we hit Maple Valley we had a snow/rain mixture coming down on us. We're talking like a 20 mile distance. Crazy!! Nonetheless, we all agreed that we definitely picked the right day to get out of that icky stuff.

Chillin' with the penguins

Ohhh, so much fun!

Hi Baby Elephant! We just saw a BIG, real one at the elephant barn.

Loving those monkeys!

Running after the River Otter

Sweet Night Whispers

Last night as I was putting Kaitlyn to bed and giving loves, kisses, and hugs I told her, 'Kaitlyn, I love you to the moon and back a bazillion-trillion times!' To which she replied as follows:
'Mommy, I love you the same. And all my friends the same, too...but not the boys, I don't....but Daddy is a boy and he's OK.'

Yes, KP I'll be reminding you in 10 years or so about that boy comment. LOL!

Up Close and Personal

Sunday, February 5th turned out to be one of those very rare February days. It was sunny and on the warmish side. Ryan was in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl so Kaitlyn and I decided to head out to the zoo. We convinced Grammy Jill to join us and we had a great time!

On a side note, we have memberships to both Point Defiance (my fav) and Woodland Park Zoo. Such a great thing to have with a preschooler!

Anyways, off we went and boy, for some reason that day the animals were all very, very close. The elephant was just a fence partition away and Kaitlyn got to see up close how truly big they are and see one of the elephants trunks in action. There were two tigers in two different enclosures. One was sleeping right next to the glass and the other was prowling right up against. They had three walruses that kept flipping right on the glass as well. It turned out to be a really great day to head out as all the animals seemed to be out and the crowd was very small. (On a side note...the bird exhibits were all closed for the winter - boo! Yes, there's that sarcasm again as most you know I really, really dislike flying rodents...oh, I mean birds!)

After the zoo, we hit The Ram (seriously, wasn't trying to theme that - hahaha!) for lunch on the Tacoma Waterfront. After all that excitement, I had a tuckered out 3-year old on the way home who quickly conked out so I turned on my music, put the sun glasses on and drove home very content and happy soaking in the warm sunshine.

8 Years and 60 Pretty Toes!

More catch-up posts tonight but hey, at least we're now into February stuff. My goal is to try to get to the Valentines posts before St Paddy's Day (sad, eh?!).

We kicked off February in a wonderful way - by celebrating Emily's 8th birthday! It was a pedicure party and oh was it fabulous! Picture this: six girls barging in all giggly and excited into a spa/nail place. It was classic! As you can imagine we got the collective groan from all the adults in there with the look of, 'you've so got to be kidding me?!' BUT the girls did fantastic. Once they got their colors picked out and got comfy in their chairs, it was a total non issue they were there. This was Kaitlyn's first foray into the spa world and she loved it. She simply did the nail polish part as  her feet were no where near long enough to soak or get the usual scrubs and massages. No worries, she was just happy to be hanging with the big kids.

On a side note, big thanks to Jen (a touch of sarcasm) as pedicure parties, toe painting and constantly checking out new polish colors at the store have become commonly asked for activities in our house. There's nothing like starting the diva phase early!

Ms. Emily, sorry it's so late but wishing you an amazing year ahead - you make 8 look great! We love you!

Taylor and Daisy soaking their cutie toes

Kaitlyn waiting patiently for her turn

Madlyn and Navy relaxing

Toes, Toes, Toes!!!

Hanging with all the girls (and my reflection - lol!)

Dance Party!!

Island Life

Okay, here I go playing more catch-up from January.

Ryan and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary in December. Since we were married in Maui we figured we HAD to celebrate this special occasion back there, right?! We've been back several times since but we decided to make this trip all about us. Thus, Kaitlyn stayed home with Nana and Papa (thank you, thank you!!) and we headed off to enjoy a few days of island life at the end of January. Although extremely quick, it was wonderfully relaxing.

First picture is from our wedding. The rest are from our recent trip. Other than the extra weight, grey hair, and tired/wrinkled eyes I think we still look exactly like we did 10-years ago. :)

I Heart the iPhone

This week had me traveling to Scottsdale for work. Nonetheless, being over a thousand miles away doesn't feel so bad when we've got facetime on the iPhone and I can see/chat with Ryan and Kaitlyn each night.

The text feature is fantastic as well and easily allows me to keep in touch with what's going on. Ryan is so great about sending pictures and video, too! The iPhone makes all of this a breeze.

Of course nothing replaces the real thing and thus, I spent all day Thursday giving hugs and loves and kisses and tickles. It is really great to be home!

Here's a video Ryan sent while I was away that just melts my heart! The little head tilt at the end is so stinkin' sweet.