Happy Easter!

Easter weekend brought absolutely beautiful weather this year. What a lovely treat! No egg hunts with rain coats and rain boots. Bring out the tank tops and t-shirts - wahoo! Because you know when it hits a balmy 55 degrees or higher it's flip flop and tank top weather. LOL!

Saturday we had a great time at the Moser's neighborhood Easter egg hunt. This group knows how to do it right! Eggs, eggs, everywhere there were eggs. It's a bit hard to tell but in the first picture those eggs extend all the way to the end of the park and are very close together. That's just one area. There was also the play equipment area and another grass field FULL of eggs. The girls were so excited!

Sunday we enjoyed having the Mosers and Krauses over. Very laid-back and relaxed. With temps in the mid-to-upper 60's we took advantage of some outside time, too.

Happy Easter!

Eggstravaganza!

Waiting impatiently to go after those eggs

Found it! The Easter Bunny hid Kaitlyn's basket

Easter Outfit!!

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!