At the Zoo

We go to the zoo quite a bit and that's fine by me. They both enjoy it especially Kati.

That's a lot of steps for such a little boy. He was walking them at first but I guess he got tired.
Notice the lion in the background. He was very vocal that day.
We spent a lot of time here. Mr. Elephant was playing in the water.

Mommy and Kati make yummy pizza together

Brendon was happy to just watch......well, and sample the toppings.

You did a great job girlfriend!

Uncle Jesse

Uncle Jesse is home on R&R. Kati was so excited to hear that he was coming. However in typical Kati fashion she wanted nothing to do with him when he got here and Bear took her lead. She actually hid behind my legs at one point. Jesse gave her her space and let her do things on her own time and she came around. He won Bear over with a gift, must be his love language. He brought Kati this shirt but of course she acted all aloof when he was around and wouldn't put it on until he was gone. She loves it. Jason and Jared came over too and the kids were in Uncle Heaven (we miss you Uncle John). Who could ask for a better gift than that many Uncles who love you.

"Mommy, do you want to hear a 'larry-us' story?"

Kati has started telling "larry-us" (hilarious) stories. Sadly there is nothing funny about them at all but they make me laugh anyway. Jeffrey says she gets her story telling ability from me. I hate to say it but I agree.

DRIVIN' ALONG

Ain't he cute?

Big boy bed

One week ago we moved Brendon out of the crib and into the toddler bed. I was crushed of course. He did pretty well. Before night time I showed him his new pillow and blanket. He didn't want to share them with Kati. I tried to explain to her that he had never had his own pillow before but that didn't matter to her. He was so excited when we first got in there for bed. Daddy sang him a song, we prayed. He cried a little bit. We came back for the second time about thirty minutes later and he was sleeping. The picture on the top right is of him first thing the next morning. Not a happy camper.

Look What I Learned

Chuck E Cheese

So eventhough we already had a birthday party Kati wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese too. This is not a place Jeffrey and I like but your baby girl only turns three once right?

Kati wanted a watermelon cake.


Notice the hat? Kati does things her own way. She wore it upside down for the rest of the night.

A loud sneeze comes from the other room. I holler, "You okay buddy?". Kati says, "Oh Mom, he's okay. He's just blessing"

Slip-n-slide

When I had it all set up Kati sat up at the top by the oragne stuff and said "Mommy, when do we get to slide?". I trid to explain. I even drug her down it to show her, but she just laughed and cried at the same time. So being Kati she just did her own thing......she made it her own water fountain (oops you missed a little there girl). And since Bear believes everything in life begins and ends with Kati he did the same. She did eventually use the length of the whole slide....... she army crawled across it. They're so much fun!

My baby girl turns three

Three years and one day ago my husband and I were wondering about the miracle growing inside of me. We already knew from the sonogram at the hospital that she would have her chubby cheeks and long eye lashes. But what color would those eyes be? Would she have her daddies hair or mine?

This was my tiny angel just two days old.
Here she is at her third birthday party. She has grown so much. She has just started choir at church and AWANAS. Even though I am so very proud of her I am just a little bit sad too. This has all gone by so fast, so very very fast. Time never goes by as quick as it does when you have children. It doesn't seem that it was that long ago when I was feeling her move within me for the first time and now here she is, a tiny little me. My heart breaks for the day when she will leave us. I know thinking that far ahead may seem silly to some but not to those of us with children. So today I will hug a little longer, give twice as many kisses and put off the things that can be done tomorrow. I love you Katibug and I will always be proud of you no matter what you do, my tiny angel girl.

I can not not talk about September 11th today. You will have to bear with me in my randomness because that's how I am when I normally talk.
I remember when I first heard about the second plane. I had the radio on classical music for the three year olds in my classroom. I heard it and just felt oh that was sad. I met with some parents in the hall going threw the course of a regular day, I was just going over my lesson plans. We began discussing the planes and I actually said what are the chances of two planes crashing into two buildings on the same day (not knowing the names of the building or that they were side-by-side). Kathy looked at me and said it wasn't a coincidence. My comment showed my age and the safety that our country had here. It never occurred to me that we were in danger as a country. But the minute I heard about the pentagon I was glued to the TV and radio when I could be. As teachers we had to wear brave faces that day and the days that followed. I went to my moms house on my lunch break ( an hour and a half) and just watched and cried. I put a video in to record the news because I knew the coverage of this event would never be as raw as it was right then. They were showing us things that may never be shown again. News anchor had actual emotions on their faces instead of that plastered look they carry no matter what they are reporting. I recorded because I knew someday I would have children and this event would not touch them in the same way it was touching me. I remembered thinking that I hoped eventually Septemember 11th would not be a day kids got off of for school. Because I knew I would be angry to hear my children excited about such a thing. I taped because some day when they were old enough I wanted them to experience it as close as they could to how we did that day. The tapes kept recording even after I went back to work but I have never watched them. I couldn't watch much of any of it. I would try and just turn everything off. I was over loaded. Jeff wanted to watch something not long after where they had musicians on singing, maybe they were raising money or something. We spent that evening in different rooms. We were divided. He wanted to watch and I just couldn't. I didn't even want to discuss it. I hated going to work everyday for fear of never seeing Jeffrey again. So many people died that day not expecting such a thing when they woke in the morning. So many wives just waited for husbands to come home who never did. How long did they hold out hope? A few weeks later around 2 in the morning something happened to my car parked outside the apartment. The horn came on and wouldn't turn off. At the time I thought I woke up to a siren. I thought we must be under attack not realizing it was just my car. I remember how eerie it was not to see planes flying and tears rolling down my face when they were finally there again. Our country will never be the same again. What I cherished after was the union as Americans we all had. We were proud and united. People went back to saying hi to strangers, something our country had lost long ago. Something my generation wasn't even a part of. Sadly we have gone back to being fast paced and divided again. Not stopping to be kind and say hello, divided over our opinions on the war. Rudolph Giuliani said, "We have met the worst of humanity with the best fo humanity.", I wish we would get back to that.

Kati's birthday Loft Bed

Kati and Jeffrey hard at work
Uncle Jared and Jason came to help out too.
Jeffrey would put in a hard days work and then come home to work on the bed

Kati and Brendon got to join the fun of painting. There is plywood to help support the mattress and they painted that. Kati can admire their handy work under the bed while she reads
Daddy brought all the wood in to Kati's room to assembly it. Kati wasn't allowed in but thought she would sneak a peek

Loft bed continued

Here is the final product all together in her room
She really likes it

(Can you see her paint job above her head?)
She sits on the bed on her new Tinker Bell comforter admiring her new Tinker Bell pajamas bought especially for the occasion
My climber just couldn't resist the temptation
This is the underside of the bed. We set it up with her bookshelf, bean bag chair, rocker and her dress up clothes with a mirror
Good night sweet Angel

Don't ya just love it....

Don't ya just love it when people you don't even know what to tell you how to raise your own kids. We were at the park yesterday as were many families but one family in particular, including the Grandma, that I noticed. This boy, about 6, was doing his homework. First of what kind of torture is that after all this scorching heat to take your kid to the park on a nice day and then make them do homework. The boy was working on reading and writing and the Grandmother was only correcting, and not very nicely I might add, and never handing out praise for getting things right. I was so sad for this kid I had to tell him I thought he was doing a good job after Grandmameany went to go swing on the bench swing. This kid would work for a while and then get distracted by all the sights (and who could blame a little boy for being distracted at the park) and Grandmameany would holler over about taking points away (? who knows). Finally she came over and told him quit stopping his work and get busy, to which he replied, "Grandma quite saying that. Every time you say that I have to stop to listen to you." I had to stiffly my giggles. Then the woman proceeds to tell me to "take notes". Who wants to take notes from a grouchy old woman. I should have told her the raising of my kids includes praise.

What a big boy

This is Brendon at nearly 17 months and Kati at nearly 36 months. My, what big feet you have. I am having visions already of having to shake my finger waaaaay in the air to disciple. What can I say, height runs in the family.

It's now four in the morning and we are all awake. Why you ask. I don't you, maybe you should ask Bear. He and I have been going on like this for about five nights. All the articles want to give you advice about how to first put them to bed but I don't have that problem. The first night I brought him to bed with us, our pediatrician we be disappointed. That worked for about two hours until he sat up to play with the wall. Oh no you don't, so back to bed he went...... only back to bed not back to sleep. He cried from two until five. That gave me one hour of sleep. The next nights weren't that bad but here we are again. It's been going on since two. I tried to hold him for comfort for a few minutes, laid him down went back to bed and a few minutes later he is up again. I brought a night light and held him, back to bed. This didn't work either. Then I try a method the ped' suggested with Kati but we never had to use. I brought my pillow and blanket ( and book b/c I'm not sleeping anyway, should be though b/c this book is a real snoozer, but I bought it so I'm gonna finish it) and laid by his crib. Yeah, great idea. Now my natural comedian has an audience. He is talking to me about Elmo, pulling my blanket, and bonking his head on the crib to try and make me laugh. Jeff's alarm now goes off, "Daddy?". But of course Jeff doesn't hear it so I have to holler for him (the house could burn down around him and I don't think he would notice, he just can't help it) and now Bear knows I am awake. Well since I am awake he wants to tell me all about his fish in his room, "my ishies". I finally give up and return to my room for no sleep. Begin searching the internet to find nothing. And then Kati wakes up. She is dazed and I don't think she even knows what she is doing. She is just standing there in the hall hair all a mess with her fingers in her mouth. I ask, "Did Bear wake you up?", long pause, she answers, "okay". She I send her back to bed with promises to follow. But now Brendon sees me going into her room and getting in her bed. I feel like a horrible mother. Kati is still oblivious and he is screaming. I walking in, lay him down and say "It's not time to get up buddy." Retrieve his blanket and Elmo that he at some point had thrown in the floor as protest and return them to him. He finally stopped his crying after two and a half hours. Why didn't that work the first time?

He's coming home!

Now I know your probably thinking, who, where did they go, how long they been gone. It's Jeffrey, and don't laugh but he has only been gone since last night. I know, I know your probably thinking "get a grip", right? No it's not about being his "little woman" and I'm so helpless I can't do any thing without him, that's not it. I'm crazy about him. He is the love of my life, my best friend, I'm lost without him. I didn't have Jeffrey to sleep with last night, wait did you catch that, not I didn't have "somebody" to sleep with. I didn't have my Jeffrey. I have to be touching him while we sleep, I don't care if it's only my foot touching his ankle, I have to do it. My cold foot has ended a few fights over the years, somehow there has been forgiveness found there. His flight will come in in a few hours and I am beside myself with happiness.

It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What's being said between your heart and mine
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

(Allison Krauss)

Now I know this song was written before Jeff and I even knew each other but I choose to believe God whispered these words into the writer ears because He already knew I would feel this way about Jeffrey. ;-)

(That's an old picture taken the day after prom. It's one of my favorites. Jeffrey used the helium from one of those balloons to sing "You are my sunshine" to me. So very Jeff)