february. flyin by!

As always I'm posting about three months behind. Oh well. Kate celebrated her 3rd birthday in the company of a family that lives near us, the Lentzs. She loves them so it was fun for her to be with them. She had a tinkerbell cake and lots of presents sent from grandparents back home in Utah plus what she got from us.

Julie Lentz with Kate

Kate getting ready to blow out her candles. Tinkerbell is actually a candle but Kate flipped when I tried to "light tinkerbell on fire." So I got three little candles to blow out instead.
Kate was so thrilled with her gifts and it was almost as fun for her to recieve packages through the mail as to get them by hand. Grandma Skene gave her this little piggy bank. She spends most of the time putting the money in, taking it out, and putting it back in again. :)

In deciding to finally put the Christmas decor away we decided we needed a better storage box. Kate decided to make us of it before it began to get filled and took her little game laptop for a hideaway session.

This one requires some explanation. Jon had a lap desk on which to put his laptop. The cushiony part on the bottom was filled with little white balls of stuffing. There was a small hole in the cushion and while mommy fell asleep Kate decided to enlarge the hole. The result was a snowstorm within our living room. sigh. i've been finding those for all the months following.

January. Very short and quite sweet.

Just a couple little pictures from January. Kate grows so fast and is so smart. It never ceases to amaze me how fast she picks up on things and - even more startling - the things she picks up on. She has an amazing eye for tiny details. She is becoming so very very stubborn and independent in many areas.

Kate's reading glasses

My little model

december. at least i'm almost in the right year.

December was a busy month! We went to Utah for a month and celebrated with our families. It was an exciting season for me this year because it's so fun to watch Kate finally understand well the concept of Santa, being good for Santa, and really get into the excitement of gift-giving and family fun. It's almost better than being a kid myself. It was wonderful to be around family again. I missed my cats but besides being a little matted and angry, they were in good shape when we returned.

This is Kate in her cute kitty outfit. It was from some friends of mine who saw it and thought of her. It fits her perfectly. She's little wild woman. :)

Christmas Morning. The pictures are a little out of order but I'm far too lazy to go back and download them all in the right order. So here's Christmas in reverse. We went to Jon's mom in the morning and his dad in the afternoon. Kate had fun seeing her cousins.

Kate was in charge of a gift for Hudson and gave him a little fire engine. Included was a personal demonstration from Kate. :D

My beautiful little girl

Jon teaching Kate to play ping pong.

My parent's house Christmas Morning. I love their house, it's so beautiful.

Christmas Eve was spent with my family. It was so good to see Nathan and Kim's family. Kate LOVES playing with her cousins. They opened gifts from each other and we ate a good dinner.

Kim and Ainsley

Pants opening her gift

Kate checking out her new tiger binoculars with LaRisse.

Grandpa being a grandpa

Maggie and Ninj watching the entertainment

The rest of the month was spent much as usual, watching Kate progress and grow. I got some news - I found I was pregnant. Kate had fun in the snow and was still working on potty-training.

Kate watching DVDs on the potty. Whatever it takes to get her on it!

Kate helping Grandpa shovel snow. She helpfully shoveled it off the grass onto the garden. Eventually Kate decided somehow that it would be easier to vacuum up the snow with her toy vacuum.

Typical mom, I can't get enough of seeing my beautiful little girl. She just looks like she belongs in some remote Alaskan village or something. :)

I took three tests to make sure I was pregnant. Technically I shouldn't have been able to know but somehow I knew before I took the tests. I guess I was just symptomatic REALLY early.