March Birthdays

Last Wednesday morning, my brother and his wife and daughter were supposed to arrive at our house from New York and stay until Sunday. Wednesday night we were supposed to celebrate my niece's first birthday as well as the birthdays of two of my nephews and my sister in law to-be. Well Tuesday night my brother's car got broken into while they were visiting friends in Chicago and so they were delayed another day while the windshield got repaired. So instead of celebrating Elisa's first birthday, instead we celebrated a 13th, 16th and 23rd birthday. Elisa is allergic to eggs so I made her a seperate cake from scratch so luckily there was another cake that we could eat for this party. The cake was supposed to look like an Ipod. You'll have to see if you can see some sort of resemblence. After I got word that the 1st birthday party was "off", I took the pink decorations down and put some multi-colored ones up. We ended up having a great party complete with pizza, cake and a few rounds of pictionary, which has become a new tradition at our family birthday parties. Kaitlyn's flower

Happy Birthday Keith, Hunter and Mary. Hope this year is great for you!

Kaitlyn and Grandpa putting on chapstick.

Timeout. . .

Last week I overheard a very cute conversation going on between Kaitlyn and her favorite Diego doll. She had put him in timeout and was asking him if he was ready to be a "big boy" and behave. Listen and giggle ....

X is for xray

Almost ten days ago now, Kaitlyn landed very awkward after jumping off of some mats at gymnastics. I knew right away by the look on her face and the crooked/sideway-ness of her foot that it wasn't going to be good. She didn't cry, just wouldn't let me put her down. A few minutes later, she actually did get down and jumped on the tramps for a while and I thought it was going to be okay. But after we got home, she refused to walk on her left foot. By mid-afternoon that day, she was back to walking and hopping on it, but with a very pronounced limp. The limp continued throughout the weekend and although she said it didn't hurt and she still jumped, ran, hopped and did all the normal things she usually does without complaining, she still consistently limped and so I took her in. The pediatrician watched her run and right away noticed the limp as well. So they sent us to get xrays. We lucked out and didn't have to go the hospital for xrays, but instead got to go to an outpatient xray center. I had brought along a new "help me to be brave" toy just in case Kaitlyn had to get xrays and so we opened that in the back of the car and brought it in with us. It was a stuffed Diego doll and Kaitlyn was instantly in love. In all, Kaitlyn got 10 xrays of her left leg. She never whined or cried or even got teary eyed - I was so proud of her. She held on tight to Diego and we pretended that the sound of the xray was actually the sound of Click the Camera taking a picture.

After the appointment I took Kaitlyn to the park; it was such a beautiful day. She had fun showing Diego around and teeter tottering and exploring with him.

Once we got home we decided it might be fun to try and fly Kaitlyn's kite. We didn't have much success but we had a lot of fun trying.

The next day we got the results that all was normal and to just keep watching her leg. By Thursday the limp was gone. Praise the Lord. I know the situation could have turned out so much worse especially amidst the crazy week that we had last week.

Shamrocks!

Jeff and Kaitlyn must have green thumbs because they did a great job planting and watering our little pot of clovers. They sprouted last week, just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day

Last Tuesday, Kaitlyn and I celebrated "Verde Day" (green) along with St. Patricks Day. We dressed in green on and headed out to brunch with our good friends Meredith, Josie and Aiden. The girls had fun drinking out of the neat green shamrock swirlie straws that I had packed. After breakfast we came back to our house for a playdate. Kaitlyn decided that she wanted to get the "snow" out. I think Meredith thought I was crazy when I proceeded to dump a whole garbage bag of styrofoam peanuts out on my living room floor. The girls had a blast scooping "snow" into buckets and dumping it on each other. After that mess was picked up, the girls played Princesses while I went outside to stage a St. Patty's day treasure hunt. It was terribly windy out and so I used rocks to secure the clues to random places in the yard. The girls donned their binoculars and headed out to find the "Pot of Gold".

I was surprised that only one of the 8 clues blew away. Finding the clues in the front yard was fun but once we moved to the back yard, the wind overtook the little girls and they were literally screaming. So I ran out and got the remaining clues and then led them to their final destination - bags of gold.

After our friends left, I got lunch ready for Kaitlyn. I saw a cute idea online on how to add a little twist to a kids lunch on St. Patty's day and so I tried it out. Kaitlyn thought it was quite silly that a Leprechaun took a bite of her Shamrock sandwich and left her a piece of gold and his green footprints. We had lots of fun celebrating Green Day and St. Patrick's day last Tuesday.

Missing Carseat?

On Friday morning Kaitlyn woke up and right away asked me where her carseat was. She still had her paci in so I wasn't quite sure what she was saying. I asked her if she meant her brown polka dot car seat or one of her doll car seats. She said her brown one. I told her it was in the van where it always is. She said, "No it isn't, Mommy." Confused, I pulled her paci out and asked her to clarify. Here is what she told me: "Mommy, we were driving in the van and hit a big bump and my car seat FLEWWWW out and landed on top of a big, red barn. And it was FLAT as a pancake!" Guessing that what she was describing was a dream, I asked a few more questions. "Were you in the car seat and did you fly out?" "Nope. I stayed in the van." After discussing this story further and attempting to explain to her what a dream is and how it really didn't happen, I had to actually take her out to the van to show her the car seat. It was hilarious!

Sneak Peek

I just heard from my honeymoon-ing brother that there are a few of his wedding pictures online. The photographers did an awesome job capturing their personalities and love for each other on camera. Thanks, Dave and Robyn. I can't wait to see the rest of them! http://davynphotography.blogspot.com/2009/03/tim-marys-wedding.html