Where did November go?

Somehow the time has flown by and I have managed to neglect the world of blogging! November flew by with a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and preparations being made for Christmas. Our Christmas decorations were set up promptly the day after Thanksgiving and little did Patrick know I had already been listening to Christmas music for weeks! I love this time of year!

In addition to all of our holiday excitement, our little guy hit the big 9 months and along with it came a couple of developmental milestones!Drinking out of a straw! He now thinks he is so good at it that he begs for anything that has a straw in it (including my Diet Coke!)

His favorite toy is a ball. He is usually holding at least one. I claim it is his first word, but it's actually a lot of "a ba ba ba ba".

Somehow successfully manages to go from crying to giggling upon seeing the camera!

At 9 months, he is wearing 12-18 month clothes
weighing in at 22 lbs.
measuring "tall" in length
not technically crawling, but managing to find a way to get into everything
giving great slobbery kisses
and wrapping me tighter around his finger everyday!

Believing!

OK, so I don't often post about me, but I'm indulging tonight! You see, something VERY exciting has recently happened to my tantrum tolerating, house cleaning, dinner cooking, bottle making, wonderful "mommy" life!

Many of you know that I have indulged in a hobby that has become more of an addiction and am currently working with a company called Heritage Makers! The concept of the company is something that I have grown to truly believe in and because a friend of mine (Brenda) believed enough in our company to send Oprah Winfrey a storybook of her own, our little company was recently featured in the December issue of O Magazine.

OK, OK - we weren't just featured - Heritage Makers was listed as one of Oprah's Top Ten All-Time Favorite Things!!!!

As you can probably imagine, this is very exciting for me and many others who have believed in this great company!

Thanks for letting me share my excitement with you!

Trunk or Treat

This past Saturday was our ward's annual Trunk or Treat activity. It is always a great activity that we look forward to! I made soup, Patrick decorated our trunk as a big spider wed, and Katelyn changed her mind on what she wanted to dress up as three times!

She was originally going to be Violet Incredible (a costume that we bought on a clearance sale and have been anticipating wearing for months), THEN Snow White (a new dress-up dress that Grandma Laurie recently sent), but NOPE - we had just returned from seeing High School Musical 3 (which we loved by the way) and the only thing she would dress up as was her High School Musical Cheerleader outfit with her HSM headset. So we threw together this little cutie and she loved it!

What Team? WILDCATS!!!

Our sweet little Dalmation. Despite what it looks like, he was a great sport about the costume!

Two cute kids!

Costco Beauties

Despite the fact that there is a good chance that several other little girls in our ward may be wearing the same dresses, I just can't resist these beautiful dresses that come into Costco every year (and you can't beat the price!)

If you can't tell, Katelyn loves her new "spinny dresses" and even loved to tell everyone who told her she looked cute - "Thanks, I got them at Costco!"

You might not believe this, but these poses are strictly Katelyn! It is actually quite a feat to get her to just stand up nice and take a picture! She's ALL girl!

Not our finest Daddy Day

I've become accustomed to posting the cute and the positive and today I'm changing my routine. This past weekend I planned a fun and much needed Daddy Day. During the past couple of weeks, Patrick has been working even more than he usually does which means he leaves for work before we wake up and returns long after the kids have gone to bed. By the time Saturday came around, we needed a day of fun! SO - I bought us tickets to Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage. Fun, huh?

We dressed the kids up and headed out for a day of fun. The play was really great, but because no photos were allowed in the theater I have no pictures to prove it. Katelyn loved to sing and dance in the aisle with Mickey and friends.

During all other parts of the day we basically managed from tantrum to tantrum over everything you could imagine. It was a riot! In fact, there wasn't even an opportunity to take a picture of the wonderful day.

We were pretty frustrated and now I just feel terrible because on Monday I took the kids to the doctor and they have ear infections. Who knew?

SO - with no fun pictures of our weekend, I digress back to the memories of our fun Disney trip! Thanks for the indulgence.

So excited to finally be on the Dumbo ride. When are they going to fast pass this ride?
Katelyn & Grandma LaurieKatelyn was SO excited to see Minnie!

Great sports!

What Time Is It?

Is anyone as excited as we (Patrick and I included) are for High School Musical 3? Only one more week to wait! Katelyn has been sporting around in her High School Musical cheerleader outfit singing at the top of her lungs, "What Time Is It?"

Happy and Handsome

I just thought I would post a couple of pictures of my handsome little guy. He is honestly as happy as he appears to be in every picture that is taken of him.

He is such a sweetheart and has finally mastered the art of sitting up. I think he will probably wait until he's one to try crawling, but oh well! He's happy doing things in his own time and I am happy letting him!

Disney Magic

I thought it was about time I update, especially since we spent a couple of magical days at the "Happiest Place on Earth!" I was able to go to Anaheim to attend a Heritage Makers conference so I took the little ones with me and my mom and Kyle met us there to babysit while I was at the conference (THANKS GUYS!)

After the conference, we were joined by Patrick and my dad and embarked on 3 straight days of Disneyland!

Katelyn and her daddy getting ready for the fun!

Grandpa Brad and Jake were dressed as twins. What handsome guys!

We were able to see and pose with Mickey THREE different times. Katelyn was thrilled!

One of the highlights of our trip was our lunch with the princesses. Of course Katelyn loved it! They wouldn't admit it, but I think Kyle and Jake liked it too!

The last day we were there, Grandma and Grandpa Pocock and Aunt Julie were also able to join us at Disneyland. We had a great time with so much family! Can you even imagine how spoiled Katelyn was with 2 sets of grandparents, an aunt, and an uncle? Whew!

Dancing Queen

I'm posting this video purely to provide Patrick some comic relief in the middle of a busy day.

I recorded this video of our little dancer when she didn't know I was in the room. Now - this is talent that just can't be taught! :)

All "Grewed" Up

Yesterday was Katelyn's first day of preschool and she couldn't have been more ready or more excited!

5:30 am - Katelyn wakes up to exclaim that she "grewed" during the night and is ready to go to preschool

8:30 am - Katelyn, Jake, and I had all miraculously showered AND had breakfast with little drama. (That's quite a feat considering mom isn't a morning person!)

8:35 am - Katelyn makes a phone call to her dad and also to wake up her Grandma Laurie (7:35 her time) to exclaim that she is ready to go!

8:40 am - We're out of here and actually going to be on time. (Another feat!)

Isn't she pretty with her new Ariel "packpack"?

Mom, seriously, you can leave now!

We have been preparing for this day for a long time. We have tried to teach manners, obedience, socialization, etc. She was totally prepared and thrilled to be there. She couldn't wait for me to leave and she didn't understand why some kids were crying.

One problem - we failed to prepare me! I tried to be so brave. I had no idea that walking away from her classroom would reduce me to mush. Don't get me wrong - I'm excited for the free time, it's not like I have never left her before, and I'm sure that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I wasn't prepared for the overwhelming feelings of wanting to keep my little girl little.

I'm sure today is the first of many years of tears! I just hope the mothers who were handling it better than I was didn't notice the tears that were leaking out from behind my sunglasses!

Last Fling Weekend

We just celebrated our LAST FLING (Labor Day weekend)! Our city has a little fair called Last Fling which is so fitting because we are getting ready to hibernate for the winter! We met Patrick Friday after work and went to the fair. So dirty, so greasy, and so fun!

Katelyn won this great prize from the duck pond. It even squeaks -YIPEE!!!

She wanted to try out the jumper! She was so proud of herself that she wasn't even scared.
(She might have been a little more scared if she had seen the woman behind her.)

Saturday we went to the zoo and had a blast. THEY touched stingrays (it's not likely that you will ever see a picture of me touching an animal!)

Yes, Jake was there too! Isn't he cute!

Katelyn loved the kids zoo, but her favorites were the monkeys and elephants.


SATURDAY NIGHT AND A MYSTERY VISITOR!

Saturday night we went to dinner with some friends. Some friends of ours had a weekend visitor (old mission companion) that happened to be a friend of mine from Rexburg! We went to dinner and then came back to our house for some ice cream and played Rock Bank like teenagers! SO FUN!

Can any of my Rexburg friends name the man with the mic?

We rock!

Mystery guest = Andrew Hill and his wife Andrea

Cause for Celebration

We are always looking for a reason to celebrate so we celebrated the release of the new Ariel movie! Reason enough - right?

Katelyn and her friend Bekah baking Ariel cupcakes!

Lots of finger licking!

And then off to Walmart to buy our new movie!
Yes, we are spoiled!

It was time for a Mommy Day!

Every Saturday is "Daddy Day". We look forward to it all week and we try to fill the day with fun. Well, I'm sure that most of you can relate with me when I say I was tired of being the nagging, disciplining mom. I was tired of being the mean stepmother and Patrick being the handsome prince. So - last week Katelyn and I had a "Mommy Day".

We began the day by going bowling with several of our friends from our ward. It was so much fun. We then picked up a couple of Happy Meals from McDonalds and headed to Chicago.

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry where we only saw the things that Katelyn wanted to! We watched baby chicks hatch, we pretended to drive John Deere tractors, we played in water, but the best part of the museum was. . .

. . .when we stopped at the old fashioned Main Street for an ice cream sundae.

Yes, we ate it all!

We were able to pick up my cousin, Kaylie, who was in Chicago and went to the American Girl store and my favorite restaurant - The Grand Lux - for dinner. What a fun day!

SIX Months!

He is as sweet and good-natured as the day he was born!

FAVORITES:
Eating, splashing in the bath, sleeping, cuddling with mom, pulling Katelyn's hair, giggling, smiling, and eating some more

I'll do my best to not let him become too much of a mommy's boy, but I sure do love this little guy!

(I might be a little tainted by the fact that he has yet to hit me, throw a temper tantrum in the middle of a store, call me "stupid mom", or throw his food on the floor because it wasn't cut up just right - not that Katelyn would do any of those things!)