So Many Reasons to Smile!

We've had a great week with a lot of fun and smiles so I thought I would share some of the reasons why!

1 - My little brother, Kyle, surprised us with a visit so we have taken the opportunity to drag him along and do a couple of fun things like - -

Brookfield zoo - I'm trying to justify the membership I purchased so it is going to be our summer hotspot! The kids act like it's the first time everytime! We even pretend we are afraid of the animatronic dinosaurs!

2- Seriously, do I need to explain? This little guy is the happiest, funniest little thing I have ever seen. He has finally decided that walking is cool, his blue eyes could melt you, I'm starting to get used to his slobbery ways, he teases his sister like crazy, he's always up for an adventure, AND he LOVES kisses. The big, wet, slobbery, cover-your-whole mouth kind! He's a keeper!

3 - Katelyn officially made it through her first year of preschool. YIPEE!

4 - The kids have BOTH been sleeping through the night - enough said!

5 - HOLIDAY!!! We have a holiday with THREE daddy days in a row. Patrick is awesome about getting us out of the house and making memories. We went on a little Saturday trip to Starved Rock state park and did a little hiking and sight seeing. It was great.

Tomorrow (Memorial Day) we are off to Six Flags. We'll see if we are still smiling after that!

One Fine Sunday

I'm going to interrupt my monthly recaps to post some pictures of the fabulous Sunday we had yesterday! The weather was PERFECT and we spent the entire afternoon outside. Patrick even cooked up some salmon on the grill for dinner. It feels like we have been waiting for this for several long, cold, dreadful months!

February

February was a fun month! We began the month by celebrating my big 32nd birthday. It was a great birthday. We took the kids to a fun bowling alley. After coming home and getting the kids to bed, Patrick and I enjoyed sushi for dinner and a little Rock Band with our band members.


Katelyn talked me into letting her have a Valentine party. We had some of her friends from church over for crafts, games and cupcake decorating. What cute girls!


My little Jake just gets more and more handsome! I can't believe a year has flown by since we welcomed him into our home. I am grateful for every single day of that year. He is a very special little guy and we adore him.


Patrick wasn't able to make it home from work on Jake's actual birthday (ssshhh, don't tell Jake!) so Katelyn and I celebrated with him the best we could. We got pizza and had cupcakes. I think Jake just enjoyed the attention.

When the weekend came and Patrick was able to be home, we celebrated it all over again. Jake was actually a little hesitant about the whole candle thing and we practically had to force his hand into his cupcake, but once he got the hang of it I think he quite enjoyed it.

December & January

Blogging isn't for people like me! Ok, I freely admit it. Of the gifts that I was given (I'm still trying to find out what they are), being organized and finishing projects definitely don't make the list! Those of you who do possess these strengths would gasp if you saw my closet of unfinished projects. SO, blogging is one of those things - the more behind I get, the more overwhelmed I get, and so for my sanity - I quit!

I keep saying I will get better, but I don't so maybe I will just relent to posting a broad update every now and then and lay my guilt to rest!

In my defense, I have already got my 2008 Yearbook completed and it turned out awesome. You can view it if you want by clicking here!

DECEMBER - was a very busy month! Busier than I would like any other December to be. The first weekend, I went on a girl's weekend to a spa in Wisconsin. The next weekend, we took the kids to Wisconsin Dells for a little getaway. The last weekend before Christmas was all the last minute preparations for what turned out to be a great Christmas.

We were excited to have my parents and Kyle come visit for Christmas. We had a great time!


JANUARY - was filled with snow, snow, and more snow! I became quite handy with a shovel as Patrick worked long hours.

Finally at the end of January, we got away on a little vacation. The kids and I went to Idaho to see Grandpa & Grandma's new house. We had a great time in Idaho and suprisingly, they had a lot less snow than in Chicago!


We ended our trip in Boise where we were able to catch a couple of Kurt's basketball games before he hung up #44 and got a real job! (JK Kurt!) Katelyn even wore a #44 jersey to the games and sat right on the front row to scream and cheer on her boyfriend/Uncle Kurt.

Excuse #1 (More to follow)

Many of you have been asking when I'm finally going to get my act together and update this blog. I'm flattered - really - that you care about the mundanes of our lives! It seems like I spend each day cleaning, cooking, running Katelyn around to her various engagements, and cleaning the mess that I could have sworn I just cleaned! We do take time for fun and we do have some cute pics so I will try to be better about updating!

Among my various excuses for not keeping up on the blog, here is excuse #1! Jake - aka "Trouble". It's a good thing he is so good natured because he is ALL boy and ALL trouble! He has no use for toys. There are way too many cupboards to be unloaded, garbages to be tipped, and he has a sister that squeals (much to his delight) when teased!

Last night I walked out of the kitchen for 2 seconds and came back to find this (sorry about my voice in the background!) -

It's a good thing he is so happy and good natured!!!

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!