So.....

the daffodils are out already. Crazy weather. We've been having quite a few 60 degree+ days, but we still have a few cold ones thrown in there. Also the roses are starting to get leaves, so I am sure they will be out before long. Time to get out there and do some yard work. :)
On a totally different note. Want to know what it looks like when you give your 2 year old daughter a popsicle and let her paint just shortly after she wakes up for the day? She looks like she needs a shower. LOL I have another picture that shows the paint and gooey popsicle mess on her hands, but I'm too tired to find it right now.
And yes, for my hubby in the background asking didn't I already do an entry for today, I am posting twice in one day.

Katie's Letters Part 2, Finished for the most part

So here are Katie's letters. They are finished for the most part. I am actually still deciding if I really like them or not. Katie really likes them. I guess that's the most important thing. :)

Katie's Letters

So I never did name letters for to put on the wall in Katie's room when she was a baby. I wanted to do it for Sam, but really felt I needed to do some for Katie too. So I took the quilt I had with her crib set, that still sits on her big girl bed, and copied some of the images onto the letter T. The T just seemed like my easiest option to start, less corners and surface area to contend with. So if you have ever seen the Tiddliwinks Bear Princess collection. That's what we had for Katie. I made the colors brighter, but the pattern is pretty much still the same. Hopefully the rest of her name will go as well or better. It's not perfect, but I did paint it completely free hand, so I don't think I did so bad. Freehand stars have to be my worst thing to try to paint, I just have a problem getting the proportions right no matter what I do. It's been awhile since I actually picked up a paintbrush to do something other than splash paint onto paper with Katie. :) Oh and it did take me 2 hours this morning to do the base coat of bright pink, let that dry and then paint everything else on it. It's not completely done. I have a couple of places I want to do more on, but a certain little someone can't contain herself when she sees a paintbrush. So I'll have to finish it when she's asleep. I have seen people charge upwards of $70 or more to paint letters to match your bedding. The paints and the letters cost me a total of $20.

Katie and the Easter Dress

So Easter is coming earlier this year than normal, as you all may or may not know. So I went to some church consignment sales yesterday and they had bunches of pretty Easter dresses. I figured they almost all looked liked they had been worn once, so I let Katie pick one. She had to pick one of the frilliest dresses of all. I think it was actually a flower girl dress, but it is beautiful. I decided to take some Easterish pictures of her today since we have nothing better to do really. :)And for once she actually cooperated with for me for more than 10 seconds and she smiled at the same time! It was great. So I really was able to get some decent pictures of her. It was actually a little fun for both of us, instead of stressful.In this last I think she is giving me one of the prettiest smiles she's given me on camera in a long time. Well time to get going. I am going to take her to the mall and to Michael's to go get name letters to paint for both Sam and Katie's rooms. Fun, fun!

"Mommy, look, look, the moon's broken!"

As some of you may or may not know there was a full lunar eclipse tonight. Well, we had seen the moon as it was rising on our way to dinner and Katie is quite obsessed with seeing the moon if it's not cloudy. The moon was full, so the whole way to dinner she kept pointing out what a pretty moon it was. Then we went grocery shopping and as we came out of the grocery store, she exclaims, "Mommy, look, look, the moon's broken!". It was too cute. The eclipse had already started and about a quarter of the moon was already shadowed. We hadn't even noticed yet, and probably wouldn't have noticed until we got home, if she hadn't said something. Oh, my sweet, observant, moon obsessed Katie..... The first picture is by the time we got home and had gotten most of the groceries in the house. The second picture is during the full eclipse. The moon is a little bit brighter than it was in real life, but you can see all the stars my camera was able to capture. :) Click on this link to see the larger size with all the stars.

Katie loves to fix boo boos

Katie is always getting out her Doctor kit and trying to fix our owies and boo boos. But recently she's started wanting to listen for our heartbeats. Of course her play stethoscope doesn't really work, so I make the noise like my heart is beating or Sam's heart is beating. And last night she was trying to find my heart beat in my foot. Silly girl..... Oh and another note, Katie is always telling Miguel or I, that we are her best friend. So last night she told Miguel, that he was her best friend and Miguel came to brag to me that HE was now her best friend. And when he asked her who was her best friend in front of me, do you know what my smart little cookie's answer was? "Baby Sam is my best friend." Good way to get out of that one Kate.

Another Day at the Park

So I thought I would post some snapshots of what it's like when I take Katie to the park these days.
We pick up rocks.


We press our face against the plastic bubble window.


We hang tough on the rings


And we kick the ball around


Of course there's also all the normal stuff, like swinging, sliding, climbing, and telling the other kids the stuff on the playground is hers. One of these days she'll learn about that, I hope.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

We had a good day yesterday. Miguel got me a bouquet of orchids (very nice), a teddy bear, and a cd. Katie got me two teddy bears. Of course while in the store she told daddy, I had to have both of them. LOL Katie got two art craft kits from Mommy and Daddy. We enjoyed our day thoroughly. And then for dinner Miguel made me spicy Spanish rice (YUMMY!) and steak quesadillas. It was better than anything we could have gotten from a restaurant. I call this one, My Daughter, DIVA
This morning Katie and I were playing with the craft kit that came with tattoos and those rhinestone stickers. She just thought she looked so cool. Actually her exact words were, "Mommy, don't I look so pretty?". LOL she cracks me up.

It was a beautiful day

Yet again today, we had a beautiful day. So Katie and I went back to the park with the ducks. I wanted Katie to take a picture with me, and this was the best I could get. I was pretending to tell her a secret to keep her on my lap while the timer on the camera went off.

Katie, the model

Anyone ever tried to get a 2 year old to pose for you at the park? LOL We all know that doesn't work, but I tried it anyways. Here was the result. Not bad for her really. This is my other favorite one from Friday at the park. She looked so cute and sweet sitting there with her heart pillow.

Geese

Ok. I just had to share these pictures of Geese that were at the park on Friday. They were so mellow, just hanging out by the shoreline. They were letting us get pretty close to them too. This one is a different perspective of the geese I guess. It was an accident really, but I liked it. :) And then this last one is something I've been playing around with lately. It's a process where you add textures to your photos in Photoshop. I like the look that it gives photographs. Anyway, I thought this one turned out pretty cool. It's the same picture as the first one, just with the textures added and a few other edits.

Haircut

We took Katie to get her haircut today. It was only the second time we've ever taken her. It was looking slightly disheveled. Katie really likes getting her hair cut, although she doesn't care for a stranger putting the smock on her. Mommy and Daddy had to do that for the nice hair dresser. :) But then once her hair was done, she waited patiently while Mommy got her hair cut and then she wanted her own hair cutting again. Silly Katie.The last one is so you can see the haircut in action. It's Katie standing on the couch. Bad Katie. LOL She was actually posing for me. So different from her normal runaway act from the camera.

So I was thinking.....

.....how being pregnant is so very nerve racking. With Katie I was working so much that I didn't have a whole lot of time to worry. With this one, I have too much time to worry.
It makes me wonder that more children that you have, does it become easier not to think about that what ifs? Or maybe the information age has given us too much knowledge about all the possibilities of what could go wrong. I just don't know if I could keep going through the cycle of having child after child, say hypothetically 13 kids. Because inevitably your chances of having something go wrong with one of them would get higher. There's so much heartache and stress that goes along with pregnancy, it just makes me pause. I think what really happens is that when the urge comes to have another child, one conveniently forgets about all the bad stuff. I guess it's like they say, if you carried all of the bad stuff with you after the baby gets here, ie labor, miscarriage, infertility, etc., you wouldn't even want to bother having more than one child.

Stuff

So I am 24 weeks pregnant today! Which is officially when Sam becomes viable out of the womb. Yay! Very important milestone for me. 3 more weeks and we'll be in the 3rd trimester. So here we come!
I took Katie to the park today and yesterday we made cupcakes, which she helped me with for a short while until she realized the sprinkles were out. At which point she snuck off and started eating them all. What kid goes for the sprinkles and NOT the cupcake? Oh well. Here's a picture of the sprinkle incident. And here is another one of Katie riding the dinosaur at the park. For some reason this is the first time I got a decent picture of Katie riding it. They always seem to come out blurred. And then the last one is of some trees I found that were budding. Isn't it February 1st today? I thought we still had a month and a half of winter. I guess it means spring will be here sooner than we think. Really, the hot/humid weather can stay far away. I was hoping that by being pregnant and due in May, I might avoid as much hot weather as possible. Oh and to add one cute thing. Today Katie and I were lying on the couch watching Noggin. She turns to me, gives me a kiss, and says, "I love you Mommy. Did you know your my best friend?". My heart melted. Let's hope she will always think of me that way. :)