All Shook Up

Rachel & Katelyn got a new video from Beth & Donald recently that is called Kidsongs. This particular video is about dogs, and the kids in the video sing all sorts of songs about dogs. One of the songs that Katelyn loves from this video is "All Shook Up." In the video, the kids are giving the dogs a bath and the dogs shake water all over them. So for the past few weeks, Katelyn has been walking around the house singing "All Shook Up." You may not be able to understand her completely, but I still think you'll find this video pretty funny!

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Katelyn can Hula Hoop!!

Katelyn has been trying to figure out how to hula hoop for a while now. Both she & Rachel asked for hula hoops for Christmas. Rachel learned how to hula hoop a few months ago, and is now a pro at it! She can walk while doing it, turn around in circles, let the hoop go pretty much down to her knees and then "hula" it back up to her waist. She's really good at it! Well last week-end Katelyn was really trying to hula hoop. In the past, all she's been able to do was basically get it to go around her waist a couple of times and then it would fall to the ground. Last week-end, however, was a different story! She learned how to hula hoop!! I didn't have my video camera out then, but this afternoon we had a few minutes so we went out in the backyard and she hula hooped for me to put on video. I think she does an awesome job!

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It's T-Ball Time in Tennessee!

Rachel is playing t-ball this year and Monday night was her first game. She did AWESOME!!! We debated on whether letting her play this year - not because we didn't think she could do it. Instead we were concerned she would be bored. She knows the basic rules and we play ball in the backyard. So we didn't want her to get bored and actually regress. This is technically t-ball2. The coach pitches to the batter up to 3 balls. If the batter doesn't hit those, then they get to hit off the tee. Everyone bats each inning. You can get people out, but even if you get 3 outs in an inning, you still let everyone bat. They were able to play 3 innings Monday night, which means Rachel got to bat 3 times. The first two times she hit the pitched ball well! The 3rd time she missed on the pitched balls, then nailed the ball off of the tee. She also had 3 unassisted outs on defense!! She made one out at 2nd base and the other two outs at 1st base. She did SO GOOD!!! We were so proud of her! She had her very own cheering section too since Lloyd & Wendy came to watch and so did our friends John & Elizabeth. Thanks for coming guys! Rachel was tickled you came to watch her! Here's a slideshow from Monday night's game.

Springtime Sisters

Well, it finally warmed up around here and the girls were finally able to wear spring dresses to church on Sunday. Here's a slideshow of us Sunday morning before church. Robert & I even got in a few pictures.

Working in the Garden

A few weeks ago in kindergarten, Rachel's class learned about seeds. They made their own "greenhouse" out of construction paper and a sandwich bag and put a lima bean in it with a wet papertowel. Rachel brought hers home and it started sprouting in the "greenhouse." She decided she wanted to plant it so we put it in another little cup she had brought home from school with another little plant in it. The cup was about the size of a bathroom Dixie cup. We didn't even really plant the lima bean in there. Robert just kind of threw it on top of the dirt and then we sat the cup in the kitchen window. Let me tell you - that lima bean thrived in our window! It grew & grew and pretty much started taking over the window.

We told Rachel she should ask Papaw if she could plant it in his garden. You see, Papaw usually plants a garden each year for the primary purpose of having green beans. There are usually a few tomato plants and sometimes some okra, but the primary reason for the garden is to have green beans. Rachel and Katelyn decided they wanted to help Papaw plant his garden this year. So on Friday it was time to plant the garden. Papaw worked on the garden most of the day, and then we headed over there right after school. Papaw left 2 rows of green beans for the girls to plant and some potatoes for the girls to plant. He found a couple of sticks that were about a foot long and showed the girls how to lay the stick down and plant 2 beans at each end of the stick and then move it down. That way, they would be fairly evenly spaced. I think they girls took his instructions to heart because they tried their very best to make sure they put the beans exactly at the end of the stick and they made sure they just planted 2 beans at each end! They were so cute working in the garden! After planting the green beans, Papaw let the girls finish planting the potatoes. Papaw & Mamaw haven't planted potatoes in several years, but I was talking about what fun I used to have digging up the potatoes when I was young, and they decided to plant potatoes again so that the girls could help. After planting, it was time to cover up what we planted. So we walked up and down the rows and made sure to cover everything up with the dirt that had been dug out. Needless to say, the girls ended up with quite dirty feet!!! After that, Papaw showed them how to throw out fertilizer on our newly planted garden. Then came the moment she had been waiting for - Rachel got to plant her lima bean!! Papaw dug a small hole for it and Rachel got to plant it. Then Papaw put a cage around it so that the vine would have something to climb. Rachel was quite proud of her lima bean! Too bad we don't eat lima beans!!! Anyway, Papaw showed us how he dug the rows with an old plow that had belonged to my Papaw I think.

The funniest thing of the evening was Robert! He was hilarious! When we got dressed to go over there, he decided he had to wear his overalls! That in itself was pretty funny, but it's even funnier when you realize his overalls are flannel lined and it was 70 degrees outside! Here we were in shorts and Robert was in flannel lined overalls!!! He didn't do any of the planting though - he just supervised! On the way over to Mamaw & Papaw's house, Robert talked in his best farmer voice, which was actually his best East Tennessee hillbilly imitation! It was so funny! Katelyn loved it! She kept saying "Daddy - talk like a farmer again! It's funny!" And then she would giggle! Rachel got tired of the whole farmer talk, and she would say "Daddy - that's enough of that talk. It's starting to frustrate me!"

Here are some pictures from our evening. Even though Robert didn't do any of the planting, he did ham it up a bit for the camera!

Easter Afternoon

On Easter afternoon, we headed over to Mom & Dad's house to have dinner with them and Lloyd & Wendy. We decided to have an egg hunt there, so I used some of the eggs we already had here at our house and actually filled them candy we had already got at the previous egg hunts (at church and at school)! I also put some coins in a few of the eggs just for fun. Mom & I hid the eggs and then it was time for Rachel & Katelyn to come find them. They were used to the egg hunts at church and school where basically the eggs are just thrown out on the ground. We actually hid some of these eggs so it wasn't as easy for them. But they did end up finding all of the eggs. Here's a slideshow of the fun.

Easter Morning

Here are some pictures from Easter morning. You'll notice that the girls have on fleece pajamas! It was VERY COLD here on Easter morning - like 20 degrees!! Needless to say, I pulled out winter clothes for all of us to wear to church Easter morning. No sleeveless dresses and sandals for us! We decided to be practical and not worry about wearing our new Easter outfits! There will be plenty of time for that this spring and summer. Might was well get one more use out of those winter clothes.

Church Egg Hunt

Our church had an Easter egg hunt for the kids the week-end of Easter. It was freezing cold outside, so most of the festivities were moved into the gym. The egg hunt was still outside though. I thought it was pretty funny that Katelyn put her gloves on to hunt eggs! She ended up taking them off though, because it was too hard for her to pick up eggs with gloves on. The kids were divided into two groups - one group was all the kids kindergarten and up, and the other group was all the preschoolers. Since we have one in each group, Robert took Rachel and I took Katelyn. Of course, the egg hunts were in two totally opposite parts of the church grounds, so I only have pictures of Katelyn hunting eggs because I had the camera. Oh well! But I did get some pictures of both of them jumping on the moonwalk (the inflatable jumping house thing). They had a great time and got a ton of eggs, which in turn means a ton of candy! We're still eating Easter candy around here! Actually, I think if you look in our candy bowl, there's still some Valentine's candy in there!!!

Just a Funny Picture

Not really anything important about this post, except that we thought this was a funny picture! Rachel was taking a bath the other night and when she laid down in the water, all you could see was her head surrounded by bubbles. It was like a floating head in the tub!! So I took a quick picture and here it is!

Party #3

Katelyn got to have a birthday party with friends this year! She was sooooo excited about that! We had planned a backyard pizza party with Katelyn's friends and their families. However, the weather did not cooperate with us, so we had a slight change of plans. We backed the cars out of the garage and Robert cleaned the garage out. Then we set up tables in there with different things to do. We had a watercolor painting table, a Play-Doh table, a bead table (to make necklaces or bracelets), a coloring/sticker table, and a make your own tiara/crown table. In addition to that, we had 2 big chalk boards set up where you could play with chalk. One of the best parts was that we pretty much just used stuff we had around the house! The kids seemed to have fun moving from table to table - craft to craft. When the kids would paint a picture with watercolors, we would hang it on the garage door to dry. They thought that was REALLY cool since we were displaying their art!! After hanging out in the garage for a while, we did go in the house for pizza, cake, and ice cream. After that, it was present time. It's always funny to watch all the kids huddle around the birthday kid trying to open presents. And you can always tell who the present is from - it's the kid who has the BIG smile on their face! It's like they know that their gift is the best gift in the entire world!! Katelyn got a Princess pop-up castle, which we of course, had to set up immediately! The kids had fun playing in that, but we discovered that not all of the kids can fit in it at one time! So instead of just sitting in it, they decided they could crawl through it like a tunnel! Overall, the party went well and I think everyone had a good time. Katelyn's birthday was officially over with this party (since it was her third party of the week!!!). Here's a slideshow of the evening...

Kindergarten Egg Hunt

Rachel's kindergarten class had their Easter egg hunt on Thursday. Katelyn & I were able to go and join in on the fun. Actually, Katelyn got to help hide the eggs! There wasn't much hiding going on - it was basically just throw out the eggs all over the ground! The kids loved it anyway! Here are some pictures from the egg hunt.

4 Year Checkup

Katelyn had her 4 year checkup last week. She did so well! She didn't even cry when she got a shot! How brave!! As far as the stats go, she weighs in at 31 pounds, 8 ounces and is 38 inches tall. That puts her at around the 25th percentile for each, which is actually good! It wasn't too long ago that she was in the single digits on the percentile, so getting up to the 25th is great! Looks like she'll just be a small girl - short like her mommy!!! They had us complete a questionnaire to help determine her age developmentally. You answer the questions until you've answered three "no's." The questionnaire they gave us to complete was for 4-6 year olds. Well, I got to the end of the questionnaire and only had 1 no! They didn't give us another one - they said that gave them plenty of info! Developmentally the doctor said she's at 5 years, 10 months! She's smart like her big sis! Katelyn did great on her eye test too! They said lots of 4 year olds won't even try. She stood there and read the eyechart like such a big girl! I asked about her speech because she has a hard time with a few sounds. For example, she cannot say the "k" sound, so she pronounces her name as Tatelyn. Since Rachel spoke so clearly basically from birth, we have no idea what sounds she's supposed to know at this age and what sounds she'll figure out later. The doctor did a little speech test on her and right now she's completely in the normal range. I have spoken to the speech teacher at the elementary school, and she said I could call her in August and see if she needs to start speech this fall. If she needs to go to speech therapy, I'd rather her do it now than to wait til she's in kindergarten! But it's over a year til she starts kindergarten, so we still have quite a while for her to figure out these sounds. I can understand everything she says, but Robert does have trouble sometimes interpreting! We'll see...

We do have to take her back for a re-check in a few weeks for the doctor to check something about her liver. The doctor said she's not worried about anything, but just wants to double check. When she was pressing around on Katelyn's tummy, she said she could feel her liver. The doctor said it's quite common to be able to feel a child's liver at this age. However, looking back at last year's check-up, the notes do not indicate that the doctor could feel it so well. So the doctor is wanting to make sure that the liver feels the same in a few weeks and that it isn't enlarged or anything. She assured me she didn't think it was anything. So we'll head back to the doctor in a few weeks.

Overall, Katelyn did super at the checkup, especially considering we were back in the exam room for over an hour with either a nurse or a doctor!

Party #2

On Saturday, March 31st, we had the second of Katelyn's birthday parties with Mamaw & Papaw and Lloyd & Wendy. This was also Wendy's birthday (Wendy is my sister-in-law), so we had a joint party for Wendy & Katelyn. Robert & I made the cake - isn't it wonderful? Actually Robert made the cake while I was playing tennis, and then I decorated it when I got home. It's not a professional job, but I thought it turned out quite cute! Anyway, we celebrated the birthdays by grilling steaks - always a yummy thing to do! Here's a slideshow from the party...

Party #1

On Friday, March 30th we headed to Puddin & Papa's house for the first of three of Katelyn's birthday parties. Before the birthday party though, Puddin hid some eggs in the front yard, so the evening started out with an egg hunt! The girls had fun hunting the eggs. After egg hunting, they decided they wanted to hunt dandelions! And of course when you find one of those white, puffball dandelions, you must blow it! Papa was so happy that the girls were in effect planting more dandelions by blowing the seeds all over the yard!!! After playing outside for awhile, we decided it was party time and Robert went to the pick up the pizza. Beth & Donald came over for the party too. We had a good pizza birthday party, and then we got to move on to the cake. Puddin made the Pooh cake for Katelyn. It has pretty much become a tradition that when the girls have a birthday party at Puddin's house that she makes them a Pooh cake. This year Puddin was going to try to think of some other kind of cake to make, but Katelyn was adamant about wanting a Pooh cake! So Puddin did as Katelyn requested and made her a Pooh cake! We spent the night there, and the girls woke up bright and early the next morning for pumpkin bread - another tradition at Puddin's house! After breakfast, Puddin set up a table in the garage and the girls painted Easter eggs. Then, she brought out the watercolors and the girls got to paint some pictures. Even though we were only there about 17 hours, we packed a lot into those 17 hours! Thanks to Puddin & Papa and Beth & Donald for sharing in our fun. To Charlie, Ryan, Kate, Jessica, Steve, Connie, Brittany, & Kayla - we missed you! Here's a slideshow from our visit...

We Have a 4-Year Old!!!!

Four years ago today we were blessed with Katelyn! We started celebrating her birthday on Friday and we haven't stopped! I'll post pictures of that later. But for now, here's a look back at the past 4 years. Enjoy!

This first picture is of Katelyn when we were still in the hospital. Check out the dark hair!!

This next picture is Katelyn at her 1-year birthday party - she enjoyed the icing!!

Here's Katelyn at her 2-year birthday party - the hair is getting longer and blonder.

This picture is Katelyn at her 3-year birthday party. Check out the green icing on her teeth!!!

This last picture is of Katelyn at the first of three of her 4-year birthday parties. Thanks for the cake Puddin!

Katelyn's School Pictures

Here are Katelyn's spring preschool pictures - it was cold that day too. At least she wore spring colors!

Rachel's School Picture

This is Rachel's "spring" kindergarten school picture - it was freezing that day, so it looks more like winter pictures!! Doesn't she look all grown up?