Pinterest

If you haven't checked it out yet, you should - Pinterest.com. In a nutshell, you "pin" anything that you find cool on the web, and categorize it however you want. You can look at what your friends pin too, or you can look at the pins for strangers just by searching for a category. They have everything - fashion, people, crafts, kid stuff, recipes, and more. It is so addicting! You should try it! Go. NOW!

Four!

I just realized that I never did Kate's "FOUR" post! It's on her page (click KATE on the top), or it's right here for your easy viewing pleasure!

I cannot believe that my "baby" is four years old.  One year away from Kindergarten.  Last year of preschool.  It still hasn't sunk in yet, and I don't think it will until I'm sitting in the carpool line next August and not making the daily trek from the parking lot, past 3 buildings, to the preschool.  At least I have one more year :)

Kate has grown tremendously this year... maybe not physically, but definitely emotionally.  She started playing soccer with her brother; she started gymnastics; she learned how to write her letters; and she has grown into a sweet little girl and not so much of a "toddler."

The official stats from last week's well check are here:
Height - 39.25 inches (45th percentile)
Weight - 29.5 pounds (10th percentile)

Her weight fluctuates more than mine does!  A few weeks before this well-check, she weighed in at almost 35 pounds in the same office!!  Go figure.  They were not concerned at all, so neither are we.  She is as healthy as can be and has (almost) always been on the small side.  The fact that she's on the chart at all for her weight is a good thing!  Her eating has gotten SO much better, as long as we're feeding her what she wants to eat, but what preschooler isn't like that?

Other than the "stats" we also had the annual ASQ, which she passed with flying colors like always.  It's amazing what a big brother can do for a girl!  She tries her best to keep up with everything that he's doing and she does a pretty good job of it!  Here is a run down of Kate's happenings:

• Talks, a lot, non-stop, about anything!
• Loves to play on the playground and hang from the bars in a V (thanks, gymnastics!)
• Has great fine-motor skills - can easily write her name and is learning other letters; loves to cut paper, and colors almost completely in the lines
• Knows all of her colors and shapes
• Knows full name, address, and phone number (most days)
• Loves to play with her school friends, and her big brother when she's in the mood!
• Dresses herself and has a strong opinion as to what she's wearing everyday!  (I can't wait until Kindergarten when she has to wear a uniform every day!)
• She loves Barbies, princesses, dolls, dress-up, her play house, coloring, cutting, and anything else super girly!
• She loves gymnastics and has improved tremendously since she first started!  We no longer have to go out there when they call all of the parents :)  Yay!  She can technically age up, but we'll pull her for a few months for soccer and start back sometime in November most likely.

Kate loves going to school and can't wait to go back in a few weeks to be an Ocean Friend, just like Brett!!  We love this sweet energetic little girl!

The Itch

I have the itch.  The itch to change my blog around.  Again.  I've had this itch for awhile and I get it every now and then.  Like I don't have enough to occupy my time other than fixing weird code issues :)  Hmm... things to think about!  What do I want to do?

PInkaliciousness!

We had Kate's Pinkalicious 4th Birthday party on Sunday. We read the book, Pinkalicious, colored pictures, decorated tiaras, made bead necklaces and bracelets, and, of course, ate PINK cupcakes! It was definitely a fun time and I know the girls were glad to see each other after being out of school for so long!

1. A mason jar filled with M&M's and paper flowers.  2.  Jar filled with pink bubble gum (purchased at Party City) and a big "4" sign.  3.  I learned how to make the big tissue pom-poms to hang instead of balloons.  They were really easy - we also hung some outside on the mailbox and on the front porch.  4.  Treat bags - "The True Cure for Pinkititis: GREEN FOOD!"  On the back it says "Thanks for making my party PINKALICIOUS!"  (Idea courtesy of SevenThirtyThree) 5.  The banner - super easy with my Cricut.  I love that thing!  6.  The spread - cupcakes, pink fruit (grapes, watermelon, starwberries, raspberries, homemade cookies and pink lemonade.  7.  The pinkalicious cupcakes (funfetti cupcakes with pink whipped icing  8.  Cookies - recipe and decorating tips courtesy of Annie's Eats!

The girls (and Brett) had a great time doing the crafts and listening to the story of Pinkalicious!  We colored a picture of Pinkalicious to wait for everyone to get there (below).  Then we listened to the story and then made foam princess tiaras (puchased at AC Moore, along with lots of glittery foam stickers to decorate the tiaras - no glue needed!  Yay!)  Then we made bead necklaces and bracelets - again, purchased a large tub of miscellaneous beads and some hemp from Michael's - ta da!  Then we ate food and played hard until it was time to go!

Here is the picture of Pinkalicious that we colored.  I'm posting it because they were really easy to find a few months ago online, but now that the Pinkalicious coloring book has come out in stores, they are impossible to find online, so there ya go :)  It looked fine printed on a regular size piece of white paper.  I got it here in case you're interested.  There is also a website called ThinkPinkalicious.com that has lots of cute ideas too, but no pages to print out and color.

After the party "ended" most of the kids stayed to play for awhile so the parents could watch some more of the US vs. Japan World Cup game.  We won't talk about the outcome of the game, but the girls all had a great time!  I love these three girls - I so hope they're together again next year, but I have a feeling at least one will follow in her big brother's footsteps and be an Explorer instead of an Ocean Friend!

After everyone left we let Kate open her presents - she got a huge animal house from my parents and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of furniture from my sisters.  She also got some Barbies and a Transformer (that she asked for) and some other goodies too!  Thanks, everyone, for spoiling her rotten :)

Presents!

We decided to let Kate open a few presents from us on Saturday morning instead of waiting until her party on Sunday afternoon.  She was so excited!  She put on her Rapunzel dress, played with her Rapunzel barbie, all while playing with her new princess stamp set - she was one happy girl!

Well, happy until mid-afternoon when she woke up from nap screaming that her throat hurt with a fever of 102.  Luckily, we still had some amoxicillin on file from when Brett had strep a few weeks ago (the pedi gave us a prescription just in case since we were leaving to go out of town).  That night at dinner, I noticed that her right eye was pink and gunky... yeah, we're pretty sure that she had strep AND pink eye.  Poor sick birthday girl - luckily mommy hoards prescriptions for times just exactly like this moment.  By party day, she was healthy and happy as could be :)

Birthday Girl!

This was the scene while I was at work Friday night... Todd wanted to make sure they had a fun night for Kate's birthday even though I had to work late, so they cooked a pizza and watched Star Wars II in the family room. The kids love that movie!

Normal

These pictures got lost on the other camera when we came back from our trip - oops!  On the day we left Illinois to drive home, we stopped in Normal, IL to visit our friends, Jeff & Sarah, and their two sweet kiddos!  It was nice to drive for a couple hours and get out to visit for awhile... not to mention the delicious breakfast!  It was the first time we'd met their son and he's already 6 months old!  Time flies when you're having fun :)

Super-baby!

Pardon the blurriness - Brett was our camera man, but he did a pretty decent job! 

FOUR?!

This little princess is four today!  Seriously, how did this happen???  I can't believe that we have a four year old and a five year old.  Unreal!  We'll update stats and fun facts after her well-check next week, but for now, you can just enjoy this sweet smile enjoying her first piece of bubble gum at the bowling alley a few weeks ago :)

Life and Science

Kate is in "Pirates and Princesses" camp this week at school.  She goes 9-12, which means that Brett and I get 3 peaceful hours to ourselves.  We miss Kate greatly, of course!  Because I have to work three days this week and I have a haircut one day this week, I wanted to take full advantage of this morning and only do stuff that would be fun for him.  Last year when Brett was in VBS and I had Kate all morning, I took her to the NC Museum of Life & Science, which is about 20 minutes from our house.  She loved it because we were able to do things that only she was interested in, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to do the same with Brett.  Plus, he loves all things science-related, so I knew that he would love this museum!  We were there for 2 hours and only got to see the inside exhibits.  We never made it to the butterflies, animals, dinosaurs, playground, etc. that are all outside.  We could've easily spent more time there.  For the price, it probably wasn't worth going for only 2 hours, but he loved every second of it, which made it ok!

We went straight for the Keva planks and started constructing our buildings.  Brett found a picture of an airplane and wanted to build that too!

It was very cool to see all of the space exhibits after watching the shuttle launch the other day.

After several tries, Brett finally got one to stay up by himself!

A few minutes in the little kid section to show off the ball track - around the room, down the wall, zig-zag, and into the bucket

These beads make me cringe... I feel so sorry for the people that have to clean up this station every day!

We probably played here for a good 30 minutes - the goal is to make a pattern to cover the given shape, in this case a hexagon.  Brett decided to use the shapes to make a car instead :)  I know you're shocked!

Then he helped me finish my triangle with the finishing hexagon!  Ta da!

Good friends

After our tour around Marquette and a trip to the student store, we headed out to catch up with our friends, the Mularski's.  Todd was the best man in their wedding; he is the godfather to their daughter, Annie, and Brian was in our wedding.  We do our best to see them anytime we're in that part of the country and every now and then they make it down to NC too!  It's always fun to catch up with them and let the kids run wild.  Between the two families there are 7 kids ages 3 to 12.  It's always entertaining to say the least!  We met up at Annie's gym because we knew that Kate would get a kick out of watching Annie's gymnastics - she is GOOD.  And I mean G-O-O-D.  It's awesome to watch her go!  Kate was just in awe!  Then we rounded everyone up and headed to Kopp's to get lunch and ice cream and then headed to a park to let the kids run.

8 Years Later

This was 8 years ago, July 5, 2003 on Marquette's campus... Todd had it all planned out to get a picture of him proposing in front of the chapel.

July 1, 2011 - Life has been busy the last 8 years!

One of my favorite pictures of these two!  I love how Kate's putting her arm around her big brother - so sweet!

Brett and Todd in front of the new engineering building - we got a tour of the new facility while they were still working on it. It looks very cool!

Then we went on a tour of the Al McGuire Center (the basketball team's practice facility among other things) - look who we found in the computer lab!  DJO (star player and from Raleigh).  Brett was so excited!!  He even showed him (and the rest of the team) the THREE GOGGLES - Brett had them all cracking up!  What a ham!

Brett pointing out that Marquette beat Carolina to win the national title in '77 - before I was born!

Her face is priceless!  This is what Kate thinks about the MU win!  That's my girl!

Hey, Chicago, whaddya say?

On Thursday of our trip, we headed into Chicago to see the Cubs.  We took Brett to his first game last year and Kate has been begging to go ever since, so this year we all went.  We drive into Chicago (about 1.5 hours with traffic), park near Gino's East, then take the train to Wrigley.  I'm pretty sure that Brett would tell you that the train is his favorite part of the experience. 

Still in Rockford, getting ready to leave for Chicago!

The Boys

Wrigley!

There's nothing like a hotdog at the ballpark!

Our seats were behind home plate in the shade, which was great with the kids.  Last year we were 9 rows behind the dugout on the 1st baseline... those tickets sort of fell into our hands for relatively cheap! 

Kate and Daddy

The kids kept arguing over who got to sit beside Grandpa!

Happy boy!

Sleepy girl!

Delicious!

Adding his own graffiti to the wall

She can't miss her turn either :)