Cousin Pics- Round 2

We went to take cousin pics again this year at Joyce's request. We got a lot more individual pictures of Kaitlyn and my nephews. We went to Innovations (in the Central Texas Marketplace) and had a much better experience than we did at Sears last year. Here are some of the best ones.

Kaitlyn looks much cuter this year- not so sure about me. I am quite a bit thinner (although I'm not sure you can tell because somehow the lady made my face look thin last year) and my hair looks lighter.
Notice my toe at the bottom of the picture. They chopped it out of the ones we took home!

I would never let her get on a motorcycle in real life, but she really wanted to ride this one.
Since Micah loves football, I thought it would be fun to have Katie pose with a football. It turned out a bit strange, but she's still cute.
Cousin picture with Caleb (5) and Hunter (23 months)- see below for last year's picture.
Ducks are her absolute favorite animal right now.
Had Kaitlyn stayed more centered, this would have been a better shot. If only one-year olds did exactly what you asked them to do!

This was our pose from last year. Kaitlyn has changed quite a bit!

She was just learning to smile and did not smile for the picture. In looking back over our blog for this post, I posted on 8/30 of last year- kinda fun.

Birthday pics

We celebrated Kaitlyn's first birthday party on 6/11 with a small party for family and friends at the house. We had a "princess" theme.

On her actual birthday (6/14), I let her watch a DVD for the first time. She was interested for about 1.7 minutes, and then went on to play with her toys. I figure we'll try again in a few months.
Grammy dropped by a few extra birthday presents on her actual birthday.
Here, she is practicing being a princess before the party.

It's amazing how much she has changed in just a year. Doesn't even look like the same baby. What a wonderful year it has been!

Visiting Louisiana- July

In mid-July, we decided to make a trip to Louisiana to specifically see Momo (since my parents would be coming to Waco the following week). It's so nice to be able to travel for a week and not to have to ask anyone for time off from work! After looking at the calendar through the end of the year, we discovered that our only other free weekend was Labor Day weekend, and since we were traveling all the weekends around that weekend, we thought July would be best. Kaitlyn was a little ham and showed off for Momo and Papa. We stayed with them 3 nights and with Mamaw & Granddad three nights.Playing "Baby" with Mamaw
Saying "hi" to Papa- she literally did this about 1000 times!

Train ride with Momo. Highlight of the trip for Mo.
Sitting with Momo

She loved seeing the cows and going on adventures with Granddad.
We got to see several cousins who were also in Alexandria at the same time. Momo was on cloud 9!
Isn't it beautiful? One of my favorite places in the world.
This was at a casino in Marksville. Glamour girl.

It was a fun, relaxed trip. I'm glad Kaitlyn gets to enjoy her grandparents and great-grandparents. What a blessing!

Daily Schedule

So I've been asked by my high school friends what I do all day as a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom). Well, I don't get bored, I can tell you that! It depends on the day, but usually we go walking, and do another outing that day (mall, museum, zoo if it's not too hot, visit friends, splash park, library). Kaitlyn is still napping twice at 9 and 1. She is now napping with "baby" (my baby Lindsey from when I was little).

For structured playtime, we read books, work with letters on the fridge, play with potato head and work on body parts, identify vocabulary around the room, play outside, sing appropriate songs (wheels on bus, old mcdonald), or just try to carry on a conversation. I know that is difficult for Kaitlyn's age, but she is really talking well. She has a great vocabulary, but still has difficulty pronouncing many words, (nack/ snack, dough/ go, uh/ up) which is totally normal. She has already said a few 4-word sentences, "I sit in chair, I need a nack (snack). " I know- I can't believe it either!

Sometimes, we just stay home, I get the dishes, laundry, house cleaning done. We go to the grocery store usually on Mondays. It is just nice to have the weekends free to have fun, spend time as a family and to be able to do the house stuff during the week. Kaitlyn has her own vacuum cleaner and broom/ dustpan in order to "help" me clean.

I am often asked if I miss work. I do miss some of the children and families I worked with. I do miss my co-workers (and go visit them fairly often). I certainly did enjoy my profession and intend to get back to it at some point, but no- I do not miss it overall. I am absolutely sure that right now, I am supposed to stay home with Kaitlyn and there is no place I would rather be. There is a certain freedom that you experience when you feel like you are in the center of God's will for your life- whatever that place may be.

Hunter and Kaitlyn

Here are some cousin photos from when we kept Hunter 6/18 thru 7/3. I'm going to slowly get caught up on the blog now that our I-Photo is working again. I also have some new blogging ideas, so stay tuned! (Hopefully we haven't totally lost our audience by not posting in 3 months!)

We implemented book time in order to allow me to cook dinner. It worked well and contained them temporarily!

I don't recommend grocery shopping with two toddlers without lots of snacks. They did okay until the check-out line.
Awe- how sweet. Not too many of these moments, so I thought I would capture it!
This was the camel in the Egypt portion of the Mayborn museum. Grammy is behind them, so don't worry!

Update

Well, it's been forever since I've updated our blog. Our computer crashed a while back when trying to upload a ton of pictures from our vacation. Then we got busy! It's catch up time-

Kaitlyn's princess birthday party on 6/11 was a success. Unfortunately several of her little friends were out of town, but at her age, she doesn't notice yet, so that's good! She loved being the center of attention. We had family come in from Austin and Louisiana to attend.

For two weeks in June, I watched my nephew, Hunter, while Joshua and Melissa were on a mission trip. It was lots of fun and quite challenging at times (two take much more time, effort and patience than one!). Overall, he adjusted very well considering his parents were out of the country. Kaitlyn enjoyed having "Hunta" with us and learned her first three word sentence: "No, no Hunta!" There are tons of pictures from our two week adventure together. I'll have to share some of them on the next post.

The third week in July, Kaitlyn and I visited my parents and grandparents in Louisiana. We had a wonderful time, ate well (while still staying in the boundaries of my new "diet"), and most importantly, she got to know them better.

The last week in July, I was scheduled to work at Providence to cover someone's vacation. I got a call the Friday before, saying that it was really slow and they wouldn't need me much. I worked half days and it was fun to see everyone, as well as help a few patients. Providence speech therapy is now fully staffed, so they won't be needing me much other than for help on the weekends. Our weekends are so busy for the rest of the year that I'm not going to be able to help much!

Stay tuned for pictures. Hopefully we haven't lost our readers after not posting in almost 3 months!