Life on the Go

Life has been insanely busy lately, which explains why my first post in over a week is to share a few cell phone pics while pumping at work. Our weeks (Monday through Thursday) have been simply insane ever since I went back to work about six weeks ago. I'm glad to be a working mom, but we've just been run ragged. I will upload pics from my nice camera soon, but these few I had on my cell from the past few weeks offer a glimpse into our day-to-day life right now.

MONDAY
The start of another week. I wake by 5:30, get showered, give Claire a dream feed, and go downstairs to get things ready for the day. I love that early morning time, especially if we remembered to set the coffee pot the night before! Once the kids are awake, it's off to the races, and we all get out the door by around 7:40. I've been thinking that since workplaces are so casual these days, "Casual Friday" really has no meaning any more, and we should implement "Dressy Monday" instead. I often dress up a little more on Mondays—partly because it's easy just to wear whatever I wore to church on Sunday, and partly it helps get me back in the professional mindset for my work week.

I saw a blog post from Kem Meyer, communications director at Granger Community Church, asking people how they would depict their work in one visual. I immediately drew this:

My work, both when I edited books and now editing Ministry Matters and Circuit Rider, is all about making information and ideas more accessible to church leaders for use in their ministry. The arrows on the left, heading into the funnel, symbolize making authors' writing clear and well-organized and aggregating the work of many writers. The work is then distributed in print and/or online to reach many church leaders and advance the work of the church.

TUESDAY
Matt has been taking a pastoral care class on Tuesday nights this year, so every Tuesday afternoon, we "trade off" the kids at my office so that he can get on to his class and I can take them home. Usually I meet them in the parking lot, but sometimes Kate wants to come in to my office to color with my highlighters, eat my leftover lunch, spin around in my chair, and watch Abby Elmo on my computer. With all but that last activity, I can manage to get a little more work done before heading home with my girls.

Plus, I love having a growing collection of Kate-art on my wall.

WEDNESDAY

Just kidding. Not Chicken McNuggets. Amazingly, all our running around does not typically result in junk-foody meals. These are actually pictures Kate took with my camera of her play McDonald's food our dear church secretary gave her. Wednesday night is church night, and I meet Matt and the girls at church for dinner, a book study, and choir.

THURSDAY
Kate has gymnastics on Thursday evenings. She still gets anxious during the opening warm up, but gets really into it by the time they break into groups for various activities. My action pics never turn out that good, but here's Kate sitting patiently on the mat until it was her turn to do the balance beam again. She's done so great with the rings and uneven parallel bars—she loves hanging and flipping. I can't wait until the Olympics this summer. She will love watching the gymnastics on TV!

Matt and I love going to "'nastics" too and watching Kate play. (Matt is sad when he has a Thursday night meeting and has to miss it.) It's another "busy" thing, but definitely one of our favorites.

By the weekend, we are more than ready to chillax and have fun. Speaking of fun, I have to share this cool knit hat I saw in Parents magazine. Kate would look just like Matt if she wore that!

I'm sooo glad it's Friday again. Time to relax.

(Actually, this pic Kate took of me toward the beginning of maternity leave, back when I actually was relaxed most of the time!)

It's a very busy season of life, but it will be over soon enough and I don't want to wish away a moment of my girls being small. They'll still be small this summer, right? :0)

My Downton Abbey Prayer

Anyone here a fan of Downton Abbey? It's fabulous. I hate that Matt and I keep falling for these period dramas that are so expensive to produce that they have short seasons and long gaps! (Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, now this. . .)

This prayer slipped from my lips this morning, and inadvertently sounded just like Carson the Butler. Not a bad prayer, eh?

11 Questions Tag-Up

Have I mentioned I love questionnaires, polls, and surveys of all kinds? Since this is the second bloggy-linkup-Q&A sort of thing I've done in a week's time (the first being that Valentine's Love Story one), it should be obvious. This one comes from Leslie at A Blonde Ambition. (Leslie, by the way, is one of the folks who met their significant other/now spouse through the "Show Us Your Singles" linkups on Kelly's Korner. I think all those couples and Kelly should appear on the Today show.)

The Rules

~you must post the rules

~post 11 fun facts about yourself

~answer the 11 questions that the tagger posted for you; then create 11 questions to ask the people you've tagged

~tag 11 people and link them in your post

~let them know you have tagged them

My 11 Fun Facts

1. My favorite TV shows right now are Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and Downton Abbey. Two of these aren't even on right now, so I really don't watch much TV! (I'm still obsessed with Friends, though, even though it has been off the air for 8 years. Matt and I quote it at least once a day, usually more.) 
2. Since having kids, my hair has been in a perma-ponytail. I just feel so much more polished when it is pulled back from my face. I feel self-conscious when it is down. I still wear it down sometimes, but only because I feel like I should (i.e. my mom thinks I should).
3. In that same vein of mom-style, I don't wear heels near as much as I did before kids. I wore 3.5-inch black patent peep-toe pumps throughout my whole pregnancy with Kate, but now, I'm really glad ballet flats and flat-soled boots are in style right now. I still like heels, but I've found I need to put them on and take them off at the door, because they're just not conducive to crouching down to put Kate's shoes on, picking up toys off the floor, etc. Walking upright in the office is fine :0) 
4. And, since this is kind of a stream of consciousness thing, and I just mentioned "walking upright," I'll mention that Tarzan is our new family movie. I got it because our only other full-length kids movie was Sleeping Beauty and I want to keep the whole "princess" culture balanced out. I like Tarzan mainly because of the Phil Collins songs in it, and didn't realize how sad and violent parts of it are! There's a body count of at least five, and the poor monkey mama loses her baby, which just kills me! 
5. I edit MinistryMatters.com and Circuit Rider magazine. I used to edit books as well. I enjoy all of it, but I tend to enjoy planning and editing more short-form articles more. 
6. I LOVE being pregnant. (I'm not pregnant right now, just to clarify, but I love it when I am.) Only my belly expands, so I feel really good about my body, and the tiredness and vomiting don't dampen my enjoyment overall. I would consider being a professional surrogate if it weren't for the giving up wine for nine months! 
7. Speaking of which, I love wine. I enjoy chocolate, cupcakes, and M&Ms, but I would be willing to give sweets up forever if I could have wine and cheese for every meal. 
8. I love shopping for my girls' clothes on eBay. I mainly search for Gymboree, "monogram K," and "monogram C," and sort by size and lowest price, including shipping. I limit myself to buying just one size higher than what they currently wear; otherwise I'd be stuffing Kate's closet with stuff she won't wear until first grade and spending way too much! 
9. I love that Matt's nickname for my working mom persona is Power-Chick. And that his song for me is Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman." It kills me because the basic premise of the song is that she's a crazy b*tch but he loves her anyway!
10. I put things on lists just so I can cross them off, and write things in my planner after they happen, just so I can have a record. I keep notes about future things to remember written in the back of my planner so I can put them on next year's planner and so on until it's actually that year. Next July's dentist appointment, gift ideas for next Christmas, the approximate date we should start trying for Baby #3... and so on.
11. I love the fact that when I asked Matt "what's a fun fact about me?" he named three things that I would never, ever share with the world wide web! That's intimacy right there. 

Leslie's 11 Questions

1. If you could raid any celebrity's closet, who would it be and why? I really have no idea, but I'm going to say Jennifer Aniston. She seems stylish and down-to-earth.
2. If you were a shoe, what would you look like? I'd be a black peep-toe slingback pump. Classic and ready to take on the world. A Power-Chick shoe. 
3. What is your biggest pet peeve? People saying "expresso" and other misspellings and mispronunciations. And stickers and tags; they gross me out.  
4. Favorite song of all-time? I don't know about for all-time, but maybe "100 Years" by Five for Fighting? 
5. Are you a dog person or a cat person? And why? I've had both, and love both. I like the self-sufficiency of a cat, but once all our kids are potty-trained, we'll probably get a dog, because they're just so fun. 
6. You're queen for a day. How do you spend your royal 24 hours? I would hop on my royal private jet and fly to Rome or Munich or Budapest and just hang out, strolling the streets and sipping coffee at a sidewalk cafe. 
7. What's the most delicious thing you've ever eaten? A market-price steak at a French restaurant my high school sweetheart took me to a couple months after we'd broken up. (It was an amazing piece of beef, but I always wonder if it was just the sweet taste of revenge. Long story. Kind of a "Hit 'Em Up Style" sort of thing.)
8. What scares you the most? (This can be deep and complex or shallow...whateva you feel like!) On the shallow end, snakes. On the deep end, losing a child. 
9. Which celebrity do you wish would drift off into obscurity? The Kardashians. Why are they famous, anyway?
10. You're 16 years old again. What advice would you give your younger self? Don't let boys get you so stressed out. You are valuable on your own, and when it's meant to work out, it will. 
11. What's your Starbucks order? Grande, nonfat toffee nut latte. 

I'm tagging Rachel, Nancy, Kristen, Kim, Jenni, Katie, Liz, Tearza,and Jessie. 

Here are your 11 questions. Go! 

1. Where would you go if you had an all-expenses paid trip somewhere?
2. What do you remember about kindergarten?
3. Where did you and your spouse go on your first date?
4. It's 10:30 pm on a weeknight. What are you doing?
5. What did your senior prom dress look like?
6. If you could instantly be fluent in one language, what would it be?
7. What is the proudest moment of your life?
8. Are there any words people say you pronounce funny?
9. What do people need to know about you to "really" know you?
10. What was your favorite class in college?
11. You're craving something salty. What do you grab?

(Given that a couple of the people I tagged are pregnant, they are probably off to grab something salty now. :0) 

theparsonagefamily.com

... no longer belongs to a certain Mr. and Mrs. Parsonage who live in California! Hooray!

I looked into getting my own domain a couple years ago, but an actual family with the last name "Parsonage" owned theparsonagefamily.com (though they weren't even using it), and rather than decide on an option like .net or parsonagefam or something, I just went on with my life and didn't worry about it.

But after spending a good five minutes on Sunday telling someone "matt-and-jess-no, not an ampersand-kelley-with-an-EY-dot-blog-spot..." I thought maybe it was time to look into an easier URL. And lo and behold, the Parsonages have given it up. Actually, they might be the same Parsonages who own the Parsonage Family Winery (no, despite the stock in my pantry, that is not us) who are now found at www.parsonagewines.com.

Technically, we don't live in a parsonage anymore, but hey, Vanderbilt Wife's husband isn't at Vanderbilt anymore either. So, all that said, you can now find the homeowning Rev. and Mrs. Kelley-with-an-EY with the adorable kids at (drumroll please)...

www.theparsonagefamily.com!

Tell your friends. And thanks for reading. :0)

P.S. It's still hosted through Blogger and everything, so you don't need to reset your Reader or anything. Thanks!

Hiding

One of Kate's "things" lately is hiding from the camera. She thinks it's hilarious. She can pose wonderfully for the camera when she wants to, but of course this falls into the category of "do the opposite of whatever my parents want at this moment."

 The reason I was trying to take a pic period here is that Kate and Claire were dressed kinda matchy-matchy—at Kate's request, of course! Kate's red and white striped jumper (with apple buttons) is from over a year ago (which is why she has to wear leggings under it now!) and Claire's romper just happens to have red and white stripes too (and some big red flowers), so Kate likes for them to wear them on the same day.

As you see in this pic Kate didn't run away from (but didn't pose for either).

Sometimes, she likes to shout, "Take my picture!" and then as soon as the camera is up to my face, she laughs and runs away.

 "What the heck is my sister doing?" -Claire

We had been taking a little walk in the rain, so I thought both girls looked so cute in their hoods and tried to take a pic in the garage before going back inside. Instead, we got this, over and over (and over) again.

 Fine, then. Claire is a captive (and super-cute) subject. Smile, Clairy-Beary!

And HA! I'm still putting your pictures on the blog anyway!

Crafts and Crafts

In high school, I went on a choir tour every summer with my awesome church choir, Revelations. One year, two crazy girls who were best friends brought a bunch of construction paper, scissors, pipe cleaners, etc. to entertain themselves on the bus, making silly things and hanging them above their seats.

They told everyone, "It's crafts and crafts. No arts, just crafts."

I had a big postpartum nesting impulse last Friday (is that a thing?) and went on a little spree at Michael's.

Project 1: A set of four wall frames to display together in a grid. I found the cheapest frames I could (black) and painted them gold. I also got a couple plain wood frames in the dollar bin to save for future projects, but since Kate wants to do whatever I'm doing, I let her paint them. She made one for her room (which holds a 4x6 of her and her friend Becca), and one for my office (with a pic of Kate and I in it).

Project 2: Catch up on scrapbooking. Saturday afternoon, Matt took Kate with him to a meeting and out for a Daddy-Daughter Date so that I could have some crafty time. I did my annual page for housing all the photo cards we received over the holidays. It looks a little vintage-y, I think, and has the headline, "Sending You Holiday Love."

 I also did the spread for Claire's baptism, and got started on Kate's birthday pages.

Matt and Kate returned home while I was still working, and of course Kate was interested in what I was doing. I handed her some extra pics and stickers and let her go to town. I put it in the scrapbook, since it's Kate's first scrapbooking page!

Project 3: Felt hairbows. Easy, cute, and wintery. I pinned this tutorial a couple weeks ago and practiced with the felt I had on hand, but since Claire doesn't really have any hunter green or tan clothes, I had to get a better color before attaching one to a headband. It's a no-sew thing, just felt, scissors, and a glue gun. I glued a triad of pearls to the center of the bow, but one came off even before church on Sunday, and the other two came off once we got home. (Only two have been found.) Claire looked so cute wearing this with her red valentine dress. I'll get a pic when she wears it again on Tuesday!

 

Project 4: Mantle art. The wall above our mantle has been blank since we moved in last May; I had been planning to wait until Claire was born and get a good family pic on a canvas, but none of the ones from the newborn/family shoot really suited me (better to have one when Claire is big enough to look at the camera and show some personality), plus it needs to be vertical because of the paneling. Maybe a pic this spring will work. 

Anyway, I decided to get a canvas and do something crafty to fill that space for now. I used scrapbook papers in the color scheme of the living room and repainted a big K that was hidden away on a bookcase. Just a papercutter, ModPodge, and a vision produced a decent work of art!

I wrote significant dates for our family into the collage.

The quilty-look is a little folksy for my taste, but it'll do for now! Here's our whole mantle, including the Valentine heart garland I made a few years ago.

Hope you can enjoy some crafty time this weekend—or whatever activity relaxes you and brings you joy!

Our Love Story Linkup

I'm notoriously into celebrating holidays small and large. And, I love responding to questionnaires! So I jumped at the idea of this linkup on From Mrs. to Mama's blog.

1. How long have you and your significant other been together?

8 1/2 years. Wow. That's getting frighteningly close to the 10-year/one-third of our lives mark. Eek! 

2. How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?}

We met Aug. 24, 2003--the day I moved to Nashville. Our orientation at Vanderbilt Divinity School began with a salad supper in the Refectory, which included some welcome talks from the deans and some get-to-know-you games. We met during a game of People Bingo. Matt approached me and we introduced ourselves. I could tell he was interested in me, so I decided to be coy when he offered to sign my bingo sheet. "I've already got five in a row," I said. "I don't need you!"

That was a Sunday night. We chatted at various gatherings that week, and at a party on Friday night, he asked if I wanted to "hang out" Saturday night. I assumed "hang out" meant pizza and movie at his apartment, but when he called to finalize the time, he said he was taking me to dinner at the Opryland Hotel. That was a "date-date," and it was a really great first date. It was while sitting on a bench in one of the hotel's conservatories that we discovered how much we had in common and really connected.

We spent tons of time together over the next six weeks or so, which then got overwhelming. We "took a break" from mid-October 2003 until March 2004, during which time I casually dated someone else and Matt and I became best friends. Our more-than-friends-ness became the elephant in the room by February, and the day I told Matt I'd broken up with the other guy and asked him to be my date for the upcoming Divinity School Gala was the beginning of the rest of our lives, since we knew that getting back together was "for good."

3. If married, how long have you been married? If not, is this the guy you hope to marry? {do tell}
We got engaged in November 2005 and married October 14, 2006. So that's almost 5 1/2 years now!

4. If you are married, where did you get married? Big or small wedding?  If not, where would you like to get married? And will it be big or small?

Our wedding was in Louisville at St. Paul UMC, with a dinner-and-dancing reception at the Brown Hotel. It was pretty big, and just fabulous!

5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share!

Nothing in particular. Baby. Sweetie. Dear. We try to be intentional sometimes about calling each other by our names. It feels more intimate than nicknames sometimes, don't you think? 

6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey.

He's selfless, patient, and and loves me in spite of my flaws. (That's all one, that goes under the heading of "great husband!")
He is such a great father. He would do absolutely anything for his girls, takes Kate on special "daddy-daughter dates," and is very intentional in his words and actions with her.
He's a great pastor. Yes, I often wish he had a "normal job" (i.e. 9-to-5 with weekends free!) but I also really admire his work in ministry, the way he cares for people and helps people grow closer to God. It is not a job for the faint of heart!

Super-Daddy!

7. Tell us how he proposed? Or your ideal proposal?

Matt hid the ring inside a matryoshka—a Russian nesting doll—since I love all things Russian. He brought it to my apartment as a "housewarming gift," since I was about to move into the duplex that we had picked out together to be our first home when we got married (so obviously, I knew a proposal was coming sometime!) As I oohed and ahhed over the gift and opened the doll's layers, revealing the story of the Ugly Duckling (a personal favorite and somewhat of an inside joke!) it suddenly dawned on me this might be his proposal. When I got down to the smallest doll that could still fit a ring inside, I tried to discreetly shake it to see if there was anything inside. I didn't hear anything, so I thought "ok, no, this isn't it." I opened it to see a princess-cut diamond ring nestled in tissue paper to keep it from rattling, since he knew I would shake it—just like he knew I would poke around his apartment for a ring and therefore hid it at his friend's place!

V-day 2011 in the Clarksville parsonage

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals?
Sometimes he has brought flowers home, and he makes sure we have wine in the house, but we usually just mutually decide to go out for dinner or to cook Italian food (our favorite) at home. When we go all out, our Italian feasts include caprese (tomatoes and mozzarella cheese), bread with dipping oil, pasta, and wine. Heavenly!

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch?
We're not huge beach people, though I do enjoy a nice dinner anywhere. We definitely enjoy curling up to watch movies or TV shows we missed. 

10. Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant other one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere?
We dream of living abroad for a while, even if it's just a month or two. We want to experience another culture as residents as opposed to tourists, renting an apartment and going grocery shopping, etc. We think it would be great for our kids to experience another culture in that way as well. (And that is actually probably a less stressful way to take kids abroad than dealing with hotels and restaurants all the time!)

11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day.
We're going out this Friday night—avoid the Feb. 14th rush! (Plus, weeknights are always busy for us anyway!)

Me on our V-day date, pre-kids (2008)

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine's day?
No, we don't do gifts for V-day or anniversaries. Just cards sometimes. Last year, I asked him to write me a love note. After balking at my romanticism at first, he ended up writing notes to me, to Kate, and to "Baby Kelley #2," who we didn't even know for sure existed yet!—Valentine's fell during the few weeks between "trying" and taking the pregnancy test. Sure enough, Claire was in there, so now we have a sweet note for the baby book, showing how we loved her even before we knew her!

13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love.
Just sit and talk. In that precious hour or two between getting the kids to bed and hitting the hay myself (since I can't stay up with Rev. Night-Owl) we too often sit glued to our respective laptops, only interacting to share something funny or interesting we're reading. If we do try to do something together, we generally fall back on the evening entertainment from our pre-parenthood days, "should we watch a movie or play a game?" It really brings us together to just sit on the couch with no screens on and TALK!

14.  Show us a picture of what love means to you.

Family cuddle!!!

This whole exercise (rather, the attempt to illustrate it) has shown me just how hard it is a) to find photos of oneself from the pre-digital camera days, and b) to find photos of Matt and I together without kids from the days since becoming parents. Note to self: need to take more "couple" pics!

Happy Valentine's Day, all! 

When She Grows Up

Kate isn't yet able to tell us things she wants to "be" when she grows up—a doctor, an artist, a yellow fire truck. (I've heard some doozies from kids over the years!) But Kate is starting to use the phrase, "when I get grown up..." not in the context of a career, but as in:

"I don't like coffee. When I get grown up, I will like coffee."
and
"I don't have an office. When I get grown up, I will have an office."

Last night, I took the girls to the library after school/work while Matt was at his class. After checking out some books for Kate, we noticed that a hip hop dance workshop was starting. Sounded like fun, so we stuck around. The woman talked about the history and philosophy of hip hop for about 20 minutes, and then we all learned a dance and did some freestyling! (Hard to imagine, isn't it?)

The song we did the dance to had the lyrics, "I can be anything . . . you can be anything . . . boys and girls can be anything." I liked that affirmation a lot, and as we got in the car, I told Kate how much I liked it, "because you can be anything!"

She thought for a second, and then said:
"I'm going to be naughty!"

3 months and 3 years

Both my girls are THREE! One's measured in months, the other in years, but either way, we've got some milestones to report! 

Here's one fun "first"—first time in matching outfits! 

Claire turned 3 months on Feb. 1. She weighs around 10-10.5 pounds, I estimate (no doctor appt this month), still my petite little girl. People comment in public how little she seems, guessing that she's younger than she is. She just moved up to a size 1 diaper this week and is starting to wear 3 month clothes. She still wants to nurse every 2 hours or so when she's with me, and is eating four bottles of almost five ounces each during the school day. She holds her head up wonderfully, is cooing so sweetly, and is close to rolling over! She did roll over from back to front once on accident, and when she woke up this morning, was practically turned over and quite upset about it!

She's sleeping through the night! She had a little relapse this past weekend, I believe the consequence of my bragging on her Friday night, but right at three months at least, she was sleeping through the night! :0) She sleeps from around 9pm to 5am, give or take a half hour, wearing her SwaddleMe blanket (with her arms free) and her Sleep Sheep playing whale sounds as she drifts off. I rock and nurse her to sleep, which is something I'm theoretically opposed to, on the grounds that babies should be put down awake or else they won't learn to fall asleep on their own—but she sleeps for eight hours, and it works for her, so I'm good. We give her a paci, but she doesn't really care about it much, preferring her hands, or better yet, a nipple.

Zantac and gas drops have helped her reflux some. She still spits up a lot, and prefers to be nursing or in the sling to any other position. She doesn't like the swing (it's the Graco Soothing Center, but she didn't get the memo that it is supposed to soothe her!) but will sit in her bouncer or on her play mat for a while on her own. She has a sweet disposition, smiling and cooing at us, and we love her so much!

Kate turned three years old on Jan. 28. She's a wild and crazy girl, very active, very strong-willed. She is perfectly average in height and weight, and true-to-size. Her hair lost its natural ringlets in the last six months (bummer!) but is still so long and pretty. She's had several haircuts, and chooses a bow or ponytail every morning. She also picks her own outfits and, fortunately, we rarely butt heads about it! (That is, she's generally open to guidance about what top and tights go with her chosen jumper, etc.)

She says and does the funniest things, and we have so much fun together. She's old enough to talk about things and make plans together. She's also maddening in her insistence on her own way and her meltdowns when she doesn't get it. She's been especially mercurial since Claire's birth. She loves her sister so much, hugging and kissing her all the time, but definitely shows signs of jealousy when we pay too much attention to Claire. Kate is potty trained during the day, wearing a pull up at night, but—ahem—knows how to get our attention away from Claire and back onto her when necessary. It's very frustrating. But she's been doing very well lately. (The cat, on the other hand, has started pooping in the dining room. What the heck?!)

Kate's favorite toys are baby dolls, pretend food, and puzzles. I love that she's getting to the age where we can play games, like the Memory game she got for her birthday, and I love doing several puzzles with her before bedtime. She hates going to bed, and spends much of bedtime standing on her head (to keep us from taking off/putting on shirts) and jumping off the bed. Kate is the life of the party with people she knows well, but clams up and takes a while to open up with new people and in new situations. Her daddy and I can definitely understand that!

One of those "new situations" is gymnastics class. She's been three times now, and shows some anxiety for the first part of class, finally loosening up for the latter part. She loves all the equipment at the gym, and loves watching the big girls do their fancy tumbling, both at the end of the class that meets before hers and on YouTube. She also likes to watch herself in the one video we've taken at gymnastics. I'll take my nice camera for some good shots soon! In the meantime, here's Kate on the zip-line!

The Preparty

Kate loves being three. She announces several times a day, "I'm three now!" She has also said the following:

"Five more weeks and I'll be eight."
and
"Three more eights and I'll be R."

Guess we need to work on her math skills. And on the difference between numbers and letters.

Anyway, plenty of time for that. Just wanted to share real quick the little pre-party birthday celebration we had over breakfast on Saturday. So that the number of gifts wouldn't get out of hand at her party—and so she could enjoy her big gift some during the day—we had her open gifts from Mommy and Daddy over muffins in the morning.

(FYI, if you put a candle in a hot muffin, it will melt into the muffin.)

Then she opened presents, including a couple puzzles and some new clothes (in which she showed more interest than I expected!)

And then, after opening a bike helmet (and wondering what it was), we led her out to the front porch to see her new bike! We'd thought about getting a tricycle, but I thought she was big enough to handle a little 12-inch bike with training wheels.

"What is this thing?"

"Ok, I'll give it a try."

"Here I go!"

Big girl Kate and her bicycle. 

She still needs some practice to get the pedaling motion down, but we'll get lots of practice with this balmy February weather! We haven't gotten home before dark any night this week—church meeting, grocery, Wednesday night church, gymnastics—but the weekend's a-comin'! 

Half Her Life Ago

When I'm sitting at the computer and Kate wants to sit on my lap and I don't want to watch "AbbyElmo" (i.e. videos on SesameStreet.org) I pull up some of my favorite blogs with pics and videos of little kids and babies. Kate gets a kick out of that, constantly asking "What her name?" at every picture. And when I get tired of answering that question, I pull up our own blog and show Kate pictures and videos of herself.

From these trips down the memory lane known as all-posts-tagged-"video," I have determined that the video below is my all-time favorite. It was shot while waiting for the pediatrician at Kate's 18 month checkup. 18 months. That was half her life ago. It was a huge, adorable deal that she could say her own name and point to various body parts, and here she is at three, talking constantly and more prone to pointing to my body parts than her own (like when I had the girls in my office yesterday evening after most people had gone home, so I fed Claire with only a strategically arranged scarf for modesty, and Kate practically shouts, "why you covering your boobie up?!")



Half my life ago, I was fifteen, starting my sophomore year of high school and still awkward as can be. What about you?