5 years

Yesterday, Jeff and I celebrated 5 wonderful years of marriage. Our lives are full of so much joy!

Bridges

This weekend, we headed out to East Nashville to check out the recently constructed pedestrian bridge across the Cumberland River near the Opry Mills area. We had lots of fun exploring the bridge, watching stuff float down the river and walking through some tunnels to get there. Ethan was asleep the whole time so I didn't get any pictures of him. But here are some pictures of Kaitlyn in her cute little seersucker outfit.

Growing Children...

We took both Kaitlyn and Ethan to the doctor today for routine well-visits: Kaitlyn for her 2 year appt. and Ethan for his 2 month appt. Kaitlyn kept up her 97th percentile rankings with a weight of 34 pounds and a height of 36 inches--such a tall little girl! Ethan is 25 inches long and weighs 15 pounds already! That's three and a half pounds in the last month--yikes! But like his sister, he's very proportional--97th percentile in everything. At least my kids are consistent :)

Happy Baby

Here are some recent pictures of our precious Ethan. He's such a happy baby and he loves to smile, especially at his Mommy :) I can't believe he'll be two months old tomorrow!! Where has the time gone?? He gets more alert every day, and he has slept through the night several times...he's just not consistent yet. He'll sleep for 7 - 8 hours for a few nights, and just when I'm getting used to the extra sleep, he'll wake up after 5 or 6 hours for the next few nights. Guess he wants to keep us on our toes! Now if I could just figure out how to make him nap longer than 30 minutes at a time...

Kaitlyn's Birthday Party

We celebrated Kaitlyn's birthday today so that the grandparents could join in the fun. She has discovered Dora the Explorer in recent weeks, so I knew she would enjoy a Dora-themed party. We decorated during her nap, so she came out to a room of colorful streamers, balloons and Dora decorations. She was a little speechless, but had this huge smile plastered on her face.

We sang Happy Birthday to her and I helped her blow out her candles. In the picture below, she's excitedly pointing out all the characters on her cake: Dora ("do-WAH"), Diego ("dee-go") and Boots ("boo").

She tested the icing before actually digging in. Unlike last year, this time she ate the cake and icing.

A family shot with goofy Dora hats on. Even little Ethan got in on the fun.

Kaitlyn was the star of the show, but Ethan only had eyes and smiles for Mommy :)

And then the gifts started. In the days leading up to her party, every time we told her that she would be getting presents, she would shout ho-ho! (her name for Santa). I guess she thought that he was the only one who could bring her presents. Well, apparently Christmas came again in May because she got more gifts today than she did at Christmas! Below, she's opening one of several Dora presents from Mimi.

And she got her very first tricycle, complete with a bell and handlebar streamers, a present from Gran.

We saved the biggest present for last. We took her outside and she got her first glimpse of her very own swing set. She couldn't wait to go down the slide. Many tears were shed when we finally told her that she had to come inside.

But there was one present that Dora dolls, tricycles and swing sets just couldn't compete with--Play-Doh. This child loves Play-Doh. She doesn't like to squish it and mold it in any way..she just likes to open the containers, get the play-doh out, line them up on the table, put them back into the containers and close the lids, all the while announcing which particular color she's holding at the time. This game of sorting and organizing apparently never gets old for her. The play-doh was the second present she opened today, and she kind of got annoyed when we kept interrupting her fun to make her open the rest of her presents. Lesson learned: save the play-doh for last!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Kaitlyn!

As hard as it is to believe, my baby girl is turning two today! It seems like only a few short months ago that we were celebrating her first birthday! I'm sure the years will seem to get shorter and shorter as she gets older. We're having her birthday party on Saturday so that most of the grandparents can be here. So today, our "celebration" consisted of going to Chick-fil-A for lunch, playing on the indoor playground (since it's monsoon season here!) and eating ice cream. I'm even going to let her watch a little extra TV today :)

So in honor of her 2nd birthday, here are some updates about Kaitlyn's activities and interests lately.

• She's really loves Dora the Explorer, so she's going to be in for a treat when she sees the Dora plates, napkins, cake and party hats at her birthday party :)
• She still treasures her beloved Doggie. Every day, she feeds Doggie a bottle, lets him nap in the Pack-n-Play, puts him in Ethan's swing and bouncy seat and generally carts him around everywhere she goes. If he's out of sight for a while, she walks around the house calling for him. I shudder to think what would happen if we ever lost Doggie.
  
• Her vocabulary has exploded in the past month or so. She picks up new words everyday! And she's getting more complex in her language by stringing together sentences and using all kinds of adjectives. "Mommy get Baby Ethan in the Pack-n-Play." "Mommy's big blue towel." "Kaitlyn go home and Mommy go home too!" Her enunciation isn't the best yet, but Jeff and I can usually translate for her.
  
• She talks up a storm and is a very outgoing child at home, but in public, she's very quiet and wary of people she doesn't know well. In fact, if a stranger tries to talk to her, she starts crying loudly and clings to me. A very good thing if a stranger is trying to kidnap her, but not so good when the "stranger" is one of my friends and we're in the middle of Target! I won't even go into the trauma of the church nursery lately!!
  
• She can identify and say almost all of her letters and colors.
• Her favorite color is yellow. Yellow shirts, yellow Play-Doh, yellow cars. I usually have to allow for extra time when we're getting in the car because she loves to pick all the yellow dandelions in our yard...and sadly, we have a lot.
  

Happy Birthday, Kaitlyn!