The pumpkin patch

We took a trip to the pumpkin patch over the weekend and the girls had a blast. It was comical because Katelyn was so mesmerized by everything that she wouldn't hold still for many pictures, but we tried to snap a few.

Katelyn was very frustrated she couldn't just walk through without ducking her head under so she just stood there waiting for Kelsey to come back.

Kelsey loves to have her picture taken but Katelyn refuses to be "posed" for the camera. What can I say, they are about as opposite as they could possibly be.

She did however just sit in the pile of pumpkins to look cute.

She kept picking them up and throwing them on the ground, I think because she thought they were balls, and faster than we could gather them back up again!! Considering this was Katelyn's real trip to the pumpkin patch, she got more photos than Kelsey, truly a first!! :)

Girls & jeans

I'm sorry, but I just love little girls in jeans. And Katelyn is no exception.

She does this thing with any article of clothing with a hole in that she can put her arm through. The most popular however, are Kelsey's panties and I have no idea why, other than she doesn't need them yet.
Check out that cute butt, or lack there of!! The diaper is the other thing holding those things up!!
What up?!

Pigtails

Well, it took quite an effort on all our parts, mainly mine but we did accomplish pigtails for the first time. Doesn't she look so cute?! I know it's just the back and side of her head, but you can't see them from head on.

A conversation I didn't think I'd be having at 3

Judging by the title you may be thinking something else, but please read on for your personal enjoyment!! Anyone who has little girls knows this - they love cell phones. And this is especially true for Kelsey. She has quite a few play phones that she walks around with having conversations all day long. Lately she has branched out and more than just "talking to dad" she now calls her friends and their moms and schedules play dates with them. A couple of nights ago we were sitting down to dinner and here's how it went.

Me: Kelsey we don't bring phones to the dinner table. (I was clearly interrupting an important conversation with someone because the phone was still in the open position.)

Kelsey: Silence, then slams the phone shut.

And, we ate the rest of our dinner in silence. It so reminded me of those commercials you see on tv where the teenage daughter is on her phone and can't come join the family because she's taking a very important call. Oh, the things we have to look forward to. At least she doesn't know about texting yet. And it's still free!!

The ipod dilemma

So for Dave's birthday I got him an ipod and he is loving it. Unfortunately, so are we all, especially Kelsey. After getting music from his brother and creating all our playlists, Kelsey has become quite the little know-it-all when it comes to music now. She even has her own playlist which does not consist of children's songs or anything like it. I know, I know, I'm a mean mom and refuse to play those in the car. I think they cause more road rage than anyone is willing to admit!! They are all songs heard on the radio She hears songs in stores long before I even realize she is singing to them and recognizes songs sometimes before I do, it's just great. Well, this weekend Dave was on a shootout with the elder's quorum and high priests (he's the reason the high priests are even invited) and Kelsey this morning asked what we had at our home. I wasn't quite sure what she was asking until I figured out she meant the ipod because she was listening to Online (Brad Paisley) in my car because that is one of the 16 days worth of songs she can listen to. Anyway, when I asked, "Do you mean the ipod?"

"Yeah, that. I want to listen to it."

"Honey, dad took it shooting with him."

Immediately tears well up in her eyes and start flowing down her face, I kid you not. "But I want to listen to music."

After I got her calmed down, fortunately Dave had left his computer that had all the music on it so she at least got to listen to it from there. She doesn't realize that was dad's birthday present and that he can take it whenever he wants. Or maybe she does and she just thinks he should share with her, which in turn means give it to her.

She's only 3 and her wish lists are already too expensive!!

Oh, and by the way, her absolute favorite songs are Sweet Escape (Gwen Stefani), Online (Brad Paisley), Dirty Little Secret (All-American Rejects), Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne) and First Time (Lifehouse). She knows all the words to the first two and can be heard all over the house singing any of these songs. I think that tops your Fat Bottom Girls Lindsay?

Another Disneyland trip under our belts

These season passes have certainly paid for themselves!! But we've had a great time using them, and they aren't expired for another 5 months!!

The dreaded tea cups.

Everyone gets a turn

Knocking at the white rabbit's door

Posing with Princess Atta.

Kelsey, Mary, Mater and Lightning McQueen

Daddy/daughter campout

Each month Kelsey watches as her dad takes the scouts camping so Dave and a few of the dads in the ward (those who have daughters) decided to go on the first unofficial ward daddy/daughter campout. And they had a great time. Katelyn had to stay behind because she was a little too young, but mainly because she was in the back of the truck eating the firewood and would more than likely fall in the fire. At first Kelsey was sad that she didn't get to go, but by the end of packing up, she was rubbing it in that Katelyn was too little and couldn't go just yet. And at first Katelyn was loving the one on one time with mom and playing in the bath with the toys by herself, until bedtime came. Whereupon she started to cry and cry and cry some more because Kelsey wasn't there and she just knew that she was off having a great time with dad and that she was missing out. Only to find out that she was not the only one having a late night. But she did eventually sleep until about 6. Which is all we could hope for. They had a great time on hikes and making marshmallow sandwiches (s'mores) and playing with her friends. And some pictures Kelsey even contributed to!!

Such a ham!!

Dad's cookin'.
Just relaxing from a hard day.

Such tired eyes!
Great fire, dad.

All the girls are up and dads still want to be in bed.

Kelsey and Abby
This is the best day ever

She even got to bring some "treasured" rocks home with her.

Heading off on a hike.

Not your average outing at the park

Although I don't have any pictures of it, it's gotta be told. We decided to take some old bread and feed the ducks this morning. One of the parks that is near our house is a dinosaur discovery park that is just freakin' awesome as far as parks go, if I must say so myself. There is waterfalls with ducks, turtles, ducklings, (in the spring) and for the first time, geese. So we get out and all the ducks are laying in the grass sunning themselves and they just start walking up to us when along come 5-6 geese. They were about as tall as Kelsey when they stretched their necks and she was unfortunately holding the bread right at the level of their beaks. The ducks are much less aggressive but this one geese was just not scared and walked right up to her. While she was just trying to feed it, it nipped her finger and she started screaming thinking it had taken off her finger, only to find, it took the rest of her bread. And then she started laughing because it was choking on the bread. It had taken a pretty big piece and tried to stuff it down it's throat before anyone else could steal it back. After the commotion had subsided, we checked her hands with all fingers intact and discovered that she was in fact, just fine.

So over to the park we went. Now granted, this is really the first time Katelyn's enjoyed the park because it's just been too hot and now that she's walking better she can climb up and down and go down the slide by herself. She thinks she is so big. So after 1 1/2 hours of digging, playing, climbing, and sliding I decided it was time to go grab some lunch. After lunch we headed home, only 5 minutes away, and that poor little girl didn't even make it home. She was sacked out in her seat. So cute!! It wasn't too difficult though, because after much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth trying to cut her 2 naps down to one, she finally gave in and has been down to one nap since Friday. Hooray!! And she did it all herself because I just gave up on forcing her. And now she sleeps till 7:30 and is ready for bed at 7!! Life is good

Photo Shoot fiasco

Well, I tried sharing the pictures with everyone, but it just didn't seem to work because I thought they were just so cute that I would get at least one comment from someone. But no such luck. So instead I'll do it this way. For the short version of the fiasco, tune in.

It all started when I wanted to get Katelyn's one year old pictures taken when we were headed to California for vacation. But my plans were quickly foiled when my brother's girlfriend was going to be headed to DC for a supercross race with my family. She took our family pics last Thanksgiving and does such an awesome job but since she wasn't going to be there, I quickly decided on option #2. I opted to try a different photo studio because Kelsey had her 1 year pics at JCPenny's which turned out great, I just wanted different backgrounds and props. I will not say where I went, but I arrived on time for my appointment, just after Katelyn's morning nap that I thought would be a perfect time. For me, anyway!! Maybe that's where I went wrong. To start with it was just a plain white background, which can be cute, but I was a little unimpressed. The girl started with Kelsey, who always has a smile for the camera. Camera shy? I think not. I'm sure she got some cute ones there.

And then it was time for the girls together. Maybe she had never shot babies that were "moving" before but it was such a disaster. She was very slow with the camera and waited for me to be completely out of the way before snapping anything. By that time, of course, Katelyn had changed, moved, or completely crawled away before any shots were taken. Katelyn was getting more and more flustered that I kept moving away from her that she was just crying and not enjoying any part of it. So we got Kelsey out trying to distract her and make her laugh as well just to get a few of Katelyn smiling for her birthday photos. Then she brought a birthday box for her to stand in, and she just cried thinking she was trapped and kept trying to climb out. After an hour of trying to get any cute pictures I finally gave up and said I'll just look at those and call it good. So we went to grab some food while the pictures were being uploaded.

I was so aggrivated (pissed off) that 2 hours (prep, driving and shooting) of my day had been wasted and nothing to show for it. With two kids you just don't get that back. I took the girls to play and I needed to unwind before I saw that girl again. I was seriously toying with the idea of going down to JCPenny to see if they could take some because they were already dressed up and I knew they did a good job. I didn't have to pay a sitting fee at either place so no worries there. Upon packing everything up, Kelsey announced she needed a bathroom break. So we were wondering through Sears to find their restrooms and lo and behold, they were right next to their photo studio. I just checked to see and they could take some pics right then. Halelujah! I knew Katelyn would be getting tired and shortly coming to the end of her rope so we had to work fast. I was so pleased with the outcome of the pictures they got. One girl was at the camera and the other was posing both girls. So it turned out alright, but I was almost needing to be talked off the Stratosphere. I would highly recommend Sears to anyone. It was a much better experience and so much more impressed with them. Well, here's what came of the photo shoot!! Hope you all enjoy them as much as we do!!

I wasn't planning to have her birthday pictures taken, but when she saw that Katelyn got to stand on #1 she was feeling very left out.

My absolute favorite!!

And another fave.

We have a walker

Well, we went down to California for a much needed vacation trip to Disneyland, we just couldn't let our passes go to waste once school was back in session. She was walking a little bit before and we really wanted her to be walking before we went so she could do more than be in our arms or in the stroller. Her cousin who is 2 weeks younger started taking steps after Katelyn, but once she figured it out, she hasn't crawled since. Katelyn seemed to take a bit longer but it seems the only motivation she needed was to actually see her in action because once she saw her, she was off and running. She now stands on her own and is gone. How do they get so big so fast?! But here's some pics of her learning on her own. As a sidebar, Kelsey thinks it's fun that she's walking right now, but I'll be sure to remind her of that when Katelyn is literally running after her!!

The launch pad

She's so proud of her new trick