The Amazing Weeping Cherry

Our wonderful neighbors, the Footes, went on vacation at the end of March to Disney World...and Lisa was worried that her new weeping cherry would bloom while she was gone so she made me promise to get pictures if it bloomed! Well, it started to bloom and we took a picture, then we noticed this beautiful, full, well-established weeping cherry at another neighbor's house down the street when we went out for a walk, so we devised a practical joke for them, while they were still in Florida. So here is the picture of Lisa's little one year old weeping cherry:And here is the picture we took of our other neighbor's well-established (maybe even 10 years old like the houses!) tree:

And then my friend Carla's husband, the amazing Greg Jenkins, fixed the photos for me and put the second, much fuller tree in front of the Foote's house. Thanks, Greg, you are awesome!!!!Then I emailed Greg's fixed photo to Bob to show Lisa, and he emailed back that the tree looked great. Then Lisa called the next day and said she couldn't believe how big and full her tree was when it bloomed! I guess they were a little groggy from all the sun in Florida!! But, I couldn't take it so I told her the truth, and they have since been plotting their revenge!!!

Pictures, pictures, pictures

April 9th: Katie and I went to Build-A-Bear, it was time to say bye-bye to her bedtime soothies (pacifiers for those of you that don't know soothies...our poor kids are bedtime addicts) and so we built a bear and we gave all her soothies to the soothie fairy so she could take them to new babies everywhere that didn't have soothies. Then we got a cookie! So far so good...Katie wanted to take a pciture of her Soothie Bear to send to Nana, so she took one. She actually took about 10, but this is the only picture that you can see the whole bear!! Not bad for a 3 year old!

April 12th: Katie has always been our Miss Independent, but just recently has extended that to dressing herself...so here's a cute picture of her choice of attire for this day! She's too funny!


April 12th: Here's Ali, with her now popular "I know you said no, but get out of my way, because I'm doing it anyway" face. This was another attempt to divert her from the shoes, but she's just obsessed with the shoes. In fact, she now says "shoe", add to her list of words: hi, bye, cheese, Drew, Katie, mama, dada, no-no (of course!), and ow!, which she squeals and then laughs. She'll go over to the shoes in the laundry room and pile them all on her lap, and then say "shoe, shoe". I will have to catch it on video so when she someday has a gazillion shoes, I can show her why!!


April 15th: Despite the temperature being only 30 degrees and wicked wind chill, we bundled up and hit the bike paths. It was daddy's last day of vacation and he and Drew had been out riding their bikes most days in the cold and flurries. They rode their bikes, and the girls snuggled up in the double jogger, and we hit the trails! Luckily for us, our kids love the outdoors and don't really seem to care if it's freezing out. But, here are a few pics of Katie and Alex in their matching turtlenecks, that I kept forgetting to get pictures of this winter!

Easter Sunday

April 8th: Easter morning! We had to get ready for church at the hotel. Here's Drew in his Easter duds...yes, his shirt is too small...but I didn't know that when I packed it and we were obviously not in a place to just change it!! Oops! This shirt fit him one month ago! Now look at it! That kid just keeps growing and growing!! He keeps telling me he's almost as big as me, and really, he doesn't have much farther to go!!





Katie in her Easter dress. She was a bit tired from the night and acting quite the part of a 3 year old, so she got to hang out at Nana's and Papaw's house while the rest of us went to church!!








Alex in her Easter dress...with oatmeal on her face!!!



Alex checking herself out in the mirror! She spent so much time in front of this mirror at the hotel, we really should get one for our house!




And here is what I like to call the everything-that-can-go-wrong-in-a-family-portrait picture...I just had to put this one on here, b/c it really does crack me up. Kids! No focus whatsoever!

Nana, Katie, and Halle

I just thought this was cute...here are Katie and Halle back in August 2004...





And Now!! Nana even has them on the same sides!

Visiting Granny and Grandpa's House

April 7th: We stopped at Granny and Grandpa's for a visit on Easter weekend. Aunt Allison and Halle and Ashlynne came over to visit as well. The kids had lots of fun playing together. They played piano for a while, then they pretended they were "secret agents" and they looked for hidden clues in Granny's closet. Wonder whose idea that was...Drew! Here they are playing the piano together.

I got Alex into the picture, and proved that trying to get a picture of 5 kids together is definitely harder than just my usual 3!!! But here are all 5 cousins with Nana. Alex is holding her all-time favorite thing in this world...a shoe.

I love this picture! Halle thinks Drew is pretty cool, and since his own sister doesn't so much think that...he thinks she's pretty cool too! They had a lot of fun playing together.

Halle and Drew

Nana with Katie and Halle and Drew

Nana with her two older girls! Halle is just 1.5 months older than Katie. They are so close in size and so cute together! Halle is very quiet, though, and has the sweetest little voice. Katie is the complete opposite, she doesn't know quiet!

Ashlynne playing on the stool that Alex thought was hers only! Ashlynne will be 2 in July, so she's about 6 months older than Alex, but she can talk unlike any 21 month old I've ever seen, especially my own kids! She is so talkative and has the cutest giggle!

Great Aunt Donna singing to Katie, she was pretty tuckered out from playing!

Great Aunt Becky helping Alex jump off the stool for the umpteenth time in the several hours we were visiting! She loved that little stool! Ashlynne is patiently waiting her turn!

Early Easter

April 7th: We were travelling to visit family on Easter, so the Easter Bunny was kind enough to visit us early. He was very good to the kids, they must have been on their best behavior lately!







Drew had his first soccer game this morning in the 15 degree windchill! He had a blast and played great, but poor daddy froze on the sidelines!! Mommy, Katie, and Ali were smart enough to stay home!!!







Happy Easter, says Katie!


Ali just liked trying to eat the plastic eggs. And making a huge mess with the Easter grass.

Crazy Baby!!

April 2nd: Ali in the swing at the park. I had to put her in here just to get a breather from chasing her and keep her from going headfirst down the slides! She was not thrilled with being contained, but humored me for about 2 minutes before demanding her freedom!

And, here is Alex, crazy as can possibly be...she has absolutely no fear. Attention all Alex's baby friends who may see this...DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME...this stunt is performed by a trained professional!

Fairy princess dress

March 25th: Katie, showing off her fairy princess outfit that Great Aunt Donna sent for her birthday. She loves this fairy outfit so much that she would not take it off, and ended up wearing it to the grocery store that day! She got a lot of compliments on her fairy princess outfit and she was happy as could be! I did make her put on her tennis shoes b/c the fairy ballet shoes just didn't seem pavement friendly!






Katie's attempt at a "happy" face!











March 24th: Uncle Brad visited and spent a lot of time playing Go Fish with Katie and Drew. He and Katie were a lean, mean, Go Fish-playing, machine!! Drew held his own, though, and as usual won most of the games!

Another day, another princess dress...

March 19th: After soccer, Katie came home and dressed in one of her princess dresses and paraded around quite a bit.






March 20th: Drew, with some crazy hair after swim lessons!! It's unusual to get a picture of him without a cheesy smile, he's still learning how to smile without the fake look! And, great news! We found out yesterday that Drew has been accepted to St. Brigid for kindergarten! He's so very excited to start school!







March 22nd: I tried to get some pictures of Alex last night, but she wasn't really in the mood. Her hair is finally growing, and the Urbancic curl has shown up.








Uh-oh, is this a Katie face???


And, the curls.

Katie's First Day of Soccer

March 19th: Katie started soccer today. She's been watching Drew play and just couldn't wait to get out there herself! We got there, and she just ran right out, she knew just what to do! Here she is stretching...she's in the light pink with pigtails 3rd from the left.








Waiting patiently for her turn to kick the ball!










Finally! Her turn to kick the ball! She had so much fun!





Here's a little clip of her kicking the ball to knock over some cones.

Here is a quick video of Alex, with her favorite accessory, saying "Cheese!"...one of her very few words. As soon as she sees the camera, though, she says "Cheese!"

Happy 3rd Birthday to Katie!!

March 18th: Katie is 3!! She was so excited to be a birthday girl. Whenever someone would tell her Happy Birthday, she would reply "Thank you, and Happy Birthday to you, too!" So polite. I asked her what she wanted to wear to her party (we had pizza and cake with our friends, the Footes and the Thompsons) and she chose Drew's frog Halloween costume. And she could not be talked out of it, so the frog it was!!

Katie's Dora cake that I had promised her! She was just very excited to eat cake, I think, but she did think the Dora was pretty cool!

Katie enjoying her cake!

Here's a closer picture of the cake, with the book cover that I used for the pattern! If you click on the picture, it makes it bigger and easier to see the writing, etc. on the cake!

In our house, the frog turned into the princess!! Katie got a couple of princess dresses and she immediately ditched the frog costume in favor of the flapper dress!

Here are Drew and Matthew enjoying their cake as well!

Earlier in the day, we drove to Springfield to have lunch with Nana, Pappaw, Uncle Brad, and Aunt Brittani. Alex is not a fan of long car rides right now, so the trip there was a long one. At least, she slept on the way home! Here is a picture of Uncle Brad rocking away with Katie.

And here is Aunt Brittani helping Alex rock in a little Alex-sized chair!

Accessories and more

March 14th: Katie showing off her new sunglasses. She's such a little diva! I tell her she's a cool cat, and she meows! She used to do that last summer too.

March 15th: Alex's choice of accessory currenlty is her hat. She will find her hat (any hat will do, this is an old hat of Drew's that she loves) and bring it to anyone around to have them put it on her. Then she laughs and laughs.

March 15th: Alex, with her hat, underneath a tunnel in Drew and Katie's obstacle course. She loves tunnels.

March 18th: Alex sporting her favorite accessory on yet another day.

March 18th: Katie attempting to have a tea party with her baby sister. Alex had a little trouble concentrating on the tea party, though!

March 18th: Alex's new trick. She can now open the bathroom door, and she pushed the stepstool over to the toilet and climbed right on up! I was just happy the older kids remembered to put the lid down!