Happy 3rd Birthday Kate!!!

Who knew turning 3 years old could be so fun?! Kate woke up this morning to streamers in her doorway and balloons on her door. Then, she got ready and opened presents before Kyle left for work. After breakfast, she played with her new princess barbies until people for playgroup showed up. We hosted playgroup at our house so I got a cake from Costco and made treat bags for all the kids. It was a fun and easy way to celebrate her birthday with the kids that she plays with from playgroup each week. Kate loved it.

Treat bags- they are ice cream cones dipped in almond bark with sprinkles then stuffed with various candy. They were easy to make. I saw the idea on a show on the Food Network last year and remembered I wanted to try it out.

In the afternoon, after Kate's nap, we had a little birthday party for all the neighbor kids. I served the rest of the Costco cake and gave the kids Burger King hats and a treat bag. The kids played for a while and they played really well so Darbi and I were able to sit and talk for a while. It was nice.

Kate is like me and LOVES spaghetti. So for her birthday dinner we had spaghetti, broccoli, cottage cheese and french bread. Yummy!

She gets to have one more party for her birthday this weekend with her cousins. My sister, Sara, is graduating from High School tomorrow night so we are going to be at my parent's house and are doing a party with the cousins. It will be fun. It's a Princess Party and we have a treasure hunt, princess and the pea game, pin cinderella on the castle game and a pinata.

See Me!

Preston surrounded by his toys thanks to his sister Kate. :)

Kate thinking she's pretty funny for sitting in Preston's johnny jumper

Night Out With Carrie & Josh

Last weekend, two of my sisters and my Mom and Dad went to a Josh Turner and Carrie Underwood concert in Yakima. It was a lot of fun! I met my oldest sister in North Bend and we drove over together so I was kid free for a bit. :) We met up with my parents, sister and grandparents at a yummy hamburger place called Miners (LOVE it). Then, off to the concert. It's because of my Dad that we went to this concert. He likes Carrie Underwood and has liked her ever since she was on American Idol. This is huge because my Dad always made fun of our "country western" music we listened to while working on the farm. So for him to like Carrie and her country music is funny and a little ironic. But he read in the paper that Carrie was coming to Yakima and so we bought tickets. After the concert, my sister and I stayed in Yakima with my grandparents and then headed back home the next morning. Kyle did great with the kids and I was very thankful to him for letting me go on a fun outing with some of my sisters and parents.

Me with my sisters Marci and Sara

Josh Turner

Carrie Underwood

Carrie, again

My Mom and Dad

Giraffes

This is the video of the giraffes I was trying to upload and it finally worked. I hope it works! They were so close it was cool.

Why stay with the group?!

This is a classic example of Kate walking away from the class. :) Too funny. She was SO excited to be in the pool.

High Five

This video finally uploaded. This is Kate and her swim teacher. The kids thought he was so funny when we did this with all the kids.

Swim Lessons

Kate was so excited to go to swim lessons on Monday. The session just started and this is her very first time doing swim lessons. It's two days a week for 5 weeks. She is in the preschool class and she's the smallest one in there- size and probably age. There's only 5 kids in the class and when I went to enroll her the director questioned me putting her in the preschool class since she won't turn 3 until the end of the month (you have to be at least 3 years old or turn 3 during the session). His concern was that she might not go into the water without me going with her. I kind of had to laugh inside when he said that because her problem isn't going into the water- she escaped from me one time we went to a pool and almost got into the deep end by herself and she loves the water!!! My concern is that she won't listen to the teacher or his instructions. So it was pretty funny during the lesson when he would have to remind Kate to stay with the class, put her back up against the wall and stay in the pool. He had to tell other kids this too and for the most part she did good. She had a smile on her face almost the whole class time. She kept yelling out "this is so fun! This is so fun!" It was cute. She even started to cry when we the class was over because she wanted to "go to swim lessons." I think it will be good for her to listen to someone other than me or Kyle and to be in a class. I have some videos to post that show her wandering away from the group, but they wouldn't upload- I thought they were funny. I'll keep trying.

Preston was so tired since he didn't get his morning nap and ended up falling asleep in his bouncy chair! I looked at him one minute and he was bouncing away and then I looked at him again and saw him asleep. So cute. I didn't think it was possible to fall asleep in between bouncing. :)

Weekend Fun

Since it was beautiful weather this last weekend we took advantage of it and went to the zoo. We were able to see some cool things like the bears swim in the water, giraffes eat and come up to us really close (I tried posting a video with the giraffes- it was really cool- but it wouldn't upload, grrrr) and the siamangs make a ton of noise. They are funny monkeys. Later that afternoon we went with some friends to a beach to have a BBQ, but the beach was under construction so we had to go to a nearby park. It had a beautiful view overlooking the water so that was nice.

Johnny Jumper

Preston LOVES his johnny jumper. I decided to try it last week and he really likes it. Kate didn't really use it much so I'm glad Preston likes it. :) He got his first tooth on Mother's Day. It is on the top, which isn't usually the first tooth he gets. (Usually they get their bottom teeth first.) He chews on everything and slobbers all the time. It's funny to watch.

Criminal is Free

Yes, that's right. I am a criminal. :) I had to go "plea" before a judge this morning for a speeding ticket. Afterwards, I called Kyle and he asked me if he needed to come bail me out of jail. HA! HA! The speeding ticket was back from February (there is a post about it) when I was anxious to get to Preston's neurology appointment and I was going down hill. This cop pulled me over and wasn't even compassionate towards me with a screaming baby in the backseat. Grrrrr. I wasn't able to go into detail with the judge. I started talking and told him this was my VERY FIRST time getting pulled over and then he stopped me and had me pay the ticket and said it wouldn't go on my record if I was good for another 6 months. I was glad it didn't go on my record, but I was expecting him to reduce the fee at least! Especially since it was my first time getting pulled over. Maybe I should have asked him to reduce it and not have it go on my record, but this being my first time in court I wasn't about to argue with a judge. I didn't want him to change his mind and make it go on my record. Oh well... I paid the dumb ticket and now I have to be "good" for 6 months.

There was this kid in front of me that had a speeding ticket and he swore after the judge gave him his decision. The judge made the kid come back and the judge added another $50 to his fine for his "filthy mouth". I thought that was good the judge did that and I hope that kid learned his lesson.

Kyle's 30th Birthday!

Kyle is getting old!!!! ha! :) Today is his 30th birthday and I asked him what he wanted to do since he was turning the big 3-0. He told me not to do any surprises and he didn't really want a party. BORING! But that is his way of celebrating I guess- in peace. I'm the opposite. Good thing we balance each other. :) We did surprise him a little. Kate, Preston and I took him a cupcake balloon and his gift to his work. When we got there he was in someone else's office so we snuck into his office and waited for him to come in. Once he did Kate was there holding his balloon. It was fun and he had no idea.

Tonight for dinner he chose to have swedish meatballs, rice, broccoli and then apple crisp with vanilla ice cream for dessert. That is one of his favorite desserts so he was in heaven. Then, he took off for mutual and basketball after that. I felt bad though after he left because I realized I didn't take any pictures of him on his birthday. Nor did I put candles in the apple crisp and sing to him! How horrible is that? So maybe I'll have to take a picture of him all sweaty when he comes home after basketball. Oh well.

Kyle, I'm thankful for all you do for me and our family. You make me laugh and you are a great daddy to our kids! Happy Birthday!

Sisterly Love

This is Kate "gently" putting a sticker on Preston's cheek.

Preston still smiling after that sisterly love. :)


What a mischievious smile.

Kate is actually pretty helpful with Preston. She likes to play with him and it's fun to watch. Preston thinks she is funny. Preston is doing well. He hasn't been sick for a while (2 months- that's long for him) which has been SO nice. I think he's had his fair share of RSV/bronchiolitis bouts for a while. He is eating solids really well and is sleeping through the night. We had to have him cry it out a couple times before he would sleep through. A few months ago he was sleeping 11 hours, but then got sick and would wake up and he got back into the habit of waking up again. I figured he was old enough to sleep through the night and it's much nicer. He will sometimes wake up early in the morning, but most times he is doing well. He is rolling, sitting up and getting up on all fours (once in a while). It is weird to think that at his age, 7 months, Kate was already crawling and had a tooth. He gets frustrated when a toy rolls away from him or is out of reach so maybe he'll start to figure out how to scoot to get to it.

Activity Around the World

I am the Primary President in our Ward (it's the program in our church for children 3-11 years old). It's been a fun calling. I work with great people and the kids are fun to be around. We had a Primary activity this last Saturday and wanted to center it around missionary work. I had heard of other wards taking an "airplane ride" around the world to various countries and learning about being missionaries. So my counselors and I had fun brainstorming ideas and came up with a fun activity (or so we thought!). We had a good turn-out (for our ward) and I think the kids had fun.

First, we had the kids enter the MTC. We talked about being "member missionaries" and then they each got a missionary tag. (below)

We had them go through airport security (I waved two light savers around the kids to "check" them!). If they had metal it beeped. :) We also checked their belongings under our (cardboard) x-ray machine. Then, they went to customs and recieved a passport so they could get it stamped at each country we visited.

Then, we boarded our "plane". We had several kids really concerned about getting on a real plane! It was cute. We reassured them it was for pretend. Our budget isn't that good! One of my counselors works for an airline so she was our stewardess. She did great. She did the whole speal and then they watched a church video on missionary work while they ate M&M's (member missionary). For each country, we had men from our Ward who served in that mission to talk about their country and then serve a treat from that country. We made stops at Chicago and tasted cheese pizza then, Venezuela and tasted mango, some sort of juice drink and fried bananas. Our next stop was in Germany where we had nutella and then to Japan where we had crushed ice, sweet beans and this milky syrup. (Not too sure what is was called.) We went back to the MTC where the Sister Missionaries bore their testimonies and that was it. We had other activities planned for the end like relay games, but flying around the world took longer than we thought. :)