Funny Story

I keep forgetting to share this story, so I thought I'd put it here, so I don't keep telling the same people. A few Sundays ago, we were sitting on the end of the second row in Sacrament meeting, and were the only people on our row. I was sitting on the aisle, Donny was next to me and Katy was on the other side of him. We were right in the middle of sacrament when Katy jetted down the row to the other end before Donny could grab her. So, I had to get up and walk in front of the whole room to go get her. The water was being passed to the row behind us at the other end and before I could get to her, Katy ran down to the sacrament tray, took a cup, drank it and put it in the empty cup hole. She was so proud of herself for doing it so I told her "good job" and then she was happy to sit on my lap. The Elder who was passing the sacrament started laughing and the people behind her were laughing, then I looked up at the front and the whole Branch Presidency was laughing. I looked down the row at Donny and he was hunched over with his head in his hands and his shoulders were just shaking. Our branch is so small and the "chapel" is so small that I think everyone in the room saw it happen and laughed. She has never wanted to take the sacrament before and I didn't think she was paying any attention, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She doesn't miss a thing!

Four Wheelin' Fun!

In April, Meme and Papa bought some little four wheelers at a yard sale and had them at the house for Will's birthday. When we all got together for the Birthday celebration, all the big boys had to have a turn. You would have thought it was Christmas morning and Santa had brought them the 4 wheelers. It was fun to watch them - they were so excited and were having a lot of fun. They rode it (there was only one at the house) so much that they wore a track in the grass in Meme's backyard! I only got pictures of Donny on it, but Joe rode it with Afton too, and I'm told that Little Al took it for a spin or two before we got there. In fact, he took Katy for a ride after Donny went inside. So they all got a turn.

Donny taking for a solo ride. Look at that face - you can almost hear his sound effects.

Katy loved riding on it so much that she'd run after it when it wasn't her turn.

Needless to say, the boys were a little too big for it, so they had to get a push to start it. This is Joe getting Donny started, while Al "directs."

I had a hard time getting a good picture of Katy and Donny while they were riding, so I made them slow down long enough for me to get one.

Will got this Gator for his birthday and the kids loved riding in it when they weren't on the big one. Will drove Katy around and around Meme's backyard. It was cute to watch them driving. At one point he even put his arm around her and was driving one handed. Katy had a lot of fun just letting him drive her. Her legs aren't quite long enough yet to reach the pedals, but she still gave it a good try.

It's time for bed

Katy did one of the cutest things she's ever done last night. Her bedtime routine is to get her pajamas on and then have a drink of milk while I hold her on the couch and then we go rock and sing a couple songs and then I put her down. Usually while she's drinking her milk, Donny and I are watching TV together. Well, last night, she finished drinking her milk and I guess I let her down to play - I don't remember how she got down (I guess I was a little too in to the show). Anyway, she had her blanket and she went walking down the hall towards her room and I thought she was going back to get a toy, but she stopped half way down the hall and came back saying something like "you comin'?" She was telling me that it was time for bed. It was so cute to see her snuggling her blanket while she asked me that, but at the same time it kind of made me feel like a bad mom because I didn't put her down early enough. She is so sweet and patient with her lame mom. Hopefully that won't happen too often. I absolutely love my snuggle time with her when I put her to bed. It's the only time she'll really snuggle with me. She snuggles with Donny in the mornings if she gets up before he has to leave and he really misses it if she's not up early enough. I don't want to give it up, but I know too soon she'll be grown up and too old to rock at bedtime. We'll savor every second of it while it lasts though.

Katy 18 mo. portraits

3 Firsts for Katy

Katy sitting around the campfire. She had her own chair, but mine was more comfortable I guess. :)

Katy getting ready to get in the boat

The end of last month we went camping with Donny's family and some friends. It was Katy's first time camping and I think it was the first time for most of the other kids as well. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it - we certainly did! Katy absolutely loved it! She ran and ran and ran. She loved having other kids to play with too. Robert's (a friend from work) daughter Gracie is three and she took it upon herself to be Katy's "babysitter." It was really cute to watch them walking around holding hands. I wish I could have gotten more pictures, but I forgot to charge the camera battery before we left, so I had to be really picky with the pictures I chose. It had been too long since we had been camping, and hopefully it won't be that long before we go again. We would love to get a camper, but that's probably a ways off for us. We bought a bigger tent for this campout so that it would fit the three of us and Brian. We didn't try to put it up before we went camping so it was a bit frustrating trying to figure it out. I think part of our problem was that we were on a camper site, so we couldn't stake our tent down. While we were setting it up we watched camper after camper go driving by and I was getting really jealous. I used to think that using a camper was cheating and not real camping, but now I have seen the light and think that's the way to go! I'm okay with cheating! :) Anyway, we finally got the tent up after a few choice words and some excellent ghetto-rigging by Donny. (It wasn't that bad, I'm mostly teasing) I think we'll like it better now that we know how to set it up. Katy loved it. She didn't want to come out. When we did get her to come out I took her down to the playground with Afton and Gracie to play for a while. Katy was having a great time climbing up the slide, until she slipped and fell down it instead. It was a little slide, but she got a bloody nose none the less. It was her first and I'm sure not her last. It was so sad. I've never dealt with that before, so I didn't really know what to do, but we got her cleaned up and she was fine in less than five minutes and ready to play again. I had to get a picture of that.

Katy's first bloody nose. She's scowling at me in the tent.

Katy also took quite an interest in the fire, which made us all really nervous. Meme and Papa especially kept saying to watch her around the fire. Logan was poking the fire with a stick and Katy thought that was really cool and kept trying to "help." I think that was the hardest part - keeping her occupied with something else instead of the fire. The next morning we tried to take Katy out on the paddle boats so Donny and Robert could do some fishing. She enjoyed it as long as we were moving, but once we stopped she wanted to get in the water. We had to paddle to shore to let me and Katy off and Donny took Al and Logan out instead. We tried her again when it was time to paddle back to the dock. She sat in the middle and grabbed hold of the steering knob and "helped." It probably would have made someone watching us from shore dizzy as much as we were going around. (I wanted to put the life jacket picture here, but it didn't work, so it's at the top)

So, it was trip with three firsts for Katy - her first camping trip, bloody nose and boat ride. What an exciting weekend! Needless to say, we were all very ready for bed when we got home Saturday night.

Easter

The Saturday before Easter, our primary had an Easter Activity and Easter Egg Hunt. Donny wasn't able to come to see Katy hunt the eggs, so we did one on Easter Sunday at our house with his family. Donny is holding Katy's basket. She absolutely loved it! She ran around the yard rubbing her hands together like this in between eggs.

Once the eggs opended and she saw the candy, that was all she was interested in. She'd stop and eat the candy right out of the grass. A little dirt never hurt anyone, right? I tried and tried to get an "action shot" but she's so fast, this is the best I could do. Easter was a lot of fun this year. We really enjoyed having Donny's family over. I can't wait until next year when Katy will be old enough to anticipate it!

I tried again this year to make Katy's dress, but things got piled up at the last minute and it didn't happen. Thank goodness for Meme (Donny's mom)! She bought Katy a couple of really cute dresses a couple of weeks before Easter, so I was able to use one of those for her Easter dress. Thanks Meme - you're a life saver! She was such a doll! But, I didn't get any pictures. What kind of mom am I?:) Maybe I'll still take pictures, and just pretend like they were taken on Easter Sunday.

Our Little Monkey

I came out from the back of the house one afternoon and this is what I saw. Katy had climbed up on the table and pulled a ziplock bag of pretzels out of the diaper bag and was sitting down to have a snack. How can I get mad at that face? She's so darn cute!