Miss Katelyn

These have become my newest favorite pictures of Katelyn. For those that are reading this and don't know about her, Katelyn is a pretty happy child. But she has a lot of fears. We think alot of it is herself psyching herself out about it and because she's young she doesn't understand how to stop doing that. She gets it from me, I know I do this at times and I did it as a child too. Well one of the things she was a bit worked up over was swimming. I think some of it stems from when she had an allergic reaction to the combo of sunblock getting in her eyes and then chlorine from the pool water. She was just a baby but it was horrible. Her eyes swelled up and they were red and they hurt her. Freaked us out big time. So she's been a bit leary in the water. Esp when it comes to sunblock and getting her head in the water. Even jumping freaked her out.

So we were at my parent's house on July 5th. She was still a bit leary. But she saw all of us adults doing jumps and cannonballs and gosh knows what else that you should NOT do once you hit 25 (can you say "traction"? yeah we were all sore for days after, LOL!). Not even a week later, I took the girls back out just to swim. I get them all suited up and I turn around and Katelyn is doing this cannonball into the water like she's been doing it for years. I had to grab my camera. The look of sheer happiness on her face in that one shot is the best! Gone are all those fears of the water. She's arrived! She's happy! See her fly!

Children's Museum

Last Friday, aunt Kathy came to hang out with her favorite nieces. :) We went to the La Habra Children's Museum to have some fun.

We found some footprints and went dinosaur hunting.

We found a dinosaur.

The girls rode a dinosaur.

Katelyn became a firefighter.

Laura tamed a wild horse
and wrangled a blue cow.

Katelyn roared back at the lion on our nature walk
and became friends with a Canadian moose, he said his name was Bullwinkle but who knows.

The girls became butterflies and flew around the garden.

And then they became explorers and looked for bugs.

Thanks for hanging out with us Kathy! We had a great time!

Pile On Papa!

I've been lucky to have lived close to where my dad works since I got married. It just worked out that way. When it was just me, we started meeting for lunch once every few months. I'd go to his office and pick him up and then we'd go to one of a few local restaurants. Later when Katelyn was born it became once a month.

Then he switched office locations. That was cool, we temporarily moved in with them anyhow. But we found a place to rent.......like 5 minutes from his new office. I told him we planned it that way. LOL! Not really, but it's fun to joke about. Laura came along shortly after and Katelyn was enrolled in preschool. Dad started coming twice a month because sometimes he couldn't come on days when Katelyn was there.

And somehow it's evolved into every week. Fine with me. Free lunches! Typically it involves McD's now. But sometimes we go to Round Table Pizza or a local Hawaiian food place called The Loft. But mostly McD's and he'll bring it to our place.

The visit starts off with him and his "it's the boogey man!" and making the girls scream when they forget he's coming and get scared. And the visits almost always end in a game of pile on papa. He loves it and so do they. Laura esp loved it last year when she got papa all to herself when Katelyn was in school. It's going to be a sad day when she starts school....no more papa lunches. But I'll still have them. But I promise not to jump all over him. hahaha!

Happy 4th of July!

We hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July! Since we have rented the house we live in now, we host a bbq here each year. Normally we have more people over but this year only a few were able to make it. That's okay. We still had fun. If you're ever in southern Cali for the 4th of July, head on over! Esp if you love water fights. That's our other annual tradition. Get soaked to keep cool. After we eat, anyone in the backyard still sitting is fair game. Even the kids who visit the neighbors come over for the water fight fun. Adults, kids, we all join in. Here's some photos so you can share in our fun day too.
Laura posing in the outfit she's worn for the 4th for the last three years. She's so skinny still that she's managed that.
Katelyn in the outfit she picked out. I tried to pick out something a bit more patriotic but she said she didn't want to look like a dork. So she picked out the red, white and blue glitter star shirt.

Clark sitting down for the water fight. That's just one of our water guns. We have at least one that's even bigger than that. The bigger the better when it comes to water fights is our motto.

My father-in-law Rick played his ukele for us. He has some fun songs. I'll have to figure out how to get video on here to share one of the songs I got on video.

Soon it was time for fireworks. While Clark got things set up on our end, we watched the next door neighbors do theirs.

Laura started standing on her head in excitement every time she saw the fireworks. I have no clue why but it was funny.

While Laura stood on her head, Katelyn did the "firework dance" which included some type of hula in it.

Now this is pure genious on my part! When Clark started doing our fireworks Laura was just way to curious and kept wiggling out of my arms to get closer. So I took the car seat out of the van, stuck it on top of a chair and strapped that girl in. She still got to watch them and I didn't have to worry about her bolting into the fireworks.

Clark had a little help with lighting them. Our friends' son Jacob stayed to hang out. He got to be the helper this year. He had a blast. I took him home after.

This is where Katelyn watched ours from....the neighbor's truck. She thought our grass was too close so she jumped in their truck.

Fireworks and bottled root beer (IBC)....what better thing is there than this? :)

Jacob and the giant sparkler

So that was our 4th. We hope you all had good ones as well.

Growing up is hard

There comes a time in our lives when we all need to grow up.

Today Laura took a big step towards that thanks to her parents and boy is mad.

The changing table that got us through 2 kids was slowly falling apart. Screws missing, 2 storage shelves that never did fit in place from the day it was put together, a support bar falling off this week, changing pad being destroyed by cats with claws and above mentionned toddler with fingers. I wish I could say the changing table had seen better days but in reality we should have exchanged it 6 1/2 years ago cause it was a lemon from the very start. hahaha!

Katelyn was never that attached to it.

But Laura.........she has been alternating between crying and giving us the cold shoulder because we put it out with the trash. (trash day is Monday for us) And the horrors when someone with a pick up truck drove by and was checking out large items out. Poor kid about had a heart attack when she was them touching the changing table. Banging on the window, "Noooo my changing table! Miiiiinnnnneeee!"

And to think this is the same child that weaned from nursing cold turkey on her own at 12 1/2 months and gave up the pacifier pretty easy too.

A changing table......who would have thought she'd have an attachment to the changing table.

Poor Laura....growing up is hard.

Happy Father's Day

So this post is a day late. But it was just one of those days when I didn't get around to it. But I wanted to dedicate this to the dad's in our life because yesterday was Father's Day.

To my father-in-law Rick.....for being the calm one and the spiritual example the girls can look up to.


To my dad, John, who goes along with all my crazy ideas on fun family activities for the girls. And for the free lunches each week. :)

To the Best Dad, Hands Down! And feet down too! My husband, Clark. Thanks for being such a great husband and father.
I just had to get a close up of this......I bought this for Father's Day 2006 and the girls helped. Katelyn did her hand prints and Laura was just a little baby still and it was easier to do her feet. We compared them today. My how they've grown since then.

And this is what the daddy and 6 1/2 year old does when mommy takes a nap after church. They play with mommy's camera. They are lucky they didn't take one of me too. LOL!

Laura tired out. Being in nursery is very tiring you know.

Katelyn took this
Clark too this

Friday Fun

Katelyn's school had an end of the year camp out. She wanted papa John to go with her and later daddy too. It's just one night. They left a little after 4 p.m. on Friday and headed to the school. As soon as the tent was up, Katelyn claimed one room of the 3 room tent as her very own. Papa didn't tell her that when he and grandma Sunny camp, they use that room as the porta potty room, LOL! A girl in one of her kindergarden classes was two tents down. Because Katelyn had no baby sister along, Silvana came and joined Katelyn alot. Guess she got tired of her own baby brother. She even stayed in their tent more than half the night til she missed her family. But as soon as the sun came up she was right back in the tent with Katelyn. Too funny! Here they are watching Indian dancers that were part of the evenings entertainment. She had a lot of fun and thanks to my dad for being a good sport and going when his oldest granddaughter asked. You rock dad!

And what did Laura do while big sis and daddy were away? Well daddy helped blow up her pool before he left and she went swimming. She looks a lot like me at this age in this picture.

She was loving her pool.

And yes when I turned my back for a brief second she got nakey. Decided that skinny dipping was much more fun than wearing a suit. I think my mom has a picture of me doing the exact same thing at this age. So like mother, like daughter. hahaha!