Hard Head

So tonight Matt is working and I was talking to Catch telling him I was worried about Kate pretending to be a ballerina spinning around because I was worried she would bust her head open. His response to me..."Mommy, her head is too hard to bust open! All you will have to do is hug her." Ha. Made me smile because sometimes she is a little hard headed. I try to say she is confident and knows what she wants and that will be an advantage to her when she grows up.

So here they are. I am hoping Spiderman will save my ballerina from really busting her head wide open. Aren't they cute though!!!

Feeding the Ducks

So yesterday Catch, Kate and I went out to Wesleyan College to feed the ducks. I so wish I had had my camera with me. Such a fun time together. Catch got to taste honeysuckles for the first time. He loved that. It always amazes me that he will venture out to try something like that, yet will not even think about trying a new food I have put on his plate. And oddly enough, Kate, who will try anything I put on her plate, would not even think about putting the honeysuckle in her mouth. She just looked at us both like we had lost our minds.

The part where I wished I had my camera was when we made it to the pond and got out the bread. I handed Catch a piece to feed to the ducks and I handed Kate a piece to hand to the ducks. Catch did the normal tearing his into pieces and giving it to the ducks. Well, I looked back at Kate and she has climbed up on this bench overlooking the pond and had both her cute chubby hands wrapped around her bread eating it herself. I died laughing, then tears welled up in my eyes at the simple joys kids have. I wish I could capture moments like that and imprint them in head forever. I love the differences in my children and getting to know them each day. So I am selfishly writing this post in hopes that since I did not have my camera, this post will bring back the image to memory.

Strawberry Picking

So today we went strawberry picking with Mimi. I love going to the strawberry patch and eating and picking the strawberries. I have taken Catch the last three years now in hopes that he would fall in love with strawberries if he got to pick them right off the plant. Well so far my hopes have not been fulfilled. However this year, I got to take Kate too. She joined right along with me in making a big juicy mess out of strawberry eating/picking. She loved loved loved them. She just wanted to sit down in the middle of the rows and let you feed her strawberries. She was sticking whole gigantic strawberries in her mouth all at one time. Pure joy in her mind...mine too!

We got there, got our three buckets(one for me and Kate, one for Catch, and one for Mimi). Catch and Mimi were having a competition to see who could pick the biggest juiciest strawberry there was. Kate and I were there mainly just to eat the strawberries and enjoy the weather. We picked and picked until our buckets were full. We headed back and paid for our berries and set up a picnic under the shade tree there. What a wonderful peaceful day we had. Thanks Mimi for coming and sharing that with us.






Dont you just want to squeeze Kate with all the personality coming out!

Happy 4th Birthday Catch

I can't believe my little boy is 4. Where does time go. He is growing up to be such a fine young little man. I feel blessed every time I look at him. He is the cutest thing I have ever since(besides his daddy of course). As a matter of fact, he looks just like his daddy. I am thinking he has also inherited his daddy's personality and humor too. I think God was trying to lighten me up a little when He added these two men to my life. I can still remember when Catch was two years old and he walked into the living room and looked at me wearing a cleansing face mask and with a straight face said "You look goooood mama!" and then walked away. So funny!

Catch is a great friend. When I see the qualities he has when he interacts with his friends, it makes me praise God for his kind gentle nature. He thinks of those around him better than himself(most of the time anyways) and he loves loves loves his friendships, always asking me, "What friend are we going to see today?"

He loves his family too. On Saturday before his actual birthday on Monday, we had our family over to celebrate. He was so excited Friday night that the poor child could not go to sleep until around midnight. He just couldn't wait to see his family and have them come here and celebrate and eat cake with him. Speaking of cake, Catch walked into the office one day and asked me what I was doing and I told him I was planning his birthday party food. He told me he wanted a Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing and a Big Monster Truck on it. I tried to deliver and I think Catch loved it.


We had a great time playing with the family for his birthday. On his actual birthday, we had a full day of celebrating. First, we had some friends meet at the park after preschool to hang out and play. It was beautiful weather and I think everyone had a great time. The gift opening part was a mad house though....I even heard Catch say once "Aren't I suppose to open these gifts?"

We then came home and tried to rest for a little bit and some of our favorite friends came by to celebrate some more with us...Matty and Ben Hulbert. We love the Hulberts and Catch was so excited for them to come up on his birthday and play outside with him. We all went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant(Catch's favorite) to end the day. Thank you everyone for making such a special birthday for him. He is well loved. Happy Birthday Catch. Love you. Mom
I think Catch's favorite food in the world is what he calls hot cheese dip. Looks like they are enjoying it to me!
He got lots of hotwheels things this birthday and we have enjoyed the world out of them.
The birthday gift opening frenzy!
Poor Catch, maybe one day he will not be one of the smallest. Thanks to his friend Lane for trying to help him out!

One of Catch's greatest joys in life.....his cousins.
Present time...what do you think Dagz is trying to get into!
Wonder what he is thinking here?

Here is the road we built for his hotwheels party. Kate had enjoyed it.

Catch's Way of Thinking

So we were swinging on the playground the other day with some kids and they were talking about the season and how it was spring. They talked for a while and Catch was quiet and then all the sudden he said "And yeah then it will be summer and then fall and that means football season will be here!" I love that boy and all things about him. I love that he loves sports and I mean loves sports. He gets so excited each week when a new Sports Illustrated Magazine shows up in our mailbox....He can't wait to go to bed that night and thumb through the pages that he can't read. He reads pictures though and that is enough for him. Every time we read him any kids book about Georgia football, he tells us of his dreams of going there one day in person and watching a game. I am not kidding when I say he talks about these things with a passion. I am so curious to see how this passion plays out in his future.

I know I say this over and over, but I just feel it so much.....I am so so blessed to be the mother of these two children. I really find so much joy, wonder, excitement, amazement, and curiosity in them. I can't get enough. Again, thank you God for giving them to me as a gift to take care of. I know they belong to you, but what a blessing it is to know them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day. We had a great day today. Catch has asked me all week to make sure I put him in something green because he did not want to get pinched at school. He was so worried about it, but was thrilled when he woke up this morning and I put a green shirt on him. You could see the relief come over his face. It was a fun day though. After I picked him up from preschool, I decided to treat him and Kate to a giant cookie to celebrate. It is fun being a mom and getting to see your children light up over the smallest things.

Sweet Kate

Not too much to blog about right now, so I thought I would just upload a few new pictures of Kate. She is 17 months old here. She loves her big brother and wants to be just like him most of the time. : )


Kate with Catch's helmet on.
Playing bubbles, so sweet.
Kate loves brushing her teeth(with anyone's toothbrush, so never leave one in reach if you are here visiting with us.). This is where I find her often and she just says over and over again....teeth, teeth, teeth. At least she has good hygiene.

Snow Day

Snow Day!!!!!! What a great day today was. Daddy was home because school was canceled for him(we love for daddy to be home), Mimi came to visit in the hopes we would have some snow to play in, Catch got to go to school and have his Valentine's Party and he was the helper(thank goodness for that, he has been waiting so patiently, asking me daily when he would be the helper at school), and last but not least, in this run on sentence......it snowed!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had such a fun time in the snow. You know it doesn't snow that often here when I told Catch earlier in the day it was going to snow and he almost cried because he thought that meant another day we had to stay inside instead of going outside to play. Little did he know, playing in the snow is so much fun. He made snow angels, we had snowball fights, and we made baseballs out of the snow and used our arms as bats. We play snow football, made snowballs for dagz to jump up and catch, and best of all, we made a snowman, a real one, where we got to roll the snow to form the body. It was so much fun. The snow falling was thick and so beautiful to see. Catch had a great time, while Kate I am afraid was just a little too young to understand being that cold could be that much fun. She was a sport though, coming back out a second time in the day to check things out.

As much fun as Catch, Matt, Mimi and Myself had, I think Dagz had the most fun of anyone, which is the most surprising. This is our sweet water dog who hates to go outside if it is raining, or has been raining, or if dew is on the ground, etc. He would rather just hold it than go out in rain/wet, but that was not the case with the snow. He really did bring a smile to my heart watching him run through the snow, eat the snowballs we were throwing to him, and try and play football with us. He was in pure joy/delight that day!

We enjoyed the day until it was too dark to see, ensuring to Catch that the snow would be there tomorrow for us to play with. When we woke up the next morning, Catch was very eager to get out and play some more before it melted away. And that is just what we did. Again, having snowball fights, games etc. Then Mimi and I decided we needed to create a slead for him to go down our very small slope in the backyard. All we could find was a box to slide on, but it worked perfectly. Catch loved it and also loved seeing Mimi and me give it a go too. Snow days are fun. I will say, I am glad I do not live where it snows often, but I welcome it ever now and again.
Kate taking in the view.
Catch loves to make snow angels!
Our poor snow man the next morning, kinda leaning over wishing he were inside with us getting warm! HAHA.
Daddy and Catch building the snow man.
The backyard.
Are we up for this....Kate is not so sure!
Catch loved playing on the slide in the snow. He didn't care it was soaking his pants.
Dagz having the time of his life.

A Few Reason to Live/Love/Laugh

Short post today, but I want this so I can be reminded later of memories that may tend to be forgotten. My kids really bring such great joy to me. Here are a few things I just can't get enough of.
Catch wearing his Georgia jersey everywhere, all the time.....and I am not kidding, all the time. He wears it everyday(switching back and forth between the red and the black one, preferring the black one, # 2.4. he calls it). I am sure his teachers at preschool think we own no other piece of clothing, as do his friends and family. He even sleeps in it.

• I love that Kate's new phrase is "oh baby" She says it all the time. She may say it when she almost runs into a wall, when she drops something, really for any reason at all. It is the funniest thing to hear that come out of my 15 months old mouth. So sweet. Catch's phrase at that age was "Oh yeah".
  
• I love that Catch tries to hug and kiss Kate all the time and sometimes she is for it and sometimes she is not, but he doesn't care....he loves her all the same, whether she takes his hugs and kisses or not. Sweetest boy I have ever met, he will have such a lucky wife one day!
• I love catching Kate dancing, and Catch too for that matter. They have some boggie in their pants and it lights up my day to see them enjoy music so much.
  
• Loving lately to hear Catch say "And a 1,2,3,4" and then start drumming on the Rock Band drum set. What a little rocker I have.
  
• Seeing Kate exercise with me has been quite the laugh lately too. She just looks up at the t.v. and starts walking in place super fast and lifts her arms up and down. She is so proud of herself for exercising with mommy. I truly laugh out loud when she gets those sweet legs moving faster than she can keep up with.
  

There are so many more things and I want to do better about keeping them in written word so I don't forget them later. My children may age me and give me gray hair and wrinkles, but at least my wrinkles will be laugh lines that will remind me of the joy they brought me. Ha!

Christmas 2009

Ok, so it is mid-January, I mean late January and I am just now posting our Christmas pictures. Life...where does the time go. Anyways, Christmas was a blast this year. We had such a great time with the kids, seeing their joy from even the smallest thing. I will say, moments like these make me want more kids. The joy that they have with each other and for each other was really overwhelming to me.

Well, this was the first year we didn't travel during Christmas break. I was so excited because I finally got to cook the big Christmas dinner. If any of you know me well(which if you are reading this blog, you do), I love to cook many different things and I love to cook in large quantities. Moments like these are the best times to do that, and I was in heaven. Thanks family for coming to us this year, we had a great Christmas day with you.

Back to the kids...or rather the night before Christmas. Let me just say first, I have a great husband who knows me and loves me for all my shortcomings, i.e. he had to finish wrapping all the gifts, and decorate the gifts from Santa. I just had lost all steam at about 9pm and he picked up the slack without a thought of it. Thanks Matt, I love you.

So Christmas morning was so much fun. The kids got up basically at the same time(I will say I am enjoying the days where the excitment of Santa doesn't wake my kids up at 4am.) They slept till 7 and did the normal come to mama's room and tell us goodmorning. When Catch said goodmorning he had practically forgotten it was Christmas until I said "Catch do you know who came last night to see you?" He said in his sweet voice "I think it was Santa, is he waiting for me in the living room?"

This year Catch got a bike from Santa and Kate got a table and chairs and a tea set. The funny thing was that instead of noticing the big bike sitting in the middle of the room, Catch notices the small GEORIGA baseball hat tucked up under the tree. For those of you around Catch much, this seems very logical due to his obession with Georgia football. It was very funny though. Kate immediately walked over to her table and sat down. She loved it and the tea set and has used them everyday since Christmas. It was truly a great day just enjoying the kids and having such wonderful gifts in them to love on each day. Oh, So thankful. Below are some pictures from the day and some video.

Besides the bike, this over the door basketball hoop has been Catch's absolute favorite. He plays tons of it and when I have to tell him to stop, he says "But mom, I have to get my exercise!"

Loves to talk just like her mama.
Finally, the excitement about his bike.
Kate also got a music player. She and Catch love it.
Watch out!
Isnt' that the sweetest smile evee!


Dagz enjoyed the day too. He really can put a smile on your face when he gets so excited about a new bone or toy. The best dog in the world!