my last thing I wanted to get done...

my final sewing project I had planned to do yesterday I just finished up after work today. (the picture isn't great because kate is showing signs of a runny nose and she was about to go to bed.) daddy had dressed kate up so cute in her pink skirt and the pink headband I had planned was going to match perfectly so I whipped it up. piece of cake and so cute!! thanks for the idea miriam!!!

there aren't enough hours in the day

memorial day was a lot of fun. we had a bbq and swam for a really long time and kate loved it. but having a party day kind of stressed me out. here is my thinking: monday and tuesday are my work at home days. I do laundry and clean and shop and all those things that I need to get done (and then also scrapbook and sew and things I like to do too) before I go to real work on wednesday and thursday. so after a day of fun in the sun, all I had was tuesday to get everything done that I wanted.

so I did the cleaning and then laundry but I also got a few of my extras done:

I copy-catted my sister in law and put ribbon on my camera strap to jazz it up. I was really excited about how it turned out.

unfortunately I can't use my nice camera to take a picture of my nice camera so I had to use my little camera and it took me about 20 tries to get this even presentable picture. did that make sense?!

someone in our ward had a baby so I made this blanket for her. its kind of like the ones that kate loves except hers are done with a serger. it would have been SO much easier with a serger....someday!

I also had time to blow some bubbles with kate. it is so funny to see what she does that is a total copy of me that I don't even realize I do until she copies me. for example, apparently when I take the bubble stick out of the bubbles I make this face:

and then I blow. she does a really cute blow sound. yesterday when we were outside we passed the table where the bubbles are and she started making the blow sound. can that count as her first word?

and now I have to go to work. blogging was the only thing I didn't feel like i had time to do yesterday but I squeezed it in this morning. mark that off my list!

I begged and I pleaded (and yet)....

BEFORE: AFTER:

oh how I hate it!

LOST

oh my goodness! we just got done watching the LOST season finale! how many times can I cry in 2 hours? seriously!

kate and the dandelions

at bridal veil falls we found a patch of dandelions. kate LOVED them. she loved picking one and making blowing noises like her daddy. she never really quite got the hang of it, as you can see.

silly kate!

we're back!

its been forever since I've blogged but I've had a good reason...we went to utah this weekend! it was so fun to go back to provo and relive some of our college memories! we went for a wedding but had the most fun with our family!








here is kate with grandma pack! kate didn't really like anyone. I think it was a combo of lack of naps and out of her element. whatever it was, she only really let mommy and daddy hold her and play with her. which is a shame, because there were plenty of people who would have LOVED to love on kate!



she did get to spend some time with her cousins, gracie and ella. here is kate and gracie on the car ride home from salt lake! gracie thought it was fun to share her oreos with kate! gracie would lick the frosting from the inside and give kate the cookie part. pretty soon kate had about 20 oreo cookie parts in her lap!!









we turned around and kate had a huge glob of oreo coming out of her mouth... she's not quite advanced enough for oreos yet!

aunt natalie got a minute of happiness. we were so excited to see aunt natalie and get the scoop on her life directly! we sure are looking forward to meeting paul one of these days!

and auntie jen had some good kate time on sunday when we went to bridal veil falls for a picnic.

kate LOVED watermelon!

we sure love utah and we sure love our family!

happy mother's day to ME!!

I got an ipod for mother's day! ryan is such a stinker and caught me TOTALLY by surprise. he's really good at that...

I am so lucky!!

happy mother's day

my mom:





~is organized

~is good at planning things

~is whitty

~gave me curly hair

~is clean

~is always fun to run errands with

~is a great grammy

~loves baby toes

~taught me how to cook

~gave me my big butt

~has always taken really good care of her kids

~always made saturdays a chore day...I love cleaning saturdays now

~saves me when I just can't take it anymore

~has made me who I am today (for better and for worse!)



thanks mom!

saguaros

this morning we went on a hike up to tanque verde falls (which, of course, is nothing but stagnet water sitting in little pools until monsoon season at the end of the summer when the rains come!) we're lucky no one was there, though. you can see what kind of people go there from the sign.

(if you can't read it, it says "nudist area")

we're thinking about going on a long backpacking hike trip in the fall and we're wanting to make sure kate can handle it. today was short, but she did very well. she LOVES drinking from the camelback! everytime we stop she had her mouth wide open for it and the whole car ride back home she had it in her mouth! (hmmm....maybe she would drink her milk better if we put it in a camelback!!)

its going to be in the 100s today....kinda premature even for tucson...but there were still signs of spring around with the blooming cactus.


these are saguaro flowers:

aren't they pretty? they actually look kind of waxy in real life. they grow at the very tippy top of the huge saguaros.

can you see them?

what I like...

I like banana bread (with chocolate chips) over bananas

I like saving money over spending money (in theory)








I like spending money over saving money (in practice)







I like getting pedicures instead of doing them on myself

I like getting foot massages over giving them (ick)

I like staying home and playing with kate over working




I like cleaning teeth over the thought of doing anything else as a job

I like doing laundry over folding laundry







I like ANYTHING over washing dishes





I like working out at the gym over sleeping in








I like sleeping in over any other reason to wake up



I like sleeping in the car over driving



I like 9:00 am church over 1:00 pm church







I like chili's over cooking dinner







I like being pregnant over not






I like child birth over a burned thumb (okay, that one is probably rosey retrospect...but my thumb hurts NOW!)





I like 70 degrees over 100 degrees








I like swimming on hot days over staying indoors



I like vanilla over chocolate






I like listening to kate's laugh over anything else

graduation!

congrats to natalie and jeremy for graduating from wsu pharmacy school! we are excited for them and the things they have in their future! we wish we were all done with school!

and just look at my cute neices and nephews! go wsu!

summer is here!

we don't get a change of seasons very often down here in tucson (since we only have 2, nice and HOT) but its always fun when a season changes and recently its been really feeling like summer is here! so today we went out and enjoyed it! the pool is finally warm enough for kate to give it a try and boy did she love it! she got a little boat for her birthday and she was all over the pool! we are so excited to be swimming all summer long and we can't wait for auntie jen to get down here and swim with us! we sure love visitors! (hint hint!!) let the summer begin!

the results are in!

today we took kate to the doctor for her 12 month check up. she hated dr couchman and screamed the whole time (even though he's such a nice man!) it didn't help that the appointment ended with 2 shots!! ouch! but now that she is 1 she's allowed to do all sorts of things that we've been holding off on. one is eating strawberries, which I knew she would love!

she still isn't big enough to sit in her front facing car seat yet! she has to be 20 lbs for that. here are her stats:

18 lbs 5 oz (10th percentile)

30 1/4 inches (75th percentile)

she has been looking like so much of a chubby wubby that we thought for sure she would be up on the charts! no luck, but she's healthy and happy and we're glad we don't have to go back to the dr for 3 months!

baby moneybucks

today kate and I went down to the bank and started her very own savings account! the banker was really nice and impressed with how young she was. its never to early to teach how to save!

super model kate

I LOVE taking kate to the mall to get her pictures taken. I think its so much fun that I've done it once a month since she was born. today was one of those "life sure was easier when she wasn't on the move" moments. we finally had to resort to putting her in a box so she couldn't crawl away!

lucky for us she loved it in the box so we got some cute pictures! the whole time we were trying to get her to tell us how old she was and so we got this cute one...

kate, how old are you?!

what a smartie pants! thanks to the picture people, I have a whole album of these!