Breaking News: Katie is FOUR!

Katie’s excitement has been building up for a while, now. A lover of birthday parties, she began the countdown around January when the string of our friends’ fourth birthdays began. When I say a “lover of birthdays”, I don’t mean just a kid who enjoys going to parties and having her own…it is her favorite subject and her favorite game to play. Whether she’s playing with her Melissa and Doug birthday cake set, playing with her Little People birthday set, stealing Timmy’s baby/christening gift bags to “make me presents,” or singing “Happy Birthday” just because, it’s clear that Katie loves a good birthday party.

Her 4th birthday has been a common topic in our bedtime chats. I’ve regularly begged her not to get bigger and to stay 3 forever and she always seriously told me, “No mommy, I HAVE to be 4. I have to get big. I need to be big so I can have a baby in my belly…10 babies.” She already has her entire life planned out. She is going “to be a doctor so she can help all the sick kids who need help to get better.” She plans to marry her Daddy when she is a grown-up…or maybe her cousin Adam.
Everything is “so cool” now…and “awesome”. Barbies have taken over our home! I’ve tried to put that off for awhile now. For the last 6 months, everytime we have been in Target and I have taken her over to the toys to complete my bribe for her good behaviour, she has begged for Barbies. I’ve said no for a while because she has a great Fisher Price Twin-Time doll house with just about every piece of furniture made and I didn’t want her to stop playing with that already. But, I gave in last week. Her first Barbie was a veterinarian Barbie….and between her birthday party presents and using some of the gift certificates she got for her birthday she now has 4 Barbies, a Barbie mermaid falls/swing, and a Barbie house.

Katie continues to be a great big sister. She loves Timmy as much as the first time she saw him and has adjusted wonderfully. She still goes to gymnastics classes at the Little Gym and is taking her first dance class this summer. She is really excited to start soccer this fall. She loves school and has already cried herself to sleep twice because she’s so sad that she doesn’t get to see her teachers during summer break and she “misses them so much.”

Katie is still on an anti-vegetable kick although she did gag down some broccoli last night (in exchange for a popsicle) and didn’t realize when I snuck some shredded carrot into her beef and macaroni the other day. Her favorite food is “meat”, particularly mini hotdogs/corndogs, chicken nuggets, and lunchmeat. Her favorite tv shows are all things Nick Jr, but she also has some PBS favorites like Martha Speaks, Clifford, Curious George, Wordgirl, and Sid the Science Kid. Just a year ago, she would watch nothing except Playhouse Disney! She had a Max and Ruby birthday party this past Saturday. She loves to play Memory, Hide and Seek, and Duck, Duck, Goose. She has moved on from her long-time obsession with “blue” and has altogether changed her favorite color to pink.

We’re having an issue with clothes and after our Disney trip this past April, Katie refuses to wear any form of jeans or any shorts/pants that have a zipper. So nice that this happened AFTER I bought all her spring and summer clothes. She still LOVES rides (the bigger and scarier the better!) and after her first trip to Sahara Sams, a local indoor water park, about a month ago, it’s all she talks about.(It’s painful because we drive past it twice a week to go to speech class.) For her birthday today, just she and I are going to go to the rides and outdoor Water Park at Clementon Lake Park. She is pretty lucky because her height has always allowed her to go on the “thrill rides” she prefers. She is about 43/44 inches right now and about 48 lbs. Thank goodness we have a pool because she has been in it every day since the weather has warmed up and she swims like a fish (well, a fish that wears swimmies).

So, the countdown began and yesterday I kept telling her things like, Katie this is the last time you will be 3, the last time you will wake up as a 3 year old, the last time you will go to night-night as a 3 year old and she was thrilled. This morning she rushed into my bedroom like it was Christmas morning proud to exclaim, “Mom, I’m FOUR years old!!!!” I was afraid she might be a little disappointed because from some conversations we’ve had, I was afraid she thought she was going to wake up as a grown up. And although she’s not “grown”, I miss my baby! I can handle four, though. Now five…I don’t even want to think about that, yet. I need a year to prepare myself…

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Friday Foto Fiesta - A Warning

For this installment of Friday Foto Fiesta sponsored by Candid Carrie: Lock up your daughters because the charm has been unleashed.

Have I mentioned that he is a prodigy? He may not be able to roll over yet, but at 8 weeks old he already loves to sit on momma's lap and type away on the keyboard :)

Oh, and don't feel left out if you only have son(s)...but, I guess I'd probably need to be begging you to lock THEM up. What do you get when you ask a 3 year old who just got a haircut if you can take her picture?...SURE MOMMY!...

Is it just a natural girl thing to know how to pose like that and how has she already learned it at THREE YEARS OLD?!?! I noticed today that she actually has six-pack abs, no more baby fat there (not that she really had any...but she never had a six-pack either). Poor girl does have my thighs though. LOL, I say that and then look at these pics again...yeah, my thighs look JUST like that :)

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A Busy Day of Firsts (belated)

We've had a quite a busy last few days, so I haven't had a chance to update, but Saturday was a day of lots of firsts for Katie.

As usual, Katie woke up about an hour before I was ready for her to wake up. I told her she could go downstairs and put a DVD on...this usually keeps her busy for some time. Chris was also up getting ready to go into work at the same time. WELL, and what a shame I was too mad at the time to take any pictures, she decided that watching tv/playing nicely was not on the agenda. The previous day we went shopping at Michael's and bought LOADS of foam sticker supplies for some craft projects. Katie LOVES creating these projects. I also bought some dot art paint sticks. Everything was on the top shelf in our very large activity cabinet. So, my little evil genius decided that her new chairs from IKEA would make a wonderful stepstool to get whatever she wanted to play with. When I came down there were foam stickers EVERYWHERE...dumped out inside her easel tray, all over the floor and table, and STUCK all over both sides of her easel (thank goodness for Goo Gone)! She even had paint all over her hands and brand new gymboree stretch pants (thank goodness it's washable and came out fine). UGH!!!!! Later that night I realized I should have taken pictures...but too late. She did, at least, do an excellent job helping to clean up. Here is an example of her artistic abilities...LOL...I meant to post yesterday for Magic Marker Mondays - but just didn't get to it. I've been getting a few of these gorgeous finished projects on a daily basis now. Am I the luckiest mom or what? You know you're jealous :)

Next we went to gymnastics at the Little Gym and stopped on the way home at the Amish farmer's market to get some fresh natural dinner and all natural pretzel dogs. YUM!!!

I had been thinking about getting Katie's haircut for a about a week and after nap we headed out for Katie's FIRST haircut...can you believe it? She's 3 year's old and has never had a haircut. It's amazing how much her hair has grown in just one year. It was short for SO long and when it did grow in, was so short on the sides that I wanted to wait until it was longer on the sides to trim. First we went to Hair4kids. Got there at 3:15 only to find out it closed at 3. Then we went a town over to Kidkuts - got there at 3:30..,sign said it was open till 4, but it was also CLOSED...grrr! I tried to talk Katie into waiting until the next morning, but she was so excited and emphatic she get it then... so we headed over to The Hair Cuttery. She was SUCH a good girl. She was thrilled to get a wash, cut AND blowdry/style and even more thrilled to get a lollipop when she was all done. Check out our pics. On the last page, you can click on the individual pics for a closeup and related comments. She wound up getting 2 inches cut off on the back and getting the sides trimmed and angled a bit to blend into the back better.

After Daddy got home from work, Katie played in the driveway with her basketball net and pulled out the big girl Dora bike with training wheels that Katie got for her birthday from Grammi and Pop-pop. For her 3rd birthday they got her a Dora scooter AND a bike, but since the bike has been too big - we've had it in the garage. (Below pics are from her birthday party.)

Well, she had no problems on the bike Saturday and rode down the sidewalk like an old expert.

They sure grow up fast!!!!

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