Day 94

Finally 5 months after her birthday, the clothes Kaitlyn was given as gifts are beginning to fit. (This shirt was a gift from my co-worker Erik - handmade by his wife.) Her hair is getting longer as well and we decided to try using clips to hold it out of her face, instead of the pig tails. It looked super cute, but according to the ladies at day care she kept pulling out the clips. By the end of the day, it was back in pig tails.

Day 93

As the day comes to a close, I realized that I hadn't taken a photo yet. So I went for the classic Sleeping Baby photo. Okay, so maybe "classic" isn't the right word. But I love the way she sprawls out taking up as much space a possible. And that hair . . .

Day 92

I finished 16 pages, assembled Kaitlyn's Year Two album and completed a couple of mini-albums. So all in all, it was quite a successful weekend. I can't wait until the next one in June!

Day 91

We spent all day Friday & Saturday working on our scrapbooks - with breaks for Costco, Michael's and food. While we worked we listened to 80s music and tried to remember the names of all the artists. We stayed up into the wee hours of the night and thanks to the "no children" factor, I was able to sleep in until 10:00 each morning. Oh the joy . . .

Day 90

Hair design by Daddy -
With Mom away for three whole nights, Daddy was left to fix Kaitlyn's hair. Friday morning Dad successfully made two pigtails and had her hair completely out of her eyes. That definitely deserves an "A" for effort.

Day 89

Scrapbooking Weekend - no husbands or children allowed.

Annie, Genevieve & I drove down to Bend to help Liz celebrate her birthday and to have a Ladies Only Weekend. As a birthday present, Liz's husband took her two kids to Portland to visit his parents.

After dinner (and a few drinks . . .), we put our jammies on and set up our scrapbooking tables so all would be ready Friday morning.

Day 88

Looking at this picture, one might think that Parker is coming down the slide. However, he is a little wary of "tunnel" type slides and won't go down them by himself (he says they are "too dark", but he'll go down them with Mom). So instead he climbs up the slide backwards, but only as far as he can still see the bottom.

Day 87

Every morning Parker gets a Flintstones vitamin . . . and every morning he manages to get Flintstones vitamin drool all over his lips. As the red ones are his favorites, many a morning it looks like he's wearing lip gloss . . .

Day 86

Parker was sitting on the kitchen counter when he noticed the pile of Les' Monopoly games. He knew they were Les' games, so he asked "When I get big, can I play with Daddy's games?" I responded, "Yes, when you get big." So he promptly stood up on the counter, put his hands in the air and shouted "I'm big!"

Once again proving that he is too smart for my own good.

Day 85

Kaitlyn got her first Barbie doll from Santa this year for Christmas. She has just started to be interested in carrying it around. She hasn't quite graduated to pretend play with Barbie yet, but I am sure that will be right around the corner.

Day 84

We finally had to get a third car seat so that we could drive the one of the kids in the Grand Am (I hate moving the car seats back and forth because I can never get them tight enough). And we still had the box saved from the last car seat we bought. So the kids spent all weekend playing in the fort they made out of the boxes. If you look closely you can see Kaitlyn's arm peaking out in the right hand box . . . they each got to have their own "room."

Day 83

Parker always likes it when Carrie comes over in the evening, because she always lets him help her cook. (I like it when Carrie comes over in the evening, because she likes cooking and is good at it . . . and sometimes she lets me help too.) What Parker doesn't realize, is that somehow it always works out that he is asleep by the time the brownies are ready. Oh, but I am sure he will catch on soon enough.

Day 82

Both kids stayed home sick because they were running a slight a fever, Les snapped this shot of them napping together on the couch.

Day 81

Parker's version: McDonald Duck

Grayson's version: Old McDonald's

Actual Name: McDonald's

Whatever it is actually called, every time we drive past Parker asks if we can go to McDonald Duck with Grayson. Because of all the times I have put him off, he now usually says: "Later, after my nap."

I like this picture because it is probably accurately showing the future. Kaitlyn is chasing Parker and Grayson because she wants to play too. But they keep moving just out of her reach . . . Don't worry Kaitlyn, one day you'll have boys chasing you.

Day 80

My most favorite picture of the kids together is of them last St. Patrick's Day wearing their shamrock shirts. I tried to recreate the magic this St. Paddy's Day, but Parker wasn't cooperating. I got several lovely shots of Parker screaming and crying his eyes out. Oh well, I did manage to get this adorable shot of Kaitlyn.

Day 79

"Parker . . . Hey Parker . . . PARKER!!" Yeah, good luck trying to get his attention. In the morning after he eats his breakfast, we will put a movie on in the car on the way to work. Since Les and I cannot bear to listen to Bug's Life one more time, Parker has now graduated to using the head phones. (Poor Kaitlyn, must be confused because she thinks the soundtrack to every Disney movie is Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, Dave Matthews Band . . . Miley Cyrus . . .). So once Parker has his head phones on and his sucker in - there is little chance of getting him to so much as blink.

Day 78

This is your living room:

This is your living room with kids:


Any questions?

Day 77

Just another lazy Saturday spent hanging out in our jammies . . . Parker & I built this Lincoln Log house for Mickey Mouse. He did most of the building himself, he just needed help adding doors and windows. We eventually had to move to the dining room table because Kaitlyn kept trying to eat all the Lincoln Logs. (I guess paper comes from wood, so it would make sense that she'd want to eat them. I can't wait until she grows out of her "eat anything paper" phase.)

Day 76

It's hard to believe that Kaitlyn is big enough to be drinking unassisted from a drink box. Well, she did squirt quite a bit of it down her front, but she got very upset when I tried to hold it for her. This is definitely falls under the heading of "I want to do everything my big brother does."

Day 75

We are slowing introducing the concept of potty training to Parker. We've had a couple of successes (if you can count peeing on your socks successful . . .). However, most of my attempts end up with him playing on and around the toilet instead of using it. He really likes to flush!

Day 74

Here's Kaitlyn at daycare, she's wearing her first pair of big girl shoes. Hard soles and Velcro straps. Unfortunately she's a little unstable in them, as they are quite a bit heavier than she's used to, and she fell over on the way to the door.

Day 73

The kids' backpacks are another part of the evening routine. Blankets? Spare Clothes? Check. Ready for the lunch bags in the morning? Check.

Kaitlyn recently upgraded from a diaper bag to her Minnie Mouse backpack. It's far too large for her to actually wear and if it has anything at all in it, she tips over backwards. But Parker's was the same way and now he is big enough to wear it. Oh, how time flies . . .

Day 72

Parker was still not feeling well so he stayed home from daycare. Les stayed home with him and the two of them spent the morning working on their laptops together on the couch.

Day 71

As Parker was drawing this on the wall of the bathtub, he was telling me who everyone was. Les is one big giant head because Parker said he was "Big." The small scribbles between Kaitlyn and Dad is Missy the dog. I am not sure why he colored Kaitlyn blue, but he spent a lot of time coloring her in. This is Parker's first drawing of the family :)

Day 70

So we spent Saturday afternoon hunting down some more geocaches on the coast near Netarts. This picture is Carrie writing in the log book of the cache we found up a rocky outcropping near Cape Meares. We were able to make it back to the car just as it started hailing - which sums up nicely how we were able to dodge the bad weather all day.

Day 69

On the way to the coast for a weekend get-a-way without Les or the kids, Carrie, Mindy and I stopped to find a geocache (What is geocaching? wikipedia says "Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game in which the participants use a GPS device to hide and seek containers or "caches" hidden anywhere in the world.") Our hunt led us to this nearly vertical boat launch into the Wilson River. I'd probably driven past this site hundreds of times and never knew it was there. One of the things I like most about geocaching is that the hunt always seems to to led me somewhere really cool and interesting that I never knew was in my own backyard.

Day 68

Kaitlyn is currently in a "I want to do whatever Parker is doing" phase. So as we were getting dinner ready, both the kids were sitting on the coffee table, drinking juice and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Every time Parker would take a drink, so would Kaitlyn. Then they'd start swinging their legs in unison. It was pretty cute.

Day 67

Les cooked spaghetti for dinner and Kaitlyn was really into it. She sat quite contentedly in her high chair for a long time just playing with the noodles. Happily, she also managed to eat quite a bit as well.

Day 66

The question that comes to mind while looking at this picture is "Is Parker kissing Kaitlyn or choking her?" I think that given how close they are in age, I will be asking myself this question pretty often as they are growing up.

Day 65

Can you find the baby in this picture?

Day 64

It's pretty standard for a Sunday for the kids to be in their PJs all day. Then in the evenings, it's bath time and a fresh pair.