Spring time is in the air....

Hello Everyone -
We have been busy with many different activities. She finished her soccer class and with the nice weather...we decided to not sign her up again.
We've been looking at pre-schools so that has been our big activity trying to figure out where we are putting her next year and if we are putting her with 3 year olds or the 4 years olds (because she will almost be 4) and then figuring out what to do the following year because she misses the cut off date for Kindergarden. We were only going to do one year of preschool but she is really ready to be at school so we are going to go for it.

So picture # 1 is her at an Egg Hunt. It's amazing how into it she was this year. It was at a local gym (I had to join one because Katherine loves to bake so much!) They told the kids to find 10 eggs and go back to the wall. She was so busy collecting that she probably had 14 eggs in her basket and wasn't planning on stopping so I had to stop her and tell her to go back to the wall. On Easter, the bunny visited us once in the morning and came back later that afternoon to do the yard. She had a blast finding the eggs. We had another easter egg hunt today and I think she has one more planned....it's a 3 week easter celebration :)
Picture # 2 is Katherine's first decorated birthday cake. She mixed the cake, helped me make the frosting, picked the color and the decorations for it - she choose peeps bunnies, chocolate sprinkles, and princesses for the cake. She loves to bake cookies, cakes, cupcakes and do anything in the kitchen.
Picture # 3 is of her at a park for one of better "spring" days. As you can tell...no fear, it's spinning and she is moving from one bar to the next.

Well...guess that's it for now.

Soccer Videos

Good Morning Everyone,

I had Steve take Katherine this weekend to a class for soccer to see if she liked it. I was teaching skating so Steve took some video on his phone so I could see her in action. After watching the video, I thought I would post it to share with our friends. This was her first time...and theoretically everyone elses's 7th or 8th week cause that's how far they are in the session. She has a red pullover jersey, black pants, and long blonde hair. She's the only girl out there - watch her go!

January 09 Rock Jam

I hope everyone is doing well. Katherine had a great holiday season. She loved Christmas and really enjoyed all her gifts. We also attended a New Years Eve Party where she danced the night away. There were a couple of ladies dancing and I kept telling Katherine to go dance with the ladies but she responded "no, I want to dance with the boys" Luckily for her, two younger boys were there to dance with her. The kids had a blast.

In January, we went to Massachusetts where they had a LOT of snow so Katherine got to really enjoy the weather. I'm attaching a video of her sledding by herself her first night in Leominster. As you can see, she had a blast. We started her about 2/3 down the hill the first time and she kept wanting to go higher and higher...this video was about as high as we got without her wipping out. Even when she crashed, she laughed, got up, and gave us the sled to drag it back up the hill.

Two weeks ago... we took her to get her picture taken and I thought these were too cute not to share so I'm posting one up.

Otherwise, Katherine is doing o.k. other than a couple of stitches in her head. She fell off a couch this weekend and hit a coffee table and got a cut on the back of her head. It was small but open so I took her to the emergency room. She is know the proud owner of 3 stitches. She's fine though...bouncing around having a blast...the only thing is that the area is sore, otherwise, it hasn't effected her one bit.

Well - have a great day everyone.

Sincerely,

Steve, Linda, and Katherine

Life as a princess

Hi Everyone...sorry it's been so long.

I keep meaning to update the blog but it means I must download pictures which means getting away from Katherine for a bit and that seems to be happening less and less these days. She still takes a nap but she usually waits until I hit the car so time at home to get things done like this blog are pretty non-existent.

I thought I would put pictures of our dogs so that you see what these poor dogs go through on a daily basis but lucky for us, both of them are extremely tolerant of Katherine. Picture # 1 is of Marli dressed as a princess and holding princess Dora. Picture #2 is of Blue and Katherine laying on top of her to give her a big hug - as you can tell, Blue is just thrilled (just kidding)...the dog still doesn't know why anyone but her and Steve have to live in this house. She was my birthday present but she's a 100% in love with Steve. We actually got to watch a chocolate lab for about 2 weeks in November so we had a yellow, black, and chocolate lab for a little bit.

Picture # 3 is of Katherine dressed up as Ariel for Halloween - it took her a while to warm up from her nap but later in the evening she was having a blast. Obviously, she was still cranky in this picture...but it shows you the wig. The girl won't let me put her hair in a ponytail but spent 5 hours in the wig saying "look at my hair, isn't it beautiful?"

Picture # 4 is dad's favorite. Anyone who is getting the link to this blog knows that Steve lives for hunting...this year has been fun for him. Katherine couldn't wait to go hunting with him. She's still too young to really go hunting but she dresses up just like dad and they go out to the club and look for deer from the truck. The scary part is that we saw 3 deer in a field the other night driving home and as we drove away, she got very sad. When I asked her what was wrong, she said we didn't get the head. Steve has a couple of big buck heads mounted and she apparently wants some like dad...we laughed so hard.

Picture # 5 is of her dressed up...she has a couple of princess dress up costumes and this was her showing off her look.

Well, guess that's it for now - we are all doing well and just trying to get ready for the holidays...which is what I should be doing right now...so if your holiday cards are late, you know why :)

Enjoy.

The world according to Katherine

Katherine just recently turned 3...yes it's true - it's already been 3 years.

Anyway, one of her presents was a kids digital camera. She has been a little photographer (taken about 200 pictures in less than a month) so I thought I would share some of her early works. The pictures aren't in order because for the life of me, I can figure out how to have them show on this page in the order I want...but anyway,

Picture # 1- it's all about tea parties right now. We attend several a day. Marli (the black lab) attended one yesterday but she was served milk instead of tea.

Picture # 2 and 3 - She took pictures using the graphics on the camera and centering the pictures as you will see with her collection of Disney princess dolls. She couldn't fit them all in one frame, so she took multiple pictures. Now she's getting good at this.

Picture # 4 - She stood at our front door and took this picture of our pumpkins that still need to be carved...might be our Friday night project.

Picture # 5 - her foot...one of the earliest shots

Picture # 6 - a picture of me...with no forehead...again one of the early pictures taken...she was still trying to figure it all out.

Otherwise, we have kept busy since Disney. We've made a scapbook of her and her Disney friends and she often asks me if I remember meeting a character or taking the plane. It was really the perfect time to take her. We have a great Halloween costume and we've gone trick or treating at one of the assisted living homes in the area but I won't spoil it yet for those of you who will actually see her in person. I'll post pictures after the spooky day is over :)

Disney Trip

Hi Everyone -

As most of you know, we just took Katherine to Disney for 9 days. We had a great time with her and she really enjoyed it. We went to the park everyday but probably only spent 6-7 hours at a park and that was her limit. We were lucky enough to reserve some meals with characters - She actually really enjoyed the Little Einsteins meal and the princesses. She was on the edge of her seat (bottom picture) - Her reaction was worth the whole trip. She now has become a princess fan since we arrived home asking us if we remember the princesses. Our hotel room was also fabulous...we stayed at the animal kingdom lodge with the animals and saw zebras, giraffes, an ostrich, wilderbeasts, and an elan from our balcony. Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures.

From Top

#1 with Cinderella

#2 with Chip who spent a lot of time playing with katherine and tickling her. It was so much fun to watch

#3 with ariel

#4 with princess Jasmine from Aladdin

#5 view from our balcony...that's how close we were to the animals

#6 Mickey and Minnie

#7 Donald

#8 Sleeping beauty

#9 her excitedly waiting for the princess to come and see her

Katherine Ice Skating

I always get asked if I've put Katherine on the ice yet...the answer is YES. I put her on the ice for the first time around 18 months. She really enjoyed it for a couple of times and then wasn't interested for a long period. Lately she has started to ask to go on the ice while I'm at the rink teaching so we put her on again last week and took a little video of her skating. She's such a clam...she always says "mom, teach me" and I respond that she knows how to skate. She answers "but your the teacher"... Enjoy!