"NO, I mean your real name?"

We made new pink play dough this week for one of our tray activities, and Katelyn had a ball! She loved adding the eyeballs (I know, it's a little early still for Vday, but I just couldn't wait any longer...today's dough tray has a mixture of snowflake AND hearts confetti! She's going to be thrilled!)

 

 

So, if you're wandering about the title...well, I just had to share this story from last night- and I don't want to put too many super cute K quotes on FB...

 

K asked me to lay down with her, and here is our convo...

 

K: What's your name?

Me: Mommy.

K: No, you're real name?

Me: You call me mommy, but other people call me Lara.

K: Your name is Wara?

Me. Yup, LLLLLLLLLara.

K: What's daddy's name?

Me: Daddy.

K: No, his name on the phone?

Me: Oh, he's Chris.

K: Chris West?

Me: Yeah, Chris West.

K: And you're Wara West?

Me: Yes, ma'am, and who are you?

K: Katelyn West, and this is Purple Bunny West?

Me: Sure.

K: And Puppy West?

Me: Yep.

K: And Llama, Llama West?

Me: Uh huh. What's my name?

(Long Pause)

Me: Do you remember my name?

K: Mommy West to me!

 

Too stinking cute!!! Everything absorbs...

Baking and Snow Day Play

Getting the butter out so it can "soften" for Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Oops, forgot to take pictures once the butter was ready.

Oh yes, we did THAT! You probably saw the adorable picture of the girl in the tub of snow...well, Katelyn wanted to play in the snow- so I stole their game and brought the snow to her!

Skating w/ Ray-Ray and Ashy

Getting the VIP treatment from Rachel.

Horsing around with Ashley

Going fast with Rachel

Holding mommy's hand. She was so excited. We played "WipeOut" and the girls won! So she skated to the girls only song, and then she was all done.

Potty Trained!

It's been over two weeks since she's worn a diaper and has been accident-free (with the exception of the car ride to IL this weekend- we put her in a diaper for that,) and she now uses her potty chair regularly with-out help, and then will wave bye-bye pee-pee, bye-bye poop as she flushes it down the big chair. At the funeral this weekend she told me that she needed to potty, and she held it till we got to the bathroom.

 

 

(This is the nicest photo I could post, the others have big nasty poooo sitting in there! haha!)

My Snow Babe

 

What fun! Katelyn loves snow! She is always wanting to be outside, but is really good at telling me when she is cold and will come in drink some warm hot chocolate and get warmed up. This day we "painted" the snow with colored water and went sledding down the pile of snow made by the plow truck in the circle drive. =)

Gymnastics Girl

 

We recently started Katelyn in a gymnastics program. Her school has a "mobile gym" that visits every Tuesday, but since she usually has swimming on Tuesdays she doesn't go that day. I felt bad she was missing that, and she has been climbing and jumping on everything...I thought it might be good for her. Here is her first session! (Sorry bad picture quality, not sure what's up with the camera...but at least I finally found it!)

January Reads

Sorry, no reviews, no spoilers...just a simple thought.



Predictable love...(sigh)...Will I ever tire of it? Probably not, I'm sappy and this is a super easy read.



Enjoyable, and kind of funny.


Still giving me nightmares...and I skipped skimmed a lot! (When will I learn??)

Sent!

Manuscript in the mail...

 

 

 

(Can you tell I've lost my camera, again? I think I lost it at Chuck E Cheese's last weekend. Boooo!)

I don't want to make you cry...

but you will after reading this! (Cry with laughter, ha!)

22 Reasons Why Commas Are The Most Important Things In The World

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/commas-are-the-most-important

A growth spurt, maybe?

Ah, how I bet Katelyn wishes she had her own Chef Ramsay, but instead she has me to help her cook some tasty scrambled eggs in the mornings. Yes, the two year old makes her own scrambled eggs, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but the girl can crack an egg like an expert. (I'll try to remember to record it.)

Anyway, this is more of a record of what her daily breakfast has consisted of lately...

Scrambled Eggs (2)

English Muffin with Blackberry Jam (half)

Full "me" sized bowl of cereal with milk.

Half a bowl of dry cereal.

Granola Bar

Half an apple

3-4 Kiwi slices

 

I'm hoping it's a growth spurt, because the girl is eating us out of house and home, and still weighs less then 22 pounds!

Oh....and anywhere from a few bites to a full side dish sized bowl of oatmeal.

 



Gatlinburg +

This is the cabin we rented. It is "Forest Walk" from Mt. Laurel Chalets. We loved it...well, everything but the drive up the mountain (which we would not have made if there was any amount of snow on the ground.)

Hanging with Papa at Ober Gatlinburg. The cabin is only a few minutes drive away, so we drove up instead of driving down the mountain just to ride back up.

Crusin' the Smokey Park and we spotted a bear!

Traditional family picture! (I think I may actually be in the same sweatshirt I wore in the 2012 picture...how sad is that?)

Mountain pit stop...I love the mountains!

Another pit stop. Love this waterfall. We got our picture here last year with Victoria.

Caught them taking a selfie!

Hot tub!! (Don't worry we turned the heat low for miss K...but now that I've read a bit on hot tubs...I might have a hard time getting in another one....who knows, I love them so much though. (Perhaps a purchase is in the future?)

Singing Happy Birthday to papa.

So much fun.

K found herself some wheels.

Making GB men.

Helping grandma cook dinner.

Santa came!

I'll keep this one.

Dancing.

Showing off her rain boots.

Learning Stations!

K had a blast with her learning stations this month. I didn't set up as many as I would have liked, but she loved, loved, loved the felt tree with shape ornaments.

 

She also practiced wrapping gifts...and I'm a little embarrassed to say that she wraps gifts better than I do...(She needs a little help putting the tape in the right spot, but other than that- she's a natural.)

Guess who we saw in Dec?

 The party started with a short drive to Canada to see.....the lovely and wonderful BELA! It was so great to get to hug her again! We miss each of the students sooo much, it's really nice to have her so close!

Bela did an amazing job in the Christmas performance! We can't wait to see what she does next year!

However, while we were there we got dumped on...just a weeeeeebit!

The hotel had this neat little kiddie pool, and I really want one at the house now!

Sure, she sleeps with us she lays at every which angle. Move to the other bed, and she finds a reasonable angle to sleep at.

Going home...and we kidnapped Bela!

Ok, so we had to let her go at the bus station. She kind of wanted to spend Christmas with her brother and see her parents when they flew into Ohio, but it was tough to do!