The Zoo

Astraea, Carrie and I (and five little humans) met at the zoo on Tuesday. It was rainy, but we had a great time. I didn't get a lot of pictures, but I'll link Astraea since she took some good ones.

Grace and Kate

Miles loved the carousel

Carrie, Joshua and a very large giraffe

We all think Carrie is next in line to start a blog, so if you know her, pressure her about it please. While you're at it, get her thoughts on red dye #40.

A Little Organization, Please

Some of you may read this and just now realize how much Madison and I have in common. Some of you already knew this and are shaking your heads, and still some others might call this post "boring." I'll let you decide...

My house is now the only thing I "control," so in order to clear my head, my mom graciously offered to come help me get it organized. Here's my beautiful pantry.

Way to help, Dude.

She Has A Way With Words

Funny things come out of three year old's mouths and Kate is absoutely no exception.

We were driving to meet Jen and Madison at the mall on Thursday (side note: to meet Dewper the life-sized prairie dog? which scared Kate to death, but she hugged the Chick-Fil-A cow seven times, so???) and we were late, so I was putting on mascara in the car.

Kate: What are you putting on your face?

Me: Make-up

Kate: Why are you doing that?

Me: To make myself pretty

Kate: Why?

Me: (unsure myself, really) I don't know...

Kate: Well, if it makes you feel better...

We were in the car dicussing her Bible verse for next week and I added "Joshua 1:9" to the end of it. She was looking at her picture sheet and asked who the man was. I said that I couldn't see it while I was driving. She looked at it again and said, "I think it's Joshua 1:9"

Josh and Kate before their "Disney On Ice" date

At dance class

Kate and my dad

He took her to the park last week and about fifteen minutes after they left, he called from his cell. "Why does she want to pee in the grass?"

Well, why wouldn't she?

Quintuplet Date (minus two couples)

We had been planning a five couple date night for a really long time, but when the day finally came, we had to re-adjust due to a lot of yucky sickness. Soooo... this post is all about how we missed Jen, Sean, Robyn and Lance and didn't have any marvelous fun because they weren't there.

Me, Katie and Heather

We did not have fun at all when we piled into Scott and Katie's minivan and had a dance party before we left the parking lot.

In all fairness, we didn't go the restaurant we had originally planned on. Instead, we did not have fun at all at Teneko where I demonstrated that I indeed do not know how to use chopsticks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hApfI_To7Tw

We had no fun at all when we went to sing karoke afterwards and Scott was a complete rock star, but I was not.

It wasn't funny at all when we took turns posing behind random karoke singing people.

It's a bit like Where's Waldo, but look closely for Katie

I have more pictures, but Katie looks like this in all of them...

I'm ready to reschedule. Who's with me?

New Tricks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftmQBu0A-NE

Kater and The Buddies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifewUbnu98s

Surprise!

Surprise. The city. That's literally halfway to L.A. Well, almost.

The kids and I braved the almost hour and a half drive last Saturday to hang out with The Fam since the Kansas folk were in town. I ate my weight in shrimp.

Duane, Me and Miles

Ross (Susie's guy), Susie, Paul and Kate

A blue M&M did this to her. She'd much rather suck on it for ten minutes than chew it. It's kinda like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the book, not the movie) where Charlie nibbles on the chocolate bar for months because he only gets one a year. Kate just doesn't really know when she might get another M&M, so she truly savors it. Oh, I hear the comments coming already...

Brenda, Jim, Me, Ed and Dave

You know how some people change their personality when they get around their family? Well, mine doesn't - it just gets worse. Exhibit A above.

Terry thought this was way too cute. She said it looked like she was prancing. Like mother, like daughter. People are always telling me I prance when I am pushing the stroller. Uphill. In 105 degrees.

Miles and Kathy

Kate doesn't really stick to a task for very long, so after a while, it was just Susie and Paul who were left to color by themselves.

"Hey Kate, did ya have fun?"

Dress Up Time

Jen and Madison came over (a few weeks ago!) to play and we got out all of Kate's new dress up clothes. Mayhem ensued.

Jen, Kate and Madison

Miles even got in on the action

The fun continued with a rousing game of Elefun... at least until the batteries ran out. Jen apparently didn't know about the "play in your underwear" rule.

The girls had so much fun that they just wore themselves out!

"The Buddies"

That's what Josh and Kate call Miles. That also turns out to be #10 on my list of Miles Factoids...

#9 - He loves wheels of any kind and as a few of you saw today, will tip over your stroller in order to spin them.


#8 - He is now 10 months old and weighs 23 lbs - which is still in the 90th percentile. He is such a tub and I just want to chew on him all of the time! (I don't... really... well, sometimes just his earlobes.)

#7 - His favorite pastime is opening and closing anything. Drawers mostly.

#6 - He can say "mama," "dada," and "ni-ni" (night night), but no matter what you ask him to say, he'll always smile and say, "mama."

#5 - He adores Kate.

#4 - He screams like a girl if he wants your attention.

#3 - Bananas - good / Peaches - bad

#2 - Walking holds no interest for him. None. At. All.

#1 - I fall more in love with him everyday.

New Year's Eve

We were invited to Matt and Desiree's house for New Year's Eve - there was a ton of food and they had a great fire pit in the backyard which was mainly used for sarcastic and witty conversation

Me and Josh

Miles and Wyatt

Joshua and Carrie

The ladies... and Joshua, the "ladies man"

Matt serving up some brats

Ben

Carrie and Josh

Kelly and Miles

It was like a crazy New Year's miracle, but somehow we got all four tiny boys to go to sleep early, and Kate and Payson ran around like lunatics the entire evening.

We partied like it was 1999, except that in 1999 I actually stayed at the party until midnight. I think we called it a night around 10, but that's just 'cause we're old. Just for the record, Josh and I did stay up and ring in the New Year with champagne left over from Fernando and Shanna's wedding.

Belated Birthday at the Pink Taco

Kristin's birthday was in mid-November, but we just couldn't find a night to get together until now. We had a great time eating Mexican food, walking around the mall and seeing a movie. (and I even got carded. woot!)

ps - that was for you, Robyn - yeah!

Behold our dinner at Scottsdale's semi-famous Pink Taco...

Kristin

Why do I find myself thinking much too hard about what I wear out these days because I might have already worn that particular outfit and then posted pictures of myself wearing it so there is a chance that the Internet might be saying to itself, "Hmmm... she must wear that a lot."

The Internet might even be saying, "Kristin, I can see through your sweater."

Duh.

Firehazard

About a week ago...

Me: "The tree really can't catch on fire if the lights aren't turned on."

Josh: "A spark from the outlet could light it and then our house would burn down in, like, two seconds."

Me: "Nah."

Today...

I was folding laundry - yes, instead of taking ornaments off the tree, which would allow Josh to take the sucker down and dispose of it before my birthday (shameless plug) - and I hear this EAR PIERCING SHRIEK.

Josh: (putting batteries in the smoke alarms which, incidentally, have been mostly absent for around three years.) "What is wrong with these things?"

Well, there's still no battery in it. And it woke up Miles.

So, it's the fifth of January and our tree is still up and very dead and the branches are touching the floor and the ornaments are slowly being sucked up into the tree itself and I'm pretty sure that I will find Narnia when I go looking for them.

Also, my house got overthown and you'll be glad to know that I didn't even once hide in my closet:

Although, I am really reallllllly happy about my sparkling new fridge. It's the only truly clean thing around here, except maybe the kid's ears, because I'm kind of a nut about that.

Christmas Day - Man, That's SO Last Year...

On Christmas Eve we always spend the night at my parent's house - even though they live a whopping 8 minutes away.

Here's Kate's impression of Rudolf (and yes, she is three and wearing a bib - if you've met her or seen her eat, you already understand)

When I can't find her, she's usually snuggled up with Grandpa

Christmas morning

Kate wearing her new Princess jammers and slippers. She also got a wand which, as you can tell, I am thrilled about. She spent her morning tapping everyone with it and saying," It's your turn to open a present."

This is what boys are supposed to do with dolls

Kate got a Steve Nash shirt from Daddy. She loves watching Suns games with him. She's is usually yelling, "De-fense!" clap clap or asking, "Daddy, who's that purple guy? Hey Dad, who is that? Who is that guy? Dad? Dad?!"

Dad + Miles + trucks = some manly fun

Josh bought me a sweet new camera for Christmas - maybe he was tired of hearing me whine... Anyway, this sucker is the gift that just keeps on givin' because now I have video with SOUND! My blog has talkies!!!

Here's the clip that Josh made to tell me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76vTMfb-x9w

Score!