Gone Fishin'

I'm 3 for 3 now. This has to be a record.  And after this one, I'm officially caught up on blogging.  Yay!

This past weekend, we traveled to my home town for a wedding shower for my sister.  We hadn't been home in a while, so even though the shower wasn't until Sunday, we decided to get there mid-day on Saturday and spend the night.  It turned out to be a good decision.  We got to visit with my parents, and my dad got to spend a little extra time with his fishing buddy.

In the days leading up to our trip, Kate kept saying "I'm going fishing with Pick!".  She was so excited about fishing, even though as far as I know, she's never caught a fish before.

After a little bit of fishing with no bites at all, we took a ride on the pontoon boat.  This girl loves the water.  She was worse than our dogs, running back and forth between all of the doorways/openings as we were riding along.  She would start at the front of the boat, then run to the back door, then to the side door, and then repeat the process all over again.

When we got back from our ride, we decided to try the fishing thing again.  Almost as soon as my dad finished casting the line and put the rod down, the cork went under the water.  And Kate caught her very first fish.

I'm really not sure why she was so insistent on catching a fish, because her reaction was about the same to the fish as it is to worms.  She talks about them like she's obsessed, she asks to go in the yard to "see the worms", but she won't touch them or even get all that close to them.   The fish was the same way.  We did good to get her picture with it!

And after the fish was released back into the water, it was time to try again. 

Baby Ballet

Two days in a row.  Y'all.  I'm on a roll with this blogging thing.  OK, not really, but I do have a few things to catch up on, one of which was Parent Observation day at Kate's ballet class from last week. 

There is no doorway or window into the classroom, so we typically watch our kids dance on a television screen that is in the lobby.  This week, we actually got to go in and watch our little ones dancing up close and personal.  I've gotten a pretty good idea of how Kate dances from the little bits I'd seen on the screen, and this only re-affirmed what I already knew was true. 

She definitely does her own thing.

At first, they were supposed to "perform" for us and give us a glimpse of their dance recital piece that they will be doing in a little over a month.  Each child had their own mat on the floor and were supposed to copy what their teacher, Mrs. Lindsey, was doing.  

While most of the other kids imitated Mrs. Lindsey, Kate was jumping up and down, shaking her hips, turning in circles, etc.  Definitely choreographed her own little dance.  While she wasn't exactly following direction, this is progress from Day 1!  She at least stayed on her mat the whole time, rather than running all around the room!

After showing off their dance, they showed us some of their fun activities.  

It was fun watching all of the little girls running around and having fun, and it was obvious they enjoyed having an audience.  

I posted this to Facebook a few weeks back: 

Sometimes I think I do great to have it together 50% of the time. Just showed up to dance and Kate has a hole the size of my hand in her brand new tights bc she picked on them in the car on the way over, she is wearing Toms instead of ballet slippers bc I have no idea where I put hers, and I'm pretty sure her hair hasn't been brushed since this morning. But, hey, we were on time!!

While it's obviously sometimes a struggle to get to dance at 5:30 every Thursday, and be somewhat put together when we get there, it's so worth it to see how much fun Kate has dancing around and seeing each of her friends. 

Easter 2014

I'm playing catch-up.... again.  Story of my life, I guess.  Last weekend was Easter.  We originally thought we would be spending Easter with our family of 3, but my parents had an unexpected change of plans, and were able to join us for church on Easter Sunday and then lunch at our house.

So anyway, Sundays are busy days for us.  Since Kevin is a pastor, he has to get to church on Sundays pretty early.  A lot of the time Kate and I go early with him, but sometimes we just meet him there.  Regardless, Sunday mornings are a rush and we don't have time for a lot of "extra" stuff before church. Because of that, we decided to do Kate's Easter basket after we got home from church.

We got home from church on Sunday and I left Kate outside with Kevin and my parents while I ran inside to put her Easter basket in front of our fireplace.  I told her that there was a surprise inside and she had to go find it.  She didn't have any problem locating the surprise.

The first thing she pulled out were jelly beans and of course she wanted to open them.  We let her have a few before I took them away since we were about to eat lunch.  She was not happy.  Note to self for next year: make sure she opens up her Easter basket when she can eat whatever is in there immediately and in its entirety. 

We've tried to let Kate know what the TRUE meaning of Easter is.  We talk about Jesus all the time, but we especially want her to understand that Easter is about Jesus' death and resurrection.  While the other stuff is a lot of fun, we don't want any of that "stuff" to overshadow the greatest gift of all and the foundation of our hope and faith.

Even though Easter is about Jesus, we still do an Easter basket for Kate.  It's a fun little tradition, and we like it, but we definitely don't go overboard at all.  We included a new Bible, since she has out-grown her baby Bible and has memorized all of the stories in it verbatim.  We also included in her basket a Veggie Tales DVD, a few coloring books, some play-doh and toddler scissors.  Oh, and a few pieces of candy.  Like I said, we don't go overboard on Easter baskets and gifts.   

After the whole Easter basket drama (seen in the picture above), it was time for lunch.  We'd decided to just eat lunch at our house (roast, carrots, potatoes, salad and rolls) instead of trying to go out to eat.  And we had an apple pie type of dessert.  Very good!  And it always seems that we get to spend more time with my parents when we eat at home instead of trying to eat at a restaurant.

After lunch we headed outside to get some pictures with the still-blooming azaleas.  It seems like they bloomed for 3 weeks this year.

Easter Eggs

On Saturday, we dyed Easter eggs with Kate for the first time.  We got the least-fuss dye kit that the grocery store had- no glitter, no stickers, no paint- and it turned out to be pretty perfect.  Kate had fun stirring the dye, vinegar and water together. 

We even got a little bit pinterest-y and tried the kool-aid dyes.  

Kate loved it. 

She did not love the waiting.  My child is definitely a very instant-gratification kind of kid, so the waiting was not something she handled very well. 

Case-in-point. 

About this time, she noticed her Daddy eating pretzels and the egg-dying was over at that point. But our eggs sure turned out pretty! 

And yes, that is a finger hole in the pink egg.  I'll give you one guess as to who put it there. :) 

Azalea Week 2014

Every year we get one good week when the azaleas bloom, and of course I have to take the opportunity to get some photos.  So Sunday after we got home from church, Kate and I stayed outside to get a few million pictures with the pretty flowers in our back yard.  You would think that with the number of pictures I took, I would have gotten one GOOD one, where Kate is looking at the camera and at least somewhat smiling. Not the case. These are the best.  This is what you get with a busy 2.5 year old.  I'll just be thankful they aren't blurry.  And just for fun, here are the 2012 and 2013 pictures. 

We're in that awesome stage where when you ask for a smile, you get an awkward squinty-eyed, teeth bearing face. They make for great pictures.  

After the pictures were done, Kate spent the next 15 minutes picking all of the dandelions she could find.

Opening Day

This past Tuesday was Opening Day.  No, I'm not mistaken on my date. I'm not talking about Major League Baseball's opening day.  I'm talking about co-ed church league softball's opening day.  That's right.  I'm talking about the big time.  So of course we headed to the softball fields at 6:30 sharp on Tuesday evening.  You can tell Kate was super attentive to the game...

Since I know my child, I knew that she wasn't going to sit and watch the game, nor was she going to even stay in our general vicinity unless I had something to occupy her time. So I brought a few of the tiny party favor play-doughs along for the trip.  They worked well enough to keep her busy, and they're cheap enough to just throw away at the end of the game (especially since they end up being full of dirt and sand).  

Kevin started off the season with a home run during one of his first few at bats. 

Kate missed it.

But, the weather was great and we had a fun afternoon at the fields.  We may even be here watching Kate play a few years down the road!