Week 4

We have started to call this her Pippy Longstocking Look. She wears those crazy striped tights almost every week to dance. Her after-dance outfits are usually even crazier. She leaves on the tights, adds a denim skirt, and her blue and pink strawberry shirt. But she loves it. So we don't tell her they don't quite "go" with anything lol

This week we:

-made good use of Sam's extra days off and painted the living room - red! We're both loving it. The kids spent the day at grandma and grandpa's while we were painting. Both of them we SO excited about the new color when they got home. The only problem was that I spilled red paint on the carpet - and it wasn't just a little spot. It's taken me most of the week to get it all out but I think I've got it pretty much done now. Finally.
Ty just could not stay out from in front of the camera the whole time I was trying to take a picture. :) Speaking of Ty - on the potty front we are making great improvements. He now lets me know almost every time he needs to go YAY. Not much longer before I can quit devoting such a large part of my attention to that task.

-from painting straight to partying. We had Sam's big birthday party on Saturday. We had a really great turn out (considering it was snowing) and had a great time.

-and the kids have been enjoying all the new snow we keep getting. This was a big pile of snow that Sam and the kids created. He was supposed to turn it into a "snow cave" but I guess Kaitlyn finally got sick of waiting for him to do it and turned it into a snowman yesterday. Ty didn't participate much. He spiked a fever Wednesday night and is pretty congested. Fingers crossed the cold is short-lived and that no one else gets it.

Week 3

Our family fun activity this weekend was bowling. We all had a blast. The kids are both big enough that they want to do it all themselves and Kaitlyn wants to be the one to help Tyler if he does need help. It was so cute to watch her go up there and line up the "dinosaur" (we call that wooden thing that you roll the balls down that because it had a dinosaur painted on it) for him. Then she'd stand there with her arm around him while they watched the ball roll down the lane. Too cute!
Turns out they are both good bowlers. Kaitlyn won the first game! She was pretty upset during the last half of the second game when she ended up falling behind.
After bowling we took them to the "train restaurant" for ice cream.
Sam had an extra day off, due to Martin Luther King Jr Day so we got one more of our home improvement projects done - new coat racks!

And Happy Birthday Sam! He turned 30 on Jan 19th.

Kaitlyn loves birthdays of any kind and has been looking forward to it for days. She was the first one to tell him happy birthday in the morning and couldn't wait to celebrate when he got home. We game him a blu-ray player and made him dinner and brownies. He's getting a big party with family and friends on Saturday

Week 2

We didn't manage to fit in our traditional Christmas party with Dave and Rhonda in December so we had it on Saturday. Sam had drill so he was down at the base all weekend and ended up going bowling with his family for Orvil's birthday. But the rest of us, including my mom, dad, and Wyatt headed over to Rhonda's for dinner and games. And of course the kids got spoiled with all kinds of fun presents from them too. Kaitlyn especially loved the Alice in Wonderland pop-up book and Chuck the Talking Truck was a big hit with Ty. It was kind of fun to spread out Christmas this way.
(the photos aren't the best from that night. I'm still trying to figure out all the settings on the small camera)

On Monday, Tyler woke up and told me "no diapers!" so the potty training has begun again. It's not easy by any means, but the fact that he is more into it this time is certainly helping.

Kaitlyn had Show and Teach (similar to show and tell but they are supposed to teach the class how to do something) at school on Wednesday. She always looks forward to this day, even though she agonizes over what she wants to teach. But once she came up with a plan she was SO excited. She chose to demostrate how to make "fruit shakes" (smoothies). On Tuesday night she insisted on "practicing" so she made us fruit shakes to go with dinner. On Wednesday morning she was awake extra early and had herself all ready to go (breakfast, hair done, brushed her teeth) by 7:15 (bus time is 8:15). She wanted to ride the bus to school so I put her on the bus, dropped off Ty at Mom's house and met her at the school with the blender and other things she needed. She did a fantastic job demonstrating - did all the steps flawlessly and even remembered to describe what she was doing as she went along. And she was happy to report that at snack time everyone tried the shake and liked it.

Week 1

"All wrinkled!!" Those wrinkles after being in water too long truly upset Ty. We (er, Sam) first noticed this on Saturday after Sam took the kids to the pool. He said Ty got out of the pool and wouldn't touch a thing - not even his lunch and he was starving! - until the wrinkles went away. Sure enough, after his next long bath and discovering more wrinkles (and showing them to me and the camera) he walked around with his hands held awkwardly in front of him and refused to touch anything for a while.
Only 1 photo in an entire week?! Well that's what happens I guess after a long 2 weeks of party overload followed by the urgent need to organize and clean everything in sight. That's how we all jump into the new year right?
This past week included:
-New Years Day full of cleaning - the tree came down and all the decorations were stored for next year. Then the kids when to Mom's house and Sam and I really got down to business. We steam cleaned the carpet and couches. Wiped down the furniture in the kids rooms and rearranged everything, including switching dressers between the kids rooms so Kaitlyn could have the wider one to diplay all her stuff.
-I had lunch with The Girls on Saturday. We finally managed to get at least 3 of us together for a quick gift exchange (for Christmas) and chat. The kids and Sam went swimming. I did some shopping. The kids had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's and Sam and I were able to meet up for a date. It was a very full Saturday.
-Sam and I started a new challenge - keeping track of "points" on a list of 20 items we are working on every day in the new year. My fav - that Sam has been doing the dishes every day! :)
-Ty got a new "big kid" car seat. Now if we could only get him to buckle himself in.
-survived our first week back on a normal schedule. It was a bit of a challenge getting Kaitlyn ready for school and out the door on time Monday. We were so rushed she had to take dry cereal to eat in the bus line. But we managed better after that.

And the funny quote of the week: Kaitlyn, watching out for her brother but in a hurry to get back to helping me shred some papers "give me the scissors, I'll run with them."

New Year!

Well, that concludes Project 365 for 2009. It was a lot of fun, even though some days a photo was hard to come by. I think it will be fun to look back on all the little details of life that normal picture taking (big events and vacation) misses. And I am SO much better about having the camera out and ready to capture things I may have missed before.

For 2010 I will be dialing it back a bit. Instead of a photo every day I will be going for 2-5 photos from each week.

Day 365

New Years Eve! Happy Birthday to Mom/Grandma!
We spent the morning out shopping - spending some gift cards from Christmas. While we were out we grabbed a little cake for Mom and Kaitlyn and I took it over for a little "birthday party" (Kaitlyn insists that everyone have a party). Kaitlyn placed the candles and after Mom blew them out, she cut up the cake and dished it out all by herself.
In the evening we rang in the new year (almost!) with friends. We had a great time playing games and snacking until we felt guilty about keeping the kids up any longer. They made it until after 11:00 though! And Sam and I WERE awake at midnight - we had just gone to bed after putting the kids down and then spending a few minutes cuddling on the couch and admiring the tree one last time. We were just about to drift off to sleep when our crazy neighbors started banging cow bells (at least that was what it sounded like. We didn't bother to get up to see what or who was making all the noise). Happy New Year!

*I think my count got off somewhere because I do believe I started this little project on Jan 29 last year. Oh well. I'd say that's not bad for keeping track of all those days. Maybe I'll find my mistake if/when I go back to scrapbook this.