Girls playing after dinner.

She's a Rockstar

Check out Kayte scaling this rock wall climb!  She didn't have any help. Joe was just her spotter! She is getting  so big!

9 months

On the 19th of February, Emma turned 9 months old. I can't believe in 3 short months she will turn 1 year old. Kayte and I decided to make some cupcakes to celebrate! We made Vanilla cupcakes from scratch with chocolate frosting! And tradition has it, I let me girls lick the beaters!! Kayte and Emma always get so excited when they realize that we are done mixing and it is time to clean the beaters, spoons and bowls!

We made such a mess with making the cupcakes, frosting the cupcakes, and licking the spoons/spatulas, and beaters that we needed to have a bath afterwards and before dinner/bedtime! Nobody minded, I mean really, who doesn't love to play in the water!

These are just a few of the cupcakes. We made 4 giant cupcakes, tons of middle sized cupcakes and a ton more of the mini cupcakes. They taste fantastic!

Emma licking her spatula. And licked it clean! Kayte didn't want her picture taken while she was licking her beater "No tanks mom" 

Mama!! Don't take a picture of my messy face!! 

Kayte's choclate face from licking the beaters! 

The girls excited for an early bath time! 

In the tub!! Playing and having fun, probably getting annoyed I snapped so many pictures! 

We had a blast making cupcakes and spending time with each other. Daddy was at the "whoo whoos" and unfortunately no one was feeling that great so we didn't take any cupcakes to him. But we really wanted to. So maybe after our next baking adventure we will deliver some to daddy if he isn't home.

And since in 3 short months Emma will be turning 1 I have already started party planning! And I have already started party planning Kayte's as well. I can't believe she is going to be 3! Watch out now!

Non traditional Family

As most of you know, or don't know, I guess it depends on how well you know me, know that my family does not celebrate a lot of holidays. In fact the only thing we do celebrate is our birthdays and I guess Thanksgiving. On holidays that everyone does celebrate we get together to spend time with family and enjoy company. I won't go into all the details of why we don't because it could take forever.


Today is valentines day. We don't celebrate it.. in fact we didn't celebrate it today, we did nothing out of the ordinary. I do not need for giant corporations to tell me that I need to spend money on my family/friends today for them to know I care. I show that I care in several different ways all through out the year!

Now onto another pet peeve of valentines day.... why does everyone dog on men for going out the night before and the day of Valentines to get flowers. If we did celebrate, that is what I would do. Why? Because I wouldn't want to give someone wilted flowers, I would want them to look fresh and pretty. Maybe those guys didn't forget it was valentines, maybe they are smarter than you realize and actually thought "hey if I get flowers tonight or tomorrow morning, they will look better than if I bought them a week in advance." whatever. end rant  there.

Onto another issue I have: If you guy does something special for you, don't complain. period end of story. I don't care if he didn't do it to your standards. be grateful he did anything at all. Tell him Thank you and you appreciate it!  Stop being a brat about it. Men's brains are not wired like women's. We are different.

I guess I will get off my soapbox now.

Now go out and celebrate, appreciate and love everyone ALL year long and show it ALL year long. Not just one day.

smarty pants dance

 Maybe I need to teach my girls the smarty pants dance! haha.
Joe and I just can't believe how fast they pick things up, especially the things we think they aren't paying attention too. They are always paying attention. It's great. We are always teaching the girls about manners and model them all the time. Kayte picked up on it... Joe sneezed one day and Kayte said "excuse you daddy" before I could even say it... we were both shocked and pleased with her. Just us modeling the behavior and being kind to each other was picked up.

Emma is doing so well with feeding herself, and taking steps, climbing stairs and following her sister around. Kayte has been a great example to Emma as well. Emma watches, follows and thoroughly enjoys Kayte. She tries to do just about everything that Kayte does. Emma has also picked up on sharing... she shares her toys and even her food with us.

I love that we don't have to constantly preach and talk about things for our kiddies to pick up on them. I also love that they pick up on things even when I don't think they are paying attention.

Taking a trip back in time.

My dad recently posted a picture of me when I was a baby on Facebook.. the caption was  "whose Emmalee look like?"

And here is why he asked that: 

Love it!! Too cute. 

And here is another of both girls just having a blast in the sink!

...tickle tickle tickle...

Mommy fail here, I couldn't operate the video camera part of the camera very well and missed the big huge giggles and laughs from both girls while Daddy tickled them. But you can kind of get the gist here:

A touch of color

And our drab house has color! Thanks to a spunky little monkey of ours. She has been begging "Daddy, paint my room?" for a while now. The color she picked was purple. We didn't plan on painting until Spring when we could open the windows, but we have had some unusual winter weather here. The days have reach 50-60 degrees. So on one of those days that it was supposed to be clear and warm we decided to paint her room. Kayte was so excited and she even got to help! 

A little bit of Kayte's painting with the border around the room painted

Kayte painting the room with her paint brush!

"We're paintin' my room mama!" 

Daddy rolling the room. It was almost done! 

All purple now!! I will take a better picture of it once we have it
completely decorated. 

Now only a few days later, she was ready for Em to have her room painted. Then the bathroom downstairs, and mommy and daddy's room. She apparently is tired of the walls being white or that ugly gray/blue color that it was when we bought it. 

This is Kayte's paint work. I didn't get any of her in action, but she was really excited to paint her sisters room!

More Kayte work! 

Daddy being silly about to finish up what Mommy couldn't reach 

Joe finishing up the last part of the room that needed to be painted!

All PINK and before we moved the furniture back to it's place! Her room also still needs decorations. 

It is refreshing to have some color in the house even if it's the girls rooms. It makes it feel more "homey" that is for sure.