Meet my "son"

It's been a while since I've posted, and our family has grown by one member since my last post!  Meet Tommy!

I have always heard about little girls who dress their younger brothers in doll clothes, but I never thought Kate would do this.  Kate is a HUGE fan of playing dress-up, but I thought this was a game she reserved solely for herself, apparently this is not the case.  She adores dressing her younger brother, I let her pick out his outfit every morning - within reason.  Yesterday my mom and dad watched the kids while I ran to the store, and this is what I came home to (this is also the reason why the title of my post has "son" in quotation marks, although, believe me, he's 100% boy)....

My mom said this was completely Kate's idea, everything from her bear's cheerleading outfit down to the pink shoes.  Notice he even has pom poms, a very nice touch!  This picture might just have to surface at some kind of later event, say a 16th birthday or an engagement party.  Moms can be so mean!

On a more serious note, Tommy has been such a great addition to our family.  He is adored by his parents and older sister.  Kate would sit and give him hugs and kisses all day long.  I've learned that the second child has to take sleep whenever they can get it.  I was always so concerned about Kate sleeping the appropriate number of hours per day and night.  If he's lucky, he gets to sleep a whole hour before Kate runs in to check on him, and inevitably wakes him.  It would bother me if what she was doing wasn't so darn cute!  She usually goes in to make sure he's not crying and see if he needs a kiss.  It melts my heart every time.  

It looks like we're raising a nice, big, healthy baby boy.  At his 2 week check up, when the doctor looks to make sure he's regained his birth weight, Tommy surprised us with an additional 3 pounds!  He loves his all-night buffet.  I'm sure I'll have plenty more posts with these two crazy kids, but for now, I'll just end with a picture (something I sure wish Tommy would do more of)!

The Birthday Boy and the Baby Boy

Today is Brandon's 29th birthday, and Kate and I successfully surprised him.  This is a very hard task with a 3 year old!  She spills the beans on everything.

First we made the surprises...

Then we went in for the main event...

I'm sure Brandon would love for me to have a baby boy as his present today, but I got him something else, just in case!  As of yesterday I'm overdue, but the doctor seems to think that he'll be here sometime very soon, and he IS on call this weekend, thank goodness!  I'll post pictures as soon as I have time and a little sleep (I'm sure after the baby comes I'll take sleep before posting pictures for a while).

An Important Lesson Learned

First, you must do this...

Before you can do this...

Thanks for clarifying, Kate.

End of School

Kate's first year of school has come to an end...already!  It flew by, and I absolutely loved her teachers and she made some really cute friends.  Overall, I was very pleased with this experience, and Kate seems to love school.  Here are some photos from her end of the year recital.

Two posts in one day!

After lunch, Kate told me that she wanted to play dress-up.  I can never say no to a good game of dress-up, since it's one of my all-time favorites.  So I went to my room to get some shoes, belts, hats, etc, and when I came back to Kate's room (a little worried because it had been very quiet the whole time I was gone), this is what I found:

To begin with, she was wearing a light purple shirt with short purple leggings.  When I arrived, she had put on (over her original outfit) some more underwear, her gymnastics leotard, and some church shoes.  Plus she has a very small (maybe 12 month) headband in her hands that she had been trying diligently to put on, but ended up getting frustrated and putting it back in the drawer.

Here's one with a better view of the headband, although she was done giving me pleasant looks by this time.

I also have to apologize about the drab look of Kate's room, but we sold our house and have already started packing :-)

Future Stars!

This is Kate and her BFF Brylen at gymnastics.  I think they're destined for great things, what do you think?

Just a few Photos...

The girl looooooves strawberries!

St. Patrick's Day - sorry, I think I meant to do a post, um, about 2 weeks ago with this picture.

Hates getting into the bath, but really hates getting out!

My Sadie girl.  This blog IS supposed to be about dogs, too!