Winter? Not quite...

What happens when you let your kid dress herself...

Look who went to the groomer....

Dakota!  Actually, 2 of the 3 dogs went yesterday, and Sadie will go tomorrow.  It's way too hard for us to get them all in on the same day, so they are usually split.  They absolutely love it there, and come back very very clean.  Last night Tommy was chasing Scout around the house.  He was squealing at the top of his lungs, and Kate was chasing Tommy.  It was like a big train of screaming, running (and crawling) kids.  It's moments like those that I definitely wish I had my video camera (or phone) handy so that I wouldn't miss them.  Inevitably, by the time I get to my phone he stopped.  After this it's always hard to put the kids to bed, I don't know why but they are so much fun at night.  It's when they're at their silliest, and I want to stay up all night and play (well maybe not...).

Kate is finally over hand-foot-mouth disease, for good (we hope)!  I feel like she has had it forever, but in reality it's been weeks ago.  She was only contagious for the first few days so she had to stay home from gymnastics a while back and it was pure torture for her!  I guess it's a good thing that she likes her activities.  Here's a picture of the aftermath...

She refused to let me take another picture, or get one of her feet which were much worse.  She hardly had any bumps in or around her mouth, which I hear is a really good thing. 

I can't believe summer is half over!  I don't know where time has gone, and I feel like my kids are getting so old and I find myself getting nostalgic all the time (Brandon thinks this will eventually lead to  another baby....who knows?!?!).  Here's what we're spending most of our afternoons doing (pre-nap, of course).

Life is good!  I hear a baby who's waking up from his morning nap, and he'll be looking for his sister at Bible School shortly after that, so I must go live!

Weekend Post

This weekend was not too eventful in our family, and that's the way I like it!  I never thought I'd say that because I used to love have fun and exciting weekends - but those were much younger and kid-free days!  Now, I love doing things that the kids want to do, we usually go swimming both days of the weekend, go to church, cook outside a bit, and play a LOT in the backyard.  On Sunday, Kate was under the weather, so we did a whole lotta nothin'!  I don't even think Kate got fully dressed, and the kids spent most of the day in summer attire.....

....and I couldn't get either one of them to look for any kind of picture.  Kate has had no fever, but been a little sluggish and sleepy.  We definitely hope it's nothing too serious!  

Tommy, on the other hand, has been his usual happy self.  He is an incredibly loud baby, I'm not sure if this is a boy thing or what, but Kate definitely had more volume control from a young age.  He's his loudest at meal times.  Maybe I'll record one tonight and post it because it's pretty entertaining, unless we're at a restaurant.....

Kate went to a princess ball tonight.  She's not back yet, so I'll take a small opportunity to post some pictures we took before she left.  She was soooooo excited to go, she wasn't too sure what to think of her wrist corsage that Brandon gave to her, but she has years to get used to that idea!

As for Tommy....

He just spent the remainder of his night missing Kate.  And eating.  And crawling.  And screaming at the dogs.

A Resolution

I've already established that I'm a horrible blogger, but now I feel like a horrible mom, too!  I write absolutely nothing down for my kids to look back on someday.  The blogs I've done in the past are pretty much the extent of what's recorded of their lives.  For example, Tommy clapped for the first time.  In March.  At Chick-fil-a.  I have no idea what day or what inspired the clap, and I haven't written any of that information down (like I vowed to the second I got home...).  Isn't that sad?  So, that being said, I'm going to resolve to do one post everyday with something about Kate and Tommy.  It could be something they do, say, or just an interesting interaction I observe.

I'm not really sure if anyone reads my blog other than my grandma and a few friends, so these whimsical posts may be pretty boring for some people.  I don't usually talk much about my kids on facebook, so I'm going to do it on here.  If you don't like hearing about my kids, then stop reading!  Maybe when I'm done I'll print all the blogs and put them in some sort of scrapbook, at least that's always been my plan...

P.S. My post about today will come tonight when my husband whisks my daughter off to a ball.  She's so excited about her "date" and I'm pretty sure she thinks she and Brandon are getting married tonight.  So cute!

An Update

Brandon's working late tonight, so how better to spend my time than by updating my blog?  I have some videos to share, very high tech for me, I know.  I resisted the change to a touch phone, but I am glad that I am able to video any special moments as they happen.

This first video is of Tommy eating, and I think it's the cutest thing ever.  As soon as he takes a bite, he smacks his mouth several times.  We're not sure why he does this, it's a new thing and I didn't know how long it would last, so I wanted to capture it!

This next video is a game gone wrong!  Kate and Brandon had been throwing a ball and it was making Tommy laugh SO hard, so I ran to get my phone to record it.  As soon as I did, Kate changed the game and tried to include Tommy.  You'll see...

Never a boring moment...

What Christmas looks like at our house!

This isn't very Christmasy, I just liked my dad's expression!

Kate is completely tired at 8 a.m.

This is what we did the rest of the morning....

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, we had fun celebrating as a family of 4.  Church was freezing and crowded, but we had a seat at the front for the children's play and sermon, so Kate was very happy about that.  All in all, we had a good one and can't wait to see what 2012 brings!