rollin', rollin', rollin'

As usual, too much time has passed since we last spoke. Spring has finally showed up & here's how we're celebrating:

going to the park

playing after supper

taking tours of the yard to see which flowers have started budding

raking old leaves from last fall

greeting geraniums that are showing in my planters

crawling

pulling up

standing

walking (with her walker)

writing more letters (It was J today)

learning about the feeding of the four thousand

hating baths (the oldest one)

loving baths (the youngest one)

eating table food almost all of the time (youngest one)

struggling to finish all of her food on the table almost all of the time (oldest one)

having our first sleepover at our house (LOADS of fun)

riding . . . her first trike!

This was a seminal event at our house. We live on an extremely steep hill, so while most parents would have already bought & helped their children use any variety of riding toys, Kate has never had any. We never even had a riding toy for inside the house. She does play with Little Tikes car at Mima's house, but, she was pretty much as inexperienced as they come. I finally decided that we could just let her play in the garage or downstairs in the spare room (linoleum flooring), and that this was the year for the trike. I never thought about the back deck! I had dinner to fix, so she begged to bring it upstairs into the living room. Um, no. But, then she came up with a good solution. Before dinner she was crashing into the chairs & was halting at best. By the time she got back up onto the trike after dinner, she was cruising around on her own personal race trak, round & round the table. It was so fun to see her doing such a big kid activity!

Hey Mom, when can I do that??

It's quite funny, she sits right at the threshold when the door's open, but won't cross over. I don't know if it's the texture of the metal threshold or the rug right outside the doorway, but she will not cross over. . . yet.

Trying really hard to show her pedaling skills for the camera.

Look what Kate stowed in the basket. . . she had been playing church earlier, so they were out on the couch from that morning.

Trike Evangelist

Shh, mom, we're having a chat!

cuteness personified!

Look what Kate found when she went to check on Rachel . . .

the face of the earth

where have we been, you ask? around, but mostly here. Birthday month plus sickness plus plain old business of the grocery shopping, meal fixing, baby food crafting, nursing type. I'm hoping this is a phase. . .

As previously mentioned, we celebrated Josh's birthday in early February with a fancy dinner. Looking for some fresh inspiration, I checked out the pioneerwoman blog and boy did I get inspired. Rib eye steaks with a delicious blue cheese cream sauce (that even sounded heavenly to a lactose intolerant person such as myself). I also used her recipe for crash hot potatoes, and this will now be a new way to do potatoes at our house! The name alone sounds delicious! I am not a daily reader or anything, but I like that she uses pictures & simple directions for her recipes. Often times, this fits the way I am usually scanning through a recipe & helps me remember the steps a bit better when I'm back in the kitchen slaving over the hot stove.

On my actual birthday, we went out as a family, but we postponed our real celebration until the next week. I had the most lovely day beginning with a mani pedi that Josh had given to me for a birthday present. Then, I had lunch & shopping with the girls, and bonus: I actually bought some clothes! Not just clothes, but the ever illusive JEAN. When I got home, it was nearly time for our family dinner not prepared by me. I have to say, best day ever! As we arranged the outing, I realized how ridiculous it was that I was soooo excited to clothes shop with only girls -- big ones, that is. It just shows you how rare an event it is anymore. When I was 16, that could have been every weekend. :-)

Gramma's birthday is also this month & we did something quite different & fun for her birthday this year. The ladies in our area all got together and had a sleepover. A real bonified, pjs talking for hours, sleepover! And, the next morning, we got to get Gramma in her finest element as storyteller, on film. What a fun thing to listen to stories of being painted blue, getting kicked out of kindergarten (because she was too young), going to dances every weekend, getting shakes at the local drive through (Green's), and just growing up in small town Augusta, or should I say Mayberry.

In all this excitement, I don't want to miss the fact that Kate has taught herself to write several more letters: P, M, D, and has a new favorite game, Scrabble. In the Bailey hospital last week, she watched her first girl movies with momma on the couch. She really loved Anne of Green Gables, although how much she could really get it all is perhaps showed to you by her favorite scene. She still wants me to show her Minnie May getting croup again. :-)

Rachel is pulling up, has two teeth, is working on the top two, and I really think she tried to say Silly yesterday.

In other exciting news, my sister Becky had her baby, Norah Isabel Alonzo, just last month. I cannot believe she's now a month old! My other sister, Susie, is having a boy in 8 weeks or so. Life is getting fuller by the minute & it's wonderful to see all of these graces from God filling up my life!