Long Distance Buddies

Here's a continuation from Nate and Kate playing with Tyler and Reagan. They stopped by our house before they headed out of town to go back home to Virginia.

Kate, Nate & Ty and Reagan and Tammy in the background.

Valentine's Sweethearts

I walked in Kathryn's room on Valentine's Day morning and saw her snuggling with her baby while she slept. It was the cutest thing ever so I rushed out to get my camera.
My little sweethearts!

Tik Tok

Somehow, the kids and I have started a new bath time routine that is entirely too much work and way too long. I have to wrap them up in towels and spin them around the room. It started out as just swinging them back and forth a couple of times and saying "tick tock." It's gotten way out of hand. Now I have to spin them and sling them and twirl them around the room four times each. Then to complete it I have to drag them through Kathryn's room, through their bathroom and into Nate's room before it's over. Thank goodness Paw-Paw and Lady were there to relieve me of that duty last week. They didn't know what they were agreeing to when they gave the kids their baths!

One night I asked Nathan to spin me around in towel and he flat out told me no. If I wanted to play "tick tock" then I should have just asked my mom when I was a kid. Yeah right! I can really see my parents agreeing to this 30 years ago!

Paw-Paw's Party

It wasn't quite as exciting as last year's birthday party, but we celebrated Paw-Paw's birthday while he and Lady were visiting last week.
Nate decided that he would like for Paw-Paw to have a Phineas and Ferb party. Remember he said he and Paw-Paw are like Phineas and Ferb because they're like brothers, always there for each other.

I asked Paw-Paw what kind of cake he wanted and he requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Nathan immediately, but politely, told him no. He wanted white frosting instead. Then Nate came up with a solution. He would allow the birthday boy to have his choice of cake, but only on a small portion. (Can you tell I've never taken a cake decorating class?)
She couldn't wait to give Paw-Paw his gift. She opened it for him as she walked the gift over to him.One of a kind tie-dye socks made especially for Paw-Paw from Nate and Kate. Mostly Nate.
Kathryn couldn't walk by the socks without yelling, "Paw-Paw's socks" every time she saw them up until the birthday bash. She was so excited to give them to him.
Nate kept talking about how much Paw-Paw was going to love his new socks before his birthday.
Here's a peek into all the hard work that went into making such a special gift.
The perfect gift for someone who has everything!

Happy Birthday, Paw-Paw!

Super Shopper

Steve introduced Nate to Star Wars. Just like with all of Nate's infatuations, we're all helping him along in excess. He needs money to buy Star Wars figures, so he's figured out that he can do "work" around the house to earn money. Here he is getting us water. Every cup of water he filled up was worth anywhere from $0.50 to $1. He stood there and watched us chug the water just so that he could go back and get us more water. Did I mention Paw-Paw and Lady started that and set the rate?

At that rate he was able to buy one Star Wars figure.
There's the big spender.
Happy with his new toy that he worked hard to buy.

I was telling Lady about how Nathan keeps on earning money everyday and she was proud of him. She asked what he has been doing and I told her. Steve pays him a dollar every time he completes a hard level all by himself on his Spongebob video game. Lady pointed out how ridiculous that is. Yes, he's being rewarded with cash for playing video games. When you put it that way it does seem a little overboard.

Soccer Saturday

Paw-Paw and Lady got to watch Nate at soccer again last Saturday. This time he was much more accepting of having visitors watch him. Nate is showing off his blocking skills.

There's Nate and his best soccer pal, Claire.

Kathryn walked Mace around while Nate played soccer. She can't get enough of him.

More Singing for the Seniors

Nathan's school visits the senior center to sing for the "grandmas and grandpas" a couple of times each year. It's always so cute to watch Nate and the rest of the classes sing their songs.

If you couldn't tell, Nate is the one directly above the teacher's head.

He doesn't even realize it, but he sings these songs around the house all the time. He even has Kathryn singing some of them.

At the beginning of school Nathan talked about a girl in his class nonstop. That would be the tall girl on the left side of the screen (in the blue shirt) dancing her heart out.

Minnesota Memories

At least Nate's friend Wyatt got to see everything from the Minnesota trip. He saw the book Oma made for Nate and he was very impressed. Nate explained everything to him as he flipped through the pages.

Wyatt likes Florida State and he's not shy about it. Then Nate tells him that his favorite football team is the Minnesota Vikings. But then he explains to him that the Vikings always lose.

Birthday Bouncing

Nate and Kate were invited to a birthday party for a friend a couple of weeks ago. Now Nate has decided this is were he wants to have his birthday party. We'll see if this is his final decision, the gymnastics place. He changes ideas with every birthday party he goes to. At least he's over the McDonald's idea now.Kathryn definitely had fun.
They both wore themselves out.
Lots of swinging, jumping, climbing, etc.
The long trampoline was Kathryn's fave.
They made it look like so much fun that Steve ended up jumping on it too, but I didn't get a video of that.

Cake time!
My kids were the only ones who only ate the frosting.

Pix of the Kids

Here are some pictures of the kids that I have taken recently.
Kathryn enjoys lounging around on her Tinkerbell sofa.
Take-out dinner. Nathan's favorite restaurant is Outback, but he doesn't like to go there to eat because he says it takes too long.
Kathryn eats anything I put in front of her. Spinach.
Nathan's diet consists mostly of chicken and french fries.
Fish and asparagus.
Definitely cool beyond his years.
They both agree that the marshmallows on the Rice Krispies Treats box looks like toilet paper.

I couldn't walk by this giant cupcake without buying it for my little Spongebob fanatics.
I only bought one, so of course, they fought over it.
I cut it in half and made them share it.
Kathryn picked up Nate's underwear and put them on. Both legs in one leg hole.
He doesn't like wearing jeans because he says they're "too sharp." He prefers softer pants.

Cupcake Copycat

Immediately after I looked at Amanda's blog and saw her Oreo cupcake creations I couldn't think straight for days. I really don't enjoy baking, but I had to do it. I knew there was only one way for me to get a taste. It took a couple trips to the grocery store to re-buy the key ingredient that kept disappearing, but eventually we all got to indulge in the final product.
They treat the chocolate cookie part as mere packaging for the filling.
OMG! These are good. They don't look as pretty as Amanda's, but they are so good. They even kind of blend in with my countertop. Now when I see my countertop I get hungry for these Oreo cupcakes!

Blast from the Past

After a long couple of years, Nathan finally got to meet back up with his South Dakota buddy, Tyler. It was so cute to see these baby boys in 2008 as big four year olds hanging out and talking and playing together.
Now it's not only the two of them, but we've added a couple of cute little girls to the mix. This is a first look at what the week ahead has in store. We have a lot of time to make up for!
So cute together.

Georgia in January Con't

We always look forward to going to Paw-Paw and Lady's house for about a million reasons. It's especially fun now that Lady is retired. Here are the rest of the pictures and videos from our trip last month.

Poor Mace. That's all I can say.

Nathan is only willing to leave the house if it's for something fun. He will come up with a million excuses as to why he can't leave the house if it's for anything other than something fun.

So here they are at Marietta Square.

Kathryn had fun playing on the train playground too.

This is one slick slide.

After all the playground fun it was time to eat.

We went out for pizza at Marietta Pizza Company.

That slice of pizza is bigger than Nathan's head... and that's saying a lot.

Kathryn helped Lady cut some fabric for a project for my class at school. I told Lady she should become a preschool teacher. She's a natural.

It's so funny to watch how differently Kathryn plays with the exact same toys that Nate used to play with. In Kathryn's eyes these bobbles are baby dolls.

I didn't bring any of Kathryn's dolls, but Lady had a couple of her old dolls for her to play with.

She's such a good little mommy.

Now it's Lady's turn to cuddle the baby. She got worn out entertaining Great Grandma Gerken and all her friends at The Terrace.

Nathan's favorite commercial is the Had a Bad Day NFL Fantasy Football commercial. He watches it over and over on the computer.

Nathan had a great idea for when he got to Georgia. He requested a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's because we don't have one near our house anymore. Thank goodness that is now a special treat for when we go to Georgia! (Here is where I've been waiting to insert Chuck E. Cheese pictures, but Paw-Paw never sent them to me.)

For some reason Jessica really likes Steve. She only wanted Steve to hold her and wouldn't come to me. But let me also tell the story about how she refused to take a bite of a chocolate chip cookie when her daddy offered it to her, but took a bite of a raw onion instead. I'm just putting that information out there.

On the way home we took some back roads on the stretch from Montgomery to Florida and I just happened to notice this road as I was passing. I couldn't resist taking a picture.