Snow Mountain

There was never a dull moment while we were with Paw-Paw and Lady. We had so much fun! We went to Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain to go snow tubing. Nate learned that snow tubing is way more fun when you're not suffering from frostbite in the Minnesota cold.

 I can't believe I got Paw-Paw and Lady to go snow tubing!

 Represent!

 Snow days. Kate and Paw-Paw.

Me and my snow babies.

Of course, we can't pass up a smashed penny machine. Nate collects them to make Uncle Joe jealous.

Swirly potato on a stick. Delish.

Christmas 2013 Continued

Since Steve was gone, the kids and I took a road trip to Georgia over the holiday break. Here we are on our way. Mack sat and stared at Nate as he chowed his Burger King.

When we got there Lady and Nate worked on his Star Wars sticker book together.

  Mack took to Lady also. If you can't tell, he's the fuzzy black thing using her arm as a chin rest while she works on the computer.

 Paw-Paw bought the kids a basketball goal like they have at arcades.

 Nate and Kate anxiously awaiting to see what they got Paw-Paw for Christmas.

 My babies and me.

 Lady made Kathryn an apron (as well as a whole bunch of other "fancy" clothes). Here they are cooking together to try out her new apron.

 Making me scrambled eggs.

 This is one of Kate's new "fancy" outfits.

 Mack got all dressed up for Christmas too.

He actually got to wear his sweater collection in Georgia because it was sooo cold. He has a big selection of sweaters and coats that he never gets to wear because it doesn't usually get cold enough.

Mack visited Great Grandma Gerken and brought some Christmas cheer to the residents. They actually loved him a lot more than he loved them though.

Lady and I went to see a movie on Christmas night and got home and realized we didn't want to eat leftovers. Nate and Lady and decided Waffle House sounded good. Apparently, everyone else in Atlanta thought it sounded good too because the line was out the door. Lucky for us though, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Larry were already there. What a nice coincidence because we got to squeeze in with them at their table instead of waiting in the crazy line!

Christmas 2013

Like most holidays, we didn't celebrate on the actual calendar date for Christmas this year. We had our little Christmas on December 22 with Nate, Kate and me and Paw-Paw and Lady on FaceTime watching the whole time. (We tried calling Daddy, but he didn't answer so Nate asked if we could call Paw-Paw and Lady to watch.) Here they are getting to open one gift on their "Christmas Eve (Dec. 21)." You can tell they weren't happy about the fact that they had to share the gift and I got to choose which gift. They asked to rent Despicable Me from the Red Box as we were leaving Walmart, but I told them no because that's what this gift was.

 Excited on Christmas morning.

Let the gift opening begin...

It's always fun to throw a gift in there that they're going to hate just to watch their excitement completely fade for a minute. Toothbrush

Good gift.

Last, but not least, the big gift.

I put this gift together a week prior to them opening it and threw a table cloth over it and told them it was a table to put Mack's sweaters on and they never mentioned it after that.

An air hockey and ping pong table. So much fun!

I got a lot of pictures of Kathryn enjoying her gifts, but not many of Nate. He ran upstairs to play his new video games as soon as we finished opening gifts. I don't think I saw him for about 2 hours after that.

Kathryn couldn't wait to open each one of her gifts and play with them.

She even opened Nate's gifts and had me put his stuff together.

We tried out ping pong. She's a ping pong princess.

When the festivities were over I took the tree down because we were leaving to go to Paw-Paw and Lady's house the next day and I didn't want to come home and have to take it down. I hate taking the tree down. It especially sucks when I have to do it all. (Kathryn took about 30 pictures of me on her new iPad as I struggled to get this giant tree packed up and taken out to the garage.

I let the kids decide where they wanted to go for our Christmas meal together. You can't go wrong with Waffle House for Christmas dinner!

That was our first Christmas celebration. More to come!

Singers and Dancers

Nate was sick on the day of his first grade musical "Hats." At least I got to see some of the songs ahead of time during his home performance! This video wouldn't upload so here it is on YouTube.

More dancing and singing from Nate and Kate here.

Kate's turn singing here.

So Far This Month

So far this is what we've been up to this month. Not much of anything although we never seem to have much free time. Finding time to do the blog has become harder and harder. I blame Instagram for my lack of blogging. It's way easier!


This was from when Lady was visiting. Kathryn watches Lady's every move and decided she wanted mousse on her hair to give it some body. We're at Sam's in this picture and Kathryn was on her second sample cup of pie here.

 Getting ready to dance.

 She must have gotten chilly so she put slippers on.

If she catches me in hot rollers you better believe she needs them too. Girliest girl ever. Early on in my pregnancy with her, before I found out I was having a girl, my exact words were, "This is a girl. She's the girliest girl ever because she is sucking every bit of girliness right out of me." I was so sick I couldn't even stand up in the shower long enough to rinse the shampoo out of my hair so in a moment of desperation I went to some cheap hair cutting place and asked them to chop all my hair off up to my chin (13 inches) and I donated it to Locks of Love. Never question a mother's intuition!

 Messy tooth brusher.

Nate enjoyed his time off for Thanksgiving. This was what his room looked like the entire break.

The weather has been beautiful, so I decided to take a trip to the beach. I thought I better take advantage of this beautiful place while I can still call it home.

 We have been spending so much time on the trampoline lately. They love it just as much as the first day they got it!

 Mack loves playing up there too!

 He chases Nate all over the place.

Kathryn had her 4 year check up. She is doing great. He asked her if she was able to ride a tricycle or a bike with training wheels and she proudly told him, "I can ride a bike without training wheels." He was very impressed with her. She had to get three shots so in order to make it up to her we stopped at the playground afterwards. Although, she didn't even flinch with the shots. She was actually smiling the entire time.

This is our new favorite playground. The yellowish beige building directly across the water is Kathryn's school. Not a bad view from the classrooms!

 I bought Kathryn some new shoes and she instantly fell in love.

She was so proud of them she wanted to show her brother so bad. In true brother fashion, he said he didn't care about her shoes.

That's all for now! Maybe I'll catch up again soon!