Katie's First Birthday Party

 This weekend we celebrated Katie's first birthday!  She turns one this Thursday which is so hard to believe. 

We had a great time celebrating with family and friends.  Katie did great although she cried when we sang Happy Birthday and then seemed much happier when her brother helped her eat cake. 

I loved this sweet picture of Katie and her balloons on the front of her invitation.  Thank you Ali Wood for capturing such sweet shots and Nicki for designing the darling invitation!

Invitation - inside

Invitation - back

favors

flowers and smash cake

cupcakes!

these frames were on our bar - one picture from each month

birthday girl walking with Lovey

crying during Happy Birthday

getting some reassurance

happy (and blurry)

Will planning his attack...

there he goes!

Rainy Day

 We had a rainy few days here in Dallas and Will patiently waited to stomp in the puddles.  Luckily we ran into his buddy Armando so they got to stomp together.  I look forward to having Katie join us for the post-rain fun in the future!

A week away

 Chad and I just returned from 6 days away from the kids.  This is the longest we have been away with out either of them...ever.  I have to say - it was fantastic.  We took more naps than I knew was possible and we truly relaxed.  We received daily pictures from Loli who was graciously taking care of them, and they clearly had a great time.  Highlights included a trip to Luby's and a visit to the zoo with Loli's family - including "Grandpa" who is 100 years old!  Since then, Will draws pictures for Loli's husband and for Grandpa and he asks to play with his new friends (Loli's nieces and nephews).  Will had his own bedroom - complete with a king size bed!  Loli attempted to put Katie in the pack n' play in the room as well, but Will quickly let her know that it was his room.  The room looked a lot like his room seeing as how he brought so many of his toys from home. 

Will wanted to pack his own bag for Loli's house, so Loli let him while she packed for Katie.  When she came back to check on him, he had packed tons of his toys, his boppies, and then every single pair of pajamas he could find (which is probably no less than 15 pairs).

It honestly made me feel so good to see that they were in such good hands and that they had a great time.  Coming home to them was wonderful - we were greeted with huge smiles and big hugs.  Will told us how much he missed us and held on tight to us for the rest of the night.  It was good to have him in my arms again!  Katie has definitely picked up speed and she can places pretty quickly now with her crab like crawl.  We are so excited but yet cannot believe we will be celebrating her 1st birthday this weekend!  Time is flying by...

Poor Maggie

Katie LOVES to get Maggie's tail.  Poor girl.  She often doesn't know Katie is close by until the tail is tightly gripped in these little fingers.  Luckily Katie also loves to feed Maggie scraps, so I guess it is part of the trade off.

The 4th tooth is in!

 While looking through these pictures, I noticed that Katie has a new tooth!  I'm amazed that I found out in pictures vs. tylenol and teething tablets.  Not sure how we got this lucky, but we will take it!  She now has her two I-teeth up top and the two middles on the bottom.  You can see all four in this picture if you really zoom!

When did she get all this hair?

That top tooth on Katie's left is crazy long - you can see the tip in this picture

Loving our baby legs - thanks Mindee!  This picture is very Katie to me.

This is not a face Katie makes often, but isnt it cute?

Fire Lady

Another very Katie expression

Random Pictures from my Phone

 I am loving my new iPhone 4S.  The picture quality is usually great, so I thought it might be time to go through the stack and pick out some highlights.

This is one of my favorites.  Katie still sleeps with both hands behind her head as if she is laying on the beach soaking in the sun.  She now surrounds herself with her dolls and stuffed animals and we often see her playing with them when we peek at her on the monitor.

close up

Went into Will's room while he was sleeping and couldn't find his head!

off to the park with a digger and dump truck

Home Depot visit

Little cashier

Central Market visit

Katie playing with Will's new parking garage

Katie on the plasma car

Fireman Will carrying Monkey around in the Ergo Carrier