Baby in a Hat

I just came across these pictures from July 2007. Kennedy thought it was pretty funny to wear her great, great Uncle Ted's hat. She was 16 months old.

Look how darn cute she is:

Yearly Well-Checks

Well it is that time of the year again when the girls go in for their yearly well-checks. This is Katelyn's 6 year-old check-up and Kennedy's 3 year-old check-up.

Katelyn is currently 42lbs. and 45.5 inches tall.
Kennedy is currently 30 lbs even and 38.5 inches tall. Kennedy's height is in the 75th percentile and her weight is in the 50th percentile. Kennedy just hit 30 lbs as she was still 28lbs just 2 weeks ago. Both girls just went through a growth spurt, which usually hits right around their birthdays...just 2 weeks ago.

Dr. Hesz said that we have another incredibly bright girl on our hands. She was asking Kennedy 51/2 year-old questions on her developmental screening, and she got them correct...including opposites and analogies! Even though she got them right, the Dr. stopped, because she said that Kennedy was obviously developing great and was very ahead of schedule with her vocabulary and cognitive skills. She wanted to know where the girls will be going to school and if Katelyn has anyone in her class that can keep up with her academically. I told her that there were some other very bright kids in the school, and she was happy to hear that. She was concerned that the girls may have trouble being challenged and finding peers that they can connect with on a cognitive level...I assured her that Beavercreek has bright kids and that I'll keep an eye on it, but I am confident they will be sufficiently challenged. It was so wonderful hearing how smart our girls are considering that a pediatrician sees kids all day every day... it really made us feel great! Also, Dr. Hesz was very disappointed that Kevin and I are not having any more children...which we took as quite a compliment as well:)

Here is our 6 year-old girl with a full set of teeth (some baby and two grown-up teeth on the bottom)...

And here she a couple of weeks later with an adorable toothless grin...

and here is our 3 year-old girl in all her cuteness...

Sisters...Friends Forever

This is a short post that is based on a conversation that one of our neighbors, Mrs. Haverland, recently had with Katelyn and Kennedy. The story touched Mrs. Haverland so much that she came over to tell me all about it, and...she even got teary eyed.

Mrs. Haverland saw the girls playing in the backyard. She went over to the girls and said, "Kennedy your're 3 and big enough to play with your sister now." Katelyn said, "I'm 6 now. Yeah, it is like having a playdate everyday of my life." Mrs. Haverland said that the girls gazed into each other's eyes, Kennedy smiled, then they went off skipping across the yard holding hands. She was so moved to see the love between these sisters.

Mrs. Knowles, anther one of our neighbors, has also often commented on the close and genuine relationship my girls have.

We are so very blessed to have sisters that are truly the best of friends! Here they are playing...a playdate every day of their lives

Sparks-A-Rama

Katelyn has participated in AWANA this year. Our awesome neighbor, Tina, takes all of the kids in the neighborhood to the AWANA program at her church each week. Katelyn's age group, Kindergarten through 2nd grade, is the "Sparks." Each week, the children practice a bible verse at home to recite to their Sparks leader on Wednesday. If the children successfully recite their verse, the leader signs the child's handbook. The children earn jewels for their vest by reciting verses throughout the year. The program really requires a lot of support at home to work with the children on their verses. Also, the expectations are really high. So, the children have to recite more than one verse some weeks in order to complete the handbook in one school year.

Each year, the AWANA program has a "Sparks-A-Rama" competition for the K-2 age group. All of the local AWANA programs participate in this competition. It is quite competitive and they actually designate 1st, 2nd, 3rd place, etc. Katelyn's team...Patterson Park Church, got 1st place!

Kennedy's Birthday...A Tea Party

We celebrated Kennedy's "friends" birthday party on Saturday, March 7 at our house. Kennedy is such a girly-girl, that we decided a tea party would be the perfect theme for her birthday this year. Kennedy was so excited! She kept running to the front door the morning of the party checking to see if her friends were here yet. We had a total of seven little girls...Kennedy, Katelyn, Reagan, Emily, Annie and Ella (twins from next door that are in Kennedy's preschool class), and Mallory. All of the little ones ended up being dropped off due to the busy schedules of their parents. One would think that it might be difficult to manage a party of 2 and 3 year-olds without their parents to help out, but not the case! These girls were amazingly good!

Kevin thought that we might be asking for a disaster by putting all of these little ones in our dining room. But much to our surprise, there wasn't a single spill! All of the girls used their best manners. They were just precious sitting at that big table having their sophisticated little tea party. You could tell that they felt special and grown-up.

Although we had a mixture of tea sets around the house, I decided to order dishes for the occasion. It would have bothered me to have mismatched tea sets. I was able to find real China tea sets online at a reasonable cost...perfect! These new tea sets came with bigger cups than the ones we already had, so it was much better than the itty-bitty-tea cups that I would need to constantly refill.

We served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes, cantaloupe, goldfish crackers, pink lemonade, and of course, a pink cake! Kevin and I made the cake together. It was a strawberry cake with pink-vanilla icing. Katelyn and Kennedy were so excited about the pink cake, they kept saying that it was their very own "Pinkalicious" cake...which happens to be one of their favorite books!

(The tablecloth looks terribly wrinkled, it is actually the table protection pad underneath the tablecloth that was the problem.There is no way to get the fold creases out of it, which makes the tablecloth lay funny. I decided that the wrinkles would be better than risking ruining my table:)

In order to mark each child's place at the table, I made princess wands with each child's initial on the wand. It was cute watching the girls try to find their seat (I know, I just can't let the teacher in me go, even at my baby's birthday party). The favor bags were pink chiffon filled with the princess wand, a necklace, pink chapstick (it is March in the midwest!), and sparkly pencils.

Look how much fun they are having... the sisters...

The cousins...Kennedy, Reagan, & Emily

And look at the smile on my girl...priceless!

Birthday Bowling Fun

We always let the girls pick where they would like to go for dinner for their actual mid-week birthday since their birthday parties are on the weekends. Well, Kennedy had her heart set on bowling this year. I don't know what on earth made her think of bowling. She went bowling twice when she was 1, but that's it!

At first I didn't think we could do the bowling thing because we needed a place for dinner. But then I remembered that yes, bowling alleys do have food. So, we had an evening of pizza and bowling for Kennedy's 3rd birthday.

Kennedy's ball would roll about as slowly as one could imagine. Kevin, Katelyn, and I couldn't help but laugh every time it was Kennedy's turn because it was hysterically funny to watch her bowl move ever so slowly...but it usually made it to the pins.



Here she is watching her ball so intently while the rest of us were off to the side laughing.

Little Writer

Katelyn writes and illustrates little stories all day long. Here is just one particularly cute piece of writing from today.

Translation...Hello, I am the pizza
man I make pizzas.