I can't believe I forgot to tell you

Our daughter has been begging us for a fish for quite some time now. We have been putting it off since JC has the 55 gallon tank that he plans on setting up whenever the house gets started finished. Well, thanks to some Divine intervention, she has a fish. At Church Sunday all the children caught their own fish (these are goldfish, etc. people, let's think nets not rods) and got to take them home.

So she received a "free" fish. Seventy dollars later, we had a 20 gallon tank (which JC actually already had stashed in the basement), air pump, gravel, chemicals, food and 6 MORE FISH. My child is very happy about her new pets, Fast Herman , Madeline, etc. etc. (I have to admit I don't know if they all have names or what they are if they have.)

We did have a discussion on how fish don't always stick around a long time, how cats do eat fish if they can get ahold of them and not to blame the cats if that happens because it's just their nature.... Wanted to cover all bases in case someone went belly up. I'm actually expecting that to be one of the cats when they go fishing in the tank. Either they don't know that they are there or the fish are too small for them to worry about. I'm guessing they haven't figured out that they are there yet.

They will be discussing pet heaven in Church next week.

Okay, a little too resilient?

The mother of our nanny, Cynthia, passed away recently. Katie loved "Grandma Ola" and was constantly writing her cards before she passed. We went to the services on Saturday and today Katie is with Cynthia and some family as they are cleaning out Grandma Ola's apartment.

And today I found out that my daughter is one of THOSE family members. You know the ones that go through everything after someone is gone and take whatever they can? The kind I complain about whenever the subject comes up? Apparently there is a specific "cat pillow" that Katie has loved since Grandma Ola purchased it. Today Katie said, Grandma Ola's not around anymore, she won't know ... or something to that effect.

Ugh.

I've noticed that it's harder to pull one over on Katie these days. Last year when I wanted her to come in in the evenings all I had to tell her was that the mosquitos were coming out. Yes, I'm not ashamed that I used her fear of mosquitos for my own purposes.

However, last night when I tried to use that same line on her I got this response "Can't I just use my mosquito protection?" (Off) I told her that she was getting too smart for me.

She's also aware that my reason for her going to bed on time (8:00) is over. She's no longer in school so she wants to stay up late. Last night I told her that we have changed her bedtime to 8:30 for the summer. Hopefully she will be happy with that. I need some down time too! lol

Trying to keep a couple steps ahead of her is making my brain hurt. I don't remember debating this much with Mom & Dad, was I just dumb or is she just more outspoken? Okay, well I KNOW she's more outspoken. I blame JC's family for that.

(By the way, if you haven't seen it there is another post below this one. Just wanted to warn anyone who hadn't caught up yet.)

Hellooooo out there!!!!!

I think this blog might end up being more for Katie since I'm not posting that often, but I am going to try to post a bit more so I have something to show Katie. When I realized that I haven't posted since February I felt bad.

Just to give you a rundown of what has been going on with Katie lately...

She is amazingly glad to be enjoying summer vacation. Really, should they be so happy to be out of school at her age? I mean, she hasn't even started full time yet. I can't wait for that rude awakening.

I am also glad that summer vacation has started because now I can monitor when my child is around boys. Yep, boys. Isn't it too early to have these issues? We have already had discussions of a) you don't tell boys when you have a crush on them; b) you don't need to hold hands with boys at this age; c) you DEFINITELY don't need to be kissing boys at this age. Now just in case you think I'm being proactive... I'm not... I'm being REactive. All of this has taken place including my child asking one of the boys in her class to go out to lunch with her. His mother's reply to this when she found out was to send me a message telling me to call her so that she could have Katie over for a "Lunch date". Um, no, I'm not encouraging this. Apparently this is not the first girlfriend for this little boy.

She was also in another dance recital at the beginning of the month, but is done with dancing and very happy about that much to my mother's dismay. She wants to take classes in clay instead. Much rather get dirty right? .... Hopefully there won't be any boys in the class. Ugh.

The highlight of the last few weeks though has been the cicadas. For those of you, if there are any, reading this not from the area, we were hit with the 17-year cicadas recently. Katie has been catching them daily (and releasing them). I will have to look for a picture, I think I may have one that Cynthia took with her phone. I kept meaning to take pictures before they died off, but kept forgetting and now they seem to be disappearing. At least right by us. If we go a little farther south they are still flying around like butterflies...actually I don't see that many butterflies.

And now Katie is currently trying to figure out how she can have as much fun as possible this summer. She cracks me up. When I get home I will try to find some current pictures, or at least some new pictures, to post.

Edited to add: Roddy, no change in eating habits.

Hello out there!

Katie and JC went to the Father/Daughter dance at Katie's school. While Katie had a good time she thought there was too much daddy time involved. She told me "The Father/Daughter dance is all about the daddys!" When I asked what she meant she told me that there was too much "dancing with the daddys" and she just wanted to play with her friends. JC's side of the story? Out of a three hour dance she danced with him a total of five minutes. Waaaayyyy too much dancing there Dad! LOL Here are some pictures:

Last week we had a Valentine's Pary for Katie and some of her classmates. With her birthday at the end of July she doesn't really get a friends party, so when she asked for a Valentine's Party it was hard to say no. And actually, it went pretty well. I'm thinking of making it an annual party. We had pin the arrow on the heart, guess the number of Hershey's kisses in the jar and relay races moving candy hearts across the room from one bowl to another with a spoon. But I think what the kids had the most fun with was the cupcakes. I had made cupcakes but left them plain. I bought three different icings and a bunch of sprinkles and gels to write with. I let the kids decorate as many as they wanted. Here's some pictures of the party:

That's my assistant from work in the background. I think I'm going to pay for this at review time.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

I hope everyone has a very Happy Valentine's Day!

I have pictures and stories coming, I've just been too busy - I am an accountant you know! Not a good time for me. :) However, Katie has been to a Father/Daughter dance and we had a Valentine's Party for her classmates this past Sunday, so there is much to tell.

I promise it will be coming soon!

Just a special note to a friend - Roddy, you're a great Dad! Have a Great Valentine's Day with the girls.

Updates

Thought I'd just pop in and give everyone an update on our favorite 5 year old.

A week from this Saturday is the school's Father/Daughter dance. Too cute. She and I will be shopping for a dress on Sunday. At least it won't be like buying a prom dress $$-wise. She's very excited. I'm wondering if she's going to last the whole time since it runs from 7 to 10 and her bedtime is 8. I think JC may wilt before her though.

Katie has started her new tap/ballet class, so I'm sure there will be some entertaining moments coming from that. I gave her the choice between drama and dance and she picked dance. Probably figured, correctly, that she didn't need any help in the drama department.

She has made a few humorous comments lately, but they are all ... umm... too embarrassing for me to repeat. Hopefully she'll be providing something that I can use soon. Oh wait, I can think of one. We were on the way to Church on Sunday and we were listening to the country station. A song came on that had the father singing to the daughter and I started tearing up. I changed the station and got the "I liked that song" from the backseat. I told her that I did too, but that it was making me cry. She asked why and I told her that if a song is really beautiful sometimes it makes me cry.

Do you see it coming? Do you?

We're sitting in Church listening to the guest band play a song and I hear "sniff, sniff". "The song is beautiful...." Ugh. I've created a monster.

I think that's it for now. I'll be back!

Finally... the boat

Here are the pictures of the boat that I was talking about in the last entry. We had to have spent an hour - hour and a half in this area of the children's museum. She was having a blast... and so was JC.



Notice they even made a wheel!

Happy New Year!

Sorry for no timely Happy New Year, but my internet at home is down until Thursday. Ugh. And I have pictures to post - not from the holidays - I know, I know. I don't think I took any holiday pictures. However, JC and I took Katie to the Children's Museum while I was on vacation and they spent probably a good hour making a boat in the construction room. It was a very big boat considering the materials that they had to work with. It ended up being a pirate ship. I will post pics when the internet comes back up at home.

I hope everyone's holidays were good!

Proudest Moment of the Year

Katie: This was the best Christmas ever!

Me: Why is that?

Katie: Because I got to spend so much time with my family.

sniff. What a kid.

Merry Christmas!!!! And all that jazz....

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas in case I didn't post before then. Probably going to be a bit busy the next few days, as is everyone else I'm sure, but I didn't want blogger world to think I had forgotten about it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. OK, really, how did that poor guy get stuck in the ornament?

Peace, Love and Harmony!

Sure JC, tell me who she takes after....

Last Sunday I had to go to Church early so I could go into work afterward. JC took Katie to a later service. When I stopped at home after Church I was greeted outside by my husband who was complaining about how Katie was definitely his daughter - he couldn't get her to focus to get ready for Church. Her hair still needed to be brushed and her shoes needed to be found.

I went inside and called out her name and got back "Coming Mommy! We don't want to be running late!" Now having just heard JC's side of this story I really had to stop myself from laughing out loud. Obviously, she was going to try to peg him with the lack of readiness. I brushed her hair, found some shoes and left. (They did get to Church eventually.)

That night JC was going over getting her ready again (I think he was traumatized) and said "She gets that from your side." I said "Oh really? Want to hear what she said when I came in?" After I told him about her comment about not being late I said "Now you tell me what she gets from whom..." JC said it was a good thing he hadn't heard her comment. LOL. She's smarter than the average bear! LOL

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I hope everyone has a wonderful day surrounded by family and/or friends!

Bits and Pieces

Okay, I know everyone is going to be disappointed, but Katie was in a play yesterday and I forgot my camera. I'm hoping that I can link my dad's video, but I haven't seen it yet, so I'm not sure how it came out. She played a momma pony and was quite cute. I think drama might be her thing, she seems to enjoy it. I'll pause now for the shocked silence.

She has come up with a couple zingers lately, so I thought I would share those. Her first was to tell Cynthia that if her husband was coming to the play to make sure that he wore a tie because she wanted him to be dressed fancy. She also made Cynthia dress up which was funny because she said nothing about the fact that I was wearing jeans. And trust me, I was afraid to come downstairs so she could see me. I thought I'd be sent back upstairs to change.

Her other comment was about video games. She was watching a commercial and said "We can't have video games, we don't have the technology." I had to laugh, the real reason we don't have video games is because she and her father would be sitting in front of the games 24/7. But she is technically correct, so I gave it to her.

I realized yesterday that she's been feeding me lines lately like she knew I needed something to get me blogging. I'm sure that she'll keep it up.

Halloween 2006 Pics

Here are some Halloween pictures! Katie had a great time, but told me when she was done. She knows when she's had enough! Daddy ended up carrying her the rest of the way.

Hello everyone!

Where to start....

Well, Katie's drama class seems to be going well. She's in a play in November and she has the part of the mama pony. She has a few lines to say and seems to have them down already. She is the mama of three little ponies, so it should be right up her alley since she's always mothering everyone. She can take the most innocuous item and say "ooohhh, look at the baaabbbyyy". Everything is a baby. She's obsessed.

For Christmas she has requested a baby that poops. I expressly stated that there was no way I was changing a dolls diaper. She assured me that she would change the diapers. At least I can put away a doll if she doesn't take care of it.. which leads me to the dog.

Sherlock is growing up but is not quite trained. I mean, I think he's house broken. I wouldn't know for sure because he isn't allowed to run around the house yet, he's either outside or in his crate unless JC is home - usually by himself - or after Katie goes to bed. I'm hoping that with winter coming, someone, ahem, will take some time to train him and get him used to being out WITH Katie around. And getting Katie used to Sherlock being around also.

I have about 100 pictures of Katie's first day of school, courtesy of Cynthia, who decided to play Papparazzi that morning. I won't make you look at all of them, lol, but here are a few.

Lining up for the first time:

A little angst about the first day... for both of us:

Well, that was a short moment. For her.

Okay, that's all for now. I'm sure I'll write more later, but I have to think back to what has been coming out of her mouth lately. LOL

I am still alive

Don't think that I have run out of things to tell you about Katie. She comes up with something pretty much daily if not more often. I just have noticed a decided lack of time lately. I'm sorry if you are missing pearls of wisdom from my daughter, trust me she would like everyone to hear them I'm sure.

I promise I'll work on this decided lack of communication this weekend, I'm beginning to get complaints.

And it starts...

"I don't like homework" "We had no fun! no fun! no fun!" "I already KNOW my numbers"

Yes, school has started. Little miss is now in the big K. Kindergarten. I had more problems than her the first day. And now reality has started to set in on the little darling and she has figured out that school is work. I know what your thinking - because I have said it - RUDE awakening coming. She thinks this is bad, at least they are still coloring. What I want to know is why does daddy get "school was fun"? At least she did follow up with - but not gym class. Apparently they did some boring exercises and didn't get to play. I do kinda feel sorry for her because I'd like her days to be filled with playing - but the real world awaits - shaking in fear if they know what's good for them.

In other news, Katie went to a cattle farm recently and was able to see cows giving birth. One of the cows was having a problem and needed some help. Should I really need to be explaining natural childbirth vs. c-section to a 5 year old? At least she isn't asking how the baby gets in, just how it gets out.

Katie's theatre class starts in another week - you saw that one coming too didn't you?

I will post pictures of the first day of school laterl You know that I have them - had to memorialize this event.

Finally some trip pictures

Not the best pic of Katie, but I thought it was a cool one of JC

This little goat was trying to eat Katie's hair.

Feeding the deer
Our little fisher girl
This guy wasn't moving for anyone.