Catching Up

Reported by Beth: You will get three posts for the price of one this week. I have had a busy and exciting stretch of activity at work, so we've gotten behind on the blog. Jamie was going to tackle it in my absence, but was a little busy!

Let's start back just after the new year. After our New Year's Eve outing, we enjoyed the rest of our time off. The girls got to paint their masks. Katie's is a monkey and Caroline's is a . . . monster? They both loved making them, and now I get to try to figure out where to store these 3-D masterpieces!



Once the holidays were over I jumped back in to work full force working late every night but one (and working from home that night). Then I had to leave on Saturday to go to New York for a 6-day business trip.

From Jamie: The two kids were funny while Beth was away. Katie was obsessed with cleaning the basement, which we did. One morning when she had to be woken up, she opened her eyes and asked if she could work on organizing the basement before school!

We also ventured out to eat one night to a "kids night" where both kids got free dinners. Caroline was double fisting corn dogs and doing shots of honey mustard, so I think it was a hit. Both girls got balloon animals- Caroline chose Dora (Nora, as she calls her) and Katie picked a penguin. This is pretty much the only photo we took while Beth was gone. Please don't judge the girls' messy hair.

Beth returned home Thursday afternoon (on a flight that left Laguardia about 3 hours before the one that ended up in the Hudson River). After she got home and experienced a usual chaotic evening with us, I joked that the Hudson wasn't looking so bad!

From Beth: Last weekend was the local alumni club's annual Notre Dame Communion breakfast. The girls got to play with some friends while we tried to keep them quiet. We sat at a corner table and had the kids play on the floor during the 3-hour event. I think we took about 13 trips to the bathroom as this quickly became entertaining for Caroline.

That afternoon Caroline and I cooked vegetable soup after reading a book about it. She was very proud to use her plastic knife to help me cut up the veggies and she was eager to try everything . . .

. . . including a hunk of raw potato! The soup turned out well and Katie got to help make banana cake. I think both girls agreed the cream cheese frosting was better for sneaking bites of than green beans!

I was lucky enough to have MLK Day off, so after a morning of catching up on things around the house, I picked up Katie from school and we went to her first full-length movie (Madagascar 2) and enjoyed a huge bag of popcorn and then spent the rest of the day together.

Later in the week . . .

Caroline got a little scratch on her forehead and happily sported a bandaid.

The next night she showed off her manners as we ate angel hair pasta.

And speaking of manners, look at Lily helping herself to some leftover pasta! (Note: we probably should have scolded her at this point, but it was so funny I stopped to grab the camera instead!)

This weekend Jamie and Katie had another Indian Princesses event and went roller skating. As you can see, she was a bit scared at first, but then Katie loved it. Her favorite part was the flashing pacifiers that the kids got for when the lights went out.

On Sunday we decided to use up some sugar cookie dough and make alphabet cookies. Unfortunatley, the dough got sticky and we didn't get many recognizable letters, but the girls had fun. As the cookies cooled, the girls had a nap and then we braved the snowy weather to go swimming at the Y. As I gazed out at the cold-looking day nothing seemed less appealing than going swimming, but the girls were very much looking forward to it, so we bundled up and went. It was fun and the small pool was 95 degrees, so we were nice and toasty inside.

When we returned from swimming, the girls decorated (and ate) the cookies. It was messy, but tasty.

OK, that's it for now. Hopefully we will be back on schedule next week. Thanks for checking in on us!

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year. It's been a busy week. I've had some time off, but there has been much to do. On Tuesday Katie had her 5-year old check-up, which means shots for kindergarten. We started talking about it on Sunday and I could tell she was worrying a bit, but she was determined to be brave. I went with a technique that my mom employed- the bribe of an ice cream sundae following the shots. Of course in my case it was necessary because I had witnessed Jen's kindergarten shots, and if my memory is accurate I think she took one look at the shots, jumped off the table, ran out of the office and down the hall through reception. In Katie's case, I thought we would make the trip for sundae's part of a whole day together with just the two of us.

So she had a good check-up. She is 75th percentile for her height and 50th for her weight. The big adventure was the addition of peeing in a cup to the routine. She looked at the nurse like she was nuts, but got over it! Then at the end of the appointment it was time for the four shots and the flu mist. Katie handled it very well and did not cry at all. She loved her girly bandaids and they made it special with some stickers and a sucker (which she said tasted like cleaner, but then realized that it was just lemon). After the shots, we went out to lunch and had sundaes. She got a create-your-own snowman sundae which was really fun. It came with three scoops of ice cream stacked up, a whipped cream/cherry hat, pretzel arms and then you could decorate it with M&Ms, gummy bears, etc. As you might imagine, she had a ball doing this. Then we did some errands, came home for a rest, did crafts and played games until Jamie and Caroline arrived home.
Jamie was the brains behind our New Year's Eve plans and we went to a family "Winter Fest" at a water park near Kings Island. They had a special New Year's Eve event planned that included dinner, sledding, ice skating and a celebration of the new year at 9 p.m.

It was a chilly night, so we got all bundled up and headed down there around 5:30. Once we arrived I went to take a picture of the girls all bundled up and discovered that while I had my camera, I did not have the memory card inserted. I did find a disposable camera at the gift shop there, so we made the best of it and did things the old fashioned way. It is safe to say that there would be a lot fewer photos on this blog if I had to get film developed, scan pictures, etc!

We walked around a bit and then had dinner- hot dogs for the kids and ribs for the parents.




After that we decided sledding on the water slides was our first choice of activities, so we hiked up a million stairs (Jamie with Caroline on his back) and went down the very steep slides. I thought it was pretty scary, but the girls loved it and we went numerous times- Jamie with Caroline and me with Katie.

After we were tired of climbing the stairs we rode the carousel a few times and then ventured to the paddle boats which went in what would be the lazy river in the summer. The girls were antsy waiting in line there and Jamie and I had a tight hold on them as we didn't want anyone falling in the freezing cold water. We were a little hesitant about how the boat adventure might turn out with two wiggly girls, but it ended up being one of the highlights. Katie behaved beautifully sitting in the back by herself and Caroline perched in the middle between Jamie and I and just loved it. She kept asking "Mommy, we're going bye-bye on a boat?" All was well until we realized we had little to no steering capabilities and we got turned sideways in the waterway. It was something like that scene in Austin Powers where they are trying to do a three-point turn with a golf cart in a tunnel that is only slightly wider than the golf cart. Eventually the boat behind us caught up to us and gave us a shove.

After that we went ice skating. and, just to clarify that means we spent 20 minutes putting on the skates and 10 minutes skating. Regrettably, our skating pictures didn't turn out.

Then it was time for the new year's celebration. They passed out hats and horns and blowers and there was a big fireworks show, which the girls really enjoyed. It was a fun evening!

We all slept in on Thursday and the girls got busy playing. Caroline is especially interested in Katie's new Littlest Pet Shop toys that she got for her birthday and Katie has been pretty nice about sharing them.

Later that day we made papier mache masks. It was quite messy, but the girls liked doing it. We are going to paint our masks later today.

Caroline's was super gunky, but it finally has dried!

Yesterday we took down Christmas decorations and the girls continue to enjoy playing with all of their new toys. We realized that Caroline seems destined for life as a bag lady (pictured here!)

Today Katie dove back into the crafts that were a gift from Aunt Jen and we made a sand sculpture. She has been very busy making all sorts of delightful things . . . like confetti. Thanks Aunt Jen!

Merry Christmas & Happy Boxing Day

It was a busy and fun week for us. Katie and I spent more time in "the factory" before we left for Indianapolis. We assembled teacher gifts and baked three different kinds of cookies Tuesday night. Katie loves helping me cook- it just takes a bit more patience and a watchful eye as my helper loves to sneak sugar, butter or whatever other ingredients look yummy.

Tuesday night we also celebrated Christmas with Lily as the girls helped her open her stocking. Later that night as I crawled into bed, I was rewarded by finding her rawhide bone tucked beneath my pillow. She really prefers to hide her new treats and toys than play with or eat them.







Wednesday morning we got packed up and headed to Aunt Jen & Uncle Buddy's house in Indianapolis. We were there by lunch time and got the girls settled in for a nap before the very early Christmas Eve mass (3:30). Grandma and Poppy went early to reserve seats for us, but while we were all still busy getting ready we got a call from Grandma saying that they were starting mass 15 minutes early, so we had a mad dash out the door and then had to coerce the strict ushers to let us in. From there it was a zoo-y time as we corralled the girls and tried to keep everyone happy. We're pictured here after we returned home from mass.


After a yummy dinner, we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and got some cookies ready for Santa.

Katie also spent some time writing a note to Santa and making some pictures for him.












The kids all slept until around 8 a.m. and gathered in Hannah's bed as they awaited the singnal to come downstairs.
They were excited to see that Santa had been there and started by checking out their stockings.

Here is Miss Emma ready to celebrate her first Christmas!





As you might suspect the girls received lots of nice presents. Katie was excited about her play makeup set (what was I thinking), the art kit that Aunt Jen made for her and some new things for her American Girl doll. Caroline was thrilled with the purple dog that Katie bought for her and her new purse and accessories and spent most of Christmas morning brushing her hair and "putting on lipstick".

It was very chaotic, but fun to open our gifts together!




Poppy and Emma enjoy a catnap.
Caroline with her purse.
We enjoyed a nice Christmas Day. Jamie kept busy playing Billy's Wii and had Katie golfing, bowling and boxing. After a lot of playtime, Billy's family joined us and we enjoyed a great dinner.
Friday Poppy kept the little girls busy doing puzzles.
Katie in her matching pajamas!
After lunch we headed back home. Katie watched her new Jon & Kate Plus 8 DVD the entire way home and didn't even ask to color until we were picking up Lily at her camp.

Caroline kep busy with her usual antics, including taking her socks and shoes off and putting on her hat and gloves.
When we returned home, Caroline had a snooze and Katie and I got to work assembling Caroline's new Cherry Blossom Market. When Caroline awoke we opened our gifts from Jamie's family, including these adorable hats and mittens from Great Grammy and Great Poppy.

Caroline really did like them, she was just waking up!
After we opened the gifts, Caroline had some time to play in her market. She was very cute with her little apron on and Katie was so excited to show her everything.

Katie got right to work with her new Tag reading system . . .
. . . and Lily enjoyed cuddling with her new toy.
That night after Caroline went to bed, Katie finally got to break out her makeup kit and I managed to rein her in to justpink lipstick for starters. We then "adopted" her new Webkinz- Cocoa the monkey and spent some time on the computer setting up her room and playing games on the site.







Saturday morning I tackled the dreaded post-Christmas cleanup-- putting boxes away, cutting off tags, finding places for things.

And later that afternoon we went to the Cincinnati Zoo for the Festival of Lights. It was shockingly warm (73 degrees!) so we all went light jackets and were able to see a few more animals than we might have. Penguins and polar bears were on our list and we saw both.
The girls enjoyed the special Christmas displays and the lights were beautiful.


After dinner, we got gingerbread cookies and enjoyed a puppet show. On our way out of the zoo, we encountered Rudolph. Caroline was so excited to see him and then once I got her out of the wagon, she wanted no part of him.

After Katie got her picture with him, she decided that she would approach him with me, and ultimately gave him a hug.

Sunday we did some errands and just let the girls hang out and play with their new toys. Miranda came over to play with Katie and I let them dive into the makeup. The results were a little frightening!

Hope everyone had a great holiday!