Happy Birthday, Catie!

My little Caitlyn turns 3 today. I’m a little amazed, for a few reasons. One, just that I’ve kept her alive that long — she’s more than a little trying, sometimes! I still feel like she’s my baby (and I suppose I will until March Baby makes his appearance), so it feels a little weird to me to think of my “baby” as 3 years old! On the other hand, she seems so much older than 3 already, it’s hard to imagine that she’s only been that old for a handful of hours!

So, in brief, Catie at 3: She can do 100 piece puzzles with a little bit of help (usually just someone helping her sort the border pieces from the center pieces). She loves to sing and dress up in our loads of play clothes — she and Noah stage elaborate stage shows for us.

Catie talks as well as Noah, which is a little astounding to us, since Noah was barely speaking at all at 3. All kids have funny expressions they use, but instead of simplifying what she’s saying, she comes up with more complicated phrases. When she’s asking for a drink for example, she and Noah both use “Please, I have a drink?”, but her personal statement to show she’s thought about preference is, “I must be want apple juice now,” or “I must be want a book to read, please.”

She likes to wear her hair in pigtails for church, but not for other days, and she loves to wear dresses in general. Her favorite drink is apple juice, her favorite food is lasagna, her favorite pajamas are Elmo footies, and her favorite special treat is a Hershey’s kiss (when I asked her, she said, “A kiss. Like, ‘dose kinda kisses!” and pointed at the candy bowl!)

Her favorite toy to play with is her Little People sets. Her favorite book is “Sam I Am” (I know, I know, Green Eggs and Ham, but this is her interview, and that’s the answer she gave. She’s 3 — give her a break!) Catie’s favorite game is “I Spy”, and she likes to play it best with Mommy. Her favorite animal is a kitty cat, and she likes to pretend to be one, but she also really likes dogs. And her favorite breakfast is scrambled eggs and toast. And we’re off to make that right now!

Merry Christmas!

We are in full (but relaxed!) Christmas mode here. It’s just the four of us, so we aren’t planning food for the masses or anything, but I am doing a holiday feast with a lot of the trimmings (we’re skipping stuffing, cranberry sauce, ham, and I’m sure some other basics) — anything that wasn’t on someone’s “favorite” list got cut, and we’re left with just the most loved holiday foods, including turkey (just the breast!), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, and some veggies for color and health!

All the presents are here, but still need wrapping. I came clean with hubby — I just explained that I don’t mind doing the bulk of the planning, the shopping, and the cooking. But I don’t like wrapping! Fortunately, Brandon’s willing to pick up my slack — I just have to wrap his pressies, and he’ll handle the rest!

The kids are excited. They understand that Santa’s coming tonight. And I think we did a good job of helping them set their expectations for what Santa might bring — when reminded that Santa would be here while they’re sleeping, both got very excited and hopeful that when they looked in their stocking, they might find a….. (Wait for it….)

Toothbrush! (I hope Santa is ready to bring all THAT loot!)

I hope that all of your Christmas expectations are as likely to be met, and that your holiday season brings you much joy and happiness!

Belly Dancing?

My tummy’s been up to some pretty amusing antics lately…. It’s probably boring to everyone else, but watching my belly move has always been one of my favorite pregnancy moments, so I tried to catch a little bit of video of my belly moving all around!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/Daborbal/?action=view&current=baby-belly-dancing.flv

Overwhelmed

It’s been…. busy, around here!  I’m sure that more than a few of you can sympathize!  I had 4 Christmas parties in one week, last week, three of which I was doing a fair amount of cooking for, and 1 of which, I was doing a lot of the decorating, planning, etc.  I’m definitely not complaining — I really like all of that stuff, and I’m happy to help out.  But it was a little much for one week.

On the other hand, now EVERYTHING I had going on for the Christmas season, besides Christmas itself, is done!  And I now have a week and a half before Christmas to just focus on my family and my interests.  I want to figure out some kind of food gift to make for neighbors and friends, to pass out next week.  I still have lots of Christmas knitting to do.  But I’m done with the hustle and bustle.  (I’m even done with the shopping!)

If anyone else has any Christmas parties left this year, this festive Christmas tree is reasonably healthy, decently easy to assemble, and got rave reviews!  The recipe is at the Pillsbury site (which has some other ideas we love for easy meals!), but I used garlic salt instead of powder, and a lot more than 1/8 tsp!  I also used fat free cream cheese and fat free sour cream for a healthier touch — no one noticed a thing, with all the creamy dressing!  And since the mix for the dressing makes a generous amount, I had plenty left over for dipping odds and ends of the peppers into — the kids scarfed it down and begged for more!

Artistic

I’ve been feeling quite artistic and crafty lately…. apparently, some of it has rubbed off on my offspring!  A few of their creations lately have been photo-worthy, and I wanted to share my favorites!  (Although most of these are on Magnadoodles, we really do give them real crayons and paper sometimes!)

This is Noah’s drawing of our family:  Kitty is on the left, followed by me (the circle on my stomach is the baby!), Brandon (I don’t know what’s up with his hair — it’s not like that in real life!), Noah, and Catie.

Here is Catie’s depiction of our family:  2 of the people are significantly shorter than the other two, and the cat’s on the right… beyond that, your guess of who’s who is as good as mine!

In a real artistic bent, we see that Noah has spent some time working with real life models:  (I seriously adore this one — he came up with the idea of copying something himself!)

And in other news, Noah can write his name.  He would rather spell it “Noh”, but is happy to add the “a” with a reminder.  Don’t mind the fact that it’s written over a pattern’s notes — he didn’t!