More weekend pictures

My childhood friend Linnea came and visited us this week with her two boys. Linnea married one of my cousins, so we're family now, and it was wonderful to spend the weekend together. We had a great time catching up with each other, now that we're both moms with little ones. The kids did great together as well.

Big One-Year-Old

Daniel turned one this last week! Hard to believe! He still seems like such a little baby to me, even though I remember Kathryn feeling "so old" at that age. It's funny how perspective changes. There aren't too many new updates for Daniel boy...still very fast with his army crawl. He has discovered the joys of the kitchen cabinets and the dishwasher, which means I have to move him out of the way several times whenever I'm cooking or doing something at the sink. I keep meaning to put our cabinet locks on, knowing that it will make my life much easier, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. He has started to snuggle a little more at night after his bottle, which is a lot of fun. Since he was really tiny, he has NOT been a snuggler. So this is a nice change. Still no real words yet, although he can kind of say "kat kat" for Kathryn and "ba ba" for bottle. And occassionally "dada." I love that his personality is really coming out. We love you, buddy! Happy birthday!

Kathryn insisted that Daniel would like a "car cake," so here was the final product
(thanks to Jessica M. for the inspiration)

And the happy little man after devouring his piece of cake in about 10 seconds.

Sweet Girl

Kathryn has been such a sweetie the last few weeks. Of course, there are days that are still hard, but overall I think being 3 agrees with her (and me) quite well. She just seems to be more aware of common sense things and is growing in independence with things like feeding herself, getting dressed (kind of), and brushing her teeth, to name a few. And I think we can finally say she's potty trained during the day....HURRAY! Glad that we're over that hill.

Yes, that little mischievous grin is thinking about how fun it would be to throw this snowball at Mommy.

On a general update note, I'm thankful that life seems to be settling into a nice routine with the two kids. I no longer feel like I have quite a juggling act with a baby and toddler schedule, now that Daniel is kind of on the same schedule as Kathryn. Life feels full, but very enjoyable right now...it's a nice place to be. :)

Little Buddies

I love seeing kathryn stepping up to her role as big sister these days. The other day as I was feeding Daniel, she came and sat next to me, and said "Oh, I love you, Daniel Boy. We're friends, aren't we?" All while patting his head. It was very sweet.

Hopefully you don't mind a bath pic...I just thought it was so sweet!