Happy 6th Birthday to my Caitlyn

The first words spoken to my first born on June 9, 2005 at 8:54pm was "Oh My Goodness!" over and over again. I was in shock and amazed that God chose me to be this beautiful little girls momma. I couldn't believe it... I was a MOMMA!!! I had wanted this little girl for so long.

She has been a blessing to me. She has made me feel many emotions... and some of them have not been good. But I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. She is the one I first called my Angel Baby. She is my daughter and I love her so much!!!

Caught You

Micah was quiet, I didnt know where he was.

He HAD to be up to something.

Caught You!!!! (Hiding and eating Fruity Puffs in the dining room under the table)

Pretty Floors

Daniel and I have wanted laminate floors for a long time, no matter where we were living. But of course new floors are not cheap. So we have been saving and this year was the year to get to do it. So out go the yucky carpets and in goes the gorgeous new floors. We did laminate in the dining room and living room and then recarpeted all the bedrooms and closets. We ordered during the Spring Sale and got a GREAT deal on everything... even the EXTRA thick padding for the carpet. It is like walking on clouds.

Just realized that I only took pictures of the laminate and not of the carpet, oops.

Finally Getting Around To Easter

I went to get my camera this morning so that I could take pictures of my living room... cause it has not been redecorated by my 2 year old yet today. I realized there were some pictures on the camera that needed to be downloaded first and I then realized that it has been a long time since I have emptied my camera... by there being Easter pictures on it. WOW These are the first time I have seen these pictures, my wonderful hubby took them so that I could help with the egg hunt. There are some really good ones, and then there are some not so good ones. :O) But I must add, it is NOT easy getting all 3 kids smiling for a photo at the same time.

Pratt kiddos and cousin Gabe. Oopsie Daysie Ky.
"Happy" Easter to you!

May 19, 2011

Ok, I know it has really been a long time since I posted a post. I know that I get in these ruts where I have lots to post and then some days not anything to say at all. So I was trying to be all "on top of things" and write a couple of posts all in one day and then actually "POST" them over the course of a couple of days. This way it would "look" like I was posting everyday. YUP, that didnt work. The post about the kiddos at the playground... inserted itself before the royal kiss insert. I have no clue how to fix it... so oh well. Ok, enough rambling here, maybe. Life has been a bit crazy here. We got new floors... oh I love them so. I have some pictures, but I am waiting for the perfect time to take the "after" pictures, and with 3 kids all under the age of 5, that may never happen. But I will post the pictures soon. Until then, here are a couple of things we have been up to lately.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE ice cream? Daniel found this flavor at the Blue Bell Factory when we went camping. I was thrilled when I saw it in the freezer at Walmart. Yummmm, I should be an ice cream connoisseur.

Our community group got together this past sunday for some yummy crawfish. Yes, that is Ryan, Caitlyn and Ky looking at a swimming pool full of crawfish. That pool and the cooler next to it held a total of 96 lbs of mudbugs. We had a great time.
And I couldn't post without a picture of my "mommas boy." Oh how this boy has me wrapped around his fingers.

This is his new silly face, with that tongue to the side like that.

The Royal Wedding

Here are pictures from a REAL Royal Wedding. ;O) It has been 8 1/2 years since this wonderful day... God has blessed me with this wonderful man whom I love and thankful for.

I figured that many of my blog followers... all 3 of you, may not have seen me with blonde hair. So I figured I would show a couple of pictures of the blonde hair days... and my baby looking sooooo young. Wow! (I took these with my camera phone, so sorry for the poor quality)

The REAL Royal Kiss!!!

Playground Days!

Checking out a bug :O)

Ky's Many Faces

Sibling Love Part 2

Caitlyn is transitioning to a bigger bike... and one without training wheels. We dont have it mastered yet, but while we are learning Micah is wanting to ride a bike too. So he decided that he needed to ride Caitlyn's old bike... princess decor and all. He actually does pretty well... if pretty well is reaching the pedals only and depending on us to push him down the sidewalk and steer. But he loves it. So I think I am going to make him a "boys bike." I honestly think I am just gonna take Caitlyn's old bike and change it with some spray paint to look like a boys bike. Why not... boys bikes are supposed to look a bit rough. :O)

Sibling Love

Ky is 8 months old now and until recently hasn't slept through the night consistently. (The past week has been pretty good, except last night. Ky was extremely disturbed at 5:30am with a poopy diaper, but I am sure you didn't need to know that.) I don't know if his sleeping habits are because (1) he just hasn't learned how to sooth himself back to sleep well or (2) if he is like his daddy and just not a great sleeper or (3) just a hard headed little kid and doesn't want to sleep well. I hope that it is that he hasn't learned well on how to sooth himself and that will hopefully remedy itself soon. Please God. BUT, as a way to help him learn faster, (fussing it out in the middle of the night) we moved Micah into Caitlyn's room so that Ky's screaming wont wake him. Caitlyn was THRILLED to say the least on having a roommate, even though she knows it is for a short time. The first evening I came in to check of the kiddos and see what they were up to on their first night together, this is what I saw:

LOVE it!

Love

While I was doing my normal routine this morning, I came across a couple of things that brings a smile to my face and that I loved... I will say that being up that early will NOT be on the "love" list.

I love:

- the smell and sound of brewing coffee.

- how my son, Micah says candy, "can-ney"

- to hear my babies babble in the monitor, this sound is way better than the alarm clock

- to hear Caitlyn sing. She may not realize it.... but she is singing ALL the time. Im not sure if she is singing songs off the radio or her own songs, but it is beautiful.

- to see Caitlyn come tell me she made me something. The papers build up and unfortunately I do have to throw many of them away, but I love to see her creations.

- to hear Micah come tell me in a pleading voice, "Hold you???"

- Ky's big toothless grin and beautiful big blue eyes.

- to hear from my husband, "Lets go on a date!"

These are just a few of the long list of "loves" I have that I wanted to share.

Spring Break Camping

Well, we did it and I did survive! We went camping for Spring Break. All in all... it was fun and full of memories, both good and bad. I know you're wondering about the bathrooms... they were both ok and yuck. There were two different bathrooms to go to. The one that is located in the small field behind our tent was an outhouse, pretty much. It was in a building, not one of those tin shacks, but this outhouse was a cement building with metal potties inside and a hole down into the "center of the earth" or so I "affectionately" called it. BUT, there was also an "indoor" potty up at the top of a hill to the right of our tent. The indoor potty was actually pretty clean for a campsite potty. So that was the one I would hike to as much as possible.

The first couple of nights were pretty nice. A nice cool day and chilly evening. A snuggily type of night, great for camping. Then Thursday happens. The wind, that is already blowing pretty hard changes and comes from a different direction. It starts to get hot. Camping starts to not look so fun. We had a great tent, but no tent can handle high winds. We thought that the tent would buckle (which it did collapse a bit and then pop back up) or blow away. A collapsing tent is pretty scary for a two year old who is trying to take a nap inside. Also, those tents get pretty hot inside. Poor baby (and me) could not take naps inside those tents once it got pretty hot. So to stop our insanity, Thursday afternoon we all packed up and went to Brenham, Tx. and visited the Bluebell factory. We had a great time. We were too late for the tour... but for 6 kids, 4 under the age of 2... they really didn't mind. As long as we were still gonna get ice cream. Which we did. $1 for a serving. It was very nice to feel like we weren't gouged in prices... like I sometimes feel we are everywhere else.

We ended up leaving on Friday, instead of Saturday. Awesome! The winds were still pretty crazy and when the power hungry park ranger told us to move our car, which my husband very cleverly parked to block the wind from blowing our tent away, we were done. I told her we could move the car, we had just put it there to keep our tent from buckling or blowing away, she responded with, "It would be nice if we could all do that, but your car is causing erosion." Seriously???? I just looked at Daniel and he read my mind, "ok, pack up... we are going home." There just was no way we could stay another day in the hot sun and crazy winds... and yucky toilets. So we packed up and headed home, but first stopped at Sonic for a frozen treat.

Our memories:

- Smores, yum!!!

- Yes, Daniel did bring his guitar and we did listen to him strum it the first night. No, we did not sing Kum by Yah.

- Climbing trees

- Playing at the camp playground

- BlueBell factory

- Crazy winds

- The pottys... thats all I have to say about them

- Beautiful scenery

- The bees that thought they were welcome at our campsite

- Ky waking up multiple times in the night and the only way to keep him from fussing and waking up the entire camp grounds, was to nurse him

- Micah's impersonation of Auntie - "Storm James, come back here!!!"

- My first time camping and us being under prepared for a few camp items and Lindsay saving the day and letting us borrow theirs... whether it was cooking spray, bee killer or matches... yes, we forgot to bring matches.

There are so many memories from our first time camping. Im glad we went. (I should have taken more pictures.)