Happy 8 Months!

Happy 8 Months Kate (aka: Kay-doh, Kater-Kate, Katie Macaroni, Kathryn Bailey)

You sure a one amazing girl!!

The Big Red Pot - Serving Up More Than Just A Good Meal!: $50 Nordstrom Rack Gift Certificate for $25!

This is a great deal, I love Nordstrom Rack, very cute clothes. There's one in Southlake!

The Big Red Pot - Serving Up More Than Just A Good Meal!: $50 Nordstrom Rack Gift Certificate for $25!: "Today's Miami Groupon is a $50 Nordstrom Rack Groupon for only $25! Even though this is Miami's deal, it can be used at any Nordstrom Rack n..."

The Big Red Pot - Serving Up More Than Just A Good Meal!: FREE Thanksgiving Cards through 11/19!!

The Big Red Pot - Serving Up More Than Just A Good Meal!: FREE Thanksgiving Cards through 11/19!!: "Tiny Prints is offering free Thanksgiving cards with free shipping! What a fun little way to say Thank You to loved ones! I bet you have a s..."

November 13, 2010
My crazy, fun, 3 year old Blake. Today you turn 3 years old. We had a Dora themed birthday party for you at a nearby park. All your best friends were there (Lexi, Lane, Claire, Luke, Griffin, Bri). You had SO much fun. I’ll say it again, I can’t believe you are three. You have changed SO much this year. You are a better big sister than I could have dreamed. You love your little Kater more than anything. The other day at church a woman asked if I could help her with her grandaughter’s carseat, so I had her hold Kate for just a second. You were so sad because you thought she was taking Kate with her. You are the first to let me know she is crying or she wants a bottle. You both light up each time you see each other. I pray that this love you two share will continue and grow as you both grow older. What a gift God has given each of you with a sister.

I think you are really starting to understand why we love Jesus in our house. We had a special children’s offering at church this week. You saved up change in a milk jug (aka Jesus Jug) and took it to the front of the church as an offering. Daddy and I were so proud of you. Then this past week you’ve re-inacted that scene over and over in pretend fashion. I hope you always have a heart that wants to give to our Jesus and the people he loves.

Some things you enjoy right now are: PLAYDOH!!! You would play all day every day. Your favorite is for me or Daddy to sit down and play playdoh with you (though we have to try to keep Kate from eating it!)

You love our neighbor, Vern. For some reason you call him “Bern”, pronouncing your “V” with a “B”. He has a cat, Chevy, that you call “Cheby”. You mostly love Vern because he brings you a bag of sugary candy every time he sees you!

You know almost all of your ABC’s by sight. You know how to spell your name and it’s so funny because you think everywhere there is a “B” like on a billboard or sign that it is for your name. You yell out “Hey MOMMY, look it’s a “B” for me!!”

You LOVE to talk. There is never a dull moment in our house because you fill it with your entertaining commentary.

You go to the preschool at church two days a week. You get to learn so many new things and do fun crafts.

Your favorite show right now is the Little Rascals, you love getting to watch a few minutes before you go to bed each night. And of course you are still a Dora fan.
Your favorite food by far is peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches.
Even at three years old you love all things Drama  . If anyone around you is talking about someone getting in trouble you want to know ALL about it. Then bring it up in conversation for weeks.

My prayer for you is that you grow up knowing our Lord Jesus. I strive to set an example for you and show you every day what it means to live with love in your heart. I pray you would always be amazed at what HE has done for you and how much he has provided for you. I am not always a perfect Mom. I hope you forgive where I need it. But I love you more than life itself…and I will always do all I can for you.

I love you my sweet, crazy three year old.
Love,
Mommy

Blake's 3rd Birthday Bash

Our BIG girl had a fantastic time celebrating turning 3 on Saturday! The first picture shows what I should have seen coming, a cold that became worse and worse as Sunday went by.

Nana and PaPaw enjoying holding Kate.

Mommy and the Birthday girl

Having fun with Lexi and Brooklyn

Griffin playing pin the tail on Swiper...and poor Lane, she eventually cheered up.

Cousins having fun

Lexi Renee

Papaw and Kate

My adorable husbad with Lexi and Blake

Bri was a good sport :)

Kate and Mitzi Rae swinging.

I love this picture...Luke is never short on ladies :)

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it..I'm always blown away by our friends' and family and their generosity. Blake is one LUCKY girl to have all you guys in her life!

Blake is THREE (Yesterday!)

Our BIG girl is THREE!!


Here are a few pictures (courtesy of Nick) to tide you over until I can compile a birthday party blog.

Blake Rocks the Vote

I was so excited to be able to take Blake with me to vote this year! We got to talk about what a great opportunity we have to choose who leads our country.

She loved the fact that we got to go to the elementary school by our house to vote, we took a peak at where the big kids eat lunch and have classes.

I hope she looks back when she's older and remembers Mommy and Daddy voting and that she looks forward every year to when SHE gets to vote too.

Greater Things

Our church is doing a campaign right now entitiled Greater Things and it's really calling me to find ways in my life to do just that, find Greater Things.

For now, what I need to do is say good bye to facebook.

Is it going to be hard? YES
Do I really want to give it up? NO
Is it going to free up time to help me grow in my relationship with Christ, with my family, and with friends? YES YES YES.

Some people can control their "facebooking" but I've found recently I'm just not one that can. I spend entirely too much time...really doing nothing....and end up feeling bad about myself when I start comparing my life to others. When in reality I'm so happy with the life God has graciously blessed me with and am usually a confident person. I even found myself judging and labeling others all based on snippets I see that people chose to post about themselves and their lives.

I want to be free from comparison, I want to live a life of authenticity, I definately DO NOT want to stand in any kind of judgement of others and for now, that means no facebook.

I'm not saying I'll never ever go to facebook again. If I know of super cute pictures of my sweet neices that I won't get to see unless I log on, you can bet I'm not going to miss it. But I will not have a regular habit of logging on.

The good news is when I see you in person we'll have something to talk about, because I won't have already known everything going on in your life :) I truely look forward to that.

God is good and I'm excited to see ways He may chose to bless my life through this.

The Main Event

October 31, 2010


My sweet little pumpkin, I can't even descirbe how in love I am this sweet, happy little girl.


She's LOVED playing with the candy, sorry to the kids that got a little somthing slimy on their candy.


Lane came over to trick or treat with Blake, I really look forward to the day they are cooperative enough to get a good picture of them together.


Blake's favorite part this year was handing out candy to all the kids. She really felt like big stuff.

The pumpkin and the princess...

We have fantastic neighbors, they always get Blake something special for when we come trick or treating...included in this year's bucket were these fancy/yummy lips.

All Things Halloween

True confession, I've never really liked Halloween. But having kids kind of pushes you into all things holiday, even holidays like Halloween. And after this year I've decided I really do like the cutesy dress up and carving pumpkins...I just REALLY don't like kids dressing up like monsters and vampires and SUPER scary costumes and totally freaking my 2 year old out. Nick was embarassed this year when I would stop kids from coming up to our bench we had set up in the drive way if their costume was too scary. I'm sorry, I would just rather be a little rude than my daughter be subjected to you looking like a zombie.


I've never liked anything scary, Nick makes me close my eyes during lots of scary movie commercials because for some reason scary things just "stick" in my mind and I end up thinking about them again and again.

All that to said, we really did have a great time this year.
We hosted our second annual Pizza Pumpkins and Pals event at our house.


We set up a tarp in the driveway and got to work!

Heather entertaining Kate for me.

Us working hard on our pumpkins

Blake with a sharp object

Bri with a sharp knife, maybe I should plan a little better with the carving tools next year.

Griffin and Chad scooping out the pumpkin guts.

Nick and Blake showing off their pumpkin

The kids with their pumpkins, Baus was still working on Lex's Swiper, so she had to have a stand in pumpkin.

Baus, Lexi, Nick and Blake