The Katherine Chronicles

We are pleased to announce the arrival of the newest member of our family:

She comes to us from Ellie's first grade classroom.  You may or may not have noticed, but Katherine is not your usual baby.  She is made from sand (weighing 6lbs 15ou just like Ellie did), then wrapped in butcher paper.  Even sand babies can't be naked all of the time, so little Katherine also has a diaper and a blankie that her mommy picked out and keeps her bundled in at all times.

Katherine was at school with Ellie for around three weeks (the amount of time it takes to complete a unit in math on measurement :) ) before she came to our house.  
Here she is with her friends in the classroom nursery:

Because the other mommies and daddies in Ellie's class love their sand babies so much, the nursery usually looked like this:

One day while I was reading to the class, the sand babies had to listen to 'Charlotte's Web,' too.  Thankfully they were mostly quiet, except some of their daddies insisted on changing their diapers around ten times during the story.  

After the Mother's Day Tea, I happened to catch two daddies with their babies...reading to them...and they weren't even told to!  (Notice the paci the blue baby on the left has!)  Precious.  Just precious.

Ellie is one proud mama.  Since Katherine has been home, I have to ask how she sleeps each night.  The first night, Ellie said she only had to nurse once.  I asked Ellie if Katherine had nursed at school.  She said no.  WHEW!!  Last night Katherine didn't wake up at all, so hopefully we have a trend. :)

The picture above was taken before Katherine got her face.  I'm just hoping she never needs clothes...

What a fun year first grade has been!

Quick Visit!

Today I surprised both girls by picking them up from school and not telling them where we were going.  On our way to the mysterious destination, Mary Claire got angry with me for not giving her any hints, and Ellie just sat in the back taking one guess after another.  Robert was just quiet, taking in all of the madness as usual!  

The van pulled into the Chick-fil-a parking lot and Ellie immediately said, "I think we're meeting some friends here."
At that moment, Nana and Papa drove up and parked right next to us!  They were on their way back from a trip to Louisiana to see my cousin graduate from high school.  Since they drive past our exit on their way home to Atlanta, there was no escaping a visit with the grandchildren (and me!)!
I tried my very best to get a good picture of Nana and Papa with the Latham chickies, but it just wasn't working.  At least you can see how much my kids love their grandparents!

The visit was definitely too fast, but as always it was lots of fun!  Thanks for taking a little bit of time out of your drive to come see us!!

A Me Day!

Mother's Day this year was wonderful.  The day started with me getting to SLEEP IN!  I didn't  have to make the girls' breakfasts or prepare Robert's bottle, or feed it to him.  Nope.  I slept right through all of that.  Bliss!  (Well, I did wake up when I heard the girls in their room plotting to prepare me breakfast and bring it to me...precious!!)
The day got better when we went to church.  Instead of giving every mother a gift, all of the single mothers and widows got coupon books from local businesses for things like oil changes.  That made my heart so very happy!  Then, the sermon was on the HOLY SPIRIT! I am soaking in every bit of information that I can on my good friend the Holy Spirit because it's relatively new to me.  I will say that reading my Bible (His word is alive...it is actually HIM!) and prayer times have become much more purposeful.  So refreshing!
For lunch we went to my favorite Mexican restaurant.  The kids were not the most well-behaved (Robert screamed, MC wanted to live in the bathroom, and Ellie's stomach hurt), but now I have a nice leftover lunch for today!
The rest of the day was spent relaxing at home.  I'm not very good at just sitting still, but I did it!  Earlier in the morning, the girls made me a little bed on the couch in the den.  They even put a blanket on the bottom, like a fitted sheet, then a quilt on top.  So of course I had to take advantage of their little Mother's Day concoction! :)
I also enjoyed the gifts I got from the girls.  

Friday Ellie's teacher had a Mother's Day Tea.  The chickies in Ellie's class got all dressed up and served the moms a lovely little snack.  Then they sang some cute songs for us!

I'm not a big crier, but I really could have broken down right in the middle of the reading rug when El's teacher started telling us how thankful she was to have these children since she didn't have any of her own. I may have even gotten choked up later that day in my YStrong class during Pitbull's 'Fuego.'  (And no, I'm  not pregnant, just very partial to Ellie's teacher!!)  There was a slideshow, too.  With music.  Tears again.  Anyhow, I got a super-cute notepad, pen, and book from the El.  

She read the book to me during the tea.  It told how old I was, what I was good at, etc. all in  her words.  The best response was: 'During the day, my mom...'  Shops.  Great.  I wish that's what I did all day!

Mary Claire gave me this sweet pot that she painted, with a hand in it that she wrote her name on.  If at all possible, don't give your kids names with tons of letters.  Makes it hard when it comes to spelling and writing the name.  Just sayin.

Wow this has turned out to be a long post.  Can you tell I had a non-fat caramel mocha from Mickey D's?  I went all out today and got a medium instead of a small.  It is the day after Mother's Day, I went to the Y this morning, and I resisted Starbucks at Tarjay.  Yep.  I totally needed the medium.

Moving on...again.

Since I didn't let myself do laundry yesterday, I had time to work on a much-needed project.  Two Christmases ago sweet Mary Latham got me two boxes of frames that go on the wall without nail holes.  (I have a little problem with tools and holes in the wall.  Please don't mention around Robbie.)  I finally printed pictures for all of them and hung them up in the playroom above the new IKEA shelves.

The project is not complete, but at least it's started.  I am not hanging the bulletin board up because Robbie said the girls will just fill it with junk.  And he's right.  So I moved Cinerella's castle over in that spot to temporarily cover the blank spot on the wall.  I'll update if I do anything life-changing to this wall! :)

The day got better!  After Robbie put the kids to bed, we watched 'The Vow' together.  I am not a movie watcher.  Like I said, I don't like to sit still.  (Well, except when I'm reading blogs.  Or Facebook.  Or people.com.)  Robbie was so excited that I was willingly going to watch a movie, that he sat with me and played on his phone just to keep me company.  About thirty minutes into the movie, he decided that even he was a little bit intrigued by the storyline and finished it with me!  Sweet movie, but honestly a little bit depressing.  That's another reason I don't watch movies.  I get way too involved with the characters!

Whew!  That sounded like a crazy-busy day,but it wasn't at all.  It was perfect.  I loved having a day for myself.  I know that sounds selfish, but I also know that to be a better mom, I have to have days like this!

Fabulous day with my fabulous family who makes being a mom the best job ever!!

Dancing Machine(s)

Whew!  These last few days have been b.u.s.y!  Ellie had her final ballet performance Saturday, and Mary Claire had hers today.  They both had precious Mrs. Claudia as their teacher this year.  

Robert has been an absolute trooper!  He sat through two entire performances, and we couldn't be prouder!!

• Performance #1 •

• Performance #2 •

Notice a trend?  Grandmama and Granddaddy went to both performances, too!  They are so good to us!!

Oh yeah, we were there, too!

We sure are lucky to have such two talented chickies!!

Ballet ~ Fourth Year!

Today was Ellie's fourth performance with Briarwood Ballet.
Monday will be Mary Claire's first.
I got a little bit sentimental.
The sweetness makes me want to go snuggle right next to this precious girl!

The Zoo {OR, a post in which I tell the truth}

I do not like the zoo.  My parents never heard, "Can we go to the zoo today?" come out of my mouth.  It smells.  I am not an animal lover.  It's not that I don't like animals, I am just indifferent.  Hopefully that doesn't make me a bad person.  
Now I'm a mom.  With kids who like animals, meaning they like the zoo.  Unfortunately for them, their zoo trips have been few and far between.  As in, Ellie has only been a handful of times and Mary Claire has only been once and that was to the zoo in Orange Beach.  I know, bad mama.  


So when the permission slip for the first grade zoo field trip came home, I had to ponder.  Normally I check YES, I WILL GO ON THE TRIP immediately, but this time I couldn't make the pen move.  In my head I kept hearing, "suck it up! suck it up!"  So I did.  Couldn't bring myself to say no to this precious child.

Then the funniest thing happened.  The day before the trip, I got a phone call from the plastic surgeon's office reminding me of my appointment the next morning.  I got a gift card from my fabulous in-laws for laser hair removal for Christmas, and this was the first appointment I could get.  I'm not going to lie, I really thought about telling Ellie I couldn't go with her (I mean really, it's the zoo).  Then reason kicked in and I called the doctor's office and cancelled my appointment.  The next available one is at the end of June.  (As in, after we get back from the beach, my whole reason for having this, ahem, 'procedure,' done.)  Don't worry, though, I'm on the cancellation list. :)  

When I picked Ellie up from school that same day, the first words out of her mouth were, "Mom!  You know the best part of my field trip tomorrow?  It's that you're coming!"  Seriously, I'm not kidding.  

Okay, back to the zoo.  It really wasn't bad.  I'm not signing up for a zoo membership or anything, but it was a great day.  Ellie's class had TWELVE parents come, so every two parents had three kids to follow around.  Chloe's dad and I literally chased three girls through the entire Birmingham Zoo!

Ellie did a good job faking that she has a terrible mom who doesn't do the zoo.  She walked around like she knew where everything was, but really I could see her soaking it all in.

(Notice how tiny she is!)

At the giraffe exhibit, we had a super-fun surprise when we ran into Mrs. Michelle and her crew.  I'm pretty sure Gracie could have run around with these first graders and been totally fine!

The zoo did not kill me.  I have a little cold, so even the smells weren't bad!  Spending time with my Ellie and her friends is the best!  If you see me at the zoo this summer, don't laugh.  I'm putting it on my list as something to do one day with all of the kids.  I'm hoping Michelle will meet me there so I don't have to pet any animals in the petting zoo or anything...

I Needed This!

Because of four incredibly sweet parents (Mom and Henry, I know you would be here if you weren't a plane ride away!!), Robbie and I got to spend four nights away at Seagrove Beach in Florida.

Robbie was in a golf tournament with Allen Drew, of Allen and Stephanie.  We love them.  We love them even more now (kidding!) because they found a house with five bedrooms in Seagrove for us and two other couples to all stay in during the tournament.  Did I mention it was on the beach?  And that we saw dolphins?  And that this was our view from the second story balcony?  (If you look closely, you can see the dolphins in the middle of the picture.)  Yep.  It was awesome.

What was even better, though, is that Robbie and I both got some much-needed down time.  He played golf everyday with his friends,

and I had three straight days of not having to wake up at any certain time or have a schedule.  Bliss.  And look who I got to hang out with...

Each night we all went out to eat...with just adults!!

Other highlights of the trip...

The boys won the tournament.  They wouldn't tell you, but they actually swept the tournament.  I'm proud!

Stephanie and I got to talk to each other, in person, with no interruptions.  It didn't matter if I forgot to say something, because she was right there when if I remembered!

I bought myself some new kicks at the outlet mall.  Pretty sure they're going to make working out that much more fun.  Stephanie picked out neon yellow shoelaces to go in them.  I'm pretty excited.  Doesn't take much these days.

So, the trip was wonderful.  Beyond wonderful.  I feel rested and my chickies were so excited to have us back.  That's always the best!

The number one main point of this post is to say

to our parents for watching THREE CHILDREN for so many days!  Robbie's parents split the time with my dad and stepmom who live in Atlanta.

I picked up the girls with a freshly-cleaned carseat and newly-washed clothes (MARY!), then came home to fresh sheets on my bed and clean clothes in the dryer (MAMA!).  We've also had fun listening to Papa and Granddaddy stories from the girls.

We love you all and can't saw enough how much we appreciate you!!