little people live here

Little people make the house noisy. They fill it up with crumbs. They leave artwork on the refrigerator door and on the wall in the foyer.

And they do things like this:

An interesting discovery I made while turning off the bathroom light before bed that made me smile and enjoy her Katie-ness just a bit more.

There is an even littler little person in this house who discovered she can do things like climb on top of the kids table,

stand on top of stools to see what is out of view,

and climb on top of the kitchen table when she needs to study the nutritional value of a Happy Meal.

(She realized that sadly, the food standards in this household have taken a turn for the worse since my stomach got all weird and icky with the pregnancy. Hopefully we'll be back to normal in a couple weeks.)

And, alas, I am stuck with no clever way to finish this post.

I will blame that on being pregnant too; which, I guess, is the result of a little person living inside of me, so there's my ending after all. :)

So, what have your little people been up to lately?

(update: I just re-read this post at 9:50 and found a typo in each of the first three sentences. Arg! What is wrong with me?!)

lookin' good

She has style.



Exactly what kind of style that is has yet to be determined.

4 years ago

I found this one in the computer hard drive archives.






Go on.

Admit it.

You're laughing.


It gave me a laugh, and I needed one. Today was a tough "just keep swimming" kind of day.

It is fortunate I have some funny looking kids to amuse me.

:D

katie bug

For her birthday, Kate wanted a ladybug cake with a number 4 candle in it.



I did my best.



I was actually quite pleased. I am not very good at applying smooth icing, but the crazy-huge eyes turned out just the way I wanted them to. It looks like it could be a character on A Bug's Life, and talk with a squeaky, high voice.

Katie specifically asked that the ladybug have bows on her "whiskers."



What she lacks in knowledge of insect anatomy, she made up for in the injestion of artificial food coloring.



Isn't that lovely?

The little ladybug had a strawberry rear, and a chocolate head, also per the birthday girl's request.

Why two flavors?
It makes perfect Katie sense: black head = chocolate cake, red body = strawberry cake.

The ladybug had a delicious demise.




The best part, though, was making Katie happy.

When she first saw the cake in the morning, she was very underwhelmed (which is typical "Katie in the spotlight" behavior). But later in the day she was looking off into space, and I asked her what she was doing.

She replied, "I was just thinking about how much I love my ladybug cake."

That made every minute in the kitchen and every drop of food coloring worth it.

quick thinking

So the other day Katie asked me to play dress shop with her.

Dress shop is when she takes a bunch of dresses out of her closet and hangs them on the crib. She is then the owner of the dress shop, helping you find and buy the perfect dress. She loves this game.

I told her she could play, as long as she hung all the dresses up again when she was finished, but that she would have to play with Joey since I was busy with Lizzie right at that moment.

Joey rolled is eyes and muttered something about not wanting to play dress shop, to which Katie replied:
"Fine. I'll play with my invisible friends."

Not knowing she even had any invisible friends, I asked her the names of these playmates.


"Princess, Jessie and...Hairbow."



I have a sneaking suspicion that she may have possibly made up one of those names on the spot.

But the threat of replacement worked, and Joey played dress shop with her after all.

I guess Hairbow had to go find something else to do with her time.

in blue

My artist has moved away from the abstract art that defined her early work.

Kate's recent pieces show lots of growth in real scenes and portraits.

The subject of this drawing is so recognizable, it can't possibly be required that the viewer be her mother in order to interpret and enjoy it.



Okay, fine -- in case you don't have a trained eye for Katie-art, I'll fill you in:



(I just read this post 5 hours after posting and had to fix 3 typos. Nice.)

model kt3000

I walked downstairs this morning and Katie was sitting on the sofa.
Sitting on the sofa with a q-tip in each ear.

Straight-faced, and matter-of-factly she explained, "I'm a robot."




This robot is so good at making play-doh cookies, bothering the cat, emptying the entire contents of the coat closet hat and mitten basket, leaving beads in places where the baby can eat them, and looking perpetually unkept, it can be sure I will never trade it in for a newer, better model.



Returning is such a hassle, and I am pretty sure I lost my receipt.

these girls got game

"Mommy, my princesses are ready for their picture!"

in her purple dress

A darling, purple dress from Grandmom,

and a headband from a clearance rack at Bon-Ton,

and a purple flower pin from a sweet friend,

and a furry cape from our costume bin in the basement, make

one little girl feel so special, all dressed up for the Christmas concert at church.






(I can remember being five years old in the bathroom at church comparing dress-twirl sizes with the other little girls. Can the desire for a twirly dress be in a little girl's genetic code?)

bedheads

I love the hair that comes perched upon the bleary-eyed heads that wake up each morning.
There are so many different looks to enjoy:

The mussy-mop.


(do you like the foot peeking out?)

The spiney-pokey.


(that may be a look of slight displeasure at mother shooting his picture first thing in the morning while his mouth is full of breakfast)

And the teased-to-please.


But to be perfectly honest, this is how Katie looks most of the time, not just in the morning.
She is not a well-kept girl. It is not her way. Her mane cannot be tamed!

Lizzie usually gets this mussy mop pulled up into a pebbles-style sometime in the day, but this is basically how her face looks most of the time.


Always smiling and showing of those goofy front teeth of hers.

Morning to night, what a delight.

so, how's it going?

What's new?

Nothing much happening here.

Today as I went about my motherly business, about five blog posts were written in my brain, and now that it is 11:27 at night, all I have to say is this:

I love these girls.



Good night everybody!

you have your good days and your bad days

This was a good day with Katie:



There was painting and gluing and coloring and fingernail and toenail painting and sidewalk chalk and story time and a two-hour nap. It was full of hugs and love.



It was a very good day.


This, however, was not a good day with Katie:



On this day there was lip gloss on my bedroom carpet and a pint of blueberries on the kitchen floor and purple marker all over her hands and face and ranch dressing smeared all over her hands in an attempt to remove purple marker and a paper shredder mess in the dining room and Sharpee on the kitchen floor.



This day was a little short on hugs. But I still love her. In spite of the naughtiness of it all, you have to admit, a day like that took hard work and a lot of gumption. It almost sounds made up, but I assure you it was very real. Very Katie.

I'll take her, good or bad.

morning hair

one week (hopefully)

and then she'll be kissing some chubby little cheeks!

white

Joey the careful

Katie the cold and crabby

Frosty the celebrating snowman

being a princess

What is wrong, my darling princess?

It is just so hard to always be so charming, and beautiful, and smiley.

Well, do you think you could perhaps, just look at the camera, without being quite so sullen?

Nice. Thank you, your highness. As always, it was a pleasure photographing you today.

I say "smile"...

...they hear "suck in your bottom lip."

i love her face

crafting excellence

Katie's discovery of the joy of glue has produced beauties such as this:

What?

You're underwhelmed?

You don't consider a popsicle stick, four cotton balls, some torn-up pieces of a Klondike bar wrapper, and two water ice wooden spoons glued to an almost whole piece of construction paper crafting greatness?

Well, you are entitled to your own opinion.

Just don't tell Katie. I told her it was beautiful, and she believed me.

a princess and a toad

Katie may love being my beautiful princess, but timid and dainty she is not. On Monday, when Joey, Kate and I were finally getting the last of the vegetable seeds in the garden, Katie enjoyed finding all the worms wriggling around in the dirt. She then walked around with a bunch of worms in both hands -- big, fat-from-living-in-a-compost-pile worms. She was undaunted.

She also didn't mind picking up and carrying around those crunchy, brown centipede-ish bugs (the ones the curl up into a coil when they die), although I did mind just a tiny bit when she brought them into the house to show them to me. I don't really like touching those things, but my sweet girl, was intrigued and pleased to handle all the creepy crawlies.



Today, when I found a toad in the lot next door, I thought she would be interested to check it out, but I soon discovered she was more than interested. She was in love.

(I do believe that is what a toad looks like when he is fearing for his life)

She was in tears when it was Joey's turn to hold the poor little guy. And when it was her turn to have a chance to make the toad's life flash before his eyes, she loved every second. He survived all the extreme girl-handling and the occasional squeeze-and-drop.

But he got a few kisses out of it, so I think it was worth it.

Even if he didn't turn into a prince.