Happy Fathers Day

For the last 15 months whenever I had to work the weekend and Stephen would take care of Katelyn he always took the pink flowery diaper bag. Poor guy would get teased (mainly by me) but never complained! So this year for Fathers Day Katelyn and I got him a new messenger bag to double as a diaper bag on the weekend. It came fully stocked with a diapes and wipes container, sippy cup, pacifiers and a new Bible. Now he is styling and can carry everything, including Katelyn, all in one bag...

Weekend at Crystal Beach

Keeping up with my tradition of blogging things a month late here is our trip to Crystal Beach :) We were so blessed to be able to spend a weekend at this beautiful beach house with wonderful friends and 15 crazy teenagers! The house was amazing and because Crystal Beach was hit hard by hurricane Ike there wasn't much around which meant that the beach was empty. Below is the picture from the deck of the house looking out to the beach...
My fearless little girl has apparently met her match! She was so scared of walking on the deck she wouldn't get off the welcome mat (kinda nice cause I didn't have to worry about her falling down the stairs). She kept bending down to look through the slats at the ground below and would go back in the house whenever someone walked by her because it made the floor shake. By the end of the weekend she would careful walk on it if forced but here are some pics of her initially...




This trip was also Katelyn's first official trip to the beach. I say that because even though we have been to the beach in Cali we never went into the water. Katelyn may have been born in Fort Worth Texas but with the way she loved playing in the water she is defiantly a Southern California beach girl at heart!

My Average Week

Let me start off by apoligizing for my silence in the bloging world. I feel so bad that I only post about once a month even though I check everyones blog weekly. With that said I was wondering where in the world all of my time goes so I sat down and figured it all out. The break down goes something like this...

60 hours chasing after Katelyn

38 hours of sleep

36 hours of work

25 hours doing house work while Katelyn naps, including but not limited to dishes, dusting, vacuming, moping, mowing the yard, taking care of the animals and laundry

there are a few odds and ends that I didn't add in such as time spent at church and so forth but thats pretty much my week in a nutshell. It doesn't look that busy now that I have written it all down but my point is that its enough to keep me from blogging and I am sorry :) and to show how sorry I am the following blogs are to catch you up on our life...

Easter Pics

I have decided that Easter this year was the best! And its not just because of the friends and family that we had over to our house. Or the yummy lunch we had. Or watching Katelyn with her easter basket or the kids on the easter egg hunt. Its because He has risen!!

Our little country girl

I LOVE SPRING!! I love the wild flowers that grow on the side of the road. I love watching the barren trees sprout new leaves and turn green. I love seeing all of the "spring babies" around our house. I love the weather change and being outside for the first time in months. I love the blue skies (btw there is no smog where we live, can you imagine?!?!) and the white puffy clouds. But the one thing I do not love about spring is the massive amounts of yard work that comes with it. After everything going dormant for winter I forget how much time we spend on mowing and such. Well spring is here and with it the good and the mowing. So about a month ago we pulled out the tractor, dusted it off and started it up. Katelyn wanted to be right in the middle of everything and drive the tractor for herself. She was so adorable so of course I had to take some pictures :)

Happy Birthday Katelyn!

Today our little girl is a no longer a baby, she is a big one year old. Okay techincally she turned one on Monday but we didn't have the party until today so that gave me a whole extra week of denial :-). To celebrate we had lots of family and friends over for lunch and cupcakes. Below are some pictures from the party but first I need to brag about what our big girl is now doing...
-she waves hi and bye
-she actually says "hi" (in the most adorable high pitch falsetto voice)
-she blows kisses and has started to give close mouth kisses although the occassional "birdie" kiss slips in
-she can sign "eat", "more", "finished" and "please"
-she knows what sounds elephants, monkeys and dogs make and tries to mimic them (we are working on frog but every time you say ribbit she bursts into laughter)
-she says "tickle tickle tickle" while trying to get your toes
-she is very empathetic, laughing when someone laughs and crying when someone cries
-she is eating table foods (or at least grilled cheese)
-she has six teeth (4 on top and 2 on bottom)
-she finally has enough hair to have bed head in the morning and after naps
-she loves to look at pictures in books and turn the pages
-she points at things and says "was that"
-she has learned the fun of watching others pick up things that she throws
-she is a walking machine
-she laughs or says "wow" when she falls down
-she says "baby" when she sees babies
-she has the most adorable way of asking you to hold her (she puts her whole arm, from elbows to pinkies, together
and then holds it out to you)

I think we could make this list go on forever but you get the basic idea. I can't begin to describe how wonderfully blessed we are to have this little girl in our life! She is such a joy to be around and we love her more than words can describe. So here is to Katelyn, Happy Birthday Sweetheart!Katelyn took forever to eat her cupcake! Mainly because instead of trying to lick the icing she spent like 20 minutes picking it off to eat itThe BeginningAbout 15-20 mins into it. Final result...not too bad (of course you can't see all the icing because she is so white but trust me its there!)A little dip in the sink before opening presents.



And her best present of all...
Kyle Wesley Neel born right before her party at 11:59

Recent Pictures...