Happy Father's Day

To the man who is completely and utterly adored by his daughter

Kate loves to help her Daddy

And Jason always lets her help

Time to move on and a little Summer

Thank you Jason for making such a strong crib so I could occasionally crawl in and cuddle with Katherine when I woke her from a nap. I appreciated this since she rarely ever slept in our arms. However, Kate is now at the adorable age where she copies everything we do. She puts the drill on the screws in the TV stand, she tries to plug the vacuum in and push it around like Mommy does, she fake coughs after we real cough, she waters the plants and sweeps the floor and hammers wood... It's really too cute but this means her next step will surely be trying to climb out of the crib like Mommy does and I'm not quite ready for that stage.

How fantastic is this rug? Kate's nursery colors are green and purple with a touch of pink. After I had painted her room and set everything up I found this rug when I was about 8-9 months pregnant. Really, could it have been more perfect! (I was just reminded of buying this rug while talking to Dana about painting her nursery).

And finally, the real reason we installed a sprinkler system!

Abused Child or Result of Extreme Allergy to Mosquito Bites?

2 out of 3 visits to Kate's doctor have been due to a mosquito bite. I have learned my lesson and will become extremely diligent in keeping her away from horrible blood sucking mosquitoes. She can blame me for being so allergic since I'm pretty sure I passed my allergy gene down to her :(

No vegetables for me, I'm allergic

During my pregnancy I ate an entire bag of baby carrots. This resulted in me being incredibly sick. One of the few times I actually threw up during my pregnancy. After, when I was trying to go to bed my throat felt like it was closing up and I was having trouble breathing. It freaked me out a little but as long as I could breathe a little I was fine. I figured my throat was reacting from throwing up so much and was inflamed or something. A few weeks later I tried the baby carrots again with the same result but no throwing up this time. I found it very odd but blamed it on being pregnant.

For some reason I haven’t had baby carrots since those fateful nights. I had even forgotten about my strange reactions. The other day, over a year later, I was again eating baby carrots. Jason reminded me of what happened and told me I shouldn’t eat so many. I laughed at him said it was only because I was pregnant and then proceeded to try to eat the entire bag. Within a few minutes my throat started closing up and I had to stop eating them! How crazy it that? I’m not allergic to any kind of food. You’ve heard of people being allergic to milk or peanuts or even wheat, but carrots??? I mean really, what’s wrong with me?! It’s quite sad because I like very few vegetables and now I can’t even eat the one I like!

Bring on the Wedding Season

I love weddings and actually wish more of our friends were getting married or weren't already married (so I could attend their weddings, not that I don't think they should be married :) )

I love seeing the bride's dress and my favorite part is how giddy the bride and groom are. I love seeing two people so completely in love and so happy to be together. Plus, weddings remind me of my wedding day which is still one of my favorite days ever (the other being Kate's birth). It's also fun to have an opportunity to get dressed up and for Jason and me to go on a date.

Here are pictures from Lyndel and Mike's wedding. They definitely had the giddy/most beautiful bride part down! They also had the coolest guest book idea. Instead of people signing a book that you never really look at again, they had a photo booth set up. You took your pictures then put one copy on a scrapbook page and then you got to keep the other copy. How creative is that!

Jason and me with Ty and Dana

The beautiful bride

My BFF who is pregnant! Though you can't even tell she's pregnant here, she's definitely the cutest pregnant lady ever!

Lost & Found

While at the Cheescake Factory for Lyndel’s shower/bachelorette party I had a very scary moment. I came out of the restroom, went back to the table and realized my finger felt funny. I looked down and only had my wedding band on! For those who are married you are probably like me where your band and engagement ring are always together. You never only have one. If I had looked and didn’t have either ring I would have assumed I forgot to put them on and they were at home. I ran back to the restroom to check the sink but their sink only has tiny holes for a drain so I knew it couldn’t have gone down the drain. I checked the stall and didn’t see anything. I’m starting to panic at this moment and run back to the table where I tell Dana and Amy that my ring isn’t on my finger. We start looking all around on the floor but there’s no ring. I run back into the restroom while Dana searches through my purse. As I’m convincing myself that my ring has been flushed down the toilet I remember a story Ty told us about almost losing his ring.

I go through the first trash can - nothing. Then I start looking through the second one. I pull the paper towels out and flatten them looking for my ring. I eventually pick a paper towel up and laying there face up is my ring! When it’s really cold my fingers shrink up and my ring is too loose so when I was wiping my hands with the paper towel the ring just slipped right off. I ran out to tell everyone but was still shaking and couldn’t stop shaking for a few minutes. I should resize my ring but then it would be kind of uncomfortable during the summer when it’s humid and my fingers aren’t shriveled up. Luckily my band is a little bit smaller (since the guy who sized my engagement ring didn’t really believe Jason when he told him my ring size) so I now wear my band on top to prevent my engagement ring from sliding off.

I know it’s just a material possession but the middle stone was Jason’s grandmother’s so it has double sentimental value. It’s the ring Jason picked out and proposed with and the main stone is a family heirloom. There is nothing you could say that would make me feel better if I was to loose it. Such as, it’s just a ring… I want this ring to be something that is passed down in our family and when our child/grandchild looks at the ring they will be reminded of much love those who wore it before had and especially how much Jason and I loved each other.

Barefoot in the Park - Mother's Day

Mother’s Day started with Jason waking Katherine and feeding her breakfast so I could have extra time to get ready for church. While I was putting on my make-up Kate came walking in all by herself holding a card up with both hands and brought it straight to me. It was so incredibly cute! That’s her new thing now (she loves handing things to people). It may sound simple but really it’s adorable and shows how grown up she is now.

Church was nice and involved eating lots of chocolate and ice cream sundaes. After, we went to downtown Duluth with my parents. They were having an arts festival with entertainment. It was Kate’s perfect place because everyone brought their dogs and would let Kate gently pet them. Plus, we got to see little ballerinas dance and then watch Kate dance to a jazz band.

I was also treated with my two favorite meals that day; pancakes for lunch and teriyaki chicken with rice for dinner. All made by Jason and he even cleaned the kitchen!

I was reading a blog where mom's were complaining about Mother’s Day. I can’t imagine why because I love Mother’s Day and really look forward to my special day :) And we're going to celebrate Mother's Day with my Mom next weekend when my sister comes in town.

Daddy/Daughter Walk

She would smile until the camera came up then she would put on her serious face

Dancing with Grandma

The best part of the whole day

On our way to church