Birthday Party & Ballpark

Saturday afternoon we went to a birthday party at the Jump Zone. I think we had about an hour to jump- it took Halle 45 minutes to work up her courage. But boy, for the last 15 minutes she sure had fun! :)

JD tried to show her how fun it could be:If Cate were only a little bigger, I don't think she would've had any problems. She loved the bouncy-baby-horses:Halle the conqueror!:Showing off some of her goody bag loot:

(She doesn't like marshmallows, but she sure liked carrying it around!)Our little monkey*:At the Naturals game- Cate would just wander away if we let her:Halle checking the perimeter:

*Cate appears to be in much more danger than she really was. Grandparents, no heart attacks, please...

Easter Finery

I tried and tried to get some decent picture of the girls in the Easter dresses with their dolls. Here are the only ones worth anything. (Sigh.)

Mid-laugh:The baby dolls have been named "Hannah" (H-like Halle) and "Carla" (C-like Cate) I listed as many H and C names as I could think of and Halle latched on to those two. We'll see how long they last! :)The next two pictures were snapped in order. No coerced emotions. I think they're hilarious:

Fun Stuff

Sidewalk chalk season is in full swing at our house!!Um. Wrong way, Cate...:"Cooking Lunch" in the playhouse:We are on the lookout for a sand table, but in the meantime Halle just digs in the sand on the patio (nice, huh?):Cate was so happy to put the sunglasses on all by herself!:

Cate Videos

This illustrates the fact that I am NOT the mother of the year... but it makes me laugh every time I watch it! :)

I promise, I turned to film Halle for only about 3 seconds!

Here is what I missed the first time:

And here is Cate's famous "Noggin":

Lots of (Random) Pictures

Cate discovers the grass in Kansas:Grammy and the girls:Cate and Halle ride "horses":Poor baby has a cold and new teeth- I don't know if you can see the snot and slobber or not... (gross, huh?):Our sweet little blankie girl:Playing together in the toy corner (you can barely see Cate's head behind the mountain of toys):Halle finally got the "Easter bonnet" on her baby, just right:Say it with me now, "POOR CATE":Halle did this drawing all by herself- I wasn't even in the room! She brought it to me and said, "Look! It's Daddy playing basketball!":Waiting for Daddy:Have I mentioned that Cate is a climber??:Last Spring:Tonight (No. Not the same jammies.)

Bendena

We've been in Kansas since Wednesday, hanging out with family and having a good time.

(Cole, Dolly and Ace:)

Here are the girls and their new cousin, Maddie:My brother and I with our girls:Halle:Caty-Cate: Maddie:

"Goo Goo Goggles"

Happy Weekend!

We're off to Kansas!

11 months

Is it even POSSIBLE that Cate has one more month until she's a year old?! Wow. I thought it went fast with Halle...

Quick updates: Cate has taken 10 and more steps several times, although she prefers to drop and crawl (she's lightning quick!) She says Mama and Dada. She can sign "more," "please," "eat," "milk," and probably more that I can't think of right now. She loves Halle- I love it when I get to see her reaction to seeing Halle in the mornings- it's usually even better than when she sees me! We couldn't do without our Caty-Cate!

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Tea party, anyone?Cate tried and tried to get her baby doll into the stroller! :)Halle is kind of a smothering-type mommy:

Easter in Batesville

Halle loves dressing up! Here she is all decked out with her new purse from Gran-Gran:Cate and Mema:

On Sunday morning the kids (Jake, Caleb, Halle & Cate) and I sat down and looked at the Resurrection Eggs before we did Easter Baskets. Unfortunately something (the spear, I think) in one of the eggs upset Halle- she started crying and didn't want anything more to do with Easter (ha!) Daddy had to carry her while they did the treasure hunt for the Easter baskets. By the end she was excited again.

Here they are finding the last egg with the last clue:The "treasure" they found:Cate went straight for the food (baby puffs):Because of the rain, we "hid" eggs in Gran-Gran's gym for the kids to "find" (as in, run around picking eggs up off of the floor!) Halle did NOT want to give up her loot:Cate was happy to sit the egg hunt out!JD and his sister, Kristi:We LOVE Gran-Gran's gym!

Halle's favorite song for the past few weeks has been "Mighty to Save"- and her favorite line is, "...forever, Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave!" (There is probably not another 2 year old on the planet going around singing that all day long!)

While we were in Batesville, I heard her tell her cousins, Easter is when Jesus conquered the grave (she obviously has been told that a couple of times) and then she said, "Do you know what 'conquered the grave' means? It means Jesus won!"

I love it. Our little evangelist! :)