Big Sister

Katelyn's ready to reveal her secret........

I'm going to be a:

No, You aren't seeing things.
Her shirt says "Big Sister!"
We're so excited to announce that we'll be welcoming Baby J #2 into the world in mid February!

I had my first appointment today and the doctor found the heartbeat right away and
it was beating strong at 170 bpm.

We'll all very excited for this next little one to join our family....now come on February.
It seems like an eternity!!!

Getting Dressed

I found something that will keep Katelyn occupied for about 20 minutes --

letting her put her own jammies on!
She wouldn't let me help, so it took a while!
She was jumping all over the living room trying to get those suckers on.
She was cracking me up!
I sure love this goofball!

Oops! Not quite!

"I did it! I did it!!"

Splash Park

We went to the Splash Park on post last week to try to cool down a bit.

Katelyn was cool - not Mom!
She had fun "swimming!"

(Click on the picture to see it larger)

And just because I thought this face was hilarious!

Not sure why she was crawling, guess she was trying to sneak up on it!
Of course she got squirted in the face E.V.E.R.Y single time, but she kept going back for more!
She's such a goof ball!
Always making us laugh!

Hope y'all are staying cool! hah!
When is Fall going to be here....better yet, a nice snow sounds good right about now!

Playing in the rain

One of Katelyn's favorite things to do is play in the rain so when I saw these cute boots on the clearance rack, I couldn't pass them up!
We'd been dry for so long and then starting getting little storms every afternoon.
We finally got one that didn't have thunder and lightning so she could go out and play!
She was like a little kid in a candy store!

Video Games

Katelyn woke up from her nap to find Daddy playing a video game.
She thought she needed to jump right in, so Daddy got her all set up!

(She wasn't playing, but was still having a blast because she thought she was!)

Fourth of July Part 2

On the 4th of July, Ft. Stewart had a big celebration during the day and a concert that night. Fantasia and the Zac Brown Band came!!! The activities during the day were great! Although it was hot out, everything was free! Tons of restaurants from Hinesville set up and there was free food everywhere - any kind you might like! We met Emmalyn and her parents there and the girls enjoyed the petting zoo and getting their faces painted.

Looking on at the animals in the petting zoo

Katelyn was pretty excited about her puppy balloon.
She placed with it for quite a while before it eventually came untied
but she still called it a puppy even though it looked more like a snake!

The girls with their pups!

When we headed over to the face painting tent, I was a little nervous!
I didn't think she'd sit still or even allow them to paint on her face.
Man was I wrong!
She sat sooo still for what seemed like FOREVER!
I thought this lady was NEVER going to finish!

At her first concert!
She was a great sport and lasted for the end of Fantasia and all but 15 minutes of the ZBB.
The fireworks were after the concert, so we headed back to the car a few minutes early and found a great parking spot and enjoyed the 30 minute firework show post put on!
I thought it was going to go on all night!
Katelyn enjoyed the "Booms" again!
She still asks to go see fireworks and Booms every once and a while!

I hope y'all had a great 4th!

Fourth of July Day 1

We had a great Fourth of July weekend! Plenty of family time! We went to some friends house on Saturday and spent the evening with them. Enjoyed some yummy dinner, the kids did a few fireworks and then watched the city's firework display. Katelyn did well, love the "Booms" and stayed up real late that night!

Of course the girls loved throwing the poppers down or stepping on them.

Sparkler time!!
Emmalyn did one sparkler and then would not go near them.
Katelyn on the other hand LOVED them!
She wasn't scared of them at all, and I was very surprised by that!
Guess she's getting to be quite the little dare devil!

Katelyn liked the bigger ones too....maybe too much!

The girls being goofballs! Or at least Emmalyn being a goofball in this picture!

Tractors

Katelyn is pretty interested in tractors right now. Whenever we pass any construction equipment she says over and over again...tractor, tractor, tractor. We don't have any "real" tractors around here so for now she'll just call the construction equipment "tractors". And whenever we go to any store that has riding lawn mowers, she thinks she needs to sit on them ALL and drive them. This sure reminds me of my brother when he was younger! Every store, every fair, everywhere there were tractors...he had to climb into E.V.E.R.Y one of them! To me, they were all the same, but not to him! I'm sure Jack was probably a "tractor" boy too, so she gets it honestly! Hopefully one of these days when we make it back to the midwest where there are tractors everywhere, she can get a ride on one. She'll be in heaven!

Art Show

Once again....I'm WAY behind in blogging. So in an attempt to remember all that's been going on, I'm going to try to get caught up. Hope you're ready for the ride!

Katelyn participated in her first Art Show at "school." I thought it was pretty cute! I just love picking her up and getting having her give me her art work that she did at school that day. I cherish them all......It will be hard to part with them, but what I can't collect every piece she does until she's in middle school! Guess I'll just cherish these for now and try to save my favorites!

Seaworld and Disney World

***Warning - The following is a VERY long post. :)
To see some of the pictures better, click on them to enlarge! ***

A few weeks ago Jack had some leave time, so we decided we'd head down to FL and visit Sea World and Disney World. Both places have some awesome deals for Military so we took advantage of them! We are only 4 hours from Orlando, and have always said we would go before we left here, but wanted to wait until Katelyn was a bit older. I had never been to Disney World and Jack had been when he was 10. Katelyn loves Disney Junior and knows all the characters. We have been talking about seeing Mickey and his gang for weeks so she was pretty pumped to go to "Mickey's House."

We just arrived at Sea World.
Katelyn was telling us which way to go!

Sea World had a Sesame Street show that we left extra early in the morning so we could make it on time.

Katelyn zoomed in to Sesame Street!

Dolphin show at Sea World.
Katelyn was very excited to see the Dolphins and talked about it the entire way there.

Katelyn's favorite ride - the carousel!

Katelyn and I rode a little boat ride at Sea World.
I learned my lesson from this ride - make sure I watch the ride before getting on it!
This one was a bit more than I thought but Katelyn was a trooper!

Katelyn was the most excited though to "go swimming."
I think we could have just gotten a hotel room and swam the entire time
and she would have been a content little girl!
We have been to the splash parks several times this summer, but have not been in a pool this year.
She was kind of skeptical at first, but before long she was quite the little fishy and even called herself a fishy.

We spent our first day at Disney World at Animal Kingdom.
The safari ride was awesome and we rode on these cool looking "Safari" vehicles!

Tree of Life at The Animal Kingdom.
Lots and Lots of concrete!

The first character Katelyn got to meet was Goofy!
He was decked out as woodlands Goofy since we were at the Animal Kingdom.
She was kind of skeptical at first, but she was smiling by the end.

Waiting in line to see more characters.

It was HOT!

Katelyn's first set of ears!

She had a "My 1st Visit" button,
but she wasn't real good about not pulling it off her shirt so she didn't wear it much.

Jack and Katelyn in front of the big ball at Epcot.
Whenever we went to Epcot, Katelyn would say "Big Ball" over and over and over!

Magic Kingdom

Once again, Katelyn loving the carousel!
This was our most rode ride haha.

Katelyn and Jack on the Dumbo Ride.
Katelyn was on the inside and wasn't really big enough to peek over so just got pictures of Jack waving!

Meeting Pooh and Tigger after she rode Pooh's Honeypot ride.

Katelyn and her very first Minnie doll, waiting in line to see Mickey and Minnie!

Sleeping Beauty

Belle

Cinderella

Cinderella planted a big wet one on Katelyn's cheek!

Parade at Magic Kingdom

Katelyn was quite a trooper this day.
We were able to come back to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks.
She stayed up until 11:00 that night and was in an unbelievably good mood.
She LOVED the fireworks and would go BOOM every time they went off!
Whenever you say the word fireworks, she'll say BOOM!

We ate at the Coral Reef Restaurant at Epcot and went on the Nemo Ride.
Katelyn was pretty excited about this ride and talked about Nemo a lot afterwards.

We stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort on Disney and the main pool had a big pirates ship that had slides, water sprays and all kinds of stuff.
Katelyn thoroughly enjoyed the slides and wasn't afraid to go down the slides that the bigger kids were going on.
I was holding her back not letting her, but got tired of her asking so let her go.
There was no stopping her after!

Fishy Katelyn!

This isn't the slide she was begging to go down.
This was the kiddie slide and apparently not thrilling enough!

The last night we were at Disney we went back to Epcot and saw more characters.
We waited in one line and got to see all 5 of these characters!
She LOVED it!
She walked up to each of them on her own and hugged them all and then got her picture taken.
It was so cute!
Then as she walked away from each character she would wave and say "Bye Mickey (or their name)"
This made my trip!!
I was one happy Momma seeing her so excited to see all the characters!

We went to Downtown Disney one afternoon and evening.
Katelyn fell asleep on the bus ride and slept in her stroller for 2 hours until I woke her up.
So, she missed the best Disney toy store.
You could fill a box up with Mr. Potato Head parts and it was a set price.
So the more you could stuff in your box, the more you got!
Jack and I did a pretty good job of filling our box full.
She thought it was pretty cool to play with when we showed her after her bath that night!

At Hollywood Studios

Meeting Handy Manny!
Too bad his tools didn't come too!

The Play House Disney Show
Katelyn enjoyed this and danced around with all the other kids.
Mickey and his pals, Handy Manny and his tools, The Little Einsteins, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates were there!

Katelyn and Jack wearing their 3D goggles waiting in line for the Toy Story ride!

One tuckered out little girl!

We all had a blast! It was definitely hot but was fun to get away and also to see Katelyn have a good time! She probably was a tad too young to thoroughly enjoy it all, but we couldn't pass up this opportunity! Next time she'll be able to ride the big rides with Daddy!