Moo Moo Here!

...Kate spending the day with Papa Ron and Donna. When I went to pick her up she was pretty wound up and all of us enjoyed it!

Oklahoma...Again!

...30 years of Our Diamond Miss. I haven't done much in the last 10 years with my pageant family and I have missed them. This year was the 30th anniversary of ODM so I thought it would be great to go back and to let Kate meet so many of the people that have been part of my life for so long. It was great to see everyone, I only wish we had more time to visit.
































































On the way back Kate and I stopped at my brother's house to visit with Kaci and "the guys." Kate completely adores them. Kate just wants to play ball with the guys, especially Kason. It's funny because Kason has always enjoyed playing ball with Michael any time they are together. Now Kason is the one being sought out for a little game of catch! It is too cute and he is too sweet for a 9 year old.

The Big 2

...Honuts! For Kate's official 2nd birthday we had a low-key evening at home in Lubbock with our/Kate's friends TT and Tracey. We had donuts (honuts to Kate) instead of cake. Kate likes hers with sprinkles. So does Daddy.

She learned how to say "Cheese" and mean it recently. Amanda and Kate went to Oklahoma this weekend while I had to stay here and work. It was only a few days, but Kate learned so many new things in just that short amount of time. She can sing Old MacDonald, Wheels on the Bus, and Tiny Turtle with no problem. She's putting a lot of words together that make sense, and she is understanding more and more of what you are asking her. As soon as she turned the big 2 she's turned into a Pre-schooler.





Tracey is Kate's teacher at Tech's CDRC. We all love Tracey!



TT and Kate. We received some sad news this week that TT is leaving the LBK for good in September. I don't know what we're going to do without her.



Kate is such a nurturer, that when she opened her gift from TT, which was a bowling set with little penguins as the pins, she laid out the crepe paper as a blanket, laid them all on the blanket and put them to sleep.



She opened this gift from her Papa Ron and Memaw, who are her main connections to one of her favorite things on Earth--Cows. This is a cow pillow, which for about 10 minutes she thought was a real cow. See the next picture to see what I mean.



Kate reading a book to her new cow.



Happy Birthday our big 2 year old! Slow down a little bit; this is going much too fast.

Then and Now

..thinking about how much Kate has changed from the day she was born to today, exactly 2 years later. I took this picture today after Kate and I received flowers from Michael. Below are a couple of pictures taken just after she was born. She was so little.





















































This morning all of us went to the doctor to find out why Kate keeps getting sick. It is not the ideal day for allergy and immune system testing, but it's they day we got the appointment. Kate did great (once they finished sticking her). Good news is she is not allergic to anything, but the bad news is we still do not know why she is always sick. Hopefully the immune stuff will give us more information.

































It's hard to believe this is the same little girl. I loved having a newborn, but she is so much fun right now. We are loving life with a 2 year old.

Kate is 2!

...4 years ago we decided it was time to have a baby. Now we have a 2 year old. I can't believe how time has flown. I remember having her like it was yesterday (well I remember most of it--there were about 20 hours of it that are fuzzy!). Two years ago Kate was born at 8:41 am weighing 5 pounds and 8 ounces. She was the spitting image of her grandma Debbie. Now she is the spitting image of her mommy and I can't lie, I love it.
We will have more pictures later of today's events. Really it is going to be a pretty quiet day since we already had her birthday party in Oklahoma.
Here are some of the highlights from her Oklahoma birthday party. It was a great day!

"I Uff the Guys"

...our last night in Oklahoma. We still have pictures to post from Kate's birthday party but this post just couldn't wait any longer. Kate had the chance to hang out with her cousins Kason and Krece after the party. They stayed the night with us. I was curious how it would go to have to grandparents, a mommy, a daddy, Kate, Krece, Kason, Sophie, and Stanley in one house together. Let me just say it could not have gone better (with the exception of Granny hurting her foot). We took the boys and Kate swimming and had so much fun. Michael enjoyed the conversation in the car on the way to the pool. The boys were teaching Kate things and she was showing them where her eyes, ears and arm are.

Because we live in Texas opportunities like this are few and far between. Seeing how much Kate loves "the guys" makes me sad that she has to live so far away. She even refused to go to church with us because she wanted to stay at Granny and Papa's to spend more time with the boys. They had "honuts" for breakfast, Krece taught her how to go noodlin' in Granny's goldfish pond, and both the boys tickled her. Who would want to leave that?

Kate isn't the only one who loves "the guys." Sophie LOVED the extra attention.




































Kason was being so sweet and tried to help Kate get in the little pool. She popped up with a water gun in her hand and shot him. I guess today's game was "shoot the Cowboy" instead of "shoot the Sooner."

































































The boys had to leave before us that morning. It made Kate cry. After they left she cried, "I uff the guys." With tears in my eyes I said, "I love the guys too Kate."

Finding Nemo

...Kate finding Nemo at the Oklahoma Aquarium in Tulsa. I think the aquarium must know kids identify Nemo easily, because the little clown fish were in several exhibits throughout. Kate likes to make you think she likes the movie Finding Nemo, but she cries through most of it because she is afraid the little fish are going to get hurt. The last time she asked to watch it we had to turn it off about 15 minutes into it due to crying.

The aquarium is cool because several exhibits are interactive--you can feed the stingrays (see above picture) and the turtles. Feeding the fish was Kate's favorite part. She is such a nurturer she really enjoys feeding anything from baby dolls to Sophie and Stanley. Her personality is really starting to show up in everything she does now and it is such an honor to watch her grow up.

Mesmerized by the Otters and Beaver.




Feeding the turtles.


Finding Nemo.

Boo-ah at the Zoo-ah!

....going to find Boo at the OKC Zoo. Kate has started calling Boo, Boo-ah, which still makes me laugh. It's not as good as "Honut," (for Donut), but still a good Kate-ism. Here are the pictures from our fun trip to the zoo.


This is one of the features in the new Children's Zoo. I actually can't believe they put in this river that kids can play in. The rocks are loose and sharp and seems like an injury waiting for a place to happen. But, Kate loved it.




She LOVED the goats. We spent a lot of time petting the goats.





The real Boo-ah! She had so much fun just sitting and watching the Boos play together. She kept holding up her Boo to play with the real ones. Soooo cute.



The Grizzly Bears got into the river and swam for a while we were there. She wanted her Boo-ah to go swimming too. I had to keep a good hold on him or he would have been a permanent fixture in the enclosure!




This was my favorite picture from the day, because I think it captures her personality so well. Boo under her arm, hip cocked, and doing something funny with her arm.



We obviously had a wonderful day.