Birthday Extravaganza - Family Party

Can you believe that little Kate is TWO YEARS old???

We certainly can't -

but we were very excited to celebrate with our sweet girl.

So excited - that we decided to celebrate with a

Week-Long Birthday Extravaganza!

Step #1 - Winnie-the-Pooh Themed Family Party!

We had a nasty thunderstorm the afternoon of Kate's
family party -
so Grandma & Papa moved their present inside.
It's a wonderful picnic table!
Kate was very excited to share it with her cousins!

After a yummy meal,

we had birthday cake!

And then we opened presents!

These butterfly wings were a gift from Gran & Pop.

Aren't they awesome?!?

(We just wish Pop could've been here

to celebrate with us!)

And a fun wooden microwave from Nana and Great Pop!

The family party was a great opporutnity for

Kate to warm up to the ideas of

presents and birthday cake.

(Just kidding!

Kate certainly didn't need a warm-up round!

But we had fun!)

Girly Stuff

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE being Kate's mom???

She had been asking me for several days to paint her toenails...

and I finally gave in last night.

I'm so glad I did!

We had a fun mommy/daughter bonding moment!

Kate is so proud of her pretty red toes

and

is taking advantage of every opportunity

to show them off!

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July!

We had fun celebrating the holiday with the Georges.

While Uncle Ted was here,

he helped us settle our ongoing debate

about whether an inflatable pool in the backyard

is "too redneck..."

(We love you, Uncle Ted!)

But, seriously, the kids had a blast!

And, with a couple of extra days in the weekend,

I was able to squeeze in a little extra time in the kitchen!
Here's the punch bowl cake I made for

Aunt Annie's birthday:

Little Bo Peep

Kate came running to me on Sunday afternoon,

paint roller in hand,

shouting,

"Look, Mommy! Look! I'm a shepherd!"

Ummm... Adorable!

So, I did what any mother would do...

I explained that paint rollers are tools for grown-ups

and re-directed her to a more appropriate toy...

AFTER

I grabbed her lamb and snapped a few pictures!

So - you're probably wondering why we had a paint roller lying around.

Well, we've been on a bit of a painting kick lately.

In fact, you can see in these photos that we painted

Baby Brother's room blue.

We also painted Kate's room yellow...

Just in time for her "big girl" room furniture

to be delivered later this week!

I'll post more pictures of our home improvement projects

when we've made more progress!

Fun with Uncle Jon & Aunt Loren

We had a really fun visit with Uncle Jon and Aunt Loren this weekend!

Kate basked in the glory of being the focus of their undivided attention

one last time before her baby brother and TWIN cousins arrive this fall!

It's fun being pregnant with my sweet sister-in-law!

Here we are at 27 weeks (me) and 21 weeks (Loren).

On Saturday night, the NoVA Gleasons came over for dinner!
Here we are with my grandparents and all of their grandkids
and great-grandkids.
We really missed my parents!

Here is my goofy, goofy brother being...
GOOFY!
Think I should submit this one to awkwardfamilyphotos.com???

Update on Miss Daisy

In case you've been wondering about how Miss Daisy is faring...

I would say that Kate is still pretty obsessed!

Here she is with Miss Daisy Numbers 1 through 10 of 12.

May Photos at Washington National Cathedral

Here's another round of photos from our favorite photographer,

Bonnie Miller of Polka Dot Portraits!

These were taken in May at the Washington National Cathedral.