Katie's Rocks

Our daughter has started collecting rocks. It all started one afternoon, probably about a week ago, when Katie was wearing her overalls outside. While outside she would bend down and pick things up and put them in her pocket. She has always enjoyed collecting a leaf from a new place, or picking flowers so we didn't think much of this, other than to be thankful that for a change we weren't being asked to hold her collection. When we came inside she went over to the table and started unloading her pocket... 5 minutes later she was still unloading her pocket and had quite a pile. When her daddy counted there were 36 rocks. I joked that I thought it was little boys you had to watch out for cramming stuff in their pockets, not little girls. We put the rocks in a ziplock bag.

The next day, armed with the Ziploc bag of rocks, Katie ventured back outside... while other kids played on the playground and we chatted with their parents, Katie collected more rocks. Her bag burst at the seams and so we promised that we would let her keep her rocks in her pink bucket.

So now, Katie has been hauling her bucket outside every evening and added to her collection. This morning I took the kids out to the basketball court so she could play with her rocks. She dumped them all out of the bucket. Then she started loading them onto the shovel and told me she was taking them to the airport. I watched (and then snapped pictures) as Katie named each rock and put it on the plane. I know that Grandma and Grandpa were flown to Michigan, among others... pretty imaginative.

I had hoped that some of the rocks would stay outside this time, however, they didn't. She added a few smaller ones and loaded up her collection when she was done playing with them.

Who She Is!

I guess that Katie knows who she is:

Yesterday, when we were teasing her about being a higglytown hero she said, "I'm not a superhero... I'm just Katie, Katie Palmer."

This morning, wearing her Drama Queen overalls she said, "I'm not a drama queen... I'm Katie."

What a silly girl!

Sometimes Endearing, but Sometimes I Need a Little 'Spect

Seems like I've run into the same blogging bug that several of my friends have, where the posts become a bit further apart - just because there isn't that much new to say. It's funny because as I go throughout the day I think, "Oh, I need to put that on the blog." and then I finally get to sit down at the computer and can't think of anything blog-worthy. We're just going day to day, Ryan's working on the crawl, Katie's torturing our cats and testing the limits - basically just normal stuff for an 8 month old and a 2 1/2 year old!
However, there were a few things that I remembered that I wanted to share with those of you who read this.
#1. On Sunday we were on the playground and Katie wanted to play "Hide-and-Seek". She had her daddy count and she was looking for a place to hide. I suggested that she crouch down behind a lion that can be ridden on. Sean and I had to just look at one another and laugh as our daughter went over to the lion, covered her eyes and put her head against it with her back to us. She stayed in that position - obviously not able to be seen since she couldn't see us - as daddy said, "Where's Katie? Is she on the slide?" "No...." "Is Katie behind the tree." "No..." at this point she giggled, became uninvisible and yelled out, "Here I am!" Very endearing.
#2. Katie came into the house upset with me yesterday. We had gone to the grocery store and I had my hands full, plus caring Ryan, wearing Katie's backpack from school and then the child wanted me to pick a flower off of a bush for her. I just didn't have the hands... so Katie in her frustration says, "Mommy, I don't 'spect you." I bit later she climbed up onto my lap and said, "Mommy, I love you... and I 'spect you now too." (This is respect we're talking about.) Later in the evening her daddy got the same treatment of non-'spect when she didn't want to brush her teeth. I guess I'm glad that she's learning the word and I hope that soon she'll even understand the meaning a bit better!
Well I'm out of time, Ryan is waking up and Katie needs to come out of time-out after pulling on the cat for the umpteenth time - poor Trixie... not sure what else to do about that.

This Past Weekend

These are a couple of my favorite moments from this past weekend. Katie and Ryan enjoying each other, (Can you tell how much he LOVES his big sister?) and Katie reading books to her daddy... such special times! She had it almost word for word too!

I Suppose I Shouldn't Admit This

I suppose I shouldn't admit that the TV is on as much as it is at our house - especially the past few days... and usually it's a kid show, but every once in awhile I indulge myself in one of "my" shows. These are usually things like Top Chef or The Next Food Network, I can record the whole marathon and then watch them as I have time. Most of the time Katie is playing with her toys and just glances over occasionally - I suppose if I have a New Years Resolution it's probably needing to do better at turning it off... especially on days when we're mostly indoors. (Don't laugh too hard, Katrina, but it's been COLD and windy here the past couple of days - not reaching above 50 - and we don't have the cold weather gear for bundling up.) Anyway... I realized today how much Katie was picking up on my shows when I asked her to help me bake bread in the kitchen. As I set up her little table with the bowl and we went through the list of ingredients Katie looked at me and said excitedly, "This is a great competition - it's in the bag!" Cracked me right up, but in order to share I had to admit to my TV watching moments, please don't nominate me for worst mom.