Celebrating 7 years and 7 months!

Wahoo!  Its been party time around these parts!  We get a little crazy on St Patricks Day...

 As you can tell from these wild party people...


While we love the Irish holiday, our focus is more on little Miss Katelee, who turned 7 this year.  We sported festive trendy mustaches, but Harrison couldn't get his right.

Her dinner choice was oven fried chicken, the kind that she explained ALWAYS sets off the fire alarm.  It really does, the smoke alarm goes off every time, without fail when I make that.  So, Katelee had the chair and dish towel ready for me to fan the smoke detector.  She races to the doors and turns on the fans for me, but it must be so worth it.  She loves that chicken.  After that, it was time for presents. 


This girl may have a future as an author or illustrator.  She makes books by the dozens.  We have a collection of Katelee McArthur originals and some she copies.  It is amazing what she does.  So, her wonderful aunt Shannon got her a little kit she could make hard back books.  She obviously, was impressed.  She has new roller blades from Christmas that I have been requesting go along with a helmet, but she informed me (in tears, mind you) why she never wears a helmet 'because all we have are boy helmets and it is SO embarrassing.  So she got a beautiful purple helmet to accessorize those blades with, as well as twister, a new book, sand art, and new pj's.  After a few rip roaring times of Twister, all of which I won, except one where Jason called my readjusting, we had cake and ice cream. 


We made a candy land cake, gluten free of course!  We had to remind Katelee not to wish for the same thing she always does when she  blew out her candles.  When it was Brenna's birthday last month, Katelee told us she really hoped when it was her birthday she didn't wish for the same thing she has been year in and year out.  She, apparently, draws a blank when it's is wish time, or she buckles under the pressure, but she doesn't even want the wish that pops in her head.  When we asked what the wish was, we were all dying...every year, Katelee has been wishing (but really NOT wanting) to 'join the circus!!' We reminded her not to...no underage circus performers under our roof!!


We waited til the following Saturday to have her friend party because she wanted to watch FROZEN with her friends and it came out on DVD just before that.  So, we had a pancake and pajama party with these cute peeps:

 Grant and Collin (who were banished to the basement after their sing-a-long to the songs included words like poop and dumb and everyone was going to die), Brenna, Courtney, Katelee, Breanna, Hailey, Brinley, Emily, Pyper, Rian, Capri and Aspen. 

 There was lots of singing and syrup, cups with personal pictures

yea, I know, I'm not artist.  It was a snowflake, frozen wonderland! 

 A special thanks to grandma, who slept over and joined us in her pajamas because Dave was out of town and I needed some reinforcements.  It was a perfect party!  Katelee loves to be goofy and put on a show.  She may have a career there too, as she can manipulate emotions with the snap of her finger!  She may have turned lucky 7, but we really are the lucky ones having this amazing girl in our family!!!

Also celebrating a lucky 7 milestone, is this little dude! Harrison is obsessed with me.  Really, I am not just saying that.  The feeling is completely mutual, except at night.  We still have severe issues there.  He is very active and has moved on from the worm crawl to the stink-bug bum in the air crawl.  Harry loves to pull himself up and got his very first baby goose egg today.  Because he loves to pull himself up, it was time to lower his crib mattress. I don't know why, but this is one of the two saddest milestones for me in a baby's first year.  I love laying them down so close to my arms and face in their crib.  Now, I feel like I am dropping him to a deep abyss.  Really, I can't reach the bottom on my tippy toes, so I do a small drop for sleeping times. 

 

But, at least I still get to see this adorable grin when I walk in his room.  Love love love this boy!

Happy Half!

 Harrison is the only one of our kids not born this time of year, but he did just hit his 6 month mark last week, so happy half birthday cutest baby!!!  He went in for his well child check and lo and behold he lost weight...again.  UGH! He weighs 15 lbs 5 oz and is 26 1/4 inches.  People tell me he looks long, but I think its cuz he is slightly skinny.  He is in the 10% percentile for weight, which really isn't tragic, it's just he has gone down.   But, neither the doctor or I am worried about it because he is at the stage where babies start to fluctuate a little because of their activity.  But, the bad news is he will probably conitnue to eat throughout the night for the next 6 months or so.  He is just too distracted in the day.  So, I am tired, but I am almost used to functioning on fumes now and it won't last forever.  I just hope I stop sending kids to school in pj's when it is NOT pajama day or forgetting to have them prepared for singing/acting class with the music that was fully explained to me in an email, or losing one child as she comes and goes to neighbors whenever it suits her fancy.  Ok, Brenna has always done that, so I am not going to take the blame on that!

 So, the weight issue continues to keep us in a stupor.  See, even Harrison is wondering what to do about it...

 Harrison is a premature hip hop-ster.  He can do the worm like you can't believe.  That is his mode of transportation.  It is so funny.  He can easily go from a crawl to sitting and vice versa and he barely pulled himself up the other day.  But, I think it was a fluke.  He looked at me like this:

 as if to say, "what the what? How is this happening?!"  He is a good natured boy and so fun.  His laugh is contagious and people run from all over the house if they hear it.  It is amazing how every cute thing he does is a huge event around here.

 Grant told me that red heads get mad easily.  It's a fact, he learned it in 1st grade.  (I think Grant uses that as a crutch when he is fuming!).  I would say that Harrison is not angry all the time but when he cries, there is no working up to hysterics.  It is instant screaming.  Brenna is definitely in line with the anger/spunky fact Grant taught me.  She has had lots of priveleges taken away as of late.  She says it is fine because she will just get them another day.  Or she tells me what toys I can take if she gets in trouble.  Then, she will clarify and say that she actually 'doesn't get in trouble, ever'.  I don't know where I have been the last month cuz it sure hasn't seemed like that.  She helped herself to a whole bag of caramels after I had told her I needed them for a recipe and she explained to me that she HAD to do that because they are just so good and I need to go buy more because "it's the right thing to do." 

Here is our 'beautiful disaster' (as dubbed at his doctor's visit) on his half birthday mark.  Here's to hoping he proves the red heads are trouble 'fact' wrong!!