9 Years

Today is our 9 year anniversary!

Nate is still my very best friend and I am still so in love with him.

He makes me laugh, smile, cry, and want to be a better woman, wife, and mother. He is a hard worker, dedicated, wise, kind, and fun.

He loves me more than I could hope for and loves his little girls with an amazing love.

Happy Anniversary Nate, thanks for all your love, always.

Your, Kate

All princesses sing beautiful

Tonight when I went in to tuck Elizabeth in for bed, she was standing on her bed looking out the window. She kind of shyly said, "oh, I was just singing to the birds. Maybe I will sing to them again tomorrow so that they wouldn't play kind of wild." Mom says, "I bet you were singing kind of like Cinderella."

E, "Yes, all princesses sing beautiful."

Pretty sure she was including herself in the line up of princesses!

Love that girl!!!

A most wonderful day!

Yesterday after church we drove up to the hills! It was a wonderful day together as a family. We had a picnic by the river and then we decided to take our first big family hike. Somehow we misread the map (a very unusual thing to happen to Nate?!) and ended up going on a 5.2 mile hike instead of a 4 mile hike. That extra bit doesn't sound like much, but when each mile takes almost an hour.... smile!

The girls did AWESOME! What troopers they were, Elizabeth probably walked four out of the five miles. She did get to ride in the back pack some and on my back as well. There were a few times at the end when daddy was holding both girls! He is a pretty amazing daddy!

We all four enjoyed the day thoroughly. We got to see many interesting and beautiful things. We saw two beavers in a pond, a blue grouse (quite an interesting bird, especially when it is all puffed up, which we got to see), lots of other birds, elk, and a weird eel type snake creature in the lake, and a beautiful waterfall. Of course the beautiful mountains and all the wildflowers this time of year are alone worth the trip.

Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car, so no pictures are to be had this trip, sigh. Oh, well, the memories are precious in my heart!
We all look forward to more hikes this summer! What fun to have the girls getting to an age where we can go on longer adventures together.

lots of new posts, with more to come!

I haven't been blogging much lately because we have not been able to download (or upload or whatever you do) our pictures. We recently got a new computer though and so now I can get to my pictures! Yippee!!
There have been a lot of things happening that I wanted to share, so get ready for a nice long look at life around here. And don't worry, I will add more later as well!
Thanks for sharing life with us!

More birthday fun

My birthday was in April and my sweet husband made me the most amazing present, ever! He bought a porch swing and made a frame for it to hang on. It is just beautiful and I love swinging in it, watching my girls play, reading my book, just enjoying being outside.

The other part of my birthday, was a beautiful cake that he and the girls made.

On the morning of my birthday, Elizabeth and I had a funny conversation:

E "get up mom, it's time to get up."

Mom "Oh, but it is my birthday, don't I get to stay in bed all day?!"

E "No, you have to eat your cake."

Mom "but can't I have my cake in bed?!"

E (silly smile and runs out of the room)

I got up and was putting in my contacts, hearing some noise coming from the kitchen. A minute later Elizabeth runs into the room saying, "Here you go mom, you can have your cake in bed!"

The night before they had made a cake and were planning on decorating it that evening. E had decided to cut a peice and give it to me in bed, since that is what I wanted for my birthday!

Isn't that sweet!

So, that night Nate and the girls decorated a beautiful cake for me, even though there was a missing peice!

Family Fun

We love family!!! The thing I love about my family is that we love being together and just celebrating life.

The first week in April, Rebekah (my neice) was in a play at her school. We all thought is would be great fun to see her in it, so we decided to drive to Nebraska and see her in it!

Kristi and Bob were gracious hosts to have 10 of us show up at their door in the wee hours of the morning. It was a full house but such fun and what a blessing to have such a close family!

Rebakah did an amazing job and we were all very, very proud of her!

Spring Snow

I just love Colorado weather! I love the changing of the seasons and the fact that we see the sun just about every single day!

A while back we had a huge amount of snow. It was very heavy and wet, but lots of fun to play in!

Big Girl Bed and other big stuff!

Sarah has gone through a lot of new stuff in the past months. She moved out of her crib, is potty trained, and said good bye to "binky"!! She has plenty to say, all the time...in fact the only time she is not talking (even if no one is listening), is when she is asleep!

This is such a precious age. She can sure have a fit about something but can be so sweet and amazingly cute the next minute! She is a pretty typical second child...she wants to do it all by herself, to be a big girl, but "I need help" is pretty closely followed by that proclamation of doing it on her own!

I know these times will fly by, so I will try to enjoy it and not sweat the small stuff!

Turning 4

Elizabeth turned four years old in February! She is such a sweet spirited little thing. She has so much of her daddy in her...loves to play outside - getting dirty, climbing trees, experiencing new adventures. She also has quite a bit of mommy in her too...she wants to be a mommy, loves to do crafts and make things, loves to laugh and play, and yes, has plenty of tears.

She has been in preschool this year and loves it. She has learned a lot and we are learning more about her. She is definitely an internal processor (just like dad) and is slow to warm up in new situations but once she feels comfortable, she lets loose and is a wonderful joy!

She loves her friends and is a good friend. Her sister is her best friend, which is just music to my ears! My prayer is that they will always think of each other as that!

For her birthday, we had a simple party at our house with cousins. She wanted a balloon cake (decided that in the store when she saw some balloons)! Then, the best thing ever, was that her cousins got to have a sleepover and sleep in the living room! It was fun, a good time had by all!

So, to my dear sweet Elizabeth, Happy birthday!

love,

Mom

Hugging her new scooter, from Aunt Lori!