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The other day Padriac came over for a couple of hours to play. The kids had a blast together. It was the first time that there wasn't any fighting over toys! YEAH!

The one thing that kept them occupied for a good twenty minutes was the trash truck. First, the truck came up on the opposite side of the street. Then, went around the circle across from our house. Finally, made a pass in front of our house. THREE times they got to see the trash truck in action. They were ALL glued to the front window/door waiting for the truck to come again. Hiliarious!

Visitors from Illinois

Two weeks ago we were graced with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dave's presence for the week! Jonathan and Catherine (along with Chris and myself) anxiously awaited their arrival on Sunday evening... and when they walked into the door the kids went crazy. Jonathan and Catherine were really excited to have Grandma and Grandpa here. We had quite a bit fun during their visit: a trip to the park and to the zoo (pictures in a later post), reading lots of books to the kids, playing with toys and reading lots of books to the kids, a date night with just the four of us grown-ups and reading lots of books to the kids. Chris also took his parents up to Blackhawk- a gambling town in the mountains- for a day. The week was action-packed but tons of fun!

Here are a few pics from the park:Grandma Mary and Jonathan swinging together.
Grandpa Dave and Catherine on the see-saw together... priceless picture. :-)

Grandma Mary did a lot of pushing the kids in the swing.

Thank you, Mary and Dave, for making the trek out to Colorado! We had a grand time and look forward to our next time together. We love you!

Husband of the Year award goes to Chris Kuetemeyer!

I gotta tell ya, I got a good husband- probably the best one ever! he he Just to illustrate, this past Christmas he gave me a gift certificate from a cleaning service to a one time deep cleaning of the house. Of which, I was deeply grateful. It is hard doing deep cleaning with two little kiddos around. This past weekend as I was heading out for the weekend (yes, the ENTIRE weekend by myself for a retreat... yet another props to him) the cleaning crew arrived. The list of the things they were planning to clean was vast, and they did an incredible job, but, there were still a few things on the list that I wanted cleaned (i.e. baseboards, window sills, etc...) that they were not going to be able to get to. So, I was planning to do them myself in the upcoming weeks. But, upon my return on Sunday afternoon I discoved HE had cleaned the baseboards, window sills, windows (inside and out), ceiling fans, fireplace AND did the laundry!! All with entertaining two little kiddos to exhasution (literally). I walked back into our house from a weekend away, to the cleanest it has been since we moved in! I tell ya, I am very impressed and thankful!! I am thinking, I will keep him around for a few more years. :-)

I am deeply appreciative of your loving service, Christopher.

The Hop!

One of my favorite places to take the kids is The Hop, an indoor play place with inflatables that can be climbed on and slid down... and it's just down the street from our house. Last Friday Chris had the day off so we headed over there for the morning.

Catherine is not sure how she feel about the place... as she is not interested in climbing, bouncing or sliding too much on the inflatables. But she does LOVE the water fountain!

Jonathan has a great time, though!!

Catherine did end up finding a little car to ride around in, which she liked!

"Reading"

The other day as I was finishing up breakfast, I heard Jonathan on the couch "reading" one of his favorite Sesame Street Books. I was impressed that he remembered a lot of things on each page- word for word. Mostly, it was just really cute watching him "reading" by himself! It is times like these that make me smile and be so thankful that I am a mommy. Catherine saw him reading and she wanted to join him too...

3 years and 18 months old!

Jonathan is now 3 years old and Catherine is 18 months old! I was able to get well child check-ups for them together. Though, I don't remember exact weights and measurements.... I do remember that for weight Jonathan was in the 3rd percentile (YEAH! on the chart) and 50th percentile for height. Catherine was in the 5th percentile for weight (YEAH!! Again, on the chart) and 50th percentile for height.

Are we related or what???

At Jonathan's birthday party a picture was taken of me with my mom and sister... I don't think that there is any question if we are related or not. What do you think??

Just had to post it!

The other day, Catherine spilled her entire lunch (of which included yogurt) all over her pants. So, my sister graciously assisted by taking her pants off; though I thought that Anna was going to put new pants on Catherine... but a few minutes later caught her walking around like this... Anna and I were laughing pretty hard. After we were done giggling, we did put some clean pants back on her.

Jonathan's 3rd Birthday

Jonathan turned 3 years old on February 18th! It 's crazy how time flies. On his actual birthday- it was a Thursday- we had balloons, a special crown and he could do almost whatever he wanted that day. For lunch we dined with his good friend Trace and his mom, our neighbors. For dinner he chose to go to Chick-fil-A . I was surprised that the staff sang Happy Birthday and gave him free ice cream and brownie!

Over the weekend, we had a small family birthday party...

Complete with choclate cake and singingAnd, of course really fun presents to open!My sister, all the way from St. Louis, made an appearance...

Here she is with my dad and brother His godparents, Terry and Rosie, from Colorado Springs also came up. (They are also dear family friends for over 20 years now)

Jonathan got a parking garage from Grammy and Grandaddy... that had to be put together. Luckily, there were some manly men around who were excited to put it together!! (note: notice the apprearance of the mask again)
Here is the final product... the parking garage!

Padriac and his dad, Brent, also came to the party. Though, this is a picture of Chris and Padriac. :-)

Here is Jonathan the day of his actual birthday, opening some presents from Grandma Mary, Grandpa Dave and Aunt Amy... of which he LOVED! Some of them included a dinosaur set and playdough.

There's a tiger in our house!

My friends', Rachel, son turned 1 years old a couple of weeks ago. In the party bag was this really cool tiger mask! Jonathan loves it! You can catch him running around the house quite frequently with it on. And, it was on Ash Wednesday- when I had ashes on my forehead- I made a dash to the grocery store... Jonathan also wanted to wear the tiger mask. Gotta tell you, we got LOTS of strange looks... the ashes are already "weird" enough, but throw in a 3 year old wearing a mask. he he Look closely at the upcoming pictures on the blog... as the mask will make a few more appearances.