A Trip to the ER

Last night while playing at Annie's house, Kaitlyn, being the graceful, light on her feet girl that we love, tripped and fell into the edge of a cabinet. At first I didn't see anything, because she was holding her forehead, but then the blood started to fall down her hair. So alas, a 3 hour trip to the emergency room later, and she is sporting 3 fabulous staples in her head. The best part is that today is picture day at school and we can't even wash her hair for 24 hours.

P.S. I've had a couple of people ask, and surprisingly I did not freak out when it happened. I think I handled it quite well. Of course, this was her third time splitting her head open, and Matt broke his leg when he was 1, so all in all, I think I'm getting quite good at handling these situations.

More Soccer

Kaitlyn started soccer this fall. We were a little worried about putting her in, since she had never played before and since she is older, but she said she wanted to do it. She does pretty well. She's a good runner, and can run fast, so that helps her. She actually really good at the goalie position, but she is not very aggressive. So when girls are running at her she tends to get alittle timid and a little afraid of going after them. She is learning though. Here's a couple of videos of her playing, and yes, you get to hear me yelling in the background. :)She is a little hard to see in the first video. She has on pink shin guards and two little red pigtails. In the second video you can tell it is her because she is twisting her hair.

Another First Day of School

Matt started preschool this year. He is going to the same place Kaitlyn went, My Friends Preschool with Miss Carolyn. He was so excited to go, even though Kaitlyn kept making up stuff to scare him. She told him that if he got put in the time-out chair, that there were realy spiders and bugs that would crawl all over him. He was quite concerned with that one, and Kaitlyn got in trouble for teasing him, but once we calmed his fears about the time-out chair, he was ready to go. HE is of course in class with Katie (his BFF). He still loves it and asks everyday if it is a school day.

a Necessary New Do

I've talked before about how Kaitlyn is quite shy and that she gets quite anxious about things, especially new people and new situations. It also causes her to have these nervous habits. She started out picking the skin on her lip. She would pick it until she had these huge sores all across her lips. We finally broke her of that one. Then she moved on to chewing on her clothes. After that she moved on to the last one that she has been doing for a while. She twists her hair, and since she has curly hair, it will twist into knots. Then when she gets it into a knot, she will yank the knot out, pulling extra hair with it. When we went on our vacation to California she yanked out so much hair that she gave herself a bald spot. We thought she had gotten better until church yesterday when she yanked out a huge chunk. Something had to be done, so I took her today to cut off her hair. We didn't go boy short, but pretty short. I seriously cried when the lady was cutting it off. Kaitlyn actually likes the cut, which is a good thing, but I hate it. Aaron and I warned her that if she still twists when it is this short that we will shave it off. Hopefully this will break her habit and by the time it grows back out she won't do it anymore. Any advice from anyone would be appreciated :)

The picture is from my cell phone, so not the best quality.

1st Day of School

Kaitlyn started first grade yesterday. She was a little nervous because all of her friends from last year ended up in a new class. She is quite shy to begin with, so everyday Aaron has been giving her school "goals." For example, yesterdays goal was she had to play with one other kid during recess (she tends to play by herself alot.) And she had to learn two new names of classmates. She was so excited when she got home to report to Aaron how she had done. She also started to ride the bus this year. It seems to be going well. The neighborhood girls have been good about taking care of her. She choose Panera bagels for her breakfast, and Baskin Robbins ice cream for her snack after school. I just can't believe how grown up she is becoming :) I still teared up when she got on the bus. I can only imagine what will happen next year when Matt starts kindergarten. I'll lose it completely :)

Beanser is 6!!!

Yesterday was Kaitlyn's 6th b-day. She had been counting down for weeks. She was so excited. She told us on Monday that since it was her b-day on Tuesday, she could do whatever she wanted and we couldn't tell her no. We politely told her that, yes, it was her b-day, but we could still tell her no. :) Anyway, she woke up and the first thing she wanted to do was open her presents. She got this game from Matt. She loves games, and particularly likes this one after playing it at her cousins house. The thing she wanted most in the world was a Nintendo DSi. Aaron and I debated for a while about getting her one. She is kind of a gamer, and loves to play Wii and computer. We have to strictly moniter her time, or she would play all day, so we were worried about adding one more thing to the mix. Also, they are very expensive. Way more than we usually spend on a b-day. We ended up telling her that if she could save 1/2 the money for it, she could maybe get one. I am so proud of this little girl. She saved for 8 months, and saved up $50. Everytime she would want to buy something, we would tell her to go ahead, but she would stop, think about it, and then say "No, I'm saving for my DSi." It also made her much more helpful at home. She was always asking for extra jobs to do so she could earn more money. So by her b-day she had saved $50, then she has to give us $25 of her b-day money, and then she got her DSi (pink of course.)

Since it was her b-day, we told her she could play as much as she wanted.

She didn't have a lot of time to play though because we had quite the busy day. She didn't get a party this year, so we told her she could pick on place to go. She chose Chuck. E. Cheese. So we headed there yesterday morning with our friends the Every's. Then in the afternoon we headed to the beach with a bunch of friends. I lugged down a cooler full of popsicles in honor of her b-day. We had a blast with all of our friends at the beach. I'm so sad that summer is almost over and we can't go anymore :( She is such a funny kid and for her b-day dinner she chose steak and mashed potatoes. Aaron thought that was the best idea ever, so that's what we ate. Then that night we did cake and ice cream. There is only this one pic of the cake because it is by far the worst cake I have ever made. I didn't plan it out, so it was a last minute cake, so I was forced to decorate with random stuff I had in my house. She wanted a Barbie cake, so here is the result (don't laugh, it truly is awful, but Aaron made me put a picture of it up).

Ramseys thoroughly enjoyed Kaitlyn's b-day. He got to tear up paper, cardboard, plastic etc. and had a blast for like an hour.

We love you Kaitlyn!!!!

It's A Boy!!!

Yes, it is a boy, but not the kind you're thinking of. We did get a new baby in our house, but he walks on four legs, has tan fur and the cutest face you've ever seen. As soon as we got back from camping we picked up our new puppy. Our friends The Jackson's dog had puppies and they let us have first pick. We've visited the puppies tons since they were born and finally decided on this little guy. His name is Ramseys (Aaron will inform you that he is NOT named after the Egyptian pharoah, but rather the wrestler from Nacho Libre). He is a lab/boxer mix, so he'll be a pretty big guy. He is so adorable and has the best temprament. He never bites or barks (excpet at night when we shut him in his kennel, but that will pass). The kids totally torture him and he never nips at them. I will say that it has been a ton of work these past couple of days, and I'm really looking forward to him being potty-trained, but we totally love him!