It was a fun and eventful weekend around here. My parents and my sister came for the weekend and we attended my cousin's wedding in Tulsa. While I love busy weekends like this, it's always hard to say goodbye.

My family arrived on Thursday night and left yesterday. We did a lot of visiting, eating, lounging, and my mom even talked me into doing a little work around the house. Thanks Mom...ha! Kate loved having them around and ate up every bit of their love and attention. My dad even taught her how to wink...it's soooo adorable!!! She spent the rest of the weekend winking at people.

Kate and Grandpa tossing the ball in the air...

Kate and her new additions: two top teeth...aren't they cute!!

Before Caroline and Landon's rehearsal dinner.

At the rehearsal dinner...my cousin, Shelly, and me.
Uncles Lenny and Paul and Ben and Kate. The wedding! Congrats to Caroline and Landon....we wish them the best! Kate's first chicken strip. She grabbed it as soon as the waiter set the plate down. Shortly after this picture, she actually bit off a huge chunk that I had to fish out of her mouth. She wasn't happy.While Kate got her cute looks from her Daddy, she got her love of fun and dancing from me and her Grandma DeDe! She LOVED being out on the dance floor!! I think we may be in for it with this one!!
On the ride home from Tulsa on Saturday night. My dad rented us a good ol' mini-van for the weekend so that we could all ride together on our trips into Tulsa for the wedding festivities. Fun, fun!
On Sunday morning, Emily, Kate, and I snuggled on the pull out sofa-bed. My parents left early, early because my dad had to get back to Atlanta to catch another flight out of the country. Poor guy...I hope his trip is successful and goes by quickly.

While we were lounging in bed, we saw a tasty looking dish on Food Network and decided to go get the stuff to make it. I wish I would have gotten a picture because it looked just as good as it tasted!! I had to snap a pic of Emily and Brad preparing our feast. Kate was so exhausted from the weekend that she slept most of Sunday. Seriously, she took about 5 1/2 hours in naps. Emily was sad that she wasn't up to play but Brad and I enjoyed having Em all to ourselves!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!! Brad took the day off today so we did some things around the house and tried to enjoy the day all together as much as we could!! By the way, Kate is really beginning to walk A LOT now. We were at Best Buy today and she was wobbling all around. I had to hold back the tears when she pushed my hands away because she wanted to walk instead of being held. My sweet angel baby is growing up....

Fun Weekend Trip

After church on Sunday, we loaded up and headed to Lawton to visit the S family. When we got there, we drove on to Meers, OK to try out the amazing burgers and beer. It really was delicious and so fun. To get to Meers, you have to drive up this little mountain and there are signs everywhere that say FREE-RANGE BISON AND LONGHORNS ARE DANGEROUS: KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. I was so excited about seeing one of these crazy animals but I guess they were all doing some Sunday snoozing because we didn't see a one! However, the drive was very pretty and interesting....it felt like we were in the Southwest or something. Strange.

After lunch we went back to Laurie, Will and Brock's house to visit and let the kiddos play. They were the cutest they've ever been together! They laughed and played and crawled all over the place. It was VERY cute to watch them...and very fun to visit with Will and Laurie. Thank you guys for such a fun day!!

And what is one of my posts without a picture of Miss Priss. Here she is in one of her new outfits from her Papa and Sissy...so cute!!! Her headband looks like Mickey Ears but she didn't really like it and felt the need to adjust it to her liking after each time I adjusted it to my liking....I hope this isn't a precursor to life when Kate is 13...but I have a feeling it is..ha!

And I had to snap a picture of Brad giving Kate her nighty-night bottle a few days ago. The girl goes to bed around 7:30 so that's why it's so bright outside.

We have had a good and busy week so far. We've been running lots of errands and picking up around here in preparation for Julia's visit today....and my parents and sister (Em) are arriving tomorrow night. Yay, yay, yay!!

A little bit of this and that...

I had some extra time today so I thought I would post some before and after pictures of our house. In true Thomas Family Form, it isn't quite finished yet but we'll get there....someday...

This is our shower before. We thought it was fine and were going to bare with the peach tile until we decided to do the bathrooms. Well, it turns out the shower was "broken" and needed repairs deep beneath the concrete. So...we needed to re-do the shower right away. I'm VERY happy about how it turned out. Our tile guy, Rusty, did an amazing job...he's only 20 years old and has his own business and he has a daughter Kate's age (exactly two weeks older). We'll have him do the other bathroom when it's time.

After. Nevermind the shower curtain. We still need to decide on and order a glass door. And this is the kitchen before.

After. I still need to paint the ceiling and above the cabinets (it's just primed with color), get a rug, and have our cabinet maker make a small island/workspace. We have a little bit of leftover granite so I'll have the countertop guy fab it and seam it to fit the island/workspace. Another before.

And another after. Also need to make some curtains for both windows....they look so naked.The desk before.

And after. It isn't decorated....just some stuff from here and there. We still haven't unpacked lots of odds and ends and my very fave red Vera Bradley dishes are going to go in the cabinet. Since we have other every day dishes, we only use the red ones occasionally so this spot will work for them. I also need to paint underneath the desk....oops.
And here's Miss Priss after her breakfast this morning. She LOVES blueberries...eats them like I'm going to take them away from her!! I only give them to her every other day because she is always such a mess after eating them. For breakfasts, Kate's menu consists of a diced fruit (peaches, blueberries, apples, strawberries, or bananas) a starch (blueberry waffles, bagel and cream cheese, or cheerios) and half a container of YoBaby Yogurt. I've tried cottage cheese but she no-likey. She always eats all of the fruit, all of the yogurt and about half of the waffle or bagel or whatever starch she has on her tray. I love watching her "navigate" her tray to see what I have put there for her....so precious!!

For lunch Kate usually has a protein (cheese, chicken, scrambled egg, browned ground beef) a veggie (peas, sweet potatoes and green beans are FAVES, corn and carrots are close runners-up) and fruit and sometimes whole wheat pasta. For dinner, she usually eats what we eat. She tried avacado the other day and thought it was yucky...I'll try again later. I have a lot of fun figuring out things for her to eat and seeing whether or not she likes them. I'm always wanting more ideas though so please let me know if you think of anything I haven't mentioned as far as mild finger-foods go.

We got an AWESOME surprise this week.....Mary came to visit!!! She was in town on business so we got to see her Tuesday morning and then we got to have dinner with she and her Dad on Thursday night!! Dinner was a lot of fun....even though there was A LOT of Engineering and Natural Gas talk going on...it was 3 Engineers and then me and Kate..ha! (I'm starting to be able to follow it better though so I look at it all as learning experience) Mike still is just as funny as ever and Kate was ga-ga over him...he is definitely a baby magnet. I wish Lucas and Jose would have been able to join her but we plan a trip to Houston soon so we'll see them and the rest of the crew at that time.

Here is Kate watching Thomas and Friends while Mary and I visited. Have you ever seen a 10 month old sit so still? The ONLY time she sits still is when Thomas is on. I have to limit myself (not her...she wouldn't know the diff if we never watched it) to 30 minutes of Thomas every other day. Ha...it is nice though to have some quiet time if I have a phone call or something I need to concentrate on.

And this is Kate's "book nook". We keep her books in the coffee table so that we have access to them at all times. She loves to sit and look at her books....I'm hoping she'll always enjoy reading. Brad's not a big reader but I LOVE a good book!! In fact, my dad traveled/s a lot for his job and when I was growing up he would always get the latest NYTimes Best Seller for my age group as my "present"...that and we all had a pretty admirable collection of Hard Rock tees...Bejing, Singapore, London, etc!! What a good Dad....we loved it!!

Ok...I promise this post is almost over. I just wanted to include this video for another blog-friend, Sarah at Adventures in Ava-Land. Kate watches all of the videos that my favorite blog-friends post and I love seeing her reaction. So...I got her reaction to Ava "talking" yesterday. Notice her "big girl" laugh...this is new. She now laughs when Brad and I laugh or if we're in a group of laughing adults...it's pretty funny!

Happy Easter!!

Despite the rain today, we had a great Easter weekend!! Brad's parents drove in Saturday morning and we had a wonderful time with them. We hit Bricktown on Saturday after lunch and then grilled-out for dinner after Kate went to bed.

Papa and Sissy brought Kate an Easter basket filled with some adorable play clothes and her first box of animal crackers!! I'm hoping the weather will be nice this week so she'll be able to try out some of her cute new duds.

I didn't get any pictures of our wonderful meal on Saturday night but it was delicious and fun! I have to share what happened to my poor camera that made me miss the meal pics. The strap came undone while we were in Bricktown and the camera fell flat on its lens on the brick. After that, it would turn on but wouldn't take a picture. I was just sick about it but didn't want to worry too much about it and let it rain on my fun weekend. Miraculously, Brad got it up and going on Sunday morning....I love him!!! Well, I love him for many reasons but that's just one. After dinner, we watched Twilight....I think I may be the only woman in my age group who didn't wait in any lines to see it. And, (don't throw pumpkins at my house for the following comment) but I probably would have been a little disappointed if I had waited in said lines....I was out cold after an hour.

We got up Easter morning and headed to IHOP in our comfies. Brad's parents headed back to Fort Smith and we put Kate down for a nap in preparation for 12:15 Mass.

Getting ready for Mass

Ready!! Let's go!

Kate was such a good little girl at church...only a few squirmies...but considering it lasted an hour and a half we think she did GREAT!! The people behind us were so sweet to her....I thanked them for their patience and occasional entertaining. The Easter Bunny visited while we were at church and Kate had a big time digging through her goodies. That Easter bunny is good....he brought all of her faves, including a book...that we looked at 352 times today...ha!!

And this is an attempt at getting a family picture using the camera's timer function. Definitely not the best but it'll do. What can I say....there's a lot of pressure when you're using the timer...even though it takes forever to take the picture you always think it might take earlier. Who knows??

The rest of the day was LAZY!! We only left the house once to take an Easter Lily to our neighbors. They also had an Easter basket waiting for Kate...it had lots of candy in it but we didn't have the heart to tell them that she doesn't exactly eat candy yet. They're so sweet though!!

Kate's Sissy brought deviled eggs and Kate LOVED them. I'm going to have to make them again for her soon. She also loves grapes....the other food on her tray. She pretty much won't eat "baby" food anymore. She wants what we're having and that's perfectly fine with me. It keeps me on track with preparing healthy and well-rounded meals for the whole fam...and I don't have to smell some of that yuck smelling jarred food anymore!

Hope you all had a blessed Easter filled with lots of family and food!!

Fun Weekend

I'm just now getting around to making a post about our fun, fun, fun weekend! The tile guys have been at our house this week and that's really what I've been thinking about. You know: tile, grout (unsanded/sanded), shower shelves, contrasting accents, and the list goes on and on. Sounds exciting huh? They SHOULD be finished on Friday so we're looking forward to that. They completed the demo work and I heard Kate mimicking the bang, bang, bang-ing several times yesterday...on her bedroom wall while she was trying to take a nap. Poor thing...it'll be over soon.

Well, back to last weekend. As I said in the last post, Kate ventured out and began walking/wobbling between Brad and I. She has pretty much stayed at that level since then. We practice with her some but really I just want her to go at her own pace. I know she could probably full-out walk right now but for whatever reason she wants to take her time. So, time is what we'll give her!!

Saturday morning, I headed to Fayetteville. It was really hard leaving K and B....it's been a LONG time since I've done something by myself. But it was good for all of us and I had a WONDERFUL time visiting Damian, Sherry, Vivi, Sher's family and celebrating Lucy's birthday!!

Vivi is getting too big!!! I think back to when she was a tiny, tiny baby and I can't believe how the time has flown. She has so much hair and it has curlies and it's beautiful!! I told her that people pay lots of money for body like that!! The pictures are at the bottom because I uploaded them first and now blogger won't let me move them....blah!

I got to meet lots of people and see lots of people too. We started the evening with dinner at Soul which was very delicious and the convo was great and brought lots of laughs!!
And then went to Theo's for drinks. Emily and Laura joined us there and it was so great to see them. I'm a little bit embarrassed to tell you where we went after that because it was a DANCE CLUB...what?!?!? Don't get me wrong, I love a good tail shake but it was NOT my cup of tea. Needless to say, the people watching was PRIMO!!

On Sunday evening, the Sever clan came over for dinner and we celebrated Mary Beth's birthday!! It was a lot of fun to see everyone and, as always, the kiddos were so sweet with each other. Kate is topless in these photos because it was after dinner (she usually eats topless because she has a slight - ok major- aversion to bibs) and I forgot to put her shirt back on....sorry Kate!! (Side note: I really don't think she minds being topless because it gives her a chance to show off her rock-hard abs)

And here are the pictures from my visit with the Lux fam. Isn't the setting of their house just beautiful?!?!? They are in the middle of a landscaping project so Sherry and Vivi are standing on the spot where their new landing will go. It's gonna be nice!!

Vivi was having a snack by the time I got my camera out so her milk made all the pictures too!!

And here's all that fluffy hair I was talking about earlier!! She was watching the horse races....she loves cheering on the ponies!!

Hope you all are having a great week!! I can't believe it's already Wednesday. Brad is off on Friday and I'm beside myself with excitement!! Also, his parents will be visiting us this weekend so we're looking forward to seeing them and showing them our new digs and OKC...Kate's going to be so excited when they get here!!