She's Two

Our sweet girl woke up the morning of her birthday and I think she had the theme song playing in her head of "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to." It was her birthday and I think she could tell. My goal was to make her feel extra extra special for her special day. She had a breakfast of crepes, lunch of hot dogs, and dinner of homemade pizza, then cake, all of which are her favorites(maybe not the hot dog but I was in the middle of cleaning out my closet). Can I just say that I love simple birthdays! I enjoy them so much more. I tend to focus more on my child(which is where the focus should be) and less on "Oh I hope everyone has a good time, or is impressed by the food, or think she looks cute." My parents had it where on the even birthdays we would have our own family thing, then if we wanted a party it was on the odd birthdays. I think I might be leaning towards that as well. As fun as it is to look at pictures and pictures of amazing parties, I don't know if my kids get enough out of them with the amount of work that goes into them. That's just me though. To each his own. I sure do love this girl. I can't believe she is already two.

This Girl

This sweet little girl turns two tomorrow. I can't believe it, I really can't. She has changed so much from a year ago, but I can even see huge changes in her from just the past month. She is talking way more, and she has quite the attitude. She has the pouty lip thing going on and Matt just can't seem to discipline her when she uses it.







She is so special to us. Jayden loves her, we love her, and she is so loving to us as well. Jolie has always been a dream baby. She slept through the night so young(maybe 4 weeks), goes to bed so well, throws only the occasional fit, is a great eater and will try most any food. I love hearing her start to sing and see her excitement about girly things. She's a tough cookie though too. We love our Jolie Kate and can't wait to celebrate her being Two.

me, a to z

This is my blog, but rarely do I talk about me. I think as a mom and a wife, we can get so caught up in everything and everyone around us and we forget about ourselves. No I don't think it's bad, but I am going to take a little time and talk about me.

a. age : 27(I still feel like I'm 19 though.)

b. bed size : queen

c. chore I hate : grocery shopping, it never ends

d. dogs : none, Matt and I had a dog Ella during our first year of marriage. I'll make a long story short and just give this one piece of information, we have never fought so much as we did when we had this dog. I am pro dogs though, no matter what my family really thinks.

e. essential start to your day : a coke.

f. favorite color : as of right now this very minute, gray & yellow

g. gift giving or receiving : giving

h. height : five feet nine inches

i. instrument : some piano, some clarinet, love to sing

j. job title: mama, babe, aunt Katie

k. kids: Jayden Monroe, Jolie Kate

l. live: Glendale, AZ(but I will always say I'm from Snowflake)

m. maiden name : Brimhall

n. nicknames: Only nickname I had was from a softball coach, Katydid

o. overnight hospital stays : twice with my babies.

p. pet peeve : chewing gum, being late

q. quote : "You can't control how you are going to be perceived, you only have control at how you are going to present yourself."(something like that)

r. right or lefty : right

s. siblings : Leslie Coy, Darrell Monroe, John Howard, James Martin, Jeanie Pearl

t. time you wake up : Between 6 and 6:30. You don't sleep in if you come from my parents.

u. university attended : this is a little embarrassing but oh well, NPC, Dixie State, and MCC.

v. vegetable you dislike : raw onion

w. what makes you run late : my adoring husband, or Jayden not being able to find his shoes.

x. x-rays you've had : teeth @ dentist, then chest x-ray(I supposedly had asthma, or so they said)

y. yummy food : fettuccine alfredo(Kitchen Boss style), chips & salsa(Don Ruben's) pizza(Spinatos or mine)

z. zoo animal favorite : elephant, orangutan

So this is me. I'm pretty excited for today. It's my parents anniversary and I get to celebrate my best friends birthday a day early with dinner. Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!!! Here's to 33 more.

First Day of School

Here is our big medical student on his first day of medical school. You can't even imagine how long we've waited, and how long we've worked for this day to finally be here. I know he's pretty excited, and a little nervous for the fire hydrant of information that is going to be coming his way. I know he will do great. I know it's going to be pretty difficult, but I have all the faith in the world in him. It's one of the reasons I picked him for me you know. More to come on that later.

Over 1900 Miles Traveled

That is how far we traveled in the last two weeks. Immediately after Lake Powell, we headed up into Utah, then Idaho for the Waite Reunion. Matt and I got to go river rafting which was great. I secretly, okay maybe not to secretly think we could have handled something a little harder, but it was good to get our feet wet. We went into Yellowstone a few of the days and it's all of Eric's(BIL) fault that we didn't see a bear. I told him my trip would be ruined if I didn't get to see one. I was pretty sad. While we were driving around I kept thinking to myself, "If I were a bear, where would I be?" Apparantly not anywhere people could see me I guess.
It was fun to see all of our Waite cousins. Can you believe there were 6, two year olds there(counting Jolie who is almost two). That's a lot of carseats. As we were driving around and admiring how green it was, the wild flowers everywhere, the rivers and streams that were so pretty, I kept trying to tell myself how bad it must be here in the winter. "Oh Katie you don't want to live here. They have horrible winters. They can't even leave their homes it's so bad. They have to stay inside for five months." Don't tell me if this is not the case. I don't want to know. So if you haven't been to Yellowstone, go. It's incredible.

Could We Have Had Any More Fun?

The answer is probably, but that would have meant our kids would have liked the water. One of the things that I find the most interesting/frustrating about raising kids is that you really can't MAKE them do something if they don't want to, right. I remember when I was little and my mom would fight with John about eating fruit(he hates fruit). It would go on forever, and I remember thinking why doesn't he just do it. Why can't she just make him do it. Or with me and wearing dresses to school. My mom every now and again would make up this rule that I had to wear one dress a week to school. I'm still not quite sure what her reasoning was(I'm sure she had one) but I hated it. It would be the longest drawn out process, and yet, she could punish me, threaten me, but I was still not going to wear a dress to school. It would have been the end of the world or something. Now as a parent, I get to have those same fights or trials I guess you could call them. Last year Jayden loved the water, you couldn't really get him out. This year, nope, he wasn't having it. I think having immediate access to a pool may have spoiled him a bit. The Lake Powell water isn't clear, it's cold(colder than our pool), and for an OCD kid who doesn't like to be dirty, the sand is tortuous. Then for Jolie, she turned on us as well. Our "happy go lucky" girl was more of a "crabby hold me all the time because this environment is different and so therefore I'm going to be difficult" kind of girl. Oh don't you worry your pretty little heads though, Matt and I still had a great time. I mean when you are getting a tan how can you not be happy!?! Of course we had a great time with our family and we had the BEST spot this year and the water was so high. It was seriously amazing. Not five minutes after pulling our boat out of the spot, someone else took it like bam. Oh how we love the lake. Until next year.

3 Down, 1 To Go

Last week Matt graduated with his Masters at Midwestern University which brings his degree count to a whopping 3. That's a lot of money you know. It was a quick program, and we are all so proud of him. I think he looks super sexy in his robe. His Dad was able to hood him since he has a doctorate degree. We are looking at a future Dr. in the making. Jayden was so tired and did not want to take pictures, he just wanted me to hold his hand, plus he was upset that he had to stop drawing for two seconds. Oh that kid and drawing. Jolie is pretty dang cute if you ask me.
Good Job Babe! We all love you so much!