Quarter of a Century

Its been a few days since my last post! I got sick last week and didn't get much accomplished. Being sick is no fun. I was almost back to 100% by the weekend which was good because it was a Tech football weekend. Home games for us means little family reunions. I had both sisters with their husbands, (still weird to say both of my sisters are married!) a friend of my sister, Mikey, and my mom all in town for the weekend- it was a packed house but a lot of fun! This past weekend was also Jonathan's birthday weekend so we had double the fun!

Friday we carved a pumpkin for Kate. I really don't like Halloween, especially all the scary stuff, but I acknowledge it for now because its fun to dress up Kate in cute little outfits. For our pumpkin we carved out the face of "Pablo" one of Kate's favorite characters from the show the Backyardigans. It turned out pretty cute, however, now Kate thinks all pumpkins are called Pablo.

Saturday was Tech gameday! We started tailgating in the morning with Lis (a.k.a. Pal), Matt, and E. Kate had a blast being outside, snacking on food, and looking at birds. The game started off being fun but then took a very ugly turn when Tech fell behind and never caught up. I hate losing, just hate it. I hate that we have 3 losses and we still have more tough games ahead. Its tough being a Red Raider sometimes, you have to be able to handle the good with the bad. I hope the season can somehow turn around and we can start to like our new head coach again. No matter what though, I'm still a Red Raider & I will always give a Guns Up with pride. Anyway, enough of the sad talk. Here's a couple pictures from the tailgate & game. (Notice I'm wearing my pink shrug I talked about in my post the other day. I never got a good picture of it but you can get a peek.)

Sunday was a much better day- it was Jonathan's birthday! He is now a quarter of a century old! My mom treated us to a tasty lunch at a Japanese Hibachi restaurant. The boys stayed behind while the girls plus Mikey visited the corn maze just outside of town. The kids loved it. They got to ride a "cow train," see some animals, go on a hay ride, pick some pumpkins (or Pablos if you are Kate), and were forced to take lots of pictures. My little dainty Kate wasn't sure what to think about all the blowing dirt & hay at first but she finally warmed up to it and began to run around yelling "yee-haw!" While picking pumpkins I found one that was small for her but Miss Independent wanted to pick her own. She walked around until she found her little "Pablo" then asked the worker to "hewp peese." (help please in Kate language) It was pretty sweet. She insisted on carrying it all the way back to the hay ride. After the visit to the corn maze we rushed home, cleaned off the dirt, then changed Kate into a super cute dress to get her two year old pictures done. Her birthday is exactly a month after Jonathan's so I tease him that his birthday is really now just a countdown to Kate's. The three of us had a great time trying to get Kate to take the perfect picture. I got a few sneak peaks from the photographer and I think our mission was accomplished. I'm really excited to see the final results, when I do I'm sure this blog will be overflowing with Kate pictures. Our day ended in the sweetest way possible. Before Kate went to bed, she crawled up in the recliner where Jonathan and I were sitting and gave us kisses and cuddled for a while. She gave us pats on the cheek (her way of showing love), shared her blanky, and was just all around sweet. I love that precious little girl and its moments like those that remind Jonathan and I how blessed we truly are.

Wow, writing about our busy weekend is making me tired all over again! However, the fun didn't stop there. Since the weekend was so busy we never really got a chance to fully celebrate Jonathan's birthday so we extended it by a day. We did some birthday shopping after work and ended up buying a tent along with his other gifts. Jonathan has been trying to get me to camp out in the backyard but we never had a tent and now it gets a little too cool at night so we decided to camp in the living room! We had tons of fun. Kate took over the tent preparations and "helped" her daddy. After her close supervision she let Daddy finish and she ran around the living room jumping and yelling, "yaaaay!" We ate dinner in the tent and, in Mommy's style of camping, watched Dancing With the Stars. I'm willing to camp as often as Jonathan wants as long as I can use a toilet when I need it, watch some TV, and end up sleeping in my own comfy bed. :) The tent was definitely a hit; in fact, it is still up in our living room & Kate took her nap there this afternoon.

Happy birthday Jonathan! The year you were born Reagan took office, the 49ers won the Superbowl, OU won the football championship (boo!), "What's Love Got to Do With It" was record of the year, & the Super Mario Brothers were created. However, you have been around longer than video games have been in the U.S. & you are older than the Oprah show!
And now the countdown to Kate's birthday has officially begun...