First Build-A-Bear

I'm a little late on getting this out there. It seems with spring time comes a lot activity.

Elizabeth had two very fun friends birthday parties in March. She even picked out her friends birthday gifts all on her own. Both were hits. It was fun to watch her decide which ones she thought her friends would like.

One was a Build-a-Bear party. We have kind of avoided this place. Anyone who has been there can probably imagine why. Thankfully, Katherine was at home with Dennis. Elizabeth's entire 4 year-old class (12 students) were in attendance along with a few of Haley's friends from her class last year. The process is not a quick one with that many kids. I was impressed on how patient and well behaved all of the kids were.

First they got to pick their stuffed animal. All of the boys and Elizabeth chose a Koala bear and the girls were fairly mixed with their choices. Then they received a cloth heart that they got to place inside their animal. The gals chatted away and asked questions while the kids one by one got to fill their animal with stuffing and have it stitched closed. Then they had a group picture taken. We managed to bypass all of the stuffed animals accessories. PHEW! From there we headed to the food court. The kids had ice cream cups and a piece of a giant chocolate chip birthday cookie. They enjoyed watching Haley open gifts. Elizabeth did a great job picking out her gift for Haley. Haley was moving away the next morning so it was wonderful that the kids got to have one big celebration with her before she left.

The other one was at Little Gym, which Elizabeth has not been to in ages. It was as if she had never stopped going and a few of the things that intimidated here didn't bother her at all. If anything she was a step ahead of all of the other kids since she kind of knew what to they would be doing. Haley even made it to the party and the kids loved seeing her again.

Elizabeth 8K

It was a nice cool overcast and a little off and on drizzly spring morning here in Charlotte. Perfect for nice run! Dennis, the girls and I met up with Therese and her family before the race. Our husbands and girls (they have two girls similar ages to Elizabeth & Katherine) hung out and waited for us to cross the finish line. It looked like the girls had fun playing while the guys got to chat. It was very nice to have them there to cheer us on!

We ran the 3K portion of the Elizabeth 8K. I felt great most of the race. Therese and I actually chatted off and on during the 1.86 miles. We didn't finish first, but we didn't finish last either and we ran the entire thing. We did a good job coaching each other and our paces seemed like they were pretty evenly matched. It actually went by faster than I'd imagined. I'm not sure what our exact finishing time was, but when I glanced at the clock right before we crossed the line it read 26:15. I added a few seconds and then Therese pointed out that was started 5 minutes after the 8K runners. That brought our time down to a little over 21 minutes. Overall, we shaved some time off of the pace we have both been running on our treadmills.

One race down and the next will be near the end of April. I think I'm hooked on running. Who knew I was a runner? I sure didn't! (Sorry, no pictures. Therese's husband took some so I'll have to see if I can get a few to post out here.)

Running Races!

Saturday is a big day for me. I will be competing in a run as a runner. I've walked many many events, but this will be the first one that I will be running. I am running in the Elizabeth 8K on Saturday. No, I won't be running 8K, but the 3K portion of the run. That is 1.86 miles. I signed up for it only a couple of weeks ago when a fellow preschool Mom mentioned it to me. We're going to run it together. I'm very excited about it.

I never thought that I'd really enjoy running. That was mostly because of a bad knee. The strange thing is that my knee has not been bothering me at all. I've actually found that I feel like I should be running on the days that I'm not running. I actually look forward to my daily run.

The plan is to sign up for a 5K (3.1 miles) at the end of April. That will be followed by the MS 5 Mile Walk in mid May. I plan to run that as well. I'm hoping to eventually work my way up to a 1/2 marathon. I don't think I'll try a full marathon, but who knows. I guess I'll have to wait and see on that.

I'll keep you posted on how things go!

School Pictures

Elizabeth had school pictures a couple weeks ago. They offered sibling pictures as well. I thought I had missed the opportunity to get Katherine's picture taken, but I didn't. I had dressed the girls in similar colors so I decided to have them take both of their pictures.

This is only the second time that Katherine has had professional pictures and the first time she was quite a hand full. This time she was perfect. She followed directions, copied Elizabeth, and sat perfectly still. Six clicks, 5 minutes later, and they were done. They turned out beautifully.

Elizabeth is the little pro when it comes to pictures. The last picture of her was a little hard for me. It was her preschool graduation picture with her in a blue cap and gown. It was so cute and she really seemed to like being all dressed up in it. They even had a roll of paper to hold like a diploma. Our little girl is growing up and is going to be in Kindergarten next year!

I'll have to see if I can get a few of them out here for everyone to see. I hope to get them in the mail soon.

Endocrinologist Charmer

Let me get the nitty-gritty stuff out of the way first, so everyone can breath a sigh of relief. As expected the endocrinologist really had nothing to say that we have not heard or been through before. Katherine is 32 inches tall and weighed 20.3 lbs. She is about 25% for height and now hugging the bottom of the growth chart in weight. The weight is a huge improvement. Adding 750 cal in beverages to her diet proves that she can and will gain weight when her calorie intake is increased drastically. The doctor saw nothing that was alarming in the family medical history and nothing in any of the blood work. The chromosome blood test results are not in yet, but she didn't anticipate any big surprises there. We're going back to see them in 3 months just to make sure that Katherine continues to steadily grow.

On numerous occasions Katherine has declared that she's going to be a doctor when she grows up. We've asked if she's going to be an animal doctor and she says no, she's going to be a baby doctor. How sweet is that.

The nurses and doctors there just adored Katherine. She REALLY turned on the charm and was extra adorable. I wish I had the video camera with me because she was so cute.

Today she had her little baby doll and little backpack with a blanket, bottle, and her jewelry. The nurse and doctor examined her baby before they examined Katherine. That way Katherine would feel more comfortable with letting the nurse/doctor examine her. The doctor listened to both her baby's and her heart. Then she looked in the babies ears and Katherine's ears. Finally the doctor caught on that Katherine was completely playing her. Katherine's an excellent patient who is perfectly comfortable with whatever the doctor needs to do to examine her, but she thought it was very cool that the doctor was explaining in depth what she was going to do and then was examining her baby. She watched everything the nurse and doctor did and I'm guessing I'll see a lot of repeating of it here at home.

When it was time to leave she let out a big "Bye-bye!" I think she wanted to make sure everyone hear her. A few of the nurses offered for her to come work with them for the rest of the day. She even started to follow one of them. She's such the charmer. She even said "Bye-bye" to the entire waiting room. Overall it was a very fun doctors visit thanks to Katherine turning on her charm.

March Snow!

It started snowing last night. I don't know who was more excited, me or the girls. We were all excited for the morning to arrive so we could go out and play. Dennis' work had a delayed start so he was able to hang out and play, too. That was a very nice treat for us!

Dennis pulled them in the sled down the nature trail. Everything was so beautiful and peaceful. We were even the first on one stretch of the trail. Even the girls were quiet taking in all of the beauty of the day.
When we got home, we threw a few snowballs and started working on our snowman. He was starting to melt by the time we ventured back out to play again a couple of hours later. The girls checked out our neighbors snowman and then headed for the swingset in their back yard. Then we headed across the street to another neighbors to sled down their hill. That was a lot of fun. Elizabeth and Gryffin wiped out a few times, but couldn't get up the hill fast enough to go again. Even Katherine went down the hill on her own. She didn't want me to go down with her after that.
You can check out more photo's of our snow day, here.