Birthday Buddies

Both Jake and my Mom share the same birthday... July 15th.
Jake's parents were totally awesome and made us all a steak dinner!
Afterward, we had German Chocolate Cheesecake for my Mom and Pig Lickin' Cake for Jake.

Happy 2nd Birthday Stinkerbelle!

Saturday, July 11th, 2009 marked Kaitlyn's 2nd Birthday!
We started off the morning with waffle cake... that she was completely underwhelmed by and preferred her usually bowl of dry cereal.



She spent the morning at Grammie & Poppa Crosby's where she got her favorite gift of the day... a Cozy Coupe!

Before starting the swimming party at Nana's we dug into some pizza with fresh fruits and vegetables. I believe this event was the final nail in the coffin for that poor white shirt.

After we came back in and dried off, we had cookie cake and Katiecakes!

Kaitlyn couldn't wait for the birthday song to get a taste of some sugary goodness.

Although, she did like everyone singing to her.

She blew out one candle and Poppa Crosby blew out the other.

Surprisingly, Katie preferred the Katiecakes to the cookie cake. She made sure to lick all of the icing off of the cookie, but she ate the cupcake in its entirety.

Swimming Lessons

For Katie's upcoming birthday, Nana got her swimming lessons! For those of you who follow our blog more closely, I'm sure you've realized Kaitlyn's obsession with water. So, swimming lessons were a necessary evil this summer because we now live 20 yards from a pool that Kaitlyn wants to be in 24/7.

The first day was a little rough. She didn't start out crying, but an older girl next to her (Katie was the youngest in the class) did start out crying and Kaitlyn came to the conclusion that the older girl must have known something she didn't. So, she too, cried for the most part the first day. That is until they started using diving rings.

Kaitlyn became known as the "Ring Master" because she always wanted to hold as many rings as possible. Later in the week, she had to be the one gathering them and throwing them in the pool while waiting for her turn in the water. In the picture below, she is pointing out all of the rings waiting for her on the stairs.

Here, Kaitlyn is lording over them while waiting for her turn.

Here she is kicking and using her "big spoons" to get to the wall. (That little boy sitting on the wall cried every day, all day!)

And, here she is still keeping watch over her rings on the steps. She was so funny about it.

Happy Belated Birthday America!

It's true, I took a little long to post these. That is probably because I took over one hundred pictures on the Fourth of July. (This was mainly because everything was happening so far away I was having a hard time focusing my camera.)

For the Fourth, we bummed some space and AC off of our dear family friend Judi Groom. She was kind enough to let the Crosby Clan, sans Poppa Crosby, invade her condo for the day on Anna Maria Island.

The day before, Katie and I spent the afternoon at the J.W. Marriott Resort in Orlando with my family. (I highly recommend it!) We ended up spending somewhere around 4 hours in the pool/lazy-river there. Kaitlyn loves water, see previous post with her wading in our toilet. However, she hates getting anything resembling dirt on her feet and shoes. So, we got her ready for the beach and gave a wager that she'd only last 15-20 minutes. I was very, very wrong.

Apparently Kaitlyn's loathing of dirty feet is over shadowed by her love/need of having a job. The sand provided that job: fill bucket, dump bucket out, fill bucket, dump bucket out, fill bucket, dump bucket out, and on, and on, and on.

She did eventually realize that sand was sticking to her and it caused a moment of panic...

that was diffused by her Grammie burying her foot in the sand and saying, "So, what?"

Uncle Johnny, who is visiting from California, got in on working in the sand. Kaitlyn was amazed at the use of his hands.

Then it was time to go back out in the water, which temperature was much like a bathtub. On our previous excursion into the Gulf (which was uncharacteristically rough for a day without a hurricane warning) Katie had decided she'd rather be held and jump over the waves, than ride in an inner-tube.

Kaitlyn also became fascinated with Grammie's floppy straw hat.

There was a lot of seaweed in the water. The gulls kept hovering over it, eating all of the little fishes that were feasting off of it. Kaitlyn felt the need to "gift" the seaweed to people.

By the time we made it back from our second excursion into the Gulf, Uncle Johnny had half buried himself in the beach.

We then went to go rinse off and play in the pool. Too bad, the shower was hard to find and everyone had used the pool to rinse off. Yucky. Not to mention, the pool was warmer than the Gulf water. But that didn't diminish Katie's need to jump off the wall into the water over and over again.

All in all, it was ridiculously good weather for July in Florida. Jake was ready to camp out on the beach that night. This was probably due to all of the cloud cover that gave us a very pathetic excuse for a sunset.



But it didn't stop us from enjoying our evening. Kaitlyn was still fascinated with the water and was grabbing at every hand available to her to keep her down by the shore.

Shortly after the light disappeared, fireworks slowly but surely started making their appearance. Sitting on the beach is really the best way to enjoy such a bright and joyful display. We loved it!

Settled

Well, our life has drastically changed within the past 2 months. At the beginning of April, we decided that Jake was going to make a little career change. Right now he is working for his dad's insurance agency and will probably be starting up another this coming January.

Once we realized that this change was going to be taking place, we knew we were obviously going to be moving from Tallahassee to Tampa. We got out house as fixed up as possible and put it on the market. When we signed with our realtor she informed us that out of the 121 townhomes put on the market since January (in our quadrant of town), 5 of them had sold. However, 10 days after we had placed our property on the market we were under contract. We were shocked and amazed. Not to mention, eternally grateful to our Heavenly Father. Another 3 weeks later, after lots of craziness, we closed on our house without losing our shirts! Thank the Heavens!

So, now we are back near our beloved family. I unpacked the last box and hung the last picture frame this past weekend. Kaitlyn made the change like a champ. She's had no problem being within walking distance of one set of grandparents and a 10 minute drive away from the others. She loves it! And so do we! They are the biggest help!

We miss Tallahassee. But I have to say, I always felt as if we were in a transition there; as if it wasn't quite home. Now I feel at home and I feel more settled. It's lovely!

Who Needs An Outdoor Swimming Pool...

When You Have An Indoor One!

We found Kaitlyn like this one afternoon.
When I asked her if she wanted out, she said, "Na, na, na, na."

Zoinks!

Well, now that we are leaving town, we have discovered the funnest place for Kaitlyn. She has always been a jumper. Bounce, bounce, bounce on everything she could. Last summer, when she was only 1 my younger sister was visiting and saw a commercial for Zoinks. She thought Kaitlyn would love it, but you have to at least be 2 years old to jump.

So, the other weekend, we decided to try it out. (She'll be 2 in July but she's really tall.) Needless to say, she loved it! Most of the time, all we saw was her back because she was constantly running around from one thing to the next.

Kaitlyn had a strange fondness for this, the Cheesrider. She kept hugging the mouse.



She discovered this style of game last time we were in Brandon and visited a Chuck E. Cheese. She love anything with a ball.

We highly recommend Zoinks, it was only like $5 and you can jump all you want!

The Little Jelly Bean

Jelly Bean sounds so much better than "the little fetus" or "the shrimp." However, that is what he or she looks like due to my inverted uterus. My next appointment is in a couple of weeks with my new OB in Tampa, Dr. Fallieras. He's my Mom's OB-GYN. He delivered me as well as, Matt, Bethany, and Bekah at St. Joseph's Hospital.

"Ooof! Ooof!"

Kaitlyn is still under the impression that she is a dog.