March trip to Texas

 

In March we flew down to Texas to visit my sister and her family. We had a lot of fun going places and celebrating Easter. This is the kids outside of church on Easter.

 

We took the kids to the library one day and they had face painting, crafts, a puppet show, and a magician. I was reading them a book while we stood in line to have their faces painted.

 

We also went to Ponyland. This is a favorite place of the Oswald kids. Kathryn was excited to go, but once she got there, she was unsure if she wanted to ride a pony. There are ponies that trot and ponies that walk, and she definately was only going to get on a walker. We finally talked her into it and she got on and rode around the circle once and wanted to get off. I was proud of her for even getting on in the first place, so I was happy with that. Near the end of our visit, she decided she wanted to ride again, and this time she rode around 5 or 6 times.

 

Sydney spent most of her time in a hutch with another little girl and a bunny. I was afraid to put her on a pony because I thought if she got scared, she might try to jump off!

A day in the life...

 

Kathryn showing off her new skirt that our friend Karyn brought her from Brazil. She's an enthusiastic girl! While Kathryn was at school, Sydney and I went to the YMCA. She knows if we're going to the Y when we exit off of the freeway and will start saying, "Y, Y, Y!". She likes going to the child care. Today they got to play outside.

 

Kathryn and I made cookies today while Sydney was taking a nap. These are our favorite cookies, by far! Here is the recipe, if you're interested. (I like to use crunchy peanut butter.)

 

The new purse I got last week at Kohl's.

 

I'm attempting to grow basil. So far, so good.

Cinco De Mayo!

 

Today we had a Cinco de Mayo part for playgroup. We made maracas, played a Mexican hat dance game, colored pictures, and broke a pinata. This was the most fiesta-ish things my girls had to wear.

 

Sydney tickling the pinata. She just gently tapped it!

 

Kathryn getting ready to whack it. She did pretty good, but didn't come close to opening it!

 

Two weeks ago Kathryn had the assignment to give her first talk in primary. She and I wrote it and worked on it all week and then when the time came, she wouldn't say a word! (I was not really surprised at all.) So, I ended up giving her talk for her and she just stood there with her hands covering her face. I didn't want to add more pressure and try to take her picture while she was giving her talk, so we came back in after church and took this picture.

I did it!

 

These are my friends that I ran the 1/2 marathon in Indianapolis with (Kate & Nichole). We didn't have anyone to take our picture in the corral before the race or during the race, but this is us in the hotel room before. I think there will be some pictures online from the race and I might be in some of them, so when I see those, I'll direct you to them. My final time was 2:20:13. My average pace was 10:43. My goal was 2:10 overall and 10 minute miles, but I was pleased with my result. We started off in corral Y, so we were almost the last people to cross the starting line. All along the race course they had bands playing and people singing and people ringing cowbells. Our names were on our race numbers, so people would read it and say, "Way to go Emily!". I felt pretty good during the first 9 or 10 miles, but I struggled with the last 3 miles. I kept asking people to cheer for me so I could keep going. A lady near the end had a sign that said, "Pain is temporary, pride is forever!" I think that thought is what carried me through the finish line. It was a great time and I was most happy to be finished!

Wish me luck!

Well, I'm off to run the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon! I get to run 13 miles with 35,000 people and part of the race is around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! My race number is 23610. 20 hours to go and counting! I'm nervous, but I feel good and I know I can do it. Wish me luck and be thinking about me tomorrow morning!

Ding Dong

 

The girls love to come in the front door when we come home. They will jump out of the car and run to the front door and knock and ring the doorbell. When I answer the door Kathryn will say, "Oh, it's so nice to see you today!", and then she will come inside. Sydney, on the other hand, will run away when I tell her to come in! We had already gone through this routine and were playing in the front yard in the pic above.

 

A beatiful double rainbow in front of our house. You could see the other end of the rainbow from our backyard.

 

Kathryn's grumpy face.

 

Kathryn had a new friend over to play (she calls her "my new Abbie") and they had lots of fun playing in the playhouse.

Fire Truck Fun!

 

When we were in Arkansas, we got to ride in a fire truck at the Easter egg hunt. Kathryn was scared to ride on the top (in the open air), so we all rode up in the cab. We got to run the sirens and horns, which was really fun. I think I had the most fun. Kathryn was afraid for the first 3/4 of the trip, but then she couldn't stop talking about it, and she still mentions it whenever we see a fire truck!

(This may seem like a random entry, but I'm experimenting with Picasa.)

Child Development Lab

Kathryn is enrolled in "preschool" at our local high school, Fort Zumwalt North. It is a program that enables the Child Development students at the high school to work with real live kids! They also get to observe the kids at play. Kathryn attends with two of her friends from church, Abbie and Ethan. I take them all to school and one of the other moms brings them home.

Kathryn came home one day trying to tell me about this popsicle course that they did in class. I asked her if it had something to do with popsicle sticks and she said, "Nooo", (like I was kind of dumb for not understanding). So, she kept asking me to do it for her at home, but since I had no idea what she was talking about, I just kept saying, "I don't know what that is!" So, the other day I was moving all of the chair into the living room so I could mop the kitchen and Kathryn came in and said, "Wow, you made a popsicle course!, and she started climbing over and under the chairs. And then it clicked! She wanted an OBSTACLE course! She is so cute. I tried to teach her how to say obstacle, but I think she prefers to say popsicle!



This is Ethan, Abbie, and Kathryn at their school.










The kids walking down the ridiculously long hallway to their classroom.







Kathryn signing in. She used to just sign in with a W, but now she likes to trace her name that is already written on the paper.

I'll give it a try...

Okay, so I'm going to give this a try, because I love reading everyone else's blog and my sweet friend actually said she'd like to read about us, so let's see what happens. As you can see, I jumped on the bandwagon very early on (see below), but quickly gave up. The wind was taken out of my sails early on when someone said to me, in response to me saying I had started a blog, "Aren't you supposed to have something important to say?" So, forget him!



Grandma & Grandpa Daly sent Kathryn and Sydney a big box of winter clothes for next year and these were inside. The girls (obviously) had fun trying them on.



We went to Arkansas (for vacation) the week before Easter and participated in their local Easter egg hunt. And guess what? Sydney won a new bike! It was kind of crazy and funny, but the worst part was trying to find room to fit it in the car. We also found out that Sydney gets car sick during this trip. She threw up on the drive down, and also on the way home! The first time she threw up, we just thought she was sick, but then on the way home, when it happened again (and she'd been fine all week) and she was watching the DVD player, we kind of put 2 & 2 together. It was pretty smelly.

Okay, that wasn't too bad. I'll probably try to pull some old pictures and post them just to catch everyone up on how we are and what we're doing.

Cute Pie..I'll take a slice of that!

This is our beautiful baby girl Kathryn. This picture was taken on her first birthday! She is the sunshine in our lives. I know that sounds so cheesy, but it's the honest truth.

You'll have to bear with me while I learn how to use this blogger program. Hope you enjoy it! Write comments if you have any!

My first post!

Hi! It's Emily. I've decided to create a blog, in case anyone is interested in what we're up to. There might be an occasional philisophical thought, but don't get your hopes up. Yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary. It's been a great 5 years. We've known each other for 8 years which sounds like such a long time. I guess it is. To celebrate, we left Kathryn with our friends and drove to Las Cruces to eat at Texas Roadhouse. We're so not fancy people. Going out to a fancy, overpriced restaurant, would really just be lost on us. We totally enjoyed our dinner, especially the hot steaming rolls with cinnamon butter! Then we went to the mall and browsed and then sat in Barnes & Noble and read magazines. It doesn't sound like much, but we really enjoyed ourselves. This morning Mike is out riding mountain bikes and Kathryn and I are hanging out at home. Later.