2 Momentous Occasions!

We had 2 really big events happen this week! :)

The most exciting event was Katelyn's birthday!! My baby girl turned 3 years old on Saturday. I'm sure every mom feels this way and has said this, but I just can't believe how fast the time has gone! My sweet, cuddly, mischievous little girl is growing up. :'(

She had a GREAT birthday ... and we all had tons of fun celebrating it with her.

To start her special day off, Katelyn and I went out for some mommy/daughter time together. Just me and her. It was awesome! We've never done that before, so I thought it would be a lot of fun for the both of us. For about the first hour away from her siblings she kept asking me, "Mommy, where's Allyson? Is Allyson coming?" Repeated about 50 times. She added in an occasional, "And Kyler?" But for the most part she just asked about Allyson. She eventually caught on that it was just us and I think completely forgot that Allyson wasn't around the second we walked through the doors of Build a Bear.



She had SO MUCH FUN picking out her bear and all of her bear's accessories.





She got to push the foot pedal to fill her bear up.



The lady had her rub the bears heart on her nose, eyes, and heart ... and kiss it. I'm not really sure what that was all about ... Katelyn looked a little confused herself, but she was a good sport and went along with it all, lol.


Then she got to put the bear's heart in.


And give her an air bath.


And dress her.


And hug her.


I kept asking her what she wanted to name her bear and she kept saying, "Umm, I don't know." So I ... I mean "we", eventually decided to name her "Sprinkles".

After we left she would not let her bear out of her sight. If she was sitting in the stroller, she looked like this the whole time ...

If she was walking around, she insisted on dragging the gigantic box along side her. She refused to let me put the bear in the stroller unless she was in the stroller too ... and the bear had to be placed directly in front of her, not behind her. Oh, Katelyn ... you're such a cutie. :)

After we left Build a Bear I took Katelyn shopping for a cute new outfit. She's never gotten a whole lot of new clothes in her life because she's the second girl in the family ... that means she gets LOTS of hand-me-downs. She LOVES to get dressed up and all girly. In fact, I curled her hair before we left the house and she could not stop hugging me and telling me thank you because she loved her curly hair so much. Then she ran down stairs to go and show her curls off to Daddy, Allyson, and Kyler. We definitely need to be pulling that curling iron out more often ... :)
So, I figured a new, cute outfit would be something that she would like - and I was right! She refused to take the outfit off in the dressing room. She threw quite the fit about it. I finally got the clothes off of her and then she sat on the bench with her arms folded and refused to put her own clothes back on. We had to sit there a minute ... and remind her that we needed to hurry if we wanted to get ice cream. With a lot of convincing, we eventually got her clothes on and got out of there, haha. I'll be doing her 3 year old birthday pictures in that outfit, so you'll get to see pictures of her in it soon! I had planned to do her pictures today after church ... I even got balloons filled late last night so they would still be floating today, but it was too windy by the time we could go out and do them. I wasn't too happy about that ... especially since it's supposed to snow this coming week (grrrrr). But hopefully the weather gets better soon so we can get them done.

Next, we went back home to eat dinner and then we all went out for ice cream together. We went to Sub-zero in American Fork. If you haven't been there, you should try it. Great ice cream and they have couches upstairs with arcade games and a constant flow of the Disney Channel on TV. The kids love it.





And the last thing ... Kangaroo Zoo. I told Katelyn all day long that we would be going there and she was so excited about it. By the time we could get there it was pretty late, and they were going to be closing in 30 minutes ... Just FYI, they still charge full price, even when they're about to close. :/ That's ok though, we all had fun.







This picture makes me laugh!!
"Mom, can we go home yet??"











Happy birthday, Katelyn!! I love you so much!!!!

And the 2nd big event that happened this week ...

I traveled outside of Utah County for the first time in my life without another adult with me. Lame ... I know. But true.
Every time I've ever traveled outside of Utah County, I either had someone with me or was meeting someone I knew at my destination. I also have never traveled further North than Salt Lake or further South than Payson without another person physically in the car with me (or flying somewhere with me). I am a true, authentic, Utah County bubble girl.

David surprised me with a trip to California a couple birthdays ago to go to a photography workshop by myself. He thought it would be a good chance for me to "spread my wings". My mom found out about the trip and booked a flight to come with me. Hahaha! My mommy loves me. :)

Someday I want to try flying somewhere by myself - really I do ... and I just took my first small step towards getting to that point. (I could totally see myself getting lost in the airport and bawling my eyes out, though. Haha)