More pics

Even Kaiser is smiling for the awesome weather :D

I wanted to show Kaisers size in comparison to Kate..
And Jakob as well...

Poor Jakob..

I was looking through my pictures and noticed that I didnt have very many pictures of Jakob. So I decided to remedy that, well attempt to anyway. As soon as I take out the Camera Jakob runs for the hills. He does not like his picture taken. The few that I did get he is making his goofy rat face.(thanks daddy)
But I got a few of him and a few of Kate and a video. Even though this post is titled Jakob I will post Kate here.. Please dont judge my laziness... ;)

Music Monday

I like to listen to lots of different kinds of music. I am a product of the late 70s, a child of the 80s and a Lover of 90s grunge.
Of late I have been listening to a lot of Christian music. For many reasons aside from the obvious reason, my faith, I also listen because its just great, happy, inspirational music. Now this music isnt your boring church music. No the Christian music genre is like no other in that it encompasses all kinds of genres. There is hip hop, Rock, Gospel, R&B, Country, Soul, Heavy Metal, Folk, bluegrass and so on.
The bands I have been listening to lately are Kutless, Jeremy Camp, Tobymac, Seventh day slumber, Brandon Heath, Lincoln Brewster.
So I am going to post some youtube videos just to give you an overview of what I am listening to.
Let me know what you think. I am a music lover and if you have any new music pass it on.. I would love to hear it.
Kutless


Seventh Day Slumber


Jeremy Camp
*probably my number 1 right now*


tobymac


Brandon Heath


Lincoln Brewster *phenom on the guitar.. and I love when our church plays this song because Dustin can jam on the drums.. :D


So thats what I am listening to lately. I dont listen strickly to any certain type. I love all music and the way it makes me feel.
I still listen to my staple groups.. The beatles, Pink Floyd, The red hot chili peppers, Pearl Jam, Metallica and so on.
I hope you guys have liked some of the music I have posted..and if not thats ok to. Music is universal and there isnt a wrong or right kind.
Have a fabulous Monday!!

Bark Park

Sunday morning we decided to take Kaiser to the bark park. Considering he didnt get out much the previous weekend due to Ike.

Just looking at the pics you would assume it is just a huge mud puddle. But the park is actually much more, Thats just all Kaiser wanted to do.

So here are the pics.. Enjoy!

Ike....and we aint talking Turner..

First things first.. we are alive and well and thanking God for no damage to our house or our loved ones.
Ike the hurricane came through on Saturday morning with a fierceness. He made his presence known to all.
Friday night we enjoyed the "nice" weather at our new friends house. They live 4 houses down and we like to hang out in the driveway usually on the weekends.
Around 10pm the winds started picking up so Dustin and I made our way back home. We then passed smooth out on the couch watching the coverage and waiting for landfall!

"how could we fall asleep" you ask..well dont worry I only slept for about an hour because at 11:30pm the wind was howling and to be quite honest I was horrified.

Around 1am we got a call from Michelle(my sis in law) with important info, The storm was about to make landfall and the worst of it is soon to come. So we woke the kids up and brought them downstairs and laid out the futon mattress and had a little sleepover.
Kate and Jakob didnt get the memo about the sleep over and how it worked.. so they stayed up and ran around and laughed while Dustin and I squawked at them to "settle down" and "Get to sleep"
Finally at 3:30 we got them to sleep. Thats also when the electricity went out..
At 6 I woke up to some CRAZY wind sounds. I looked outside and could see nothing but sideways rain and trees.

It finally settled down around 11am or so. We got power around that time too.. Little did we know how much we should be praising God for that. Some people as I type this.. 700,000 to be exact are currently WITHOUT power.. Including our church and a few friends of ours.. :(

After things calmed down we did exactly what they told us not to do.. we drove around :D

Checked out the neighborhood and it looked pretty good.. Along the main road all the fences were down as were the trees uprooted. Lots of the houses in our neighborhood lost shingles.. we did not.. Praise God!

We also had Katharines birthday party Saturday morning, before the electricity came on. Since we had to cancel her party I thought it was only fair for her to open her presents that we got her on the day that her party was.. No Hurricane is going to ruin my babys birthday.. So here are some pics of the birthday "party" and a few of Before Ike!

Disclaimer: Kate was sick the whole weekend so that is why she has snot running down her face and is in jammies.. Please ignore.. :D also remember we dont have electricity at this time.. And all of Kates gifts from us are in walmart bags.. I cant wait to scrap these lol.

This was actually taken on her birthday I find it cute but a little disturbing..

Princess shoes!

Little mermaid!!

"you want me to do what?" watching dads lesson in blowing out candles.

"I did it"

Yum cupcake

Even Jakob got a present.. Thanks aunt Staci and Uncle Aaron!!

Aunt Staci made this pop up card!! She is so talented!!

At sunset Friday night, who would have thought such beauty would be the beginning of such destruction!

About 7am from the playroom.. notice how high the lake is... :-0

Birthday girl

More pictures of the birthday girl.

When Katharine was born Mrs Renee(Brother in laws mother) gave us a beautiful Feltman bro. dress for Kate. Now if any of you are like me.. the name Feltman bros would not ring a bell. Well those that arent in the know I will tell you. Feltman Bros is clothing maker that makes high end dresses, infant clothing and christening gowns. The dress that Mrs Renee got Katharine is this beautiful smocked dresss with pink embrodery.

The only thing is... it is a size 2t. So I had to wait two years before she could wear it!! Plus where is she going to wear a solid white fancy dress to without ruining it. Though it is still a little big, I have always thought that on Katharines birthday I would take her picture in that dress.. So here it is:

You might be asking.. "Now Tasha, such a beautiful dress, why on earth would you put sunglasses on her"

Well that was Kates special touch. You see she wears those sunglasses everywhere, everyday. I love them.. it is what makes her unique.

So there you have it.. Check back often for more pics and updates!!
Hopefully the Hurricane doesnt ruin our birthday party plans this weekend!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHARINE!

Facts about Katharine.

Born: September 10th 2006

at 10:53 pm.

Her original due date was October 6th(mommys birthday!)

Katharine was 7lbs 6oz and 19 inches long

Her name is a family name.
Katherine was my Great gramma (Nana) who adored me and I felt the same for her. She passed when I was 10.

The spelling is different because while I was pregnant we watched Katharine Mcphee on American Idol and we liked the way it was spelled. Plus no way could we spell it the same as everyone else. I mean, We want to make sure that she can never get one of those key chains or pens or cups with her name on it. ;)

Her middle name, Marie is my middle name. I am not sure where it came from but I love it.

Katharine has several nicknames.. the most popular are: Sister(jakob calls her this) Big girl(again Jakob) Baby Kate(herself) Kit Kat(What I call her) Kate( most everyone calls her this)

I dont mind the nicknames..but the first time someone calls her Kathy I will correct them swiftly!

Katharine began walking at 13 months.

She slept through the night at 15 months.

Katharine was born bald as bald can be. And though now she still does not have flowing hair it is starting to come in nicely and the baby mullet that she sported for a year has finally disappeared.

Katharine was a very needy infant.

We found out when she was 5 months old that she was allergic to Dairy by trial and error. This may have been the reason for her reflux but who knows.

Katharine at 2 years old is an independent, headstrong and opinionated little girl.

She loves princesses but has a special fondness to Ariel, the little mermaid.

Katharine also loves to play with her brother. She loves to play trains and cars. And it could be because her buba is playing or because she doesnt have any toys..

She has a very good vocabulary and I cant remember a time that she wasnt talking. I believe she started speaking sentences around 18 months if not sooner. She has not since stopped!!

Katharines Favorite foods:
Pretzel Goldfish

Oranges

Bananas

Baked Beans

Broccoli

Asparagus

rice of all kinds

Least favorite foods:

Meat of any kind

Carrots

The girl is an eater. She will try anything once and loves to eat whatever mommy or daddy is eating. Including Jalapeno sausage... She loves it!

Special Talents:

Front rolls

Singing

stealing my heart with one glance!!

Happy 2nd Birthday beautiful baby girl.. Mommy loves you!!

Seeing Eye to Eye

I have promised myself and some girlfriends of mine that I would take better care of myself.
This includes going to the dentist to fix the rotting wisdom teeth(Gross I know.. I am embarrassed dont worry) And also my eyes.
I have been having horrible headaches here lately I figured it was time to get my eyes checked.
The last time I graced the presence of an Optometrist was 7 years ago. We ended up paying 700 dollars out of pocket for glasses for Dustin and myself.. so this may have been a deterrent who knows. But we have great eye insurance now so I decided to use it. Since Dustin just got contacts and loves them..I was set on going in and getting my eyes examined and having a prescription for my new contacts. How exciting!!
Well turns out its not that easy for me. :(
I went in to explain my vision issues and went through all the test.. you know the ones...
They put that great View master over your eyes and proceed to change the lenses asking,
"Better or worse.. ok better or worse"
Turns out..they were all worse for me.
I have a condition(i cant remember the name of it) but the best we to describe it is thinking like a Camera focus.
If you have a camera that has auto focus then it does the focusing for you..but my Auto focus on my eyes is broken so it is constantly zooming in and out to try to focus. This is making my eye muscles very tense and tired. So that is why I get headaches.
The Fix..
GLASSES. Bifocals actually. They have to strengthen that muscle before they can even figure out what my Vision is. Because everything I see is blurry due to my eyes not being able to focus. So the prescription is wear glasses for 6-12 months to strengthen and train that muscle and then we will see about contacts..
Well I really wasnt at all shocked by this because turns out I have had this problem since I was around 12 years old. Thats when I got my first pair of Progressive lenses. I didnt wear them then or do my eye exercises so over the years it has gotten way worse.
My fault no doubt. But I am older and wiser now and dont really care what I look like or impressing people so I promise I am going to wear my glasses. Scouts honor!

Next appointment.. Dentist.. Not looking forward to that..

Dog Gone Fun

Monday we made the trip to our nearest dog park. Or Bark Park as they are called here. This is all new to us the dog culture so we were excited to check it out.
We packed up the essentials.. I had done my research so I knew there was a Pond for the dogs there and they also had doggie showers so we brought a towel and doggie shampoo and brush.

We were so prepared. We even thought to bring the camera!!!

We packed the kids, the 40lb Kaiser and the adults into the Camry. And headed out across town. I am not sure what we are going to do once Kaiser is full grown. I might have to start riding in the back and let Kaiser ride shotgun when the whole family goes out.

But we made it work.. Kaiser riding in my lap like a toy poodle the whole way.

25 minutes later we had made it.

WOW.. it was fantastic.

The Bark park was very well layed out and had tons of great things to do.

As soon as we got out of the car we ran into 2 German shepherds. One who was 4 months old and one who was 2. They were beautiful!! And Kaiser was excited to see someone who looked like him!!

As we entered the double gates you could feel the excitement coming from Kaiser. We took him in and I kept him on his leash for a little while just to see how he would react to so many dogs. He was fantastic so I let him loose.

Now, I expected to be running all over the place trying to keep up with him. In fact it was the opposite. Kaiser is such a Velcro dog. I took his leash off and dogs started coming up to smell him and he was trying to literally jump into my arms because he was frightened.
He had never been around such a wide variety of dog or in a group of more than his 9 litter mates.

It took him about an hour to finally get into the groove and start playing with the other dogs.
We took him on the little agility course they had and he did fantastic like he had been doing it for years.. and tried to get him to go into the Bone shaped pool but he was not interested.

I was told by another Shepherd owner that it would be closer to a year before he just jumped in a pool. Good to know.

Kaiser did find the mud puddles and was quite fond of them in fact. I was covered from head to toe in mud.. but it was so worth it. We got to talk to lots of dog owners, check out all the other shepherds(there were TONS!) and just admire nature. We decided that we were going to make this a weekly affair!! Yay. It is so good for Kaiser to get socialized with people and with dogs. I want him to be well rounded!!
Now as you might remember I said that we took the camera? Well in true Dustin fashion, he did remember to bring the camera.. but he forgot it in the car..lol. So we did not get any pictures of Kaisers first Bark park experience but you better believe we will get pics of it next time.. But here is a current Kaiser pics to hold you over.. He is such a good boy!! I love him..