Rock Star!

Katelee has had a lot of fun this week with her new guitar.  She is so funny when she 'plays' her guitar - mostly she dances with it and occasionally yells "rock and roll!"  (Gerald taught her that.)  Here are a couple of videos of her rocking out, if you're interested.

  

She has also spent hours and hours and hours playing with her 'little princesses.'  She loves them, and I have changed my mind about them, too.  They really are very fun and cute.  We haven't lost any pieces yet (at least not any we've missed).  And Katelee is simply in three-year-old-girl heaven!

Notice in the pictures above how Belle and the prince are getting married.  Basically this means that they dance around for a minute while Katelee sings a nameless tune.  =)

Let's Go Fly a Kite

I love flying kites.

It's one of those things that I should do (much) more often.

Maybe this will seem weird, but to me kite-flying is one of those activities that seems so real; like you have only truly experienced life after you have flown a kite.

It's fun to see Katelee encounter things like this; she finds such joy in these simple things.  She reminds me to find joy in these small moments, too.

yet ANOTHER cake

Are you sick of me posting pictures of cakes yet?

(Don't answer that.)

This is another birthday cake for a family in my ward.  Actually, this cake is for the younger sister of the girl for whom I made the 'stage cake.'  Her mother requested a track and field theme, since Maddy is currently on the track team at her high school.  The cake is rainbow chip flavored, with vanilla frosting.  The track girls, the flags, the banner and the stars are made out of fondant.

Flashback Friday

This picture of Gerald, his parents, his grandmother, and Katelee was taken in April 2006.  

This day was significant because it was the day that Gerald was called to be the Elder's Quorum president in our ward here in Lehi.  

Those of you who aren't in our ward may not know that Gerald was released a couple of weeks ago from this calling.  Almost three years of service in that calling.  He did an amazing job.  As his wife, I know how hard he worked and how much he cared about the people he served.  He has grown a lot and I am very proud of him.  

Gerald has one of the most stalwart and pure hearts I have ever known.

One of the great things about Gerald is that he loves to serve, but he doesn't care how he serves.  Since we have been married, he has served as the ward librarian, in the young mens program, in the elder's quorum, in our student ward bishopric, as a ward missionary, or as a teacher all with equal sincerity and dedication.  During those in-between times when he didn't have a calling, Gerald volunteered to serve in any capacity he could.  When he says that every calling is equally important in the church, Gerald truly believes that.  I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for him next.  But I have no doubt that Gerald will do a great job, no matter what the calling is.  

For Grandma & Grandpa T!

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am sorry that we live too far away that we couldn't actually be together on Katelee's birthday, but she was SO excited about the large box that showed up on our doorstep on the morning of her birthday.  When Katelee opened it that night and saw the presents you sent her, she was so happy and excited!  These pictures are cute, but they don't do justice to her reaction.  Thank you for being such amazing grandparents to her.  She loves you both with all her heart, and so do I!  We appreciate all you do for us.

Love,

Jennifer

A House Full of Super Heroes!

My Talented Husband

I don't say it enough, but I really appreciate Gerald and his many hidden talents. Even though we've been married for seven years, I am still discovering some of those. For example, his ability to make a pinata!  Seriously, I may never buy a pinata again.  Last year we bought one for Katelee's second birthday.  It cost $15 and took about 45 minutes to break - and I think it only broke then because Uncle Jeremy took a golf club to it.

Gerald made this "bad-guy monster" pinata for Katelee's superhero party out of a paper bag and other supplies we had around the house.  (The superheroes were supposed to save the candy from the bad guy.)  I think it looks amazing!  The kids loved it.  And the best part - it was free.  Well, we did buy the candy inside, of course.  Every kid got to hit it twice and then we had Jake, the oldest, hit it a few extra times until it broke.  They loved it.  I'm so glad I have a husband who does stuff like this.  Way to go, honey!

By the way, I'll post pictures of the super hero party soon!

Some Photos of Today

The Morning:

Katelee helping decorate for her family birthday party tonight!

Katelee, after she snuck into the pantry and found left-over frosting and spilled it all over the floor when mom and dad turned their heads for 2 minutes. And yes, she is picking it up off the floor and eating it.

The Afternoon:

All cleaned up (no frosting) and ready for church.

The Evening:

Our family in the area came over to help celebrate Katelee's birthday. Here are the cutest four superheroes I've ever seen. (Katelee was attempting to fly when I took this picture.)

Wow, Mom! These x-ray vision glasses really work!

Opening some birthday presents!

Katelee watching her daddy light the candles on her cake.

A movie of Katelee blowing out her birthday candles.

What a day.

Preparations for a Party

So lately Katelee has REALLY developed a mind of her own.  Particularly in regards to her birthday that is coming up.  

Soon after Christmas I began talking about her birthday because, let's face it, I LOVE birthdays and I like to make a big deal of them.  Usually I can plant ideas in her head that she likes and will take as her own, and so it is easy for me to make the decisions and for Katelee to go along with them.  But not this time!  From the day I first mentioned her birthday, she just knew exactly what her birthday was going to be like.  All of her friends were going to come over to our house and they were going to, "run and around and jump and be super heroes."  Friends?  Where did she get an idea like that?  Isn't three a little young for a friend party?  However, Katelee has been to four or five birthday parties (that must be where she got the idea from), and so I started to get excited about the idea, too.   

We started to discuss a theme.  I suggested we could have a princess party, since Katelee has been very interested in Disney princesses lately.  She did like that idea for about a week, but then went back to her original super hero idea.  And she has been talking about her super hero party now for over a month, so I guess a super hero party it is!  (She did suggest, repeatedly and determinedly that we have a princess party for Gerald, though.  Hee hee.)

I set a goal for myself to not spend more than $30 on her friend party, and I have succeeded in staying under that amount. As a result, however, we went to a lot more work! Believe it or not, it has actually been fun.  We found some inexpensive material and ribbon and made a pile of super hero capes for the kids.  It was some work, but fun, too, and I figured I ended up spending about 75 cents per cape - not bad!  

Gerald used his amazing art skills to make the "pin the mask on the superhero" poster.  He spent Saturday afternoon working on it and I think it looks amazing!  Much better than anything I could have done.  And we have plans to make a homemade pinata - we'll let you know how that goes.

The most stressful part so far has been deciding who to invite and how many kids to invite.  We live in a ward with LOTS and LOTS of little ones, and so Katelee has like 30 little friends.  I couldn't handle a party that big, though, so in the end, we didn't invite too many guests - only the kids in our cul-de-sac and the other few kids from the ward that Katelee plays with on a very regular basis.  And I also invited moms, for my own sanity.  Here are the invitations that we made.  Sorry it's crooked - it's my scanner's fault. Katelee picked out which super hero girl to put on the front:

She has been very opinionated about other things, too.  For example, her cake.  She absolutely insisted that it be brown (chocolate) with white frosting.  Okay, babe - it's your party!  I made the cake Saturday.  I know it's huge, but we are going to use it both for our family get-together and for our friend party.  I'm really happy with how it turned out; it actually looks exactly how I pictured it - and that never happens!

And her presents.  Honestly, I wasn't even really going to ask her what she wanted.  It's more fun to just surprise her and she's still too little to know about most toys out there.  But when the topic of gifts came up one day, she informed us that she just knew that she was getting a guitar and "the little princess dolls" for her birthday.  My thoughts were: "GUITAR?  How do you even know what a guitar is?"  and "Argggh, I really don't like those little princess dolls!"  (By little princess dolls, she means those plastic princess figurines that are about 4 inches tall and have tiny rubbery clothing that can be changed.  I don't like them because Katelee cannot change the clothes herself, and so I spend most of the day constantly changing the clothes back and forth, and because they have about a million teeny, tiny pieces that get lost so easily.  I know this because she had one of them once, but most of the pieces are lost now.)  Anyway, we tried, ever so subtly, to change her mind.  We suggested BIGGER princess dolls, and many other ideas, but she was absolutely sure with all the faith of her child heart that she was getting precisely what she had told us.  Gerald and I went birthday shopping for our date night this past week; I bet you can guess exactly what we bought her.  I will admit, though, the guitar is really cute.