A Comfortable Sleeping Spot

One afternoon, Katie got tired and fell asleep in an interesting position.

When you have to sleep, you have to sleep.

A Dinner Invitation

When our cousins, Cory and Kim, were visiting, Garyldine invited us to her house to have dinner with everyone. In addition to dinner, Katie loved playing with the dogs and Play-Doh.

Since Philomena was tired, I just sat next to her.

Jim was busy making the salad dressing, but I was eyeing the bananas! 

After dinner I roasted Play-Doh marshmallows, and... 

…made Garyldine Play-Doh pancakes. 

Then I introduced Charlie to wearing necklaces. It was a fun night!

A New Haircut

After about six months or so of trying to grow her hair out to "be as long as Rapunzel's," Katie decided that she wanted a haircut. I let her choose how much hair she wanted to cut, and she wanted about three inches taken off. Her new haircut looked really cute!

I was ready to go! 

I like to go to Nikki's. I've been going there since I was pretty little! 

She was cutting off just what I wanted. 

I liked how it turned out! 

Grandma liked it too!

A New Recipe

Lately, Katie loves to give directions for things that involve steps. She came up to me one afternoon and was so excited. "I have a new recipe. Step one: Put cereal in my cup.  Step two: Add milk.  Step three: Put a straw in it. Step four: Eat it."

This was the best recipe I had ever tasted, but I was still done with it after I drank a few sips and took no bites.

Choosing Pajamas

Katie usually loves to wear her princess nightgowns to bed, but when she's cold, she likes to wear pajamas. On this particular night, Katie decided to mix her pajamas up a little to create a unique look. She was pretty thrilled by it!

I was happy with my final look. I loved how I layered!

Enjoying the Journey

I haven't taken the time for awhile to post some small, everyday moments that Katie has. They're things that make me laugh or that I want to remember for no other reason that they were part of who Katie was at the moment. Sometimes life does feel like a rush. Paying attention to these little moments helps me remember not to hurry. Enjoy every little bit.

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Loving Animals

Last spring, we walked out our front door and found a pretty, little yellow bird that had unfortunately died and had fallen in our planter. Katie was very interested in looking at the bird and thought it was very cute. Instead of disposing of the bird right then, we decided to wait until Katie wasn't around. When we went out the next day, the bird was gone. We weren't quite sure what happened to it, but we were glad we never had to take care of it. When Katie exited the house the next time, she asked where the bird was. I told her that I wasn't sure and that it was just gone. She promptly answered back, "When we get our next dead bird, I will take care of it!" (Luckily we haven't had any more dead birds!)

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Snorts

When Katie was little, one of her favorite books was P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother? If you've never read that book, the baby bird thinks a piece of construction equipment is called a "snort" because of the noise it makes. I've never been interested enough in construction equipment to learn the proper names, so anytime we've ever seen equipment that looks similar to the one above, we've referred to it as a "snort." 

Over the last several months, houses have been being built on our road, so Katie has seen lots of equipment up close. One night, she was very excited to see something right across the street from us. As she looked at it, she said very seriously, "That is the biggest snort I ever did sawn!" 

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Book Language

Like many kids who love books, Katie ends up memorizing a lot of her favorite books. Then she'll practice reading the books on her own by reciting the story. In doing that, she'll often use the phrase, "he/she said." I guess she got used to using that language. She started saying things like…"Let's play Candy Land, I say." It made me laugh!

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Language

Sometimes Katie (and I) don't have specific words for things - like for a snort. Other times, Katie surprises me with her word choice. As her school year was ending last year, I was doing a project to thank the people who worked with her. I asked her to tell me about one of those people. She quickly responded, "I like him because he's smart and fabulous!"

When Katie was making up the story of "The Magic Napkin," she described where the castle was. It was in "the sprawling woods." Where did she learn "sprawling?"

Sometimes something happens that concerns Katie. She'll often shout out, "It's a disaster!" or "I have an emergency here!" Her disasters and emergencies (thankfully) usually turn out to be something like a light bulb has burned out, or she can't find a clip.

Katie, like most children her age, can be rather demanding at times. She will often hear from us, "Can you ask that in a polite way?" Then she'll ask again and add "please." Lately, she has been very formal without us giving any reminders by saying, "Would you be so kind as to…?" None of us ask things that way, but it's very polite.

When Katie was talking about seeing Ian again, she very excitedly said, "Now Ian can't wait to see how long I've grown!" Someday she'll start talking about her height instead of her length!

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Trying to Say the Right Words

Like most children trying to grasp new words, sometimes words come out a little differently than when adults say them.  Katie loves to describe the puppies as adorable. When she says it, she says, "She's so adorbalow!" Other times she'll say, "She's so adorbalell!" She's close, but not quite there.

One of her pronunciations that she's outgrowing is how she says "usually." Up until recently, she has said, "Oosually." For some reason, I loved it.

One day, she was reading The Little Mermaid to the dogs. She read, "Ariel truly neckonized she had missed the concert!"

Katie was looking at a picture of Disney's Chip and Dale. I pointed to one, and Jennifer and I were discussing which one it was. Katie looked at us seriously and said, "Are you talking about Chippen or Dale?"

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Figuring Out Relationships

At one point, Katie asked Jennifer why she didn't have a "Grandpappy" like Goofy. Jennifer explained that her grandpa was her grandpappy. Then one night at dinner, she looked at me and said in such a surprised way, "Hey! Grandpappy is my grandpa, and he's your dad!" Then we asked her, "Who is he to Grandma?" She thought and thought and then smiled proudly and said, "Her friend!" It made us laugh!

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Reading with the Presidents in Mind

One night, Katie was reading a Barbie book to the dogs. She read, "Barbie has a dream. She dreams her cat is a princess. Now she is a princess. Barbie usually dreams of Andrew Jackson. She loves him!" I was cracking up as I listened!

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Texting

When Katie is around me, I try not to spend a lot of time texting or on my computer. I try to wait until she's asleep, but sometimes that doesn't happen. With that, she has learned some of the terminology surrounding technology. Her favorite terms are forms of "texting."

One night, Katie grabbed my old phone, and I asked her what she was doing. She said, "I'm texting. (pause) To Mrs. Gaga!" (Gaga is Katie's nickname for Grandma.) She was feeling pretty grown up about the whole thing.

Then the night we were playing pirate, Katie did something that I thought was funny, so I picked up my phone and texted the story to my mom and sister. Then very reproachfully she looked at me and said, "Pirates don't text!" Point taken.

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Eating

When you know that someone eats more fruits than desserts…One night after dinner, Katie was eating an ice cream sandwich. She said, "My favorite part of an ice cream sandwich is the skin!"

Bedtime Stories

When we got home from the political rally, it was pretty late, but Katie still wanted her bedtime stories. Before my mom could go home, Katie grabbed her library books and put them on my mom's lap, so she could hear the stories.

You're a good reader, Grandma!

A Political Rally

With Katie's interest in presidents, we decided to take her to a political rally. Bernie Sanders was in town to speak. When we told Katie he was one of the people that was trying to be the next president, of course she wanted to go and be a part of the rally.

Even though Katie didn't understand everything being talked about, she had fun clapping and cheering at every opportunity. It was fun just to watch her.

Since the rally, Katie is very aware when Bernie Sanders appears on the news. "There's Bernie! I saw him! He wants to be the president!" She'll also call him "President Bernie" at times.

The other thing that Katie is excited about is that she saw Bernie Sanders get a drink of water during his speech. Then when we got to the car, she noticed that her water bottle was the same brand as his. "We drink the same water!" What could be better?

Before the rally, we got to stop and have dinner. 

I didn't know that I could get a free sticker when I went! That was pretty exciting! 

We had to sit up high, but it was still fun! 

There was a crowd of 28,000 people who showed up!

While I waited for things to start, I played the piano with the music.

I'm pretty sure Bernie was waving right at me!

Writing

Like I mentioned previously, Katie has spent a lot of time writing letters this summer. She has had so much fun with it, especially when she has gotten return letters.

Grammy Noreen and I write back and forth to each other a lot! I was so happy when I got her postcard from Vermont that...

…I sat down to write her right back!

The County Fair

Katie was excited for the county fair to come again. We went early the first day it opened, and we stayed longer than we had ever stayed. We spent a lot of our time with animals there. Katie wanted to go on the Ferris Wheel, but she still wasn't tall enough for it. She found other entertainment though!

I got to pet my first chicken. I liked it!

Then I petted a soft bunny.

I thought this was a funny looking rabbit!

The cows always make me smile.

When I saw this tree, I couldn't believe its beauty. I asked my mom to take my picture in front of it, so I could always remember it.

Nothing says "county fair" like John Deere!

Aunt Jennifer and I love to take these kinds of pictures. We made good bees!

I've never seen a sheep getting trimmed. It was fun to watch.

The day was getting hot, so I spent some time under the misting tent. I loved it!

When I got done, I went through the small maze with Aunt Jennifer.

I was excited and a little nervous when I found Spiderman!

This was, by far, my favorite thing at the fair this year. I got to be in a bubble on top of the water. I was like a hamster in a wheel!

It was so much fun!

Afterwards, my mom helped me with my socks and shoes while I dreamed of getting back in the bubble!

After that excitement, I decided to paint a picture.

Then I built a tower out of blocks.

We went back outside, and I played my favorite fishing game until I won a beautiful unicorn.

Then we went to see a parrot show.

After the show, the pirate let me hold one of his parrots.

The claws hurt a little as the parrot sat on me, but I told my mom afterward that I wanted a parrot for a sister.

I also got to pet his green parrot.

When the parrot show was over, I went to ride a pony.

I really wanted to ride Pearl in honor of Sophie Pearl Wagon, but I got on Dolly instead. I loved her!

After the pony ride, I went in a bounce house, and then I saw these clowns performing. They made me laugh a lot, especially when they were throwing toilet paper at each other.

After another round in the misting tent, I showed everyone how wet my hair was!

I decided to try one more thing on my way out of the fair. I was going to jump on the trampoline with bungee cords.

First, I did small jumps. Then the jumps...

…got higher and...

higher! It was fun!

I was getting the hang of this high jumping thing!