according to amy

chicken or the egg...

In our case, the chicken definitely came first.  Last weekend, we drove down to visit Kim and Brian and their chickens.  Cat thought that this was a cool adventure and was interested in the chickens, though she was a little reticent to actually touch them. 

Easter is coming this weekend, so we colored eggs (not from that chicken...) this morning.  I think that we all enjoyed it more this year than for Cat's first two Easters.  Coloring on the eggs with the wax crayon was fun, and PeaPod picked her own colors for each egg.  I forgot to bring the camera out at first, so we only got pictures of the end result, but we had lots of fun. 
  Cat's Grandmama, and Silvana and Dimitri and Jana came over for Easter/birthday dinner this afternoon to celebrate my Dad (3/21) and Silvana's (3/24) birthdays.  After dinner, Dad took all the kids for a walk.  He's a little bit like the Pied Piper--they all love to follow him. 
  Dad and the girls would have walked quite a bit further, but Dimitri got tired and wanted to come back.  The girls really like playing together and had a great time today.   I'm looking forward to seeing Cat get her Easter basket tomorrow.  We are having so much fun with her.

more pics from the giggle fest, plus one

Just because I have them, and they are cute, here are more pics from Cat & Regi's Gigglefest 2008. 

This last one was also taken on our last trip to Ithaca.  Both Dan & I have hazel eyes, but blue in our families. 

in other news...

You know, I think I mentioned earlier this year that we had exciting news to share, then I think I neglected to actually share it.  I think that just about everyone who reads this knows the news anyhow, but as I'll be in the third trimester as of Wednesday...
                
As of sometime mid-June, Cat will be a big sister.  The first picture has a little arrow pointing to the boy's bits, and we've decided to name him Eric, which is a name prevalent in both of our families.  His middle name will be my maiden name.  We're really excited and Cat is too.  She refers to the baby in mommy tummy as "baby brudder" or "baby ag-gig" and has already started picking out the toys that he can play with.  Tonight in the bath, she told me that her "baby brudder" can take tubbies with us when he comes.  I think she'll be a great big sister and we're planning to spend the summer getting to know each other.

Cat & Auntie Regi

We visited Ithaca over February break and spent most of our time at Aunt Regi's house.  She & Cat really dig each other.  Cat has been talking about Auntie Regi since we got home!  I shot this video of them laughing over Cat's dinner one night (she was having a cup of applesauce, a glass of milk and a large spoonful of peanut butter on Regi's kitchen floor!)

gratuitous photos

 

Cat's second birthday

Cat's birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so we decided to have her party on her actual birthday.  She and I had gone to her friend Reina's party a week or two before at Bounce-N-Party and I'm happy that we just had a family party this year.  I'm not looking forward tot he public place party era that I imagine will come along eventually.

We invited our families to come and help us celebrate and things got quite crowded enough (we have a big extended family!).  I think at one point we had something like 20 people or so visiting.  Much like last year, Cat had fun playing with Kayla and Nick and Melissa and this year her cousins Jana and Dimitri (who are much closer to her age) were able to come too and she had a ball playing with them.   Cat was a little embarrassed by everyone singing to her over her cake but perked up when she realized that there were candles to blow out and penguins to lick the frosting off of!  Melissa helped Cat with her cake again this year and that was lots of fun for both of them. 

Cat also brought cupcakes to daycare and had fun having her friends share her snack and sing Happy Birthday!  We put up a happy birthday banner at home and more than a month later, she still points to it and says happy day to me!!!  Yay for fun birthdays!  

one of the gazillion things I love about Cat

You might think that this is a kangaroo, but Cat has decided that it is not...instead, it is a hop-a-roo.  Fabulous!