Finger painting messes...

Ryan is much braver than I am about these things (probably because he knows I'm a second set of hands to help clean up the messes...)

The artist, concentrating hard on her work....








We survived, mostly unscathed, except when Ryan forgot the ramifications and asked Katy to turn the light switch on....

Roller Skating

They grow up and get away from us so fast....


Yes, she really is standing on roller skates (inline skates, at that) all on her own, and was walking in them to boot. Of course, it was on carpet, but still...

The amazing thing is that we took our hands off her at all, since this was the day after the great goose-egg incident....

The big goose-egg...

Final score, Katy -0, Refrigerator - 1

Katy tripped into the corner of the refrigerator. The result wasn't pretty.






Several weeks later Katy still has a bruise line on her forehead where the actual impact was. It was one heck of a bruise!

We're still in the very slow throes of potty training here. Katy has mostly gradated to using the big potty, but the little training potty still sits in the bathroom just in case. This is what I caught the other day: Katy told her doll to use the potty, placed her there and pulled out a book to "read" to her while she went. It was adorable.

Birthday Girl, take 1,000.

It seemed like every time I went to the Post Office for a while there Katy had more birthday or Christmas presents. One day we got hit with both.

First up, a box of both Christmas and birthday goodies from Katy's great-Aunt Ellen.

She was instantly smitten with all of the clothing and insisted on trying them all on, right away.







Of course, there was some isse over how much clothing one person could physically wear at one time....

Then on to the "big box" (Katy's repeated pronouncement) from Uncle David and Aunt Heidi.


A girl can never have enough feather boas.
The real hit of the day. Katy LOVES bags and backpacks, so this was a true treat for her.

Off she went to find a doll to put inside.

Modeling the baby carrier capability.



Now she's loaded up with everything she could ever need and ready to run away from home.

My little model. She kept insisting that I keep taking her picture. Heaven forbid I put down the camera, she would yell at me to take more!

Showing off more of the animals that were in the package from David and Heidi. Once she figured out this little guy made noise when squeezed she wouldn't put him down.



Dog piled with everything.

A big hug for her dog named "bear." Bear-dog has slept with Katy every night since then - a HUGE hit....

Wow, I have no excuse but laziness for not updating. I HAVE the time, I just don't MAKE the time. I'll try to be better, although I have quite a backlog to get through....

Several weeks ago we headed off to check out the Speyer Aquarium. Ryan had taken Katy several times but I had never been with them. We won't be going back (at least not as a family). It cost us as much as a theme park, especially as Katy isn't fee any more, and was VERY disappointing. We're used to US aquariums, which are usually very nice. This one was tiny. We went through it twice in a little over an hour, and that included stopping and looking at everything.

But, I did get a few quick pictures before we realized that flash photography wasn't allowed....