Today I packed up the kids for a trip to work to attend a baby shower for Jacob, Rachel's soon to be here baby, and another co-workers baby. The first step was to get Katie up out of bed and dressed and ready. She wasn't crabby which was really good! I thought for sure she would be because she got to bed so late last night but she did great! Jacob was ready in about 15 minutes and off we went. Only 7 minutes later than I had planned to get out of the house! We got there at around 11:00 and I managed to get Katie out and Jacob in his stroller without any trouble. The only problem I ran into is that I forgot I would have to park at a meter! Luckily I had $1.50 so that was good for an hour and a half. Mom saved the day by putting a few more quarters in while I was at the shower. We sat and visited until 1:00 and opened gifts - I didn't expect that... I thought we would have some good treats and call it a day but ended up getting some very cute things! After the shower, we went to grandma's office to say hi. Katie was very excited to see her, she was trying to pull me out the door at one point during the shower so we could go to grandma's office! Grandma got to show off her grandkids and then it was time to get going. We headed to the elevators to make our way out to the car when... disaster struck, or so I thought. Katie was walking off of the elevator and her new bracelet she had gotten from grammy and grampy fell off her wrist. Gulp. I heard a clink... clink........clink clink as it fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft. Gulp... again. Imagine my surprise when she didn't react at all! So we went on our merry way. Whew! Got to the car and got everyone/everything loaded up. Everything was fine until grandma said goodbye to us and started to walk away. Katie was not happy about that. She wanted grandma to come with us. I told her that grandma had to finish working but she just didn't seem to care and she cried and cried. So I did what any smart mom would do... I called grandpa to ask if he wanted us to come to his work for a visit. We got the okay so I asked Katie if she wanted to go home or go visit grandpa at his work. Of course she wanted to go see her "umpa" so we did! We spent about 2 hours there too and had a nice visit and a nice walk through the new cafeteria and buildings. Katie had a great time with her grandpa but eventually it was 4:15 and we had to leave! Katie told us she wanted to go someplace else now. I told her we were heading home... she wasn't happy and told me again that "I want to go someplace else mommy!" but finally realized that we were going home. I was very happy that there were no tears this time!

Back to work tomorrow. :( I'm not unhappy to go back to work, I just wish I could do it at home or maybe take the kids with me? Nah, that probably wouldn't work. Jacob's toots can be pretty stinky and Katie isn't quite tall enough to reach the files. Maybe we'll win a contest or something for a million bucks so John and I can stay home together with the kiddos and live a life of leisure.

Mommy needs to slow down sometimes.

Katie usually plays really well just by herself with whatever random toys she pulls into the living room so she doesn't really need a lot of close supervision or attention. I usually holler for her when it's gotten too quiet and I can tell by the tone she uses when she answers "what?" how much I'll like what she's up to. If it's kind of a quiet, unsure answer, I know it won't be good. If it's cheery and upbeat and she says "what mommy?" then I'm usually pretty safe. If not, she might be tearing pages in a magazine or opening a juice box when mommy told her she couldn't have one till dinner! It's usually the cherry and upbeat "what" which is really lucky for me!

Well, today I was trying to prepare for her party. Jacob had finally settled down to lay on the floor on his play mat after a fussy morning so I thought I could get some stuff done for her party when Katie very sweetly asked me to read a book to her. I told her I was trying to do stuff but we could have reading time tonight... and she said "Please mommy!? Will you read this book to me?" How could I say no? I would hate for her to think that it was more important to me to work on her birthday preparation than to spend time with my baby on her birthday! So, we ready two books and she was ready for me to be on my way. It was nice to sit in the sun and see her smile and hear her laugh at the book we read together and it was good for me to slow down... I hope I showed her how special and important she is to her mommy!

Here's Katie reading a book to her baby doll!

Katie knows what she wants!

Katie and Mommy went to Costco yesterday. When we were done, I asked her if she wanted to go to McDonalds and she said yes. She told me that she wanted apple juice and I told her to tell the lady who takes our order at McDonalds so she was planning to do that. Well, then I thought about it and realized that I didn't really want McDonalds again so I tried to get her excited about another place. That was a no go... she was pretty adamant that we go to McDonalds so she could get her juice. I drove around near Costco a bit to see if there were any other restaurants I could talk her into and she told me "Mommy, I want to get out of here. I want to go to McDonalds. Let's get out of this place." It was so cute. She kept telling me that she wanted to get to McDonalds and when we back tracked to Costco, she said "This place again? I was McDonalds." So we went to McDonalds!

We were playing at home later and she held her hand over her eyes and told me, "Mama, I don't got eyes, just a nose and a mouth!" Ha!