Happy Birthday Luke! Happy Birthday Andrew!

Boy oh Boy have things been busy lately! Seriously! Two boys had wonderful birthdays recently! We are very sorry for such a late post, but 'tis how things are these days. Lots going on, with Uncle Ted's sister getting married soon (12/01/12) and her shower coming up, Marie is coming in just a couple months(!!!), traveling for Aunt Julie's work, and just trying to keep on top of everyday chores... like building patios and creating a whole new bedroom to live in! 

Well enough with our pitiful excuses and on with the pictures I say!

Andrew, Ben, and Elijah are eagerly awaiting their Mario themed cake! WaHoo!

Luke for his 4th birthday decided to have a Pirates themed party and is onlooking a home run of a cake!

Katherine has been loving fruits lately, including some very special watermelon! Grambie was quite daring holding her with food in her hands!

Achoo! Just kidding of course!

Katherine was having quite a blast with the sand pit! We are still finding sand...

She had so much fun, the boys decided to join her!

Happy Birthday, Andrew and Luke!! We hope this year is Super Mario, Home Run fun!!!

Happy Birthday Aunt Mary Beth!

Yesterday was Aunt Mary Beth's 30th birthday! We were very blessed to be able to celebrate with Aunt Mary Beth, Uncle Casey, Oma and Opa down in Texas last week. We threw a little party and had an excellent time.

After our Texas visit we took a looooooooooooooooooong road trip back to Pittsburgh. Katherine did very well in the car, but was VERY happy to be home.

We were extra blessed because Aunt Mary Beth is visiting Pittsburgh this weekend (she's doing recruiting for work next week at CMU), so we get to celebrate with her on both ends of her birthday!

Katherine is so thankful for her fun, joyful Godmother. Happy birthday Mary Beth-- may your year be filled with happiness!

Ocean City

We've spent the last wonderful week vacationing in Ocean City! We've enjoyed tons of delicious food, lots of long walks, and some special quality time with family. Here are some highlights:

 Playing mini-golf (this was actually just a highlight for Mommy and Daddy-- Katherine didn't appreciate that she wasn't allowed to hold and chase the balls and wound up screaming through the course...)

Spending time with her big cousins:

Every morning when Katherine woke up, one of the first things she said was "Luke, Luke! An-deee!!" (She hasn't mastered Alex's name quite yet), and she'd run through the halls looking for the big boys.

Going on rides: 

Enjoying delicious treats: 

Playing on the playground:

Of course the best part was the company! Thanks to our whole family for some more great Ocean City memories!!

Good-bye July!

It seems like each day goes by faster than the one before it... maybe that's because Katherine seems to get faster each day. Looking back, we've had a great month! Katherine has sure done a good job soaking up every minute of summer:

She and Daddy have been taking daily runs through the park. Every once in awhile, they have something particularly interesting to share (like this goat that they ran into from a lady who owns a petting zoo):

This week we're particularly lucky to have Mommy's cousin John, his wife Sarah, and their kids Benjamin and Breanna visit as well! Katherine thinks her new big cousins are pretty cool and she loves chasing them all around Grambie and Grandpop's house.

Yesterday we took a trip up the Incline and got to see some great views of the city.

Katherine thought the experience was pretty sweet:

It's wonderful to experience summer through the eyes of a toddler again. Katherine is eager to try EVERYTHING, from chocolate ice cream, to fresh picked tomatoes, to running through the sprinkler or slipping down the slide. All of her little joys bring us so much joy every day!

Blockburgher happenings!!

Sorry we're so far behind on blogging. Believe it or not-- working, fixing up our house, raising a toddler, and growing a baby can leave you pretty exhausted! ;-)

First and foremost-- happy VERY belated Birthday Daddy!! Even though we're late posting about it, we certainly enjoyed every minute of the celebration! We love Daddy and pray this year is filled with abundant joy.

We were also fortunate to have a great visit from "Aunt" Beth this last weekend! We took Katherine back to the zoo, and this was the first time she really appreciated the animals. She giggled and giggled with each new exhibit. 

The flamingos especially tickled her pink, and she kept pointing and saying "duck duck!" (close enough...)

While Aunt Beth was in town, we also enjoyed the Strip District, and much of Pittsburgh's cuisine. Aunt Beth treated Mommy and Daddy to a night out and we enjoyed dinner at BD's Mongolian Barbecue.


It's been a great, fun filled week-- ruined all too well by Mommy being stuck on Jury Duty (that truly hasn't spoiled our week, but it certainly isn't a highlight). Tonight Mommy and Daddy are off to see the opening of Batman, while Katherine has a special sleepover with Luke at Grambie and Grandpop's house.

SO.... you can see that our sparse blogging isn't from lack of news, but more so, lack of energy. :-) We hope you enjoy these updates, and we'll be sure to write again soon!!

Making a Splash!

With as much as Katherine likes her bath, it wasn't a huge surprise that she LOVES the pool. She has no fear of the water being cold (she's much braver than Mommy and Daddy), and loves making a splash.

Mommy's been taking Katherine to "swim lessons" (which is mostly just a bunch of chaos with a lot of parents playing with their kids in the pool). Katherine has worked on "floating" (of course with Mommy holding her the whole time), and just last night in the bath learned how to blow bubbles!

As you can see, Katherine also loves playing in backyard baby pools. Here she is having fun at Grambie and Grandpop's:

We hope the whole summer is filled with happy, splashy moments like these. :-)

battle of the naps.

Over the last several weeks, Katherine's naps have become more and more difficult to plan around. She often wants to down for her morning nap right after breakfast, then will be very tired in the afternoon, but will talk, play, and cry in her crib for over an hour before falling asleep. Yesterday was a bit of a turning point for Mommy-- during Katherine's afternoon nap, she spent more than 2 hours alternating between talking, crying, and almost falling asleep before Mommy gave up and took her for a walk (which she fell asleep on in less than 5 minutes).

We spend most of our days scheduling everything we do around Katherine's sleep schedule, as a well rested baby makes for a happy baby. This has been particularly challenging on Sunday mornings, as Katherine's nap schedule interrupts almost every available Mass-- although we're now experts on almost every available Mass time in the Pittsburgh area as we've gone to a different church almost every week).

Today, Mommy made the decision to cut out Katherine's second nap. I pushed her to stay up until after the 8am Mass, and we played until almost 11. She then took one long nap, and had a great time playing with her cousins at Alex's birthday party:

She was pretty tired this afternoon, and repeatedly asked to "go night night," but she remained happy until her 7:30 bedtime, and will hopefully sleep well tonight. :-)

This weekend Daddy's been enjoying some camping in Michigan with some friends. Mommy and Katherine have sure been missing him, and can't wait to see him tomorrow! Mommy has loved all the extra-special Katherine time, and sure appreciates all the extra help from Grambie and Grandpop, but I'm quite exhausted and ready to catch some extra sleep myself!