Jed's Birthday

Jed turned 29 this year.
For his birthday I made him a candied pecan, Sherlock Holmes birthday cake.

The night before Abbie turns 1

April 25th 2010. At the Younger Patrick's home.
Katelynn fell asleep in the car, making the transition from car to bed in her mothers arms without waking. She is almost 3.

Abigail on the other hand, is just getting started with playing. This photo was taken at about 9:45 pm. Does she look tired to any of you? Among posing in the warm comfort of Mom's sweeter Abbie began moving forward her little bouncy chair. I suppose she got tired of not seeing where she was going while traveling backwards.

Tomorrow she turns 1 and to be honest it is freaking me out. I know what everyone reading this is thinking "what a woos....." Your right I am, but if you came to date a teenage daughter of mine would you be intimidated by me?

Not one of Dad's better ideas

I am not sure how many of you out there in digi land are like me and hate seeing cute little kids cry. Well I absolutely hate it, which Abbie has probably figured out.

There I was eating a thin mint, my version of crack, and Abbie starts to cry. Its obvious after a few moments that she is crying because she wants my cookie. Silly me actually goes into the pantry and gets one just for her. Suffice it to say, Abbie fingers melt chocolate quickly.

Egg Mania

Our ward primary set up an Easter egg hunt for all the young children of our ward.
Of course they were smart enough to separate the children by ages. The younger ones got to go into the gym and hunt for eggs.

As the process began Katie ran, with Grandma in tow, to get the eggs she wanted.

Abbie on the other hand, after finding out candy was in the eggs, settled on just 1 Easter egg

Lucky for us, Grandma talked Katie into helping Abbie get the rest of her eggs.

The Amazing Abbie

It seems like we just blinked and now Aba is crawling and getting into everything. Just today she managed to fall down the stairs, hit her head trying to pull books off of the bookshelf and hit her head again trying to stand and reach for something else. Luckily Katie is trying to help and be a watchful sister. But she normally just ends up taking away a toy Abbie wanted to play with and makes her cry.

Scuba Katie

Last Thursday, not a cloud in the sky, but little Katie is ready for the rain to come down.

It began with my friend Dave coming over to visit / help me check out my car after it was making a very funny noise. His two children stayed around and played with us for a while along with Dave.

We went outside, after running into our neighbors began to play outside.

The mask my dear Katie is wearing comes from our neighbor Kirsten Quist (That might be the right spelling). She brought a large bag of toys outside to let the kids play through them and Katie decided on the mask. It was very funny to see her try to put it on herself, even more humorous for me to attempt it, then finally a neighbor successfully navigated her hair accessories and got the goggles on.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed HORSE???

For Christmas the Barton Grandparents gave the girls a horse. Not a real horse, but a bouncy horse, that sings (much to the parent's dismay). Abbie and Katie both really like the horse and enjoy bouncing and singing along with him. When she is sad, Katelynn has started running to and cuddling with him. The other day we asked Katie what the name of the was and she responded, very resolute, RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER has a very shiny nose. We tried to dissuade her and tried to get her to name it something more . . . horsey. But she is resolved the horses name is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Growing up is hard on Dad

As most of you know I am a very emotional father when it comes to my two girls. Well lately, I have been watching them grow up so quickly that it simply amazes me how fast they are doing the who growing up thing.

Something very amazing, and very grown up. happened with dear little Abigail Mae the other day. I was sitting with her by me watching some non Sponge Bob cartoon (I hate him with a passion, his pants are RECTANGLES not SQUARE) anyway, Abbie pushed herself forward and did this spin twist move ending up in the position you see.

I at first thought she was going to begin the little, soon to go away and be replaced by a much louder, cry. However, my dear little princess Laughed at me and started scooting towards my bare toes. (She was trying to tickle them like Katie does)

It is truly amazing when I witness my dear little ones doing these small acts of growth. I wonder if I am the only weird one who thinks such things are so amazing and this blog worthy?

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning at the Patrick's brought a new thing for our family, Carrie awoke early excited about Christmas and Jed wanted to sleep. Finally when Abbie made a noise Carrie pulled Jed out of bed and went to get Katie up.

Katie did not want to get out of bed at first and then she would not leave her room. It took a Christmas story and then we had to walk her down. Santa brought a Kitchen for Katie which she didn't want to see, but she wanted to go open her presents.

During the present opening Katie got out her trusty Minny Mouse phone and started taking pictures and mom and dad took pictures of them.

Before Christmas

The girls received these beautiful dresses not to long ago and Carrie, being the wonderful family picture taking lady she is, decided that we would all sit down and take a photo. For those of you who have children, you know what we had to go through. For those of you that do not, it is a very large production to get a family photo with children.
There are two things that Katie does very well when taking a photo.
1. She says and does a nice Cheese when we ask her to take a photograph.
2. She holds Abbie's hand very well lately.
I think that it is amazingly cute that Katie loves to hold her sisters hand and is so sweet with her baby sister. I hope that will continue for a while.