Five years ago . . .

Five years ago today I was,

Primping my hair and hanging out with several of my best girl friends.

Smiling at the beautiful daffodils that were everywhere.

Giggling about the many uses of double sided duct tape.

Fuming about the groomsmen mixing up their tuxes so that they spent too much time playing Goldilocks and the 3 bears. (This vest is toooo small!)

Celebrating the fact that I got to have this small simple ceremony with so many friends and family.

Smiling until it felt like my face muscles were frozen into a grimace that couldn't possibly be a smile.

Listening to a song written just for me by the man I love.

Walking down the aisle with my daddy.

Having the best time ever in a Limousine with friends.

Dancing til I dropped!

And in the midst of it all, getting married.

Now for the list of a few things that I never want to forget about my wedding:

1) Fittings, Fittings, Fittings. If you are going to have anything made for your wedding . . .you must have measurements taken, have a fitting of a mock up or a pre-hemming fitting. Then after any tucks or adjustments are made, you must try it on again. Also , practice hugging lots of people in your wedding dress to see if you are going to wear a tube top on account of the sores around your arm pits the next day.

2) The best shoe is no shoe. I wore isotoner slippers that I threw away later when I got married.

3) Simple may be good, but well planned is better. Just because I wanted things simple, doesn't mean there was no planning to do.

4) No matter what you plan, something will go wrong.
- Someone might talk to the DJ and change your plans for the first dances (AHEM! Yep it happened) so print and give them a list at the actual reception.

5) Put everything in one box and put it in a car that will be going to the reception as soon as possible. (I forgot the gorgeous Knife and serving set my sister gave me at a shower to cut the cake and the toasting glasses for the champagne)

6) Don't get too attached to any one thing that you used for your wedding, they are just things. Knowing that it might get lost, I made my own veil and petticoats because $200 seemed an awfully steep price to pay for a scrap of tulle or a bunch of it shoved under a dress. And ditto for the dress. I had a friend who's new husband accidentally threw her dress away after the wedding. She cried buckets, but can now laugh about it.

7) If you and the bridal party are going joy riding in the limo before going to the reception. FEED YOUR GUESTS FIRST! They consume less alcohol and are very happy when you arrive versus the alternatives.

8) Open your gifts alone. (Suggested by my mother and it was a great idea.)

9) Be considerate of your family when you plan the wedding. (Unless you don't want it to be a family affair.) I'm mean and think that flying to Key West and inviting people to pay $3000 to come watch you get married is mean. If you are going on a destination wedding, either go by yourself with 2 witnesses, or stay home so that your family can share in the special day. Don't expect 50 people to shell out that kind of cash.

10) Get a video. We had two sisters take amateur video footage and they make us a cheap DVD of the entire event. It was wonderful, cheap, and we laugh at the family interviews every time.

Did I miss anything?

She's here!

I swore I was going to make Sisi take a pic with me to post . . . but I haven't gotten there yet.

I have been warning my co-workers for almost a month now that my double is moving home, but I know it isn't going to sink in until they run into her and she look all blank and tells them she's not me. . . .and I love it when that happens!

It was a good weekend,
Alaina had her last swimming lesson . . .and I couldn't get her signed up for the next level because all the classes were full. (Nuts)

Mimi came up to stay with us and helped watch the girls so that we could get our house cleaned up and vacuumed before Sisi moved in.

And then the 2nd best part of the weekend.

YO-YO MA! I have never been so excited to see a Lied center performance. But I have one comment for the Lied crew:

Please dim the lights for all performances. I know that maybe Mr. Ma likes to have the house lights up to interact with the crowd. But I was distracted by the flipping of programs and the fidgeting of other audience members the entire time.

And another suggestion:

Please escort anyone who's cell phone rings out of the theater. That's what you get for "thinking" that your cell phone was on vibrate. For a performance that you paid over $50 to see, turn the dang thing off.

Anyway . . .

Sisi and Papa arrived home during the performance. Unfortunately they weren't able to unpack the truck because Baby K took one look at Aunt Sisi and decided that she was my stand in until I returned home.

Papa and Sisi told us all about their trip to Graceland and handed out gifts.

One for Kayla and one for Alaina. Alaina got to pick which one was hers. She chose the one with the belt, but last night while playing with them, she pointed out that she had two new bears.
I reminded her that one was Kayla.

She pondered it a bit then announced.
"My bear doesn't have a guitar, the red bear is a bad bear because he won't share."
Kinder-translation: "Cut the guitar off the red bear so I can have it."

She's too crafty for her own good.

Anyway, Kayla has been sick, so we took a trip to the pediatrician yesterday just to make sure that it wasn't the same ear infection we just got rid of last week. The trip to the doctor involved Kayla having to get her ears scraped out because she had so much wax in them the doctor couldn't see her ear drums.

Is it any wonder that by the time I got Kayla back to daycare, she was more than happy about me leaving her to play with toys and friends?

And the fun moment from last week. I told Jeff that is 20+ years I can pull this picture out and cry before Alaina gets married. She's in a wedding stage so once a week she announces her plans to get married. I had to make her a veil because I couldn't find mine, so here she is all dressed up to dance her wedding dance with her daddy.

Awwwww . . . ..

The Dressmaker

Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations - Faith Baldwin

Faith sound like my kind of girl. Well the dressmaker is almost here to do some major alterations in our home. We found out Monday afternoon that Jeff starts his second shift job on the 29th and Aunt Sissy will arrive to live with us this Sunday. Those are the big adjustments.

The rest have just been little nips and tucks along the way.

Everyone in the house is finally well, even Pixie. Its amazing what a round of antibiotics can do. Apparently the siezure-like spasming was atributed to a tooth infection and the piddle was from a bladder infection. Of course, the antibiotics also had the lovely side affect of Pixie vomiting all over . . . but at least that is easier to clean up than piddle. With the unexpected joy of Jeff getting a raise, we've been dreaming a little bit bigger and spending a few more dollars. Alaina has probably benefitted the most from this as she has gotten new decorations for her room and was able to get a new princess doll and the Princess and the Frog the day it came out on DVD.
Alaina now equated me with Tiana's momma that make beautiful princess dresses by the dozen. I have now be informed of the fact that she doesn't have a dress like Princess Tiana and I need to make her one. I'm not sure how I ended up with a princess in the house, but at this point I'm just glad that she only calls herself a princess when she's pretending to be a specific Disney Princess.Kayla in the meantime is a clapping, crawling, cereal eating, two toothed wonder. She loves to make music, laughter, and splashes in the tub. And speaking of splashes, Saturday will be Alaina's last swimming lesson with Mommy. After this, she's in the 'Pike" class which Mommy's and Daddy's aren't invited to attend. (Yay!) It's been a wonderful time, but having that lovely bouyant weightless feeling for 50 minutes every Saturday make me feel rather heavy and sleepy for the rest of the weekend.

Work has become stressful as I strive to impress my new boss . . .I've always worked with Miss L and readily enjoyed it, but now I'm doing double time trying to work my way toward a raise.

And with that all said . . .my banana bread is ready to come out of the oven.

10 days down, 21 to go . . .

I have declared the month of March a hazard zone. I now have a cold and the cat has been in the posession of the vet for over 24 hours. Everytime I call they just want to look at 'one more thing' and then they will call me with an update.

At this point I'm way past no news is good news and am just waiting for the call that I'm going to be a single cat home again.

Bleh.

If the March 'In like a lion, out like a lamb' is true for personal lives, I'm going to win the lottery by the end of the month!

Confession time . . .

Too much going on to mention right now, but I promise to catch you up here are the highlights:

- I got pink eye last week
- Kayla got an ear infection and spent the night screaming about it the very next night
- Cat peed all over the house at least one of them did (Did I ever mention we got a new cat?)
- Spent 40 minutes trying to pump for baby at lunch with no results TWICE last week (ouch)
- Jeff is getting a cold
- Chased down both cats when they snuck outside


And then just to top it off, I spent an hour and a half last night muttering about bad kitties while cleaning up cat piddle using a black light. Then at 4 am I felt REALLY guilty about being mad at the cats because I found out why she had been peeing everywhere.

At 4 am while sleeping on our bed, Pixie (new kitty) had a seizure, rolled off the bed, and pottied everywhere in our bedroom.

BUT WAIT! There's more!
I did my best to clean up the piddle, and went back to bed, only to sleep through my alarm. I was already 15 minutes late for work when I ran out to the truck . . . and it didn't start.

SOOOO I walked the 3 blocks to work. Trying not to cry, and muttering the entire way.

Pixie will go to the Vet tomorrow because i didn't want to stress her out by walking her there in our tiny travel cat case.

Ch - Ch- Changes!

And all of the results are in. My house is due for some extensive changes.

Jeff has jsut gotten a new job that will move him to second shift, so I get to experience all the joys of being home alone with the girls every night.

But wait! There's more!

A certain someone that I love very much is going to be living with us for a while, its not my news to tell, but since they HAVEN'T BLOGGED IN A MONTH, I get to make very not-so-subtle hints about their news. And while I'm sure they aren't going to step in and help me with bedtime stories and baths every night, it will be nice to have someone around when my sanity comes into question.

Another positive thing is that one of the main reasons that Jeff applied for this job is the increase in *ahem* monitary benefits that will come to our household. Jeff and I have started to think a little bigger about the plans for our house, since we may have the opportunity to actually have the cash to make the necessary changes.

But the little spending habits have already begun. To celebrate, I took Alaina to the store and we bought Kayla a "johnny-jump-up" which she doesn't like at this point, and Alaina got a new princess for her mini princess collection. In fact, we splurged and got the set with the prince and the horse so now all of her princesses won't have to wait in one line while the Wicked Queen dances with Prince Charming, Prince Naveen to the rescue!

Favorite conversations.

One of my goals for the new year was to be a happier person in general which has for some reason led me to be more reflective about life. I was reading Mindy's blog (hey family have you met Mindy? Mindy, family. Family, Mindy.) and she posted about working with a group comprised mostly of women. I got to thinking about the joy of dealing with women, and one thought led to another until I was remember the conversations I used to have with Jeff's friends that we used to hang out with on the weekends.

And I started to giggle.

A bit of background to this tale. Jeff and I hung out with a group of 4-5 guys and since he was the only one with a steady girlfriend, I was allowed to tag along. But because I was the only female in the group I sometimes had some unexpected roles to fulfill.

Like being a "wingma'am." I admit to assisting a few of the guys in getting phone numbers by pointing out their good qualities when needed to get a phone number, but I drew the line at facilitating bringing a girl home from the bars.

And I was called upon often to be the expert on all things 'woman.' However the conversation almost always went like this. . .

Boy: Katie, why did she do that?

Me: Because girls are just flat out crazy.

Boy: No really, why did she do that?

Me: Really? Because girls are crazy! Seriously you don't believe me? Let me explain it to you. That girl that called you to say that she was going to be out downtown with her friends? She wasn't really inviting you to meet up with them. I know you think she told you she was going out for that reason, but she wasn't. What she's doing is laying the groundwork to either
a - brush you off if she runs into you because she's 'with the girls'
b - setting you up to be her last chance hook up for the night.
That's really about it. Because if she really wanted to run into you, she would have told you what bar they were heading to and when they were planning to be there.

Boy: But that doesn't make sense. If she didn't want to see me why would she call?

Me: Didn't I just tell you? She may want to call you after, but don't expect anything. She's just a thrill seeker and she won't call you after this weekend. Couldn't you tell by the fact that she was wearing a miniskirt and ugg-ly boots out while its snowing?

Boy: I still don't understand.

Me: When are you going to learn that you aren't supposed to?

And I'm smiling to myself just thinking about all the lessons that I taught that started with the phrase "because girls are crazy." And I include myself in that rank. But I just want to say that while I explain to guys that girls are crazy, there is a fantastic path of thought that leads to most of the seemingly crazy logic that women have. I am fascinated by it, but I have given up trying to explain it to ANY man, because they don't appear to have the capacity to decipher most if it.