Things I love about Cate

Five is such a precious age!  They all are, really, in their own way.  But I especially love five.  And I just wanted to take a minute here to record some of the things that I love so very much about five-year-old Cate:

(1) I love that five-year-old Cate sings at the TOP OF HER LUNGS every time she goes to the bathroom, not realizing that people can hear her in there even when the door is shut.  Sounds like this only WAY LOUDER:

(2) I equally love how Cate comes out of the bathroom acting like nothing special was going on in there, and then smiles a little bit to herself like "Little do they know. Hehe ;)"

(3) I love that Cate has a complete secret jibberish language all her own, and that she speaks in it so often around that house that we have given it the name 'Cate-onese'.  We often ask, "Are you speaking English or Cate-onese?"  Her answer is always "Cate-onese".

(4) I love that 5-year-old Cate does NOT want to get married and does NOT want any babies because she does not want to change those STINKY DIAPERS! (Incidentally, I did mention to her that daddies can change stinky diapers so mommies don't have to, and she seemed pleased with that ... )

(5) I love that Cate obsessively collects stickers from every piece of fruit and new clothing and then proudly displays them on her shirt and wall like they are the prettiest things ever.

(6) I love that 5-year-old Cate knows what she likes - her cereal dry, her milk chocolate, and her feet cold (no socks. no shoes) - these are just a few of things that Cate absolutely insists on having her way in life, and they bring her so much happiness it is impossible to even try to persuade her to try otherwise.

(7)  I love that Cate is an "extreme snuggler" takin' snuggling to a whole new level :)

(8) I love that 5-year-old Cate has long conversations and slumber parties with her cuddly friends every night before she (finally) goes to sleep.

(9)  I love Cate LOVES to DANCE (and HATES to be told how to!)

(10) Aaaaaaand I love that 5-year-old Cate giggle that can light up the world!

STAY AWESOME, 5-YEAR-OLD CATE!  I LOVE YOU!

Cate's 5th Birthday!

Wow!  It's been so long since I've blogged I don't even know where to start!  So many things are missing from here that I want to remember ... Well, I suppose the most important thing that has happened since I last blogged was that my sweet little baby girl turned FIVE!  I'm still kind of wrapping my head around that one.  How could it have been FIVE years since this?

and this!?

WaaaaahhhhhhhhIwantmybabyback!!!

 ...


Whew!  Ok I feel better.  Well, thankfully, Cate has blossomed into a beautiful, smart, sweet, FUN big girl!  She had literally been planning her 5th birthday party since the day of her 4th birthday party (Not kidding!), so it was a no brainer where we were having it.  The Children's Museum of Oak Ridge is an adorable place for a party - especially for someone who loves her dolls as much as my Cate does.  They have a child-size dollhouse there that is the perfect place for Cate and her friends to pretend the day away.  She wanted a "Brave" themed party, and had lots of fun over Christmas break picking out all of her Brave decorations and her Brave cake.  She even brought her Merida dress and her bow and arrow set to the party for some extra fun! Cate and all of her friends had a great time running all around the museum exploring all of the activities and exhibits, and especially playing in that dollhouse! It was truly a joy just to stand back and watch them imagine and play together like little/big kids do.  I wasn't the best with pics at the party, but I did manage to get some.  We love every single one of these special friends!

BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!

Cate and Rachel

Cate was beyond giddy living out her dream of playing in the giant dollhouse will all of her friends on her 5th birthday! 

Breaking the "no running" rule (Can't blame them.  This place is too fun! :)

Puppet Shows!

Cate and sweet friend Emma

Max DJd a quick game of freeze dance ...

These girls know how to par-tay!

Ivy, Harper, Cate, and Sophie

Giant bear statue = perfect for a Brave party!

curly-headed cutie!

Max and Thomas were there but, you know, they're so old and cool now, they were doing their own thing most of the time.  Finally caught up with them after the party was over ...

Best friends a 5-year-old girl could ask for!  

(Lotus (4), Ivy (7), Sophie (7), Olive (5), and Cate (5!)) 

Moms 

(lookin' WAY too young to be the moms of the kids pictured above ;D)

Five is off to a GREAT start!!!  And how many times do you think she has already mentioned her 6th birthday party, since she turned five??? (Hint: too many!)

BEE-ing awesome!

It just occurred to me that, in the hustle and bustle of the pre-Christmas season, I completely forgot to post about Max competing in the Rocky Hill Spelling Bee!  This is definitely one for the record!  As if it wasn't impressive enough that Max won a small bee in his class to become Mrs. Smith's class representative, he beat out a whole bunch of 4th and 5th graders to become the 2nd place finisher out of the whole school!  That makes him the alternate for the regional spelling bee in March.

I have to say that this was just a really incredible thing for Jake and me to witness.  Our son up there being all calm, cool, and collected in what was seriously the most nerve-racking situation I have ever been in.  I knew that Max was nervous that morning, and his teacher mentioned to me that he was pretty quite that morning (which she noted was highly unusual for him :).  Still, you wouldn't know it watching him.  He threw peace signs up to the crowd when he was introduced.  He confidently asked that every one of his words be used in a sentence.  It was spectacular!  And when it came down to just him and his good friend Owen in the final round, I was definitely the proudest mom ever to see Max spontaneously shake Owen's hand and wish him luck.  He is not only an INCREDIBLE speller, but an all around great kid!

The Super Bacon shirt was worn for it's lucky powers.  He was wearing it the day he won his class bee :)

STAR STUDENT!

All of the students in Cate's Fab Five class get a special week when they are the STAR STUDENT!  They get to make and talk about a special "All About Me" poster, bring in special toys and things from home, bring in a special snack for the class, and have family members come and read to the class.  Most of the Fab Fives have already been the star student. Cate, however, has been patiently (well, o.k., not so much) waiting for her week.  Well .... IT'S FINALLY HERE! Cate has been prepping for this week for a loooooong time; all winter break, in fact.  She was totally beaming when I woke her up this morning and told her it was her star student week!

Today, she got to tell her friends all about herself, and her teachers said she did a fabulous job! She always really enjoys being the class leader, and today was no exception. Here is the poster that she made:

 

O.K. the  picture is from right before she turned 4 (Mommy doesn't print pictures very often!), but she liked it :)

Here are a couple of snapshots I took of her going out the door the other day.  I can't believe how grown up she is looking!

The best kind of friends

One of the best parts of my Christmas break has been getting to see one of my best friends in the world, Angela!  I have been friends with this girl since we were 15 years old, which means we have about 20 years (!) of friendship under our belts!  Ang and I have some pretty great memories from our high school and college days.  Since then, we have both married, gotten degrees, moved all over the place, and had kids. The only problem is that we have done all of the things at different times and on opposite sides of the country.  Needless to say, our opportunities for getting together along the way have been few and far between.  Very few and VERY far between.  So, it was great to meet up at her in-laws house near Cincinnati just before Christmas to celebrate Ang's 35th birthday, meet her adorable children, and get caught up a little.  Just as I knew would be the case, our friendship has not changed a bit!  We just have that special kind of friendship that I have come to realize is so rare in life. We even have this weird thing where we can go 5 plus years without seeing each other and then end up always having the same haircut and style of clothes and everything when we do.  It's uncanny! :D  I hope the years to come will bring Angela and me many more opportunities to get together and make new memories with our families!  She is the very best kind of friend!

Of our many fun adventures of the past, the best had to the the summer we decided to enter a Spanish language immersion program in Costa Rica!  Here are some pics from that trip that I ran across recently when Max decided to do his 3rd grade country project on Costa Rica:

 Costa Rica, summer 1999. 

Ok we're lookin' pretty rough in this picture, but in all fairness, we had just climbed Chirripo - the highest peak in Costa Rica (2nd highest in Central America?)! 

Such rebels!  Haha!

And here's one from my Baylor graduation in 2000

 

.... Surely there will come a day when I will have pictures to post of us vacationing together as little old ladies. Maybe then we will finally have time to really catch up on every thing that has happened through the years in between!  

Tube World!

It has been cold and dreary here since Christmas.  Though the kids have had tons of new toys to keep them busy and fun friends coming over to help pass the time, eventually we all just got tired of being indoors.  We were ready for some snow!  So ... this Sunday we set out to find some and have ourselves some outdoor winter fun.  We found a great little place called Tube World near the Cataloochee Ski Area outside of Asheville & it turned out to be just what were looking for.  We didn't really intend for it to be night tubing.  It just so happened that tickets were all sold out until the 6:00 pm session.  But, in the end, night tubing was a total BLAST!

Without a doubt, the most memorable part of this trip was how completely and totally fearless Little Miss Cate was on the hill and how much she LOVED it!   None of us was sure whether she would love it or hate it (though, knowing her, it was bound to be one or the other).  She barely met the minimum height requirement of 42" and there was no lap riding allowed, so if she was going to go flying down the big snow hill like the rest of the (much larger) kids, she was going to have to go it alone.  We might have fudged a little and told her that she would float down nice and slow just to get her to try it one time.  Well, once she tried it, she was hooked!  She kept going again and again and again faster and faster and faster until we had done all we could do.  It was awesome!  Max had fun being spun down the hill and working in some stunts on the way down.  Jake and I were just happy we survived ;)

Here are some fun phone pics from the night:

Cate was just so excited to be putting on her snow gear and heading to the "Winter Woods"

Snowball fight!

Just got snowballed in the neck and snow went down her coat.  Eeeeek! 

Soooooooooooo pumped!

It was really COLD!  (19 degrees! Brrrrrrrrrr......)

All of us (a rare shot!)

Yikes!  Hillbilly Jake's on the loose! 

Couldn't get Max to stand still for a pic, so this is the best I could do ...

Video of Max heading right back up for more!

This video shows the end of a run that Jake and Cate did side by side.  You can actually see her pop up out of her tube when they hit a bump at the bottom!