Caitlin's Birthday

We had a day long celebration for Caitlin's birthday. With her gymnastics party behind us, we still wanted the day to be special. So I tried to do all of Caitlin's favorite things. We first started with breakfast at the gas station. She thinks it is the greatest thing ever to be able to go in and pick out her own breakfast. She picked two Krispy Kreme donuts and water.



Next, she went to school. It was her last day there and bitter sweet. She is excited to get to spend a month and a half with daddy doing fun summer things and then start Kindergarten, but I know she will miss her friends and all of the wonderful teachers at Children's Christian Center. We have LOVED her time there!! So we took cupcakes in for everyone and took some pictures of her favorite people.

Miss Beth and Miss Jenny - were her teachers last year.

Miss Christy - her teacher now.

Caitlin and all of her friends.

After I picked up her and she said her long goodbyes, we took back some duplicate gifts and she got to spend the credit and some birthday money and pick out toys. She loves to do this. She goes up and down each aisle and as she finds something she likes, she asks if she has enough money for it. She finally settled on a Disney barbie that she didn't have and a dragon that talks and walks (yes, this one surprised me too, but she loves that thing!).

For dinner, we had McDonald's, where she got to play. And then we had dessert at Baskin Robbins (okay maybe that was more for me than her).

After dessert, we went home and watched the Red Box movie we rented (Bolt) and stayed up late. It was a great day. I can't believe I now have a 5-year old, but I am so proud of the person she is now and who she continues to become.

Must Love Dogs

Caitlin LOVES dogs - wants one so bad. But this is what she looks like after playing with them. She is allergic to their saliva, I think, because every where she lets them lick her turns red. Sunday she got to spend time with Heather and Ben's three dogs and she just loves them. She sits in the floor and lets them crawl on her and lick on her and she is in absolute heaven. She doesn't care it makes her splotchy and itchy. The good thing about this is that after a few hours of no dog time, the redness is all gone and she's back to normal.

A perfect start!

Saturday, Rusty and I had to shoot a wedding, but that morning, we woke up at 8 and went to the pool. From 8:30-10:30, we relaxed and had the neighborhood pool all to ourselves. It was heaven!! Surprisingly, it was already hot enough to want to get in the water and it was so nice.

Caitlin jumping in. Rusty is determined to teach her to swim this summer. She is VERY stubborn (I don't know where she got that!) and I think she may prove to be a challenge.

Renaissance Festival

On Memorial Day (yes I'm a little behind in blogging), Caitlin and I went with Kara to the Renaissance Festival. I had never been before and I just knew Caitlin would love it. I was right!! Luckily, we had a cloudy day with a little rain so it wasn't too hot and we got to see everything we wanted. Caitlin loved seeing all the people in costumes, especially the knights.



In front of the castle.

We watched a real jousting tournament. It was brutal!

My little fairy!

Why she wanted to ride the stinky camel, I do not know, but she loved it!

Her favorite part of the day was getting a dragonfly painted on her face!

She rode this kids ride that was a "jousting horse." They let you hold the jousting stick and try to get it through a ring while you ride. Caitlin just wanted to ride. I think she was afraid of falling off.

School Program

This year, the kid's program was on Nursery Rhymes. Each age grouped learned different nursery rhymes and songs.

Just like Uncle Andrew!!

Today I took Caitlin to school and they told me she did something funny yesterday. At nap time, the teacher Miss Christy told everyone to get up and strip their beds. Next thing, she looks over and Caitlin is totally naked standing there like "okay what now." Miss Christy freaked out and was trying to cover her up. She thought it was odd that none of the kids thought it was out of the ordinary. What was even funnier was that she said Caitlin was still asleep doing this. She could tell in her eyes that she wasn't fully awake. And the other day during naptime, Caitlin got up and was running circles in the room and trying to get one the other kid's cots. She was half asleep again. I thought it was hilarious. She likes her Uncle Andrew and doing weird things in her sleep!!

Caitlin Funny

I have been constantly not feeling well or struggling with a headache or exhausted and poor Caitlin has been a little neglected. Yesterday, we were in the car and I had a headache and she was just singing her heart out (very loudly). I asked her if she could sing quietly or not at all and she looked crushed. She asked why I always had headaches. I told her that your neck is supposed to be a certain way and mine gets out of whack. She said, "Are our bodies made out of whack?" I said no and she said, "What's a whack? What's it look like?" She is so funny!!

Car Wash

It started out with Caitlin playing in the sprinkler while Rusty washed his car. Then she decided it would be more fun to help daddy. She has gotten so big and is really a big help now!!

Easter Princess

Caitlin in her Cinderella Easter dress. She LOVED it!!

In this one she cracked herself up with her silly poses.

Summer Hair Cut

Okay, these are horrible iphone pictures, but it was all I had with me at the time. Caitlin's hair has gotten so long and I loved being able to curl it and do things with it, but it was a hassle. Brushing the tangles out had gotten to be a nightmare!! One day, she said she wanted short hair like her friends Greta and Anna at school, so the next time Rusty had a haircut, we took Caitlin along. It is so much easier to fix now!!

Pinboards

This weekend I finished the pinboards for Caitlin's room. I LOVE how they turned out. I got the idea for these in a Pottery Barn catalog. If I had bought them from Pottery Barn, they would have cost over $200 to do what I wanted. I did them myself and it cost around $45. Not too bad!!

Big Girl Room

We recently moved Caitlin upstairs into a big girl bedroom. We painted the room and got her a twin bed. It is a princess room that hopefully she won't outgrow for a while.

This is her pink princess bed - bedding from Target. Eventually, there will be a custom headboard. The bedskirt is pink tulle and I think I will do the headboard to match that.

This is her dress-up area. The dresses hang on the shelf and the toy box holds the rest of her dress-up stuff.

These are on top of the shelf. A canvas of Caitlin as a baby and a picture of my dad holding her when she was little.

I love these fabulous nesting hat boxes that I got from The Land of Nod.

Rusty repainted all of Caitlin's dressers and we were able to reuse these. FYI - these were Rusty's furniture growing up. How's that for lasting furniture? Eventually above these, I will have several pinboards for Caitlin to hang her artwork and pictures.

Her closet - I tried to get lost of storage places for toys. I love the hanging shelves and matching storage boxes from The Land of Nod.

Caitlin playing on the pink shag rug I just got at Target today. :)

This corner eventually will be a reading corner. While putting together her bookcase I bought, I realized that two of the legs were cracked. So soon there will a bookcase in the corner and then Caitlin can sit on these floor pillows and read her books. Pillows from The Land of Nod. Do you see a pattern?

I love these frilly curtains from The Land of Nod. Yes it's my favorite new website!

The other dresser Rusty painted. It's being used a bedside table. Over it is a framed picture and poem called Three Dresses that talks about the three special white dresses in her life - blessing, baptism and wedding.