School's Out...for...Summer!

Please forgive the Alice Cooper title...
Anyway, we have been trying to stay busy this summer! Here is a little of what we have been up to...

Miss Julianne is now in a BIG girl bed! As with any transition, it was probably harder on us than it was for her! She got up ONE time the second night, but so far she is sleeping great! I have realized that it is all about distractions...she must always have a book, her puppies, and a sippy cup of water. Works for me! She's so cute when we go and get her after nap or in the morning - she will get down whenever she wakes up, gets a toy or two and then gets BACK into her bed to play. One time I found her with an entire container of Lego's, two pairs of shoes and several baby dolls - all on her bed with her! Hilarious!

Here is our sleeping princess during the first nap in her bed:


J, J and I went to the zoo with my friend Miranda and her kiddos. Miranda was my Big Sister in Sigma Phi Lambda at HBU. We don't get to see each other very often, but when we do it's always a fun, chaotic, "zoo" of kiddos!

Here are J&J at the splash pad in the Children's Zoo:



THEN this HUGE group of HUGE kids invaded the splash pad. We were so irritated! We had to make OUR children come out of the water area because we couldn't even see them anymore. You can barely see Jacob through all of the HUGE kids on the left. Ugh! (I'm done, now.)

We took a much needed break to re-fuel and get out of the sun for a bit: (L-R; Jacob, Maddie, Ethan, Miranda, Caedmon, Julianne)


We also got to spend some time with Christin and her kiddos (I knew Christin and Spencer from WTBC waaaayyyy back in the day). They live in Austin and we have never met each other's children (in person) until last week!!! CRAZY! Too bad that Collin and Jacob not only favor each other in the looks department, but they have the same silly, little boy personality :) They got along great! Julianne and Bailey hung out with the mommas for the most part, but I know they will be good friends, too :) Fun day of playing with LOTS of cars, lunch and then swimming at Granna and Pops' house!!





And then we have just our normal day-to-day life -

Superman eating waffles before saving the world:

And a little sibling love (in between the knock-down-drag-out fights over snacks, toys, rooms, chairs, floor space, air...)

Preschool Graduation

Jacob had his preschool graduation ceremony last night and even though we are waiting to send him to Kindergarten, it was still a little emotional!!! His class marched in and took their place on the stage and it didn't take him very long to find us in the audience! Jacob pretty much waved the entire time and took a few breaks to sing or check out the motions of the classmate next to him :) Poor kid kept zoning out and yawning - it was 7:30 on a school night!

Jacob waving to us

Yawning

His sweet teachers came up and stood with the class for the last song (pretty sure i got teary-eyed...)

After the performance, we all went back to his classroom for diplomas and snacks. They all looked so cute in their graduation caps!! Jacob acted so silly when it was his turn to go up and stand with his teachers. They said that he was the class clown and always had all of the kids laughing at something he said or did. Sheesh. (rolling eyes) Good thing God gave him a set of dimples with that sense of humor - it's probably kept him out of more trouble than I care to know about :)

Our little cupcake turns 2!

Sweet Julianne turned two on the 26th of April. Every year seems to go by faster and faster!!! She is getting so big and learning so much! She loves to sing/be sung to, play with her baby dolls, cook in her kitchen, ride her tricycle, read books, watch movies with Jacob and play with bubbles.

Some of the things that she is learning:

• she can count to 10 (but always skips #7)
• she can jump with both feet off of the floor
• she knows pink and purple VERY well, but is hit-or-miss on the other colors :)
• she says please and "thanks" 99% of the time
• she knows "Jesus Loves Me, Rock-a-bye baby, the B-I-B-L-E (her favorite), the Wheels on the Bus, Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes and loves to dance to the radio in the car

She has such a little personality these days!!! We laugh at the way she cuts her eyes at you if she's mad. I went to get her at Aunt Jaime's house the other day and I guess she was mad that I showed up. She wouldn't look me in the eye for a long time! She just put her head down and cut her eyes over at me as if to say "how dare you come and interrupt my play time!" We laugh now, but I'm sure I won't think it's funny for too long! She loves to play with Jacob (or loves to play in his room - I'm not sure which sometimes!). When Jacob is at school, she takes toys out of her room into his room and plays on his bed for hours!
We haven't hit the "terrible" part of being 2...yet! We are enjoying her giggles, snuggles and kisses right now!!

We love you, sweet girl!

1st haircut (September '08)

Photo Shoot (October '08)

Christmas '08


Disneyworld (Jan '09)

2nd Birthday (April '09)

Check it out!

I've updated (and promise to be more faithful in doing so...) the "...a few of my favorite things" blog. Link is to the left. OR www.kristensfaves.blogspot.com

Lemme know what you think!!

Julianne hams it up...

While I was taking the Oreo pictures of Jacob (see following post), Julianne kept saying "Momma, Ook!! (look)". Those of you with multiple children know that you simply CANNOT take pictures of one without giving the others their own little photo shoot. Here's what I got of Julianne in all of her dramatic glory:

Gangster Julianne

This is what she did when I said "Make a silly face" :)

How do YOU eat an Oreo?

Dancing with Daddy

The other night right before bed, Julianne was clunking around in some new shoes that I had just gotten. She walked over to Justin and said "hold you?", and he picked her up and started dancing with her (which she LOVES to do!). It was too precious!! She giggled the whole time and even started swaying along!

A few pictures from February

I can't believe that the first of March is tomorrow! I haven't had my camera out as much as I usually do, but here are a couple of pics of the kids from this last month.

Jacob and Julianne: Justin was shocked at how much Julianne looks like him at that age!


Latham came over to play one morning and he and Julianne had SO much fun! They had a great time running around and played with cars, trains, kitchen stuff and books!


Julianne loves to play IN the toy chest, just like Jacob did (when he could fit!)


They love to brush their teeth together although it can get pretty messy sometimes!


One morning Justin found Julianne in her bed like this! I had put new pj's on her the night before that apparently are very easy to take off! My little jaybird... :)

Look Momma, no more training wheels!!!

After weeks of bending his training wheels up higher and higher, Jacob finally decided that they were in the way and he wanted to take them off. We have been encouraging him and telling him that whenever he was ready, we would go ahead and take them off. Justin was still at work so I was going to wait, but Jacob insisted and I was afraid that he would change his mind...so I found a wrench and somehow figured out how they came off. I had to steady him upright because his toes barely touch the ground and he literally took off while I was standing there. I didn't even have to run with him!!! You could tell how excited he was! You can see all of the neighbor kids in the video but you can't hear them cheering him on and telling him how "awesome" he was doing! Of course, we called Justin and told him and Jacob was so excited to show Daddy what he could finally do!!

This little light of mine...

We just thought this was hilarious!!

I don't even know where to start!

You may all breathe a sigh of relief that you will not have to look at the same December pictures when you visit our blog now! It's not even that I've been too busy to update, it's just that so much has happened since my last post that I don't even know where to start!

Here's a little of what the Patterson Four have been up to:

Well, Christmas, of course! As always, surrounded by our family is our favorite way to spend the Holidays...Playing guitar with Uncle Steven

Pops reading to Julianne


A bike for Jacob and a slide for Julianne!!


Reading her new pop-up bible story book


Trying out his new wheels


A fire truck on Oma's street was pretty exciting!

After Christmas, the entire Patterson Clan (all 11 of us) headed to Disney World to ring in the new year! We had so much fun, and I really feel like we did almost everything that we wanted to do! I will admit that I got a little teary-eyed when we were on the boat from our resort to Magic Kingdom and I got a little glimpse of Cinderella's castle over the treetops! It really is a magical place!!
Our favorite things:

Justin - Mt. Everest in Animal Kingdom and Big Thunder Mountain in Magic Kingdom (he and Jacob rode Thunder Mountain AT LEAST 4 times in one day...)
Kristen - Soarin' at Epcot and Mt. Everest (even though it made me kind of sick to my stomach)
Jacob - "being at our cabin" (I guess because he got to sleep :) ) and Splash Mountain in MK
Julianne liked the Merry-Go-Round in MK and the live Finding Nemo show in AK.

Goofy!

in Italy (Epcot)


Pizza Planet!


Latham and Jacob giving Eeyore some lovin'


Warming up to Piglet at the Crystal Palace


Our last day...boo hoo.


Jacob and Cinderella's Castle


The cousins looking at (picking) flowers right before we left for the airport