19 months!

Anna turned 19 months on September 9th!

Katelyn, 19 months

First Day of Preschool!

Here is a picture of Katelyn on her first day (3rd and final year) of preschool!  She is having a great year already and loving her new teacher and classmates...

 First day 2011

First day 2010

Happy 5th Birthday Katelyn!

Sweet Katelyn turned five on August 24th.  There were many fun and significant events that made up her birthday celebration...

BIRTHDAY PARTY AT KIDDIN' AROUND, AUGUST 19

Birthday party/Singing "Happy Birthday" video (you'll want to see this; very cute!): http://youtu.be/0Zwq-AhYfhE

BIRTHDAY: A FULL AND FUN DAY!

Happy Birthday cinnamon rolls...a McCurdy birthday morning tradition:   
http://youtu.be/gcBLkdd_MuQ

Birthday Ice Cream Date with Brodie

Since Brodie wasn't able to come to Katelyn's party, he and his mom offered to take her out for the treat of her choice on her actual birthday...and Baskin Robbins it was!

 Visit to the hospital where Katelyn was born, Baylor Medical Center-Carrollton

 We even found the postpartum room we stayed in!

 At the hospital entrance

 A quick birthday playdate with her friend Canaan

 At the Rangers game

Our friends, the Bells, graciously invited us to be their guests at a Rangers game.  Philip's employer has a suite at the ballpark, so it was quite a treat to say the least!  And to top it off, the Rangers won!  Thank you Bells for such a fun birthday memory!

Katelyn and Philip

The rest of the Bell bunch

DONATION DELIVERY TO CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER

At Katelyn's birthday party (since the time she turned 2), instead of gifts, we ask her guests to bring donations of puzzles, coloring books, and markers for Children's Medical Center.  We went with some friends the week following her party to deliver them.  This is always one of the highlights of her birthday!

 

Highland Village Annual Hot Air Balloon Festival!

We have never been to a hot air balloon festival before, but after this experience, we're looking forward to next year's already!  One really neat part of the festival was the "Balloon Glow."  I had never heard of this before, but this is how it works.  Once its dark, the balloons all stand up on the ground and the pilots light their flames.  We saw a "twinkle burn" and an "all burn."  See the links below for both videos:

Twinkle Burn: http://youtu.be/sRLIuD5sp-g

All Burn: http://youtu.be/Y47k0Px-6ZA

Another thing that made this festival special was the fact that our birthday present to Katelyn this year was going to be a tethered hot air balloon ride if the weather had cooperated, but it didn't, so she happily settled for a couple carnival rides at the festival instead.  We'll try for the balloon ride again next year...

Fun in Galveston (and a few other places!)

We recently took a trip to Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston to celebrate my mom's retirement at her last annual meeting!  What fun!  Below are the pictures I took, but I'm also including a link to some pictures that my sister Jessica took (which include more of my mom's retirement festivities)!

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=5cdf1ce6919967b8&sid=0Cat2LZmyYsWQX

Katelyn and Daddy walking on the beach (the humidity kept fogging up my camera lense!)

Sonic has half-price shakes after 8 p.m., so we took advantage of that as a special treat one night!

Our accommodations were AMAZING!  My mom's staff really wanted to make the stay special for her and her family, so we had a huge parlor area connecting our room with my parents' room.  Above is Anna enjoying breakfast at the head of the table!

The hotel had so many fun (and free!) activities for kids to do!  One of those was a bounce house...Katelyn and Anna really enjoyed it!

Looking at fish in the pond of the hotel lobby with Great Granny and two cousins

Ready for the pool!

Dinner at Bubba Gumps on Pleasure Pier

We also had a few stops before we got to Galveston though.  We stopped in Palestine and had lunch with some friends of ours who just moved out there.  They are enjoying some real country living...Their neighbors even had some horses that the girls got to see when we drove up!

  

  

Katelyn enjoying her new piggy bank that Rose and Harry gave her for her birthday

After eating lunch in Palestine, we drove to Beaumont to see my grandmother (my dad's mom--we call her "mom") for two nights.  It had been almost a year since we visited her, so it was great to spend some quality time with her!

Leaving Beaumont and on our way to Galveston, we stopped in downtown Houston to meet a friend of mine (and former co-worker), Anna-Catherine, and her little boy Parker for lunch in a very fun area called Discovery Green.  If you are ever around downtown Houston (especially if you have kids!), you should stop for a visit!