Not Quite Two Weeks

It's a record. Blogged 8 times consistently, randomly disappeared, and only took two weeks to blog again. Shortest blog break... EVER. :o)

These two weeks in pictures? Sounds good to me!

Yes. Her sunglasses are on upside down. Yes. She only has on one boot. Yes. Little is pushing Big on the tricycle. Yes. We are all in the bathroom having family time. Whatevs... 

Yes. The stick horses still provide hours of entertainment. No. She doesn't have a pacifier every moment of the day. Yes. Big was reading and too cool to play. Yes. My child appears to be a little awesome with her Mickey Mouse back pack OR my gloves.  It's called diversity.

No. Lily did not eat a.l.l. the snow. Yes. She tried. Yes. They had a blast. No. We don't know what Alice was doing, but it was accompanied with "three, four, five" and then followed up by the most awkward pause ever. 

No. Lily wasn't as sad as she looked. Yes. Lucy thought it was the best. day. ever. Yes. Josh is letting them sled on an oil drip pan that is no longer a magnet board because it became a sled. The many lives of? Absolutely.

Yes. We are apparently practicing diapering Baby. Yes. All the things fit on little fingers. Yes. If you try hard enough, you, too, can be like your big sister. Yes. It is *that* exciting.

Yes. We all managed to be still and quiet, on the bed, at the very same time. No. Moonshine did not come play. Yes. Josh was still studying. Yes. That is one happy Momma.

Yes. We totally crashed out at the Steff's for a couple days thanks to the snow, and the girls had a blast. Yes. They are eating slushie's made out of ice cream. No. I do not have a picture of Lily and Lucas putting out fires, but I will rectify that upon writing one of the next 200 posts.  Yes. Almost everyone Alice loves is in that wagon. No. Lily wouldn't fit, too.

Yes. These lovely ladies had a shower for Sam last night. Yes. Lots of fun was had by all. Yes. Lots of chocolate covered strawberries were eaten. Yes. There was lots of laughter. I am so very glad to know these women and have them in my life. They are why, almost two years later, I am still *sort of* sane. 

Yes. These faces were made at my baby shower. Yes. The biggest one would have gotten posted by someone else had I not posted, so I decided to own it. Yes. We really had an awesome time and Sammer got some awesome gifts. 

My three loves. Lily, Alice, and Sam. Alice was a funny pokey baby, Sammer is huge, and Lily wasn't a selfie. Rock on, Lily. 

Hopefuly, in four days I will have baby pictures to post instead of belly pictures. Sammer is scheduled to be here on Tuesday, and I can't wait. I look forward to meeting him and snuggling his squishy little self. I'll do my best to not take two weeks to put up another post, but as per usual... no promises! I've got this little life I really like to live, and sometimes there just isn't time! 

I hope you are all staying warm!

Wear your seat belts!

-katie jo

Queen For A Day

We all knew though, right?

I knew. 

Anywho! 

The girls got a new two seat stroller and loooove it. 

I I had to bribe Alice to get her out of it. 

We had lots of fun at Uncle Ben's birthday party! 

We even got to stay up late and watch videos. 

Uncle Ben was very surprised, and a fun time was had by all! We know that if 30 started out this awesome, it will continue to completely rock for him! 

Lastly, remember. She's a princess. That is your big take-away from this post. 

Happy Saturday! 

Wear your seat belts! 

-katie jo

We Don't Do Ponytails

My oldest child doesn't do ponytails. She doesn't like bows or braids or headbands. She doesn't like anything to get in the way of her crazy mess of hair being free to be a crazy mess. However...

Yesterday Miss Lily let me put this little braid in her hair right before lunch. She left it in until after dinner!! Baby steps, people. We are proud!

Alice loves a ponytail, but we were about to have a bath, so hers was already out. 

I gave up trying to convince these girls to let me fix their hair a looooong time ago. 

Lucy... We could put bows on the bat ears... Maybe... For a second... Hmmmm

Anyway... Think healthy baby soon thoughts for me! 

Wear your seat belts!

-katie Jo

Showered in Happy

Let me just tell you a little about my Sunday. It started out with two very sweet girls on the couch before church with all of their babies. We LOVE our babies around here. 

The Potter clan made it to church early for the first time in about a year. Yes, yes. We rock. After services we had a wonderful potluck down in the guildhall. If I look huge in that picture... It is because I am HUGE. We also had our annual parish meeting. It always runs smoothly when there is enough wine. HAHAHA Just kidding guys. (Or am I?)

There was also a baby shower right in the middle of all that good food and yearly reporting. We are constantly blessed by the wonderful people at St. Mary's. My favorite Natalie ever made the most awesome-mouth-staining-bigger-than-blue cupcakes, and I really wish I had gotten a picture of the girls all stripped down in the Gulid Hall eating them like it was the last sweet they would ever have. It was wonderful. I'm so glad to know these people and to have them as part of my life. 

The Potter Clan has been quarantined for a week because we all had the flu. Sunday was our first outing, and we were all excited to get out that afternoon to have dinner with the Steff's. No pictures of the actual outing... We were too busy having good food and conversation with good friends. 

Monday was a whole different story! I was flat on my butt all day long. I couldn't sit, stand, or lay down by myself. It was... Miserable. 

Hubbs took Lily to Joy School. It was "U & V" day. OHMY. There were apparently underpants, valentines, and volcanoes! What fun! That girl LOVES Joy School. 

While Lily was in Joy School, Alice and Daddy had breakfast together! They don't get the opportunity to hang out alone much, and I think they had a super fun time! 

Later that day after Hubbs and our friend Lauren worked on me, things started looking up. The girls rocked out playing with their happy-christmas lacing cards. Their Nea Nea gets them great gifts! 

There was some obligatory crawling on Mom's massage table. The most hilarious bit of this whole adventure was that I couldn't get a happy shot of Alice to save my life... Then I realized that Lily was either blurry or making the weirdest faces. They were hysterical up there. It is funny how sometimes you just don't get that shot. Nikki and Hubbs on the other hand... content. Totally content. 

That's our last couple of days in a nut shell. I count it a success. I hope you all had a happy weekend!

Monday is past!

Wear your seat belts!

-katie jo

The Little Things

Some days should just be about enjoying the little things. We really enjoyed lunch today.

It is all the easier when you have this friendly guy promising you cookies if you are a good eater. 

We are very good eaters. 

We hope you enjoyed the little things, too. We also hope you were a good eater and got a cookie. 

Sweet dreams! 

Wear your seat belts!

-katie jo

Yeee Haw!!

Dude, Dudettes, and Other Awesome People, we got stick horses for Christmas. 

These are not your ordinary run-of-the-mill stick horses. No. These stick horses were hand made with love, blood, and many, many curse words by the best Julie to ever have been a Julie. 

That's right. Stick horses are cool, but anything made by our Julie is automatically 20% cooler and way more fun. These are after all multipurpose stick horses. 

They can give you a ride...

They can move you so quickly that modern technology cannot keep up with your speed...

They can clean the floor while being "taken for a walk..."

They can pretend to be Mulan's cannon that Mushu needs to light to bury the Huns in an avalanche of snow...

Sometimes they get tired and need a piggy-back ride...

They are great listeners...

And they are still the best riding ponies around. 

I hope you all were so fortunate to get such cool things. More than that I hope you are all lucky enough to have your own Julie who provides hours of entertainment via the coolest gifts ever. 

Yee Haw, y'all!

Wear your seat belts!

-katie jo

End of an Era

It's been a big day.

The girls took a break from some intense movie watching to give me a big, "CHEESE!"

They quickly got right back down to business. 

Then we had some rock awesome blueberry-full oatmeal for breakfast. 

We read a new magazine together on the floor. 

...Did some living room stargazing with Dad when he got home. 

Took a selfie while Mom was fixing a snack for us.

Threw a toy for Lucy....

And then my heart broke. 

We sold the Element. 

It truly is the end of an era. While I was cleaning out the vehicle I found a hospital parking stub from when Alice was born, Lily's first vaccination bandaid, the "thank-you" note we received from our realtor when we bought our first house, and a million other little things that made me slightly weepy. 

When I say, "slightly weepy," you should read that to say, "I bawled like a little girl after the nice man came to pick her up."

Her. Her name is Helena Honda. I hope she has many adventures with her new people. I hear she will be selling music-y things at Bonaroo... Adventures, indeed. 

We won't talk about how the Hubbs is handling it... We will just say that some people weep and some people eat. HAHAHA *next post: my sudden divorce? nah. I married a man with a sense of humor*

Also... I was 20% cooler while driving her. Now I drive a van... >.<

I hope you are all warm, cozy, and healthy.

Wear your seat belts.

-katie jo

Year End Report

I keep sitting down to write... Really I do... Then I just don't. Here it is January of 2014, though, and I didn't post once in 2013. It was a busy year. That's not an excuse. It is a statement of fact. More than that, 2013 sucked. 

Don't get me wrong. There were some wonderful things that happened in 2013 and I am gladly and happily going to share the highlights with you in this totally "catch-up-year-end-holy-smokes-that-flew right-by-me" post. There were also things that happened that made this a year I'll be glad never to repeat. 

Where do we begin? January? How novel.

In January it snowed. The girlys thought that was the best thing ever. 

My grandma had surgery and had a softball sized mass removed from her abdomen... creepy, but a total blessing that it was completely benign. We rocked med school. Alice had 4 teeth. Lily embraced a deepseated fondness for her little sister who was finally crawling and a lot more interactive. I learned to make caramels and subsequently my nextdoor neighbor and I became caramel tasting experts. 

February brought Little Miss Lucy into our lives. It also held Alice's first birthday and all the celebration that came along with that. There was cake. There were friends. There was, dare I say, much rejoicing througout the land. Lily-bear thought it was a total gas. Gan and Pop even came to visit... Pretty sure we went to AR too... hmmm Funny how that works out sometimes. 

March was... Remarkable in that Alice finally decided she'd start walking! Woohoo, Alice! Lily was impressed as well... Can't you tell? Josh took a little jaunt up to Washington, D.C. for DO Day On The Hill, and the weather warmed up enough that we could wear our frillies without freezing our tushies. Yeah. I said frillies and tushies. What? Do you know me? I also made some balloon animals... don't judge.

April was outdoorsy. We rocked our first Potter-Party-Of-Four camping trip. It was epic. Lily slept... not at all. Lily slept not at all. It was hilarious! We went to the zoo a couple of times with our besties. We have freaking awesome besties by the way. We went to lots of parks and lots of playgrounds. As for my itty bitty sweetie puppy... Not so itty bitty anymore. She was well on her way to becoming a big ole beastie. 

In May we played in our water table a lot. Any excuse to be outside is a good one after all. We took some baths in the kitchen sink, just because we could. We rocked out Lily's third birthday and sat in awe of how awesome a three year old she was. We did some exploring of ASU's museum while we were visiting the folks and found a rock-tastic children's area that we totally took advantage of, too. 

June... June was absolutely amazing until it became mind numbingly horrible. In June we found out that we were expecting Potter Baby number 3. We were ecstatic. Potter-Party-Of-Five, here we come. Two days later we found out that my brother had been killed in a motorcycle accident. The rest of the month blurred. We went home to Arkansas for the funeral, and I don't really remember much else of the month. 

July was a "pretend to be normal" month. We hid out at the lake for a while and the girls had a blast "swimming." More accurately they put their feet in the water and then wanted someone to hold them the entire time they were anywhere near it. Seriously, we had a lot of fun. We moved into a different house with a very large fenced in yard for Lucy. We also got to see our little Cranberry's heartbeat which was, and continues to be, strong and healthy! We also had the priviledge of celebrating the birth of a dear friend's twin boys. They are still keeping us on our toes, as they were born conjoined and have since been successfully separated. Miles to go still, but miles behind as well!

August. I hated August. We went to the zoo. We ate some watermelon. Those things were fine. Then we unexpectedly had to say goodbye to one of the best men I have ever known. My grandfather passed away, and I am still not quite sure what we are all doing without him. He developed a very aggressive form of cancer, and was only in the hospital long enough to say good bye. I miss that man every. single. day. I don't understand why he hasn't called, and I don't know what to tell my baby when she asks if we are going to see Papa George. Aaaand apparently I can't write any more about this either. All that matters? I loved that man, and he loved me. Big. Mostly... He loved my babies to the moon and back a million times. 

September came. We rocked a petting zoo... We found out our little Cranberry is a BOY! His name will be Samuel, after my grandpa. We went to the zoo with some friends... a lot. We went to the zoo a lot. The girls rode their fist carnival rides at the Craighead County fair in Jonesboro. They loved every minute of it. And Josh... Not a lot of pictures of Josh. Here's two! The girls and I spent a lot of time in Arkansas without him due to one thing or another, but we got lots and lots of quality time while we were all in the same state. 

October we spent with ALL.OUR.FRIENDS!!!! Seriously. If there was a festival, we did it. If there was a pumpkin patch, we did it. If there was an opportunity to eat out, we took it. We channeled all of our energy into spending time with awesome people, making memories. October... it did not suck. Halloween was awesome. Alice went as a "whoo-whoo" and Lily decided back in August that she was going to be a fox. What does a fox say? Glad you asked. In our house foxes say, "oodelaly." That is all. 

In November we hung out with friends watching movies and going out to eat. We also took a quick trip to Arkansas where we got to see Nea and play some piano. We sure were still very aware of how empty our Papaw's chair is without him. In November, the Hubbs, ever super amazing, took the girls to Arkansas and Texas for Thanksgiving. That's right folks... I had 8 entire days of a house all to myself. I honestly can't remember such a vacation. It was MARVELOUS. During my eight days I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner and got to share it with a couple of my very favorite people and also completely rocked out my 30th birthday. By rocked out I mean that one of my dearest friends came over, we ate french fries and ice cream, and watched White Christmas. Does it get better? Doubt it. It was pretty freaking great.

December was... Christmasy. We had breakfast with Santa. We took pictures in front of the big tree down town. Lily was very excited to see Santa this year and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. What did she want? A candy cane. Are we the luckiest parents ever? Yes. We are. No need to ask again. Alice got some awesome things for her babies and they both got rockin' hand made stick horses from their Julie. Yes. Alice is using hers as a broom. Shh. Christmas was very, very good for the Potter tribe. 

There you have the year 2013 in a nutshell. It's a big, long nutshell with lots of pictures, but still fairly Reader's Digest worthy, I think. 

Maybe I'll update sooner next time. Honestly though, I'm having another baby in less than a month. I might update sometime before he graduates high school. If I manage that, I am really going to feel like I am on top of my game. 

I hope you all had a wonderful 2013. I hope your 2014 is even better, though!

Sweet dreams!

Wear your seat belts!

-Katie Jo