BFF's

Katherine's two best friends are Robert and Ben. It's a good thing because their mom's are two of my best friends too. I love that we often call one another at about 9am to see what is going on that day. Janna and I do a lot of spontaneous things because we both hate to be home all day. A week or so ago I was planning to meet Sara, Eden and Simon at the park. Janna called to see what we had planned so they joined us too. I thought this photo of Katherine and Robert was so cute. He is trying to hold her hand and she is trying not to (good job, keep those boys at a distance). He is only 2 months older but look at how much taller he is. I was amazed at the fact that Katherine could navigate this apparatus on the playground but she did it over and over.
This week Robert spend an entire day with us (8:15-4:15) while his mom and dad had a commitment. We had so much fun. Robert is such a well behaved and respectful boy. I realized that though Katherine is much smaller, she is kind of the bully at times. We need to work on that. I bought Katherine some watercolors at the dollar store the other day and so we brought them out for craft time. Katherine loves doing crafts so we try to do one every day. You can see that she things all paints should be finger paints. I discovered that I really enjoy having the video monitor in Katherine's room for play dates. They were able to play independently while I cleaned the kitchen and prepared lunch. I was able to see and hear what they were doing. It was so cute. They were pretending to take a nap. Why is it that kids who do not like to nap love to pretend to nap? Anyway, Katherine would lay down and Robert would tuck her in. Then they would trade. Here is the conversation I heard.
K: Night night, I love you.
R: I love you too.
K: I am going to shut your door all the way. Don't get out of bed. I mean it.
Hmm, I guess that is what I say?

The adventure of the day was having two kids who are mostly potty trained. My goal was to have a day with no accidents. It was quite a different experience to take a little boy who stands to do his business to the toilet. I wasn't quite sure how much to help or if he would aim well or make a huge mess. It was fine. At lunchtime my mom, one of her best friends Linda, her daughter Karen (whom I grew up with) and Karen's daughter Kaitlyn who is Katherine's age joined us. It was all sorts of fun and chaos. At one point the kids were in Katherine's room while the adults were still eating. Karen and I decided to go check on them and found out that in the 5 minutes they were alone all 3 went poop. I am proud that Katherine took care of her business in her potty all. by. herself!

Madi and I have to be a little more scheduled in order to get together because that girl is BUSY between grad school, work and ministry. She is a sports trainer and PE teacher at a local school and every day her schedule is different. On Mondays she only has to be at school for a short time and it is right when Ben naps so often he will nap at our house.
This week Katherine did not like that Ben was going to nap in her princess sleeping bag so she proceeded to crawl into it so that he could not. They decided they both wanted to be in the sleeping bag to take a nap together. There was much silliness and giggling but no sleeping. Luckily Katherine has two princess sleeping bags so they each had one in their own room and they took great naps. Katherine has wanted to nap on her floor in her sleeping bag ever since. I have let her and this will be a great skill when we go to Grammy's house.
After nap we painted (notice the common theme). This time we actually did use finger paints so they could use brushes or fingers. Ben does not like messes so he used his brush and was a little concerned at the mess Katherine was making.

We finished our afternoon by watching Veggie Tales. You know Ben is a great friend because Katherine was actually willing to share her chair with him. Aren't they cute?