Sunday was Kathryn's piano recital. Actually, Jack should have played too, but he had a baseball game instead. Jerry is one of the coaches, so he went to the game too. Thankfully, Kathryn was the fifth person to play. She did a great job! I had Henry and Bridget in the foyer and did my best to try to keep them quiet. A dear friend watched them while Kathryn played, but then we spent the next hour of the recital in the nursery. So while we were in the nursery, we had a bit of a photo shoot. 
What in the world?! It is a Christmas layout in March! What can I say? I am so behind. I had the lofty goals of doing a page a day book in December. Then we got the yuck bug, and the whole thing was shelved. The book was already done, but the pictures needed to be added. Bring in Jennifer...she is doing a scrap simple challenge. Jennifer, I may actually get this book done one Friday at a time! Thanks for all you do! Hope your challenge is a big success!
We waited until Friday night to show the boys their new room. We knew they would be excited, and it was nice to let them just have fun without worrying about school the next day. It was so fun to hear their excitement and watch their faces. They had seen their new beadspreads and knew they were getting bunk beds, but that was it. 
They played in their room all weekend. Jack gets the "upbed" as Henry calls it.
She is eight! When I student taught second grade, those kids seemed so young, so tiny. They were little. Kathryn is now one of them, and she is so old and so big! Time is going by quickly! Here is a brief recap of all of her birthday hoopla.
My parents came down two weeks ago to celebrate Kathryn's birthday and also babysit for us while Jerry and I went to a marriage conference. 
This was the year of the birthday party. The kids get to have a party with friends every other year. Kathryn wanted a Nancy Drew party this year. So we had a case for the girls to solve, and they hunted for clues all over the house. I wrote, "Happy Birthday Detective Kathryn" on her cake with fingerprints on the sides. Kathryn wanted to decorate it too. Mom, thanks for all the years you let me decorate my own cake. Did I start at eight? The OCD part of me had to just step back and let her have fun. She just loved decorating, and I do think it helped her realize why mommy can't whip out a cake like Duff on Ace of Cakes. So that was a plus. 
She gave out Nancy Drew books instead of regular goodie bags. 
It was fun that Valentine's Day was on a Saturday this year! She had a good time. There were no major incidents, but mercy, I think eight might be my limit of kiddos for a party. They made a frame with their initial on it. It was very entertaining to watch and listen to them sing karaoke as the party was ending. After they had cake, they didn't really want to watch the rest of the Nancy Drew movie. So they were singing instead. They were belting out those songs from HSM and Camp Rock and just dancing away. 
Kathryn is our snow bunny. She would play outside for hours and hours. We had three snow forts in the front yard, so the kids played house some and Star Wars most of the time. There was a whole group of first grade Jedi on Hoth in our driveway. 
I can't remember all of the kids ever sitting like this at any other time. Maybe it was just because it was so amazingly cold! :)
Jerry actually shot -15 or so in his car with his phone. It was the first time any of us remember school being canceled because of the cold. Crazy weather! 
