There is a new Bindel coming to town

Kate and Mary Clare have a new cousin. Uncle Coach and Aunt Carlye welcomed their new precious gift from God Sarah Jane Bindel on March 3,2009. The girls and I took Granda down to Grand Prairie last Saturday to visit. WE can't wait for the Bindel's to move here this summer!

I love this picture of Carlye, Sarah Jane and Georgia.

BCFs!
These two cousins are going to be inseparable pretty soon!

Granda has six granddaughters under the age of 3. Here she is with four of them - Georgia, Mary Clare, Kate, and Sarah Jane. Hopefull we'll get a pic of all six soon!

Lemony Lunch

A couple of weeks ago we went to lunch at Parkway. Mary Clare had never had a lemon, so I let her try it. Kate LOVED lemons and even after all of her face twisting, Mary Clare does too! Kate wanted to have more lemons so she could see her face "wrinkle up".

School for Little People Mothers Night

I can't believe Mothers Night was two weeks ago! Here are pictures of Kate and some of her friends at school. We had a great time! We made necklaces, pictures, went to music class where they sang us a song, and had story time! We love SLP!

Here is Mrs. Connel with Kate, Marisa, and Presley. Mrs. Connel has been teaching at SLP for over 13 years and we are so blessed to have her as Kate's Pre-K teacher! She does an amazing job with all the children. Kate came home the other day teaching me colors in Spanish. I hope Mary Clare has her as well.

Christopher, Parker, John and Kate are holding flowers that they are about to give to the moms. Mrs. Connel bought white carnations and asked the children to pick which color they wanted the flower for their mother to be. They then did a mini-science project where they put dye in the cup of water for each individual flower. We had a lot of blue carnations!

Parker's shirt expressed his feelings for his mom Kim at Mothers night.

Some of Kate's favorites - John & Presley!

WeHOP to IHOP

Our friends - The Pitts family - go to IHOP almost every weekend. Occasionally we join them. Here are some pictures of our last breakfast. They have the same waitress every week, and she is so doting on the kids. Notice how the table next to our booth is empty? I would assume it's like that on purpose with all of four of the kiddos there! The kids have a great time and the meal isn't bad either!

Mary Clare scoping out Elizabeth before they tackle their pancakes.

Luke & Kate trying to pull some smooth moves to get past Sarah to go check out the cars.

Another fave - Luke and Kate like to stare out the big windows after breakfast and look at all of the cars in the parking lot. That's probably another reason why that extra table is left empty.

Luke and Kate tearing up some pancakes!

Elizabeth coming at me with pancake face! Gotta love it!

Under the weather & blanket Kate

Kate has had it rough the past couple of weeks. She hardly EVER gets sick. Until last week. Last Wednesday night she woke us up because she got sick in her room. Three hours in the sick time waiting room later I found out that she had the flu. She put on her rally cap and bounced back Thursday afternoon, and was well enough to go back to school on Friday. You couldn't even tell she had been sick!

Friday afternoon after playing at school all day she went up to her teacher and said she couldn't play anymore because she did not feel good. She was sick Saturday, felt a little better on Sunday, but didn't show any signs of improvement on Monday. SO BACK to the sick time waiting room and 3 hours later I find out she has pneumonia in her left lung. YUCK! So this is what she pretty much did for the rest of the day....lay around and watch tv. She was upset that Mary Clare was still at school so she asked me to cover her up with her "born" blanket. What's the born blanket you ask?? Kate's reply to me was, "It's the blanket that Mary Clare got when she was born." (the blankets in the nursery.) Sometimes kids pick up on more than we realize.
Our prayers are answered and Kate is doing better!

Funny Face

Mary Clare's personality is starting to really show! She was chowing down some Mac-n-cheese and green beans the other night when she started making faces. She kept going once I started laughing! She only does it for a split second (faster than the flash on my camera!), but she squints her face up. Every now and then she close her eyes tight soon. I can't explain it very well, and the pictures really don't portray how cute the face she makes is!

For My Georgia Peach

My precious niece Georgia is infatuated with Kate. I LOVE it and I think it is the sweetest thing ever. They have not been able to hang out very often because of their current home in Grand Prairie, but when they do it is almost impossible to separate the two. SOOO when Aunt Carlye and Georgia called looking for Kate and wondering why I hadn't posted any pictures recently I had to get on the ball!!!

The top picture is of Mary Clare just smiling. It has to be a really bad day for MC not to be smiling. That is just what she does, and she does it well. She started crawling two weeks ago and we are so excited! It did just take up the craziness in our house to another level.

Kate and Mommy were having play time while I was waiting for the dinner to finish cooking. Kate LOVES playdough! We're going to buy (or I guess I need to learn how to make) a whole lot when Georgia moves here!




MC loves wearing sunglasses!

If you noticed my previous blog, I commented on the fancy shoes that Kate loves to wear. Here she is baking cookies in her heels! Maybe she is going to be the next Bree Van de Kamp?

I was blessed to be able to grow up with my cousins here in Wichita Falls, and to this day I have the closest relationship with a lot of them. I am sad that 90% of my nieces and nephews live in other towns because the girls always have so much fun playing with them! I am looking forward to our trip to Austin in May. Kate is going to be so excited to see Miss Caroline and her new cousin Mary Elizabeth. I can't wait to get a picture of the two "Mary" girls together!

I am so glad that God has guided Marc and Carlye here for Marc to starting coaching football. Carlye said it perfectly when she ended a little note she wrote us with this: "The best is yet to come." That's right my dear SIL. It is.