The School Year Is In Full Swing

It's September, and that means one thing: BIRTHDAY FEST has begun! I'm quite proud to say that I kick off the annual parade of September birthdays on September 9th, followed by my friends Laura, Layne, Sarah, and Karen, and Ryan. My sister-in-law, Dawn, and my mother-in-law also celebrate September birthdays. I guess September is just a popular month to be born......... :)

So, I'm officially 26. I'll be honest in saying I don't feel either old or young.......I'm just 26. Dain turns the big 3-0 this March, and I'm more concerned with giving him a hard time about that!

Bailey is almost 3 months old now. She's got what I lovingly call "wild woman hair.' All the smoothing and combing in the world won't keep the hair on top of her head flat. They generally are sticking straight up! I think it gives her character, and lets be honest. If she's anything like her mother, she won't be known for being perfectly neat and groomed with flawless hair. She was baptized the last weekend in August, and Uncle Shane (Hammerschmidt) and Aunt Kelly (Ballard) are acting as God Parents. The weather was great and we had a nice time with all of our family at our house afterwards. She had a bad cold with a cough this past week that had us a little on edge, but the doctor reassured us that her lungs sounded fine. The last day or so she has sounded much better.

Kale is doing great. He is such a good big brother--watching him kiss her and talk nice to her just melts my heart! He is learning a lot at his "school" and spends a lot of time asking what letter things begin with. Last night he was watching "Pretty Woman" with me during the half-time of the KU football game. The scene where Julia Roberts is trying to buy new clothes was on. In the scene, one of the store clerks says something like, "Our clothes are very expensive." "You don't belong here." Kale watched that and looked very seriously at me and said, "They are not being very nice." "They should say, could you please leave?" Moments like that make me wish I had cameras mounted all over my house so I could catch him in action.

Last weekend I took the kids to the Hutch High/Rockhurst football game. Despite the fact that the Salthawks ended up losing by a touchdown, I was VERY impressed. They should have a very successful year. After the game, my nephew Kaden came to spend the night. He is so cute, I just want to kiss his chubby little cheeks non-stop! He did a great job, and didn't even cry when he woke up the next morning in a strange house. Kale and Kaden played and played-- their two favorites are races between the front door and back door and wrestling on the floor. Dear little Kaden gets left in the dust during the races (he is only about 1 1/2 compared to Kale at 3 1/2) nonetheless, he keeps chasing after Kale with a smile on his face. On the flip side, Kaden does usually dominate the wrestling matches!

Dain's in full swing coaching football. His 5th grade team looks to be pretty good if they can avoid injuries :) I've starting helping with running club at my school, and tutoring will start in a couple of weeks as well. Things are good as we roll along towards October. I can't believe it's almost time to start getting Halloween costumes ready! I'm still coming up with ideas for the kiddos, so if you've got a good one, let me know!

God Bless you all!

I Knew This Would Happen...

See.....I'm already behind. It's August, and my last post was about the 4th of July!



Here we go.....

Kale is doing great. He is back at "school" now (that's what we call his daycare). In his defense, Miss Erin, his teacher, does pre-school curriculum with them. He brings home some WONDERFUL art projects. We're working on the concept that not every single picture you make has to go on the fridge, only "special" ones. Kale says all of his pictures are special. How can you argue with that??



Bailey is now almost 2 months old. I know every mom says it, but I can't believe it's been two months. Maybe in two more months I'll be getting a full night's sleep again. Hey, a girl's got to dream, right? She is smiling and cooing and wrapping her Daddy around her finger a little more every day. There had been some debate about who she looked like, but after a recent comparison to one of my baby pictures it's official. She's a mini Katie. I'm not giving out hope that she'll get Dain's blue eyes, though.



Dain and I went on a mini-vacation last weekend. Our big destination????? Kansas City! You'd think I'd be embarrassed to say that, but you've gotta take what you can get! We went see Brad Paisley at the Sprint Center on Friday night, then stayed at the Westin Crown Center. The next day we slept in. Let me repeat that....SLEPT IN!!! (That was actually one of the highlights of the weekend) That afternoon we did some shopping, then went to the Royals game. It was about 110 degrees, but they actually won, so it was pretty fun. That night we went to dinner in the Power and Light District and hung out with some friends.

All of our fun and excitement was made possible because my parents graciously came up and stayed with the kids. Actually, they were in charge of a 3 1/2 year old, a 7 week old, a fat cat, and a blind dog (we were "dog sitting" Jack, Brett and Kelly's blind lab). In typical grandparent form, they took the kiddos to the fair, left our fridge stocked with food, and even offered to do some laundry. I'm still wondering why I told them not to worry about the laundry...

It may be a while until I post again; I start back to work on Tuesday, and students start the 18th, so I'm sure things will only get busier. Dain is coaching football again, this year taking on the fifth grade team. In my "spare" time I help with the running club at my school and do some tutoring. Somewhere between all of that I'll have to find time to post again.

Hope everyone is enjoying the last few days of summer as much as I am!!!!! I promise to post some pics asap!

4th of July

Where does the time go? Has it already been 3 1/2 weeks since Bailey joined our family? I guess so! Not too much excitement around here. We had a great 4th of July at Dain's parents' farm. The whole Hammerschmidt crew was there, plus a few extras. I think Kale ran about 10 miles chasing his cousins around the farm!! He really liked the idea of fireworks, but the "big" ones scared him a bit. As a matter of fact, after watching Dain shoot off a few fireworks at our house on the Thursday before the 4th, Kale asked if we could "just throw the big ones in the trash." Needless to say, his favorites were the smoke bombs, sparklers, and parachute men (all nice and quiet)!

BIG Update

I no more than get this thing set up (I haven't even sent anyone the link yet), and I'm already behind!! Miss Bailey Anne Hammerschmidt joined us June 15th at 9:48 in the morning. She was 6 lbs 12 oz, and 19.5 inches. As predicted, she "stole" Father's Day from Dain. Isn't that the way children work?? It is after all their world, we just live in it :)

After a smooth labor and delivery, we were back home a day later, and since then, all is going well. We are still a little sleep-deprived, but that's to be expected. Kale has been great, and Bailey is for the most part a very laid back baby.

My parents came up this past weekend to help out while Dain played in a flag football tournament. His team went 2-1 the first day, then battled back from the loser's bracket to win second place!! He has a very nice medal to show for it.....and extremely sore muscles. I'm not sure he's ready to play tournaments like that every weekend, but from what I can tell he did a great job. Mom and Dad were really helpful and I am so appreciative of them making the trip. It is more than amusing to watch my dad play with the grandkids. I'm pretty sure he's the proudest grandpa around!!

First Blog

Alright Kelly, this is your fault. My sister-in-law has been telling me to start a blog for a while now. I can't guarantee that I'll be great at keeping it up-to-date, but I'll try!

Let's start with where we're at today.....
Dain, Kale, and I moved to Eudora in May after finally selling our "house on the hill" (those who saw our old driveway can appreciate that). We LOVED living in Lawrence, but the move puts me just 5 minutes from work, and cuts Dain's drive down significantly. We are still just about 10 minutes from all of our friends and family in Lawrence. The new house is great; I still have one box of "odd and ends" that I just can't get motivated to empty....I'm guessing that means the stuff inside is junk and should be thrown away......maybe tomorrow :) Aside from a couple of rooms that need to be repainted, the we are completely settled and enjoying our flat backyard!

Kale is three now (crazy, huh?), and I couldn't ask for a better little boy. He amazes me (and cracks me up) everyday. Right now he is really into Brandon Rush and Jake Sharp (KU basketball/football players). Everything we do seems to relate back to them and whether or not they would do it. For example, a normal conversation goes something like this:
Me: Please don't throw your Lego's.
Kale: Why?
Me: Because you might break them or something else.
Kale: Brandon Rush throws Legos.
Me: No, he doesn't. He only throws basketballs to his teammates.
Kale: But he could throw Lego's.
Me: No, he doesn't.
Kale: Because his mom would send him to thinking time?
Me: Yes.
Kale: Ya. I'm not going to throw Lego's, either.

Repeat this conversation about twenty times with various topics, and you have a normal day for Kale and I now that I'm done with school for the year.

Miss Bailey Anne should be joining us any day now. Her official due date is June 23rd, but we have an unofficial agreement that she will come sooner because I'm feeling like a giant, pale, beached whale. I think Dain is ready for her to come just so that he won't have to listen to me whine and moan anymore! He is predicting that she will come on Sunday (Father's Day) to "steal" his day, or next weekend b/c he is supposed to be playing in a flag football tournament for his work.

I could write on and on and on about everything else going on in the family, but I'll save that for another day.