Cakes-a-Lakes turns 2!

So hard to believe that our baby girl just turned two! I have to say it was a wonderful day to share Mother's Day with Katelyn as that sweet reminder of the joy that she brings to my life!

Katelyn is our 29 pound ball of joy! She is known around our house by many aliases; Katelyn, Baby Cakes, Kate, Cakes-A-Lakes, Cakies. In fact if you ask her what her name is 99% of the time you will hear her say "Cakelyn" or "Cakes". I guess we need to start working on that but rest assured she does know her real name as well.

She loves everything Dora right now, just like another two year old I can remember. It's a good thing we've already gone through this phase with one (it's not quite so expensive then)

The first birthday picture of the day was taken with Michael's cell phone so it's not the best but she was pretty happy about waking up to balloons. Yes she is still in her crib and I love it! No attempt to get out and that's where she stays for now :)




Just a little weekend update. It was crazy busy and Friday and Saturday night the girls didn't get to bed until at least 9 or 10. This made for some difficult days when bedtime is usually 7:30. So with that being said, and no nap on Sunday because of church, our little birthday girl kept wanting snuggles ( I was not complaining one bit ).




So for a girl that usually gives blank stares to the camera. She was all smiles that it was her special day. She had been telling everyone that she was almost 2 for so long, and now it was here!




You can actually see her joining in on the Happy Birthday song. She was very familiar with it as she was singing it to herself all week long :)





Some of her favorites, Dora movie, Dora micophone, Dora umbrella




Cakes very rarely falls asleep in the car anymore but as you can see she didn't even make it home. She also didn't let go of her new Dora microphone. It's a good thing she got new pajamas at the party!



Happy Birthday to a little girl who brings smiles and laughter into our lives. We love you!

Easter Fun

Our first Easter egg hunt of the spring was at a playgroup. It had been a constant downpour of rain for the month of April so we were lucky to get a sunny day to do this at the park. This was Katelyn's first real Easter egg hunt and as you can see the grin on her face says it all. Colorful eggs and candy inside them no less, made for two happy little girls. You like the snow boots Katelyn is wearing? Izzy has rain boots but Cakes does not so the next best thing for all the muddy grass was definitely snow boots!



This brings us to Easter morning. Dad snapped a quick picture on the steps before they ran into the kitchen to see if the Easter bunny brought anything for their Easter baskets.





Who knew that socks would make these two SO happy? The Easter bunny did obviously!



This picture is a little bit of organized chaos. All the "Beck" grandchildren on the stairs before charging outside to conquer the Easter eggs. Can you believe there are 13 of them?










and a Happy Easter was had by all!

Butterfly Show

Tricia and I took the opportunity to go with the kids to Krohn Conservatory for the 2011 Butterfly Show. It had been a few years since I had been and I was excited to see how the girls would like it. Izzy thought they were beautiful but she didn't want them coming near her at first. Katelyn was interested but not enough to have one actually land on her.

As you can see in this first picture, they did not want to take their eyes off of the butterfly in fear that it would fly onto them.






I snapped this picture just before she started to show her panic that one had landed on her. She's watching it like a hawk.



Right before we were ready to leave Tricia was holding Isabelle and one landed on her arm. Surprisingly enough she seemed ok with it and then became thrilled that she had a butterfly resting on her arm. Go figure. My thoughts are, that it wasn't actually touching her skin, but landed on her sweater which seemed to make all the difference. Needless to say she was very excited about butterflies from that moment forward.



Izzy, Brandon, Cakes and Abby on the butterfly chair. So cute!

Opening Day

We were fortunate enough to get some last minute tickets to the Cincinnati Reds Opening Day this year. This is only my second time going to Opening Day and it was pretty cold but it was definitely worth it. It's a huge "holiday" in the city of Cincinnati and it was fun to be a part of it again.



We went with our good friends the Blakes as a last hurrah before they moved to Idaho. I was very proud of Whitney for leaving behind her baby for the first time. Best of all, the Redlegs won!