March Madness/Carly is now 2!

Is it just me or did March fly by? It seems like we were crazy busy in March. I must say I am so happy about this beautiful weather, though. What a great springtime we are having! On March 27th, Carly celebrated her second birthday. She likes to think that she is turning four like Kate. She wants to do anything and everything that Kate does! She loves her big sister so much. While Kate is in preschool, Carly will often ask for Kate. At the same time, those girls can get in some fights, but I guess that comes with all siblings. Carly amazes us with her determination and her vocabulary. She has been talking in sentences for awhile now and she is pretty determined when she puts her mind to something. The Pruett's seem to produce happy, and busy girls. They both are go, go, go!!!! Our cup runneth over with the joy they bring us. We will see what happens this third time around.

Below is some of the fun things that we did in March.

On Carly's actual birthday, we went to Amazing Jakes and the four of us had a great time.

After Carly's birthday celebration, we got to enjoy a couple more days with Zack's sister and family. It was so fun and nice to have the Pruett cousins together. My girls look up to them so much! Sweet picture of Lauren and Carly.

Carly, Emie and Lauren having fun with Window Art Markers and crayons.

My parents after the birthday party

Carly loves Sesame Street! Her favorite characters are Elmo, Abby and Zoe. So, I went with a Sesame Street themed party and pretty much narrowed down to Abby and Elmo.

Some of the kids playing in the playroom during the party. What fun and what a mess! Luckily, we had a beautiful night for our party and most of the time the kids were outside. We had her party from 5:00-7:00 pm.

Dad Dad, Uncle Brett and Uncle Michael visiting

Aunt Kamara and Uncle Rod

Aunt Sheri and Uncle Chad

Sweet Harper loved the Elmo cake!

Aubrey and Kate

Justine found the bubbles!

Some of the Pruett cousins sitting together: Cole, Olivia, Bree, Emie and Georgia

I cannot take credit for the cakes this year. I have a friend that makes cakes as a side business and she is incredible! She made an Abby and Elmo cake.

Some family visiting in the living room.

Breanne and Aunt Keari

Carly actually did a perfect job blowing out her two candles. I was impressed!

Sweet Ellee who is just 2 months older than Carly.

Cale

The cakes and the vegetable trays. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the yummy fajitas Zack grilled. We also had cheese, sour cream, queso, salsa, chips, beans, and tortillas of course. My Mom brought some yummy fruit dip and fruit to go with it all. Zack's Mom and sister did an excellent job grilling some onions and peppers on the stove as a bonus.

Kate in her Elmo shirt to go with the theme.

The birthday girl in her Abby shirt.

Aunt Lauren and Mom Mom

Here was the sign-in table

Pictures of Carly throughout her second year along with Sesame Street figurines.

Over spring break, Zack's parents were so generous to let us drop off the girls for a couple of days in Abilene. We came back here and enjoyed sleeping in, relaxing, going to movies, and eating out. It was so nice! The girls seemed to have a great time, too. It was a wonderful gift!

At the start of spring break, we enjoyed a night stay at Embassy Suites in Grapevine with the Cox family. Our room was connected to their room which was really nice. I was so jealous of the hot tub. The pool was soo cold! I got in for a second just to warm up, but it would not be good for baby peanut inside of me. As you can see, Carly wanted to sit in the hot tub for awhile too. It just shows how cold she must have been!

Kate and Carly loved it!

Zack started the amazing project over spring break of taking out our hot tub. We had some good memories in it, but it was costing us too much money to fix it because it was so old. Plus, it was a constant worry with the girls playing outside. I was so impressed with Zack's hard work and his ability to take this on all by himself. He managed to finish it within one week. He will have to go back and paint it, but I was so pleased with how it looked! It is so nice to now be able to let the kids play outside and up on the deck without the stress of the hot tub. I have a great husband! He saved us so much money doing this himself!

Before

Here it is with just the small part of the hot tub at the bottom. He had to cut that out and then layer the wood to fill up the hole before nailing the wood down on the top. It was a long and tedious process of measuring and cutting wood.

Here is the finished product! I love being able to see the girls play on top of the deck!

Easter Pictures coming soon....

What a Weekend!

Before I talk about the weekend, I wanted all of you to know our big news. We are expecting a new addition to our family on Sept. 22, which puts me at 11 weeks pregnant. Kate has been a wonderful big sister for the past almost 2 years; therefore, it is now time for Carly to be a big sister. We told the girls last week, and Kate informed us that she wanted another little sister. Given the Tate family track record, we are pretty sure her wish will come true. Through everything that happened in the fall, we just pray the Lord blesses us with a healthy baby.

We had quite the weekend this past weekend. We had a pretty relaxing Friday night and then Saturday morning, we had a very fun birthday party. Precious Caleb Dunkle turned 4 years old, and we were so happy to celebrate with him. They had a circus type theme with balloon blowing, face painting, cotton candy and a magic show.

Kate chose a pink heart for her face.

Carly chose a red flower.

The Dunkles had many fun activities in their backyard.

Carly loved the cotton candy!

Caleb and his sister Justine watching the magic show

We were quite impressed with Kate when she volunteered to help out with a magic trick.

Here are the balloon animals. They had a red fire truck cake so that is why Kate's mouth looks red. As you can see she really enjoyed it!

Carly's balloon

A special surprise was that the Wylie Fire Department came by the house in their fire truck. We had all donated teddy bears to give them so they came by to pick them up. They were really nice to let us look at everything and show us how everything worked. Caleb loves fire trucks, so it was a hit with him. Here Caleb and Kate are together.

Afterwards, I took Kate and met up with Kamara and Aubrey in Grapevine. Our nephews, Will and Kale are in a Winnie the Pooh play. Will had the lead role of Winnie the Pooh, and Kale was a bee. It was sooo cute! Kate and Aubrey were so in awe of it. Here is Kate, Will and Aubrey. Will has become such a talented actor. I am such a proud Aunt!

Both girls were being a little shy. I think they were kind of starstruck. Kale stole the crowd's attention as the bee.

After the play, Kamara and I bought the girls Sonic slushes and went to a nearby park. As an extra special treat, my parents met us there to spend time with them. We also visited very shortly with Aunt Lori and Breeanne, Tate and Isabelle.
I couldn't believe Kate climbed to the top of this! She did need a little help getting down.

It is so neat to see how these two girls have growing up together and as they are the best of friends.

My Dad told the girls to look up in the trees for the squirrels.

Love it!

On Sunday, we enjoyed some family time and the nice weather outside. The girls wanted to eat their soup for lunch outside with Daddy.

Here is a bonus picture of yesterday. The girls just took it upon themselves to sit in the hallway and write with their babies. It just warms my heart when I see these things happening.