Spring Break - Monday

Spring Break is turning out to not be very "spring-y." Monday was in the 40's and got as warm as low 60's. By afternoon, Trey was tired of being inside. He bundled Coee up and took her "mudding" on the ride-on tractor. He is a great big brother and the two of them do especially well playing together outside.

This is what Dillon spent his first official day of Spring Break doing...stayed on the couch in his pajamas, watching t.v.

The "Mudder's"

Time Out

This is where Coee was at 8:00 am this morning. She got herself in to a time out because she refused to come to me so I could change her diaper. I'd say "come here". She would respond with "No!" Finally, I said "Okay, then go to time out." The boxes were in her normal time out spot so she responded with "boxes!" I told her to just sit beside them. She did. She had no problem putting herself in time out, just did not want her wet diaper changed.

Can't you see the defiance in her eyes and crossed arms?

This is when she was so mad she wouldn't look at me. Yes, she has two different color socks on. I had two of the same, but she took one off and added the second color. Personality plus!

Spring Break & Mess of The Day

We went to St. Louis for the weekend to kick off Trey and Dillon's Spring Break. It's a good thing, because it is 39 degrees and rainy today. It was a perfect day for the zoo on Saturday and the spring flowers were beautiful. Coee's favorite animals were the monkeys. I think Trey and Dillon liked watching the sea lions best. Their favorite part of the weekend, however, was getting to see our former neighbors; Andrea, Amanda, Jimmy and Ellen. Amanda is six months younger than Trey and Dillon. We lived there when Trey, Dillon and Amanda were around 3-5 years old and moved away five years ago. These kids are friends FOREVER...they jump right in to playing together just like they see each other every day. Trey and Dillon spent the night there Saturday night and Amanda went to the Magic House with us on Sunday. They opted to leave the Magic House a little early so that they could have a little time to play in the creek with Amanda before heading home. We have plans for Amanda and Andrea (if she wants to come - she is 13 now) to spend some time with us this summer.

In addition - I have included a picture of Coee's "Mess of The Day." It's still early, so this probably won't be the only one.

Birthday party, anyone?

Coee used to like having her picture made. Now it just always looks like she is getting ready to go somewhere.

Trey and Dillon watching the sea lions.

On the move.


Great photo op with the pretty tulips. Again, it looks like Coee is heading out...

Another Typical Day

For those of you that see us, talk to us, facebook with us, etc., you know that Coee is a "BUSY" girl. Here are just a couple of pictures of the things she got in to today. However, I did not think to take pictures of the SEVEN works of art she created on our kitchen floor yesterday - with a SHARPIE, no less. I was shocked to discover that they came up pretty easily when I found the first four, and even more shocked when I discovered the additional three a few hours later!!
She helped herself to some icee pops. Unfortunately, they hadn't been frozen yet. Notice the green drops splashed up all over the cabinet.

and, of course all over the floor. As much as she spills and I clean up after her, we should have the cleanest floors in Calipari-land. Oh yeah...her next move was to get on her stomach and LICK the popcicle off of the floor!! Nice.

She LOVES to walk around in these shoes, and does a pretty good job of it too. She had walked in them all the way from our closet to the kitchen. Trey and I taught her the finer points of Easter egg hunting tonight too. That was after he took her outside to go "muddin" on the little ride-on tractor. She loved it. And what outfit is complete without a splash of color from a rope?

Coee Fashion 101

Haven't you heard? The "one shoulder" look is the fashion this season. Here is Coee modeling HER interpretation. (and yes, she has had her hair combed today - twice.)

Birthday & Motorcycles

Trey and Dillon had their tenth birthday party at our house. It was scheduled for (what turned out to be) during the ice storm, so we rescheduled it for a couple of weeks later. They all had a great time.

We had all agreed several months ago that, for their tenth birthdays, we would split the cost of dirt bikes with them. Part of the fun was searching for them, but Terrell and the boys were pretty good at locating the bikes. One came from near Henderson, KY and the other came from TN. They have adapted to riding them very well and are having a great time riding most every day. The only down side is that we have plenty of trails for them to ride on through the woods. However, the ice storm has made them impassable. It's going to take alot of work to get the trails cleared of storm debris (i.e. limbs and tree tops) so that they can ride them. It will happen, though.

Green Belts!

Dillon and Trey have been taking Tae Kwon Do for almost two years now. They attend classes two nights a week and have recently graduated from orange belts to green belts. Here are some shots of their belt testing/graduation. We are very proud of them!!

Dillon receiving his green belt.

This is THE kick that Trey broke his three boards with.

This is THE kick that Dillon broke his three boards with.

Doing their forms.

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today we woke up earlier than Trey and Dillon have ever raised their heads and headed to the Nashville airport. We spent the day in airports and airplanes. We headed towards China to meet and bring Coee home. What a trip. What a year it has been!

Coee is a very very active little girl, always in to things. But that is another whole post all by itself. She talks A LOT and is putting words together to form sentences very well. She has never met a stranger, except for Santa Claus. I don't think she will be sitting on his lap this year.



She is a girly girl. She loves purses and new outfits. When I put a new outfit on her, she heads to my bathroom saying "irra!" (Mirror) "irra!" She loves to look at herself and her new outfit in the mirror.


She was a flower girl at my cousins wedding last week. She went down the aisle in a wagon, being pulled by the "senior" flower girl and the ring bearer. She did very well. She danced ALL night. She had a great time at the reception. Cake and dancing. (She seriously loves cake...dances when she hears the word cake.) Her rendition of the Happy Birthday song goes like this: "Happy Birthday woo hoo. Happy Birthday woo hoo. Cake!"


Coee got a jump on the season and decorated cookies the day after Thanksgiving with her Meme, brothers and cousins. She really liked the icing. The cookie was simply a dipping tool.


This girl is true to her heritage. She seriously gets on a natural high when she eats Chinese food. We took her out to eat last night. This is her finishing up her THIRD bowl of egg drop soup. She was giddy; lauging, saying "hewo" to everyone in the restaurant, screaming. Hyper.

It has been an amazing year. Terrell and Dillon have brought up the blog over the past week and "relived" our trip. I've heard many laughs and giggles coming from the computer from both of them.

Me and my brother

Coee loves to play outside with her brothers. A few Saturdays ago, Trey was playing in our pile of rocks which are left over from building the house. Coee was there with him and he thought she needed some boots to play in the rocks. We hunted down the boots that we have bought for her for this winter. They are boys boots with light up footballs, baseballs and soccer balls. They proceeded to play in the rocks for quite some time. Too cute.

Oh my - Am I behind

Hello! We are still here. Boy, do we have a lot to catch up on!! Trey and Dillon have been practicing and playing football 3-4 days/week since late July, so that has taken up a lot of our time. Coee did great at the hour and a half practices- much better than I expected. We took toys and food and drinks and more food, and I only had to chase her across the field during one of the very last practices. She loved it and it was actually nice to have that down and outdoors time built in to our week. I do better with structure so I am now having to readjust to having some free time during the week. It's not easy, on anyone.

Coee is great. She is saying just about anything you ask her to and is even putting two and three words, as well as families, together. We say the word "Caitlin" and she proceeds to list off Neil, "Nonya", "Paigse", Morgan and Leo (the dog). She knows they all belong together! Her last baby tooth pushed through over the weekend. She is loud and talks non-stop, sometimes saying the same word over and over and over again (for example; mommy!) She loves to go. She does not love the church nursery. She is quite independent. When we got home one night, she was hungry. I was putting things away in the refrigerator so the door was open. Before I knew it, she had the "loney" (balogna is one of her favorites-yuck) and cheese out and was putting it on her little table. She fixed her own snack!

Coee's First Fourth of July

Coee experienced her first Fourth of July, which is always marked by a golf cart parade through Terrell's parents lake neighborhood. This year was bigger than normal, probably around 150-200 people. After the parade, we all gather at the pavilion and have yummy homemade ice cream and desserts as well as games. Unfortunately, this is the first year that we have walked away without any bragging rights (unless you count Jill's "most egged" award after the egg toss contest).

Kendra, Paige, Coee, Jill, Carson and Cameron.

Our "float" entry. Don't overlook Terrell's COOL hat!

Trey and Dillon are silly-stringing the retiree spectators.

The "Grand Poo-bah" making his victory lap.

An apple with Dillon

Coee loves apples. You can literally just hand her a whole apple, and she will eat it until it is almost gone. I found her and Dillon having an apple snack on the couch on this day. She thinks that she is one of them. She an Trey have even started fighting "like brother and sister." It usually starts because he is trying to protect her ( a bit of a mother hen) and she doesn't like it. She even grabbed him by the nose with her sharp little finger nails once and gave him a bloody nose.

Trey and Dillon continue to love her with more passion and compassion than we ever expected. Dillon even recently told a friends mom "Life is not worth living without Coee."

Fun Day at Meme's

We went to Meme's house for a fun day last week. She invited all of her grandkids and told the "big boys" they could bring friends. We ended up with five nine year olds; Ethan, Baily, Dillon, Trey and Landon. We spent a large part of the day watching them riding the tube. We also put up a huge water slide, had corn dogs, snow cones and funnel cakes. It was a really fun day. (As we say over and over; poor kids. They don't get to do anything fun. :))

Tubing

They liked the rough waves.

Tristan and Coee having lunch.

Great Grandma's Girl

Coee's middle name is Catherine, after my maternal Grandmother ("Grandma"). There have been many many times that I have wished that Coee could have met Grandma, and Grandma could have met Coee. I know what she would have done. She would have sat and watched her with her hands over her mouth. She would have held her and rocked her, and loved her. She would have made those noises she made playing with Trey, Dillon and Ethan. She would have LAUGHED at her, because she is really funny.

Tonight, we went to a 50's Classic Diner event at church. The choir sang music from the 50's through the 80's. The Blues Brothers were there, as was Elvis. We had cheeseburgers and hot dogs and COKES in the old fashioned GLASS bottles. Coee decided she wanted the last of Dillon's so we let her turn it up for a "swig" - as Grandma termed it. Grandma always had glass bottled cokes in her refrigerator. There is no telling how many cokes she drank in her life time! When Coee turned that bottle up tonight, I so wished that Grandma could have been here to see her namesake do what she did so many times in her life. It brought a tear to my eye, and does again as I type.

We miss you Grandma!

Life's a Beach

We just returned from a little less than a week in Orlando, FL. We traveled there for a family reunion and had a great time. Coee met a lot of cousins that she hadn't met and Trey and Dillon were very happy to get to spend time with all of them. We were able to spend two days at a beach condo (Thanks Todd and Meghan!) so Coee has now swam in the ocean as well. She loved it and surprisingly didn't mind the sand. Here a few pictures from our trip:

Too cute in Mommy's hat.

Trey and "Little Cousin Ethan"

Checking the sand out for the first time.

Who are these boys and why are they growing up so fast?! I've resorted to methodically patting Dillon on the head several times a day in effort to curb the growth! :))

Cameron, Dillon, Morgan and Trey
"Morgan's Posse"

Day at The Zoo: More Pictures

Monkey see. Monkey do.

Meme & Tristan

Three Amigos.

The Hippos put on the best show of the day.
The four of them were very active and fun to watch!