The Koetter's: Friends

I know I have said it before, but I feel like the Lord has really blessed this season of my life with some really good friends. Not only for Lyla, but for me. As Katherine, the person.

And you know what? This is a season of life where I need friends. I cannot imagine being on the journey of being a mommy without good friends. Friends who care. Friends I can talk to. Friends who pray for me.

Two weekends before Easter, we celebrated one of those friend's little girl. Hannah Vaccaro turned THREE! And I am only using her last name because there are two Hannahs in Lyla's life. And they are both in the same circle of friends. And they both turned three within a week of each other. It was so fun getting to celebrate them. I have pictures from Hannah Vaccaro's pinkalicious party, but for some reason my camera never made it out of my bag at Hannah McKelvey's princess party. For that I am very sad because all of our princesses were dressed up like princesses (and the boys like princes) and it was great fun. Hannah McKelvey's party was the weekend before Easter.

Lots of cute PINK food!

Enjoying her treats!

The two Hannahs and Heather.

Sweet Hannah McKelvey checking things out.

Will and Lyla still enjoying their food.

Cupcake time! And yes, she only ate the icing.

Hannah did not want us singing Happy Birthday to her, so we didn't. And you know what? Those cupcakes still tasted great!

The Birthday girl!

Enjoying her day!!

And her cake!!

The two Hannahs, such sweet friends!

Matt wants in on the action.

Sweet Katherine in her pink!

We had such a great time at both birthday parties and are so thankful for these sweet little friendships! I love how much they love each other and how well they all get along! And I just have to remember how much of a little performer Lyla is. Heather had a little karaoke machine for Hannah's princess birthday and of course it was playing all the great Disney songs. Heather had even made this little dance floor for the kids out in the garage to dance on. It was so cute....kicking myself that I did not take pictures. Anyway, the music came on and guess who was the first to grab the microphone, start singing and dance on the dance floor?? Yup, my child. She loves that kind of stuff. Definitely as far from my personality as you can get, but not her!! She LOVES it! Guess where she gets that from?? And yes, Hannah McKelvey does not mind the spotlight every once in awhile, so she did let us sing happy birthday to her and she got to blow out the candles on her amazing princess cake. Literally shaped like a princess.

Another friend we don't get to brag on quite as often (and I think that's because I never have my camera out) is sweet Eva. Lyla and Eva have known each other since birth, since Eva's birth. I am not even sure how to describe their relationship.

The funniest is Bryan (Eva's dad) coming up from the basement during one of our play dates. He walked into the room where Eva and Lyla were both in tears, screaming and asked "This is a play date??".

They have a hard relationship.

They fight. They hit. They yell. They take each other's toys. They cry.

But they love each other. They are real. They are learning to work it out.

They hug. They kiss. They are excited to see one another.

They are like us. Sinful people in need of forgiveness constantly. And you know what? Each one willingly offers that forgiveness. every.single.time. Such an awesome visual for me. Cause probably if I had a friend, who every time we got together, it was that hard, we would not be friends.

But these girls are always excited to see the other. Courtney and I do not force this relationship on them just cause we want to hang out. No, our relationship has been hard too. Probably the hardest I have even dealt with head on. I always tend to head the other way when a relationship like this gets hard, but for some reason Courtney and I have battled through it as well. For the first time in my life. And man it's hard. But is has been SO good. It has been so beautiful. I have grown so much through it and my heart is being worked on in ways that need to be worked on. I am so thankful for our relationship. It is such an awesome visual for my two year old daughter.

I am so thankful that my daughter is learning to battle through tough situations at SUCH an early age. That way hopefully, prayerfully she will have much better relationships skills than I have by my age.

I was able to help Courtney out the last Friday in April so that she could go do something fun. I had Eva and baby Levi at my house for the morning. The girls were angels. Seriously. They did not fight once. They must have known I was nervous to have two two year olds (that fight) and an infant. They were such a delight. And Levi took a nap. It was great. So I remembered my camera and how I never take these girls pictures together, probably because I am too busy refereeing during the play date to even think about snapping a picture of two little girls in tears. Hahaha.