Blanket Sledding

I really love winter. I can't wait for freezing cold temperatures, blankets, fires, and what else--snow which leads to playing in it and sledding! But until then, Avery had a great idea to go sledding in our long entryway today and she took Bailey on the first ride after which they both got to be pulled by Mommy. Too bad no one else was here to video me pulling the both of them! It was a workout!

Full of Energy

Bailey is full of energy. She never stops and never ceases to amaze us with her new talents! Her latest one is pulling up. I caught her standing up in her crib for the first time the other day and ran to get the camera. She is so strong and look at those cute little thighs! She is even taking a couple of steps down the couch. Not full blown cruising yet but on the way. I really wouldn't be surprised if she walks early!

Visit to Texas

Last weekend we went down to Texas for my 10 year high school reunion. It was fun to see some people from way back when and the funny thing was--everyone was exactly the same! Seriously. Exactly.
Anyway, the girls and I stayed the following week and had lots of fun with Nona and Pop. Avery just LOVES to go down there and when we do, she has her list of things she must do. When we first get there, she runs around spending 10 seconds on everything like just to make sure it's all still there and the same. She has to feed the horses with Pop and then the fish in the pond. She has to ride her little "bike" all around the house even though she's getting way too big for it. It's really like a ride on toy for an 18 month old or something! She has to play with all the toys in the toy box, play with Nona's old jewelry in a jewelry box that my mom keeps for her, play with the bag of buttons that my mom has, watch Mickey Mouse in Nona's bed, and the list goes on. Those are a few of her "musts." This time Bailey was old enough to crawl around and explore everything at Nona's. I know she will grow to love it just as much as Avery! They had lots of fun outside thanks to an old walker that my grandparents had and brought over for Bailey to use. I know those things are pretty much outlawed these days but it was really great and Bailey loved it! Since I forgot the stroller, she had something to sit in when we played outside. My mom is so great and takes care of us wonderfully while we are there. Avery of course is glued to her side practically the whole time and Nona must be the one to do everything for her like bathtime, playing, and reading books. It's nice for me :) Anyway, here are lots of pictures to enjoy.

The girls eating at the bar (where Avery loves to eat).

Avery climbing on the fence and looking at the horses.

Nona pulling the girls in the wagon down the LONG driveway. See the top of Bailey's head? This old wagon doesn't have seatbelts like the new-fangled ones so Bailey has to sit in the floor of it! Otherwise she would topple right out!

Avery's "Original Big Wheel". Pop drove all the way to Louisiana to get this for her because the stores around them didn't have it. The box said "Original Big Wheel" and that's exactly what Avery calls it. So funny.

Bailey enjoying her walker. Look at this chunker. I have had several people tell me lately that she is small for her age. WHATEVER! Today she had on a pair of 12 month pants and other than being a tad long, they fit her JUST FINE! She is only 8 1/2 months old!

It rained a lot while we were there, so this day we played in the garage for a long time. Nona, Avery, and Bailey made a train and Nona pulled them around in circles over and over. It was hilarious.

Bailey found Aunt Staci's old pom-poms and of course thought they were so fun to play with.

Tasting the wagon--what else? Everything goes straight to the mouth.

Laughing--I love this little sweetie. She's really funny sometimes.

Sisters going for a ride!

Here is a video of my mom pulling Avery around really fast on her original big wheel. Listen to what Avery says at the end. I laughed and laughed. :)

Sponge Roller Update....The Morning After

Wow did these sponge rollers ever work!!! This girl looked like little orphan Annie minus the red hair. These were the tightest curls ever!! Here's what she looked like right after we took them out: AFRO! She kind of made a face in the mirror and said, "I don't like it, Mommy." Hmm, I didn't either. :)

But we got out the blow dryer and pulled the curls down a little bit. I thought it looked a lot better! {Please ignore the spots on my mirror! Well, Avery's mirror. :) }

I think I will go back and get the medium rollers instead of the tiny ones. But as I predicted, by lunchtime, most of the curls had fallen out. It's just the hair we were given! But it still might work out for a Sunday morning every now and then! She is such a doll.

First Sponge Rollers

OK, who out there wore sponge rollers in their hair every Saturday night? So you could have tons of curls for church Sunday morning?? Who had to sit there still as a statue for what seemed like forever (actually like 15 minutes) while your mom rolled your entire head on these things? Well, I DID! So Avery is joining the ranks. I found these sponge rollers at a random grocery store and decided to try them out on her. It totally brought back memories and tomorrow we'll see how curly she is! The question is: How long will the curls last? She's like me and her hair practically holds no curl at all so we will see...

Craft Hope - Sock Monkey Firefighter

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while...I found a blog that does crafts/sewing projects for charities. It's really cool and you can read all about it at http://www.crafthope.com/. They always post a project for crafty people to do and then you mail your project to this one lady and she organizes everything and sends it all where it needs to go. Once they had people make baby blankets, booties, etc. and sent them to kids in India. Another time they had people make any kind of doll they wanted and had them sent to kids in an orphanage. So this project I finally made it in on. They had people make sock monkeys and they are sending them to a preschool burn camp in California. They said if you could make the monkey into a firefighter, that would be great, so here is my project. I think this is a great way to give back a little and have fun doing something I love in the process! I can't wait to see what the next project is...you can join in and read all about the past projects and even see some pictures of the kids receiving their gifts at http://www.crafthope.com/. Check it out and join the crafting and giving!! (Problem is, Avery watched me make this little guy and is dying for a sock monkey of her own!! Oh well, it was a really quick project!)

Soccer

Avery has started soccer this fall at Soccer City. She's doing the Lil' Kickers program and she loves it! It's really more of a soccer class than regular soccer. They meet once a week for 50 minutes and the coaches play soccer related games with them and teach them soccer skills in fun ways. It's non-competitive for now which I like. I have some pictures, but they are on Craig's mom's camera so I will have to get them from her and then upload some. She has a jersey and everything! It's really great the way the coaches encourage them and teach them skills even though the kids think they're just playing and having fun. This seems right up Avery's alley to me and she loves running around and kicking the ball into the goal! She's pretty good in my opinion and I hope she is more athletic than me! Pictures of my soccer sweetie to come.

Mickey Mouse

OK I have to document this before I forget. First of all, aren't these pictures cute? The girls were playing together under the table in the kitchen and I had to snap a shot. But the real subject of this post are the ears. Avery's ears...I mean Mickey's ears. It is safe for me to say that Avery LOVES Mickey Mouse. For some reason about a year ago, she found this Mickey Mouse doll that she had had for a while and never cared about. She got kind of attached to him when we moved from our old house to our new last September. Then she watched a little bit of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at Nona's house which was a treat because we don't have cable. And somehow she got hooked. She talks about Mickey Mouse a lot. In fact, she assigned us all characters. I will give you the list.

Mickey Mouse - Avery

Minnie Mouse - me (Mommy)

Pluto - Daddy

Goofy - Bailey

Donald Duck - Nona

Pete - Pop

Tootles - Grandma

Willy the Giant - Grandpa

Daisy Duck - Aunt Staci

the Professor - Aunt Jenna

The funny thing is she NEVER forgets who any of us are! If we forget she will quickly correct us. I have no idea why we all are who we are, but in her head, it makes sense and she calls us by these names OFTEN! If I call her "goofy" sometimes meaning "silly" she says, "No, I'm Mickey." It's hilarious. Actually after several months of this, I'm kind of sick of it, but I play along like a good mother should! :) When she's older, she'll probably roll her eyes when I tell her this story, but I have to document it so I won't forget to tell her! I love you, Mickey!!

Bailey Eating

OK this video is one for the grandmas! :) It's not that exciting but I wanted to document Bailey feeding herself. She has just started doing this about a week or so ago and is doing a decent job of it! Here I am feeding her bits of bread. She does really well with puffs also and this is a great thing to distract her after she finishes her meal and we are all still working on ours. I can't wait for when she can feed her whole meal to herself! Then Mommy can eat a hot meal, too! Yay for finger foods!

Colorado Pics--FINALLY!

(Sorry there are a TON of pictures! Click on the slideshow and you can look at them larger and easier.)

Sorry it has taken me so long to get these up--we have been busy as usual. A couple weeks ago, we made a 10 hour drive for a mini vacation to visit our good friends the Smiths. It just so happens they live in beautiful Colorado and I have never been there in the summer before--it's BEAUTIFUL! Justin and Craig have been friends practically since birth and lived a street away from each other. Justin's wife Emily is the best and she and I get along like we've been friends forever, too. We have so much in common with them and they are some of our only homeschooling buddies. We commented that it's amazing how well the four of us get along and it's a shame we live so far apart. We plan to visit them again and hope to have family vacations together in the future.

I was afraid the drive was going to be hard, but the girls both did SO WELL in the car! Bailey has finally learned how to fall asleep in the car and she did that a lot. While we were there, we didn't really do a ton of things besides hang out, go to parks, swim, and play. That's the way we wanted it because we got lots of quality time and visiting in. The kids played really well together and Avery loved Jacob and of course all of his cool toys! The babies even interacted some and I love how our kids ages are pretty close. They have two boys who we joked would make great husbands for our girls one day! But seriously--they would. :)

One of our favorite things we did was visit a strawberry farm. You could pick your own berries and eat as you went! They even had tons of other stuff you could pick and buy, too. Herbs, flowers, raspberries, and more. Avery loved picking the berries and even though she said she didn't want to eat them at first, once she tried a bite, she ate a lot! We had delicious strawberries the whole weekend!

Another favorite thing about the trip was the delicious food we ate while we were there--for every meal! And we didn't eat out once. Emily is a wonderful cook and she had delicious meals planned for us! We ate a few times on the backporch and it was such nice weather! Imagine not having to turn on your air conditioner and leaving the windows and doors open almost all summer!

Thanks again Justin and Emily for being great hosts and for showing us a wonderful time! We can't wait to visit again!

On the way home, we stopped overnight in Kansas and picked a random Ramada Inn that was probably the cheapest hotel in the town. But we were surprised to find this awesome water slide with their indoor pool! Avery and Craig had an awesome time tying up the end of the vacation on the fun water slide.

Uncle Carey & Aunt Alana Get Married!

Well Uncle Carey finally got married! The last of the Alexander boys tied the knot and we welcomed Aunt Alana into our family on August 8th. A LOT went into this wedding--mostly from the bride herself, but we all did our parts. Avery and I had money from my Mimi to get our toes done way back when I was pregnant with Bailey, but we never had the time to do it, so the perfect occasion finally came up! We went to get pedicures (well Avery just had her toenails painted) and then she sat on my lap while I had mine done. She was so good and loved it, and even got little flowers on her big toes. She felt like a big girl and I loved doing this with her.

The next day was the wedding and everthing went off without a single problem! It was wonderful and everything was really pretty. Alana did most of the things herself like bouquets, centerpieces, etc. She did a great job. Craig and his brother Chris were the best men and Avery was a flower girl with her cousins Hayden and Kate. Their cousins Austin and Ashton along with Carey and Alana's son Kaeden were the ring bearers and they all looked adorable. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the ceremony, just random ones from getting ready and the reception. The whole night turned out really well, but let's just say we are all glad it's over! :) I know Carey and Alana are glad to resume normal life. The funniest thing from the night was the way that Avery danced. I mean that girl DANCED through the whole reception! It was probably one of the latest times she has stayed up and she was a party animal! I don't know where she gets it because neither Craig or I can dance or even want to. She had so much fun dancing with her cousins that she sat down to eat her wedding cake, took one bite and then said she wanted to go dance some more. What? This child LOVES cake! I couldn't believe my ears! Anyway, we had a great time...enjoy the pics! (You can double click the slideshow to see it bigger.)