'Round here Lately!

Warning: Long Post Ahead! ha!

Well, we've been having such a fun summer but still a busy one!

First, I haven't ever written on my blog that we are expecting a baby boy in October! We are very excited but have a lot to do in these next 14 weeks...including choosing a name! I've been doing great and feel wonderful besides the restless legs and heartburn. He moves around all the time and it's so funny to see him move my whole belly! I'm not sure exactly what Alabama thinks about it but she knows that her "baby brother" is inside Mommy's belly...actually she says she's got a baby in her belly, too. ha!

We've been working a lot with my Daddy but that will probably slow down a lot in the coming weeks.

We've been to the Y several times to swim at the water park and have been to the park with our friends some, too.

We've been to the lake a few times. At first she didn't like the boat at. all. But now, she's getting more used to it and loves to go swim off the boat!

Adam and I took her to the movies for the first time a couple weeks ago. We went to see Cars 2 and she did great! She sat with me or Adam because she isn't heavy enough to hold the seat down and she didn't get up and want to walk around until the end. She loved eating the candy and the popcorn, too! The funniest part of the trip was the boy behind us. He was very loud and would laugh so hard! Alabama keeps copying him all the time and she will laugh really loud and then say "That's Hilawious!!!" like the boy did! It really is "hilarious" when she does it! hahaha!!!!

Our garden is now pretty much over now because it's been sooo hot, but we did have a few things we could eat out of it! We had a good bit of squash, some blueberries, a "mess" of green beans that were really good, about 6 ears of corn total, and we still may have a couple watermelons. This picture was back on May 27th.

Alabama has went with me to the doctor the past two visits and she's so funny when we go back there. She is full of one million and one questions every single day. And her response to every answer is always "why?"!!!! So at the doctor it sounds like this:

"Mama, why you laying on that table?" "Mama, why her put that lotion on you?" "That's my baby brother?" "Mama, why her cleaning you?" "Mama, you done now?" "Why?" haha! It's so funny!

She does this all day every day! My uncle says that is exactly what I did so it is payback! ha!

Alabama remembers EVE.RY.THING! She talks about things that happened soo long ago that I don't know how in the world she still remembers!

She also hears everything you say. If I say it different one time from the next she'll say, "Mama, what you told me?" ha!

She's still very shy but will sometimes talk to random people about the craziest stuff that they have no idea what she's talking about! Like the people who work at Wal-Mart say they like her pigtails and she goes into "I not go pee-pee here. I go pee-pee at my house. " ha! Then they tell her they have a bathroom she can use and of course she says "No, I go pee-pee at my house!" The reason she didn't want to go at Wal-mart is they have dryers aka 'chines (machines). She is so scared of the hand dryers so whenever we are out anywhere she'll ask if they have a dryer. If they do, then she doesn't really want to go in it, but if she has to then she'll say "I not use the dryer." "No, Bama, you don't have to." "You not either, Mama?" "No, I won't use it either." "Why?" ha! She starts looking around as soon as we step in the bathroom!

Alabama is also 100% potty trained now! She probably started wearing panties instead of pull ups everyday about the last week of May. She really has done sooo good and I'm so proud of her! She even sleeps in panties and hasn't had any accidents! A "funny" thing happened at the doctors office last week. She had to go potty when we got there but the way she was sitting on the potty she got some pee on her panties and bloomers before I knew what was happening so we had to go out to the car to get a new pair. I told her "It's okay, Alabama. It wasn't your fault. It was just how you were sitting on the potty." So now, she started saying "It's not MY fault!" Oh, goodness!

She also hasn't had her passy since I went to Hilton Head on June 17th for a women's retreat. They couldn't find it while I was gone (it was in the bag the whole time!)so she didn't have it and went to sleep without it. She still asks for it occasionally but we're passy free!!!!

She loves to play pretend and has the best imagination. Right now, a few of the things she likes the most is to play "boat" on the couch or the chair. She will usually drive and you have to sit in the boat and sometimes you're supposed to cry and sometimes you're not. Then she will ask for her lifejacket and swimsuit and put those on. Then she jumps in by holding her nose (what she saw her cousin Morgan do at the lake) and jump off the couch and roll in the floor. ha! Then most of the time, you have to jump in, too!

Her sense of humor is growing so much! She will tell things wrong just because she knows it's wrong and will make you laugh and correct her. Like she says that "red says go and green says stop" but she knows its the other way and says it to be funny! She will cook pretend food and drinks for you in her kitchen and bring it to you and tell you it has sand in it and then I drink some and spit it out and say Yuck! This has sand in it! and she just laughs and laughs!

I just love how fun she is right now!!! She is so sweet (most of the time!) and so funny and I just am so blessed to be her Mommy!

Tybee Part 2

Here's the second part to our Tybee Island trip. Friday, we went back to the beach again that morning then came home and rested a while. After Alabama got up from her nap, we just stayed around the house and waited for Adam to get there! We were sooo glad to see him! Adam's Daddy bought fresh shrimp, fish, and crab legs for dinner and we cooked it and had a FEAST! It was soooo good! The next day, we got up and took the pictures from the previous post then Adam and I took Alabama to the beach while everyone else went to the wildlife preserve or something that involved snakes. No thanks! She had a great time playing with her Daddy in the water and the sand. We put our chairs and umbrella and all sort of close to the water, and before we knew it, we were being washed away!!!! When we went back to the house, Alabama played "nail salon" with Daddy and pretend painted his nails before she took a nap.

I think she may have had more fun doing this than almost anything else on the trip! ha!

That night, Adam and I had a date night and the kids stayed at the house with Maxine. We went to a place called A.J.'s and it was amazing! We had to wait an hour for a table, but we had plenty of time to talk and it wasn't really that bad. It was well worth the wait! This is what it looked like when we sat down!

BEAUTIFUL!

For an appetizer we had the buffalo shrimp and they were amazing then I had the stuffed chicken and fries for my meal and it was all sooo good! I can't wait to go back!

It was such a treat to have some time with my sweet husband! When we got back to the house, they were all having a great time and had walked down to the dock. Alabama was being so silly and the cousins were all joining in with her cheerleading/falling down/singing/being absolutely crazy! We got it on video and it is soo funny!

We had to be out of the house by ten, so we packed up and headed to Savannah for a little while before we headed home. We went to the mall and the Bass Pro Shops and ate at a Texas Roadhouse which was very good. I almost liked it better than the Logan's Roadhouse we have here. It was a great trip and I'm so glad that we got to go and make some fun memories with family! Thanks Georgia for inviting us!

Tybee Island 2011

We took a fun vacation to Tybee Island with Adam's family on June 8-12th. We had a great time! Alabama and I went down on Wednesday with Jerry and Maxine. Georgia rented a house that she invited us all to come stay at and it was about 3 blocks from the beach. I was a little nervous about Alabama liking the ocean, but she loved it! She keeps saying "I need to go back!" We swam, made sandcastles, played in the sand, found sea shells, and I'm sure she also loved drinking Kool-Aid from Aunt Georgia! Here is her first time in the ocean checking it out. This is when she went with Grandma to the bathroom and they saw an ice cream cone that someone dropped in the sand. The girl talked about that for DAYS!



After the beach Wednesday, we came back to the house and cooked lasagna that I brought and ate supper then we went to go to some shops on the island but they were closed. So we found this super cute park! The kids loved it!

The next morning, we got up and ate breakfast and Georgia and I took the kids shopping in Savannah. Anna and Morgan and a friend, Kalynn got airbrush tattoos. We bought a few things and we also saw this neat little Echo Square where if you stand in the middle of it, you can hear your voice echo, but no one else can! Very neat! We went back to the house and ate lunch and Alabama took a nap while I read a book. That night, we went back to Savannah to meet my cousin, Jeff, and his girlfriend, Brooke. We ate at the Pirate House. Bad. Idea! The food was really good, but the real pirate inside was not! Alabama won't even let me tell people about it! ha! She was so scared! After we ate, we went down to River Street Sweets! We got a little fudge and some gummy butterflies then headed back to Tybee. It was good to see them, but wish we could have visited longer!

I'll post the second part in another post, but here are some family photo time pics! I've always wanted to do pictures on the beach and we all went down to the beach Saturday morning and took some. I think a few turned out really good, but Alabama was so NOT into taking pictures that morning! I don't really blame her, it was soo humid and I was sweating like crazy!

Keepin' it Rural!

Ha! I really hate that word "rural"...it's so hard to say!

Anyway, we've (Mostly Adam!) been hard at work planting our garden and building a chicken house for our new chickens. Or "chitnens" as Alabama calls them! ha! This is when we first planted the garden back on March 22nd . It is doing really well! Even our little squash plants came back to life and are doing great with lots of little baby squashes! The only thing that never came up was the potatoes we planted. I think maybe we planted too late. We have corn, squash, bell peppers, onions, green beans, watermelon, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries (but the deer ate them!) :-(, and muscadines. We really have no idea what we are doing but it's a lot of fun to see the vegetables grow! Here are a few pictures of the garden yesterday.

Adam has made a "fancy" chicken house and it looks so cute! We are borrowing a few of Maxine's chickens until our biddies are bigger. We've gotten six eggs since Thursday. We are just really hoping no snakes come around! This is Adam in the building phase and here is the finished product! Isn't he so talented??? I told Adam that the chickens from Maxine probably feel like they are on a little vacation to a 5 star hotel! ha!

Alabama is so funny when they crow she says "You hear my new chitnens?" or she will open the door and say "You go in your house. This is my house. You can't come in here, okay?"

Easter 2011

We had a great Easter, although, a bit busy. We got up early to see what the Easter bunny brought! Alabama was excited to see although the few days before Easter she told us she didn't want him to come! In her basket she got a stuffed lamb, a bag of gummie life savers, a M&M's egg, a book, and a hairbow. We got dressed and went to the Sunrise service at my parent's church so that we could see them for Easter. This picture is as good as it gets for our family Easter picture....maybe we'll try again later. We ate breakfast there and then headed to Evans to our church. We had an AMAZING service! The music was wonderful and the preaching was inspiring! The praise team sang "Arise My Love" and it was as if we were there with Jesus! It was sooo good! We had a packed house and I think maybe a record number of people there! After church, we went to Adam's parents' house and ate lunch and had an easter egg hunt. Adam's sister, Georgia and her family were there, too. This is Alabama with her cousins; Anna, Morgan, and Ethan. So cute! Alabama had fun with her cousins and was so glad to see Morgan! She talks about her all the time!

After we ate, we hid the eggs and Alabama was really into finding them!

It was a long day and she was worn out so she took a little nap before we went back to church for the Spring Fling that night.

We had a fun time with our church family that evening! We had so much going on, volleyball tournament, a bus pull, inflatables, hot dog supper, and an egg toss, too!

I made Alabama this bunny shirt and I thought it turned out sooo cute!

Yes, I'm still here!

I haven't blogged in so long partly because when I get behind, I feel like I have to catch up before I can write anything else. But....even though I still haven't posted any of the birthday party, I'm going to post anyway!

Alabama was so funny yesterday when I had to make a delivery at Martina's florist. The lady asked us if we needed help and then started to talk to us for a long time. She told Alabama how cute she was and that she liked her outfit. (Side note: When we went to see my niece Morgan in her cheerleading show a few weeks ago, Alabama wanted to wear her "Go Dawgs Outfoot" (Ga Cheerleader oufit) so now she associates the word outfit with the cheerleader suit.)Sooo, when the lady said that to her, she started saying pretty loudly "Go Dawgs", "Gold, Black" (our thomson bullldogs colors!)! ha! The poor lady had no idea what was going on! I tried to explain, but I'm not sure she ever got it!

Later that night, she was playing with my sister, Audra, on the floor and she told Audra "I'm leaving." But she had her passy in her mouth so it sounded like I'm lemon. When Audra kept asking her where's the lemon, she got frustrated at her and told her "I'm going Bye-bye!" ha! It was like if you don't understand real words, I'll have to use baby talk with you!

She is absolutely obsessed with flip-flops now. Only, she calls them "shoe-flops!" She asks everyone, "Where's your shoe-flops???" "You wear shoe-flops like me do?" She wants to wear them every. single. day.

She has a semi-imaginary friend/cousin now! ha! Apparently her cousin, Jenna, has moved in with us! I really didn't know that kids had such big imaginations so young! She will tell me all the stuff that Jenna is doing, that Jenna wants something to eat, etc. When I tell her Jenna is at school, she says "No, No, Jenna right here!" We will even get in the car and she tells Jenna to buckle up. Sometimes, as we are pulling out of the driveway, she says "Mama! We left Jenna!!!!" and I have to stop and say "Get in Jenna!" It is really the funniest thing! I need to get it on video how she acts with "Jenna". ha!

Two

Alabama,

I can't believe you are two years old now! It has gone by so fast, but I also can't remember what life was like without you! Here is what you are up to at 2 years old!

- You love to talk and do it all day! I can't even count how many words you say now....A LOT! You also say up to 5 word sentences.

- You love to sing and play the "drums" and listen to music and dance! Some of your favorite songs are "If all the Raindrops", the "Fruit of the Spirit song",

- You are very sweet and love to give hugs and kisses *especially Eskimo kisses!

- You weigh 31 pounds and are 35 inches tall. You wear size 24 months - 2T clothes. You wear a size 6 shoe.

- You have lots of friends and love to play with them and pray for them, too!

- You are a very great helper and love to help me clean or make something.

- You love to be outside in your playhouse and you always want to go outside with Daddy when he gets home.

- You still love to watch Barney and now you like Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck, too.

- You can recognize McDonalds anywhere! ha!

- You are so sweet to use your manners and say "Please", "Thanks", and "Pardon".

- Your favorite food is "chick-chick". You also love suckers and want one daily. Another favorite food is strawberries....just like your Mama! ;-)

-You are little Miss Independent! Everyday I hear "I wanna do it myself!" Whether it's getting into the car, eating, putting on clothes, going up/down steps, whatever!

- You are trying to push the limits and see how far you can get with us! You know and can quote that it says "Obey Mommy and Daddy" in the Bible but you don't always put it into practice. You are really a very good girl most of the time, though!

- You are still a great sleeper. You sleep anywhere from 10-12 hours a night and take a 1-3 hour nap in the afternoon. :)

-You love to color pictures and play with play-doh and do any kind of art project. You tell everyone "I make that!"

-Your imagination is growing everyday! I love to see the things you pretend!

- You also have the best memory! You can remember things that happened a LONG time ago (like losing your balloon at Glenn's or the cow coming to Chick-fil-A, or that you didn't like Santa Clause). I'm really amazed!

-You love to read books and we read several every day and night! A few of your favorites are the Goodnight Bible ..particularly the part about Noah!, Put me in the Zoo, Barney book, Princess book, and Goodnight Gorilla.

-I have to be very careful because you repeat everything! Like you started to say "Oh, man!"

-You are learning to use the potty and are doing very goood! You love to get M&M's when you go!

-You can recognize purple, pink (your favorite!), blue, green, red, black, white, yellow, and orange colors! Such a smart girl!

-You can count to three. You have gotten very good at repeating your ABC's after me!

-The shapes you know are a circle, star, and moon.

-You act shy when you're around people you don't know but are not shy at all at home! ha!

I know that God had great plans for you! I am so blessed to be your Mama and ask for Grace to raise you to love Jesus and serve Him all the days of your life! Your sweet little personality is so precious and I am loving these days we have together in this season of life!

I love you,

Mommy