This & That

This week has been VBS at our church. The theme this year is Beach Party, Surfin' Through the Scriptures! I'm a Lifeguard, which basically means I have a group of kids that I take around from activity to activity. I get to sing all the songs, and I get to see very aspect of VBS. It's fun, but I'm surprised how tired I am at the end of a day. It's probably because I'm trying to keep up with six 5 year-olds...not to mention, all the lifeguards (there is 5 of us) are in all activities and rotations together, so I'm actually trying to keep up with about 40 of them throughout the day.

This has been a big week for Miss Abby, too. This is the first time ever that we've had to do the same thing everyday, making her miss her morning nap 5 days in a row. She's doing good with it, but falls asleep in about 2 seconds once we're in the car. Yesterday, she decided that since she had that little catnap in the car she was great for the rest of the day (except she wasn't really happy about it, y'know?). So you better believe the whole way home today, I poked and prodded her MAKING her stay awake!

I wanted this post to have some pictures, so I just took some pictures of a few random things for your entertainment :-)

We're about to get some rain and the clouds were looking cool--
Sandy decided she was going to bark while I was outside taking the pictures (and I just put Abby down for a nap), so I cracked the door so she could see me--My new front door mat...I love it! This little weenie dog ring holder my mom just recently got me (isn't it super cute?!?!)And a few pictures awhile ago that I forgot to post of Abby. This was at Josh's basketball game. She was so serious while watching her daddy play!

Watching...so intently!Pointing at daddy... Oh, hi Daddy! Being silly while Pop takes a picture.

Do you get this excited...

when you watch TV? Abby rarely watches TV, not for the fact that I don't let her (I would prefer it be a small amount right now anyway), but for the pure fact that she really could careless. If she does decide to care, it will last, at most, 5 good minutes. And in those 5 good minutes, she is ecstatic for this one particular show.

Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends on the Noggin channel. It's not even the show she actually likes. It's the singing in the opening credits. She LOVES IT. So much in fact, I have DVR'd the show just for opening credit purposes to let her see it every now and again.

Pure bliss (oh, and her fingers are trying to "snap.")

It cracks me up in this itty-bitty chair her feet don't even touch the ground! Then she had to crawl up to the tv and dance...


And the video to prove her excitement!

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The Wheels on the Bus...

Last night, as incognito as I could, I walked outside to take a picture of this:(I had to lighten up the picture on my computer because I could not get it to make it lighter with my flash. I don't know what the deal is. And the red around certain windows is just the glare from the street light.)

So in case you're ever looking for our house, we live diagonal from the people who park the big, yellow bus in their driveway. Random, I know.

And for the record, I tried to go out this morning to get a better picture, but the magic bus had disappeared!

Just so you know...

I really was serious about wanting Abby's "Report Card" from school today. Because the one I received had Jonah's name on it, I went to the list the school had given us of all the kids in Abby's class. I found Jonah's last name, and decided I would try to look up his family in the Yahoo White pages. Only one family came up on the search (it was meant to be.) I called it. That's right people...I had NO idea if these people even had a Jonah, but no one answered.

So.....I left a message :-) Rambling on a bit in the message it sounded something like this, "Hi, my name is Amy Beasley, and I think ya'll have a Jonah in my daughter's class. And this might sound silly but I got his report card in my daughter, Abby's bookbag, and I'm really wanting hers, so if you could possibly call me, that would be so great, thanks." AND--she did! Hooray! She's just as silly as me. I told her she's my first child and this whole experience is new for us, and I LOVE getting that piece of paper in her bag. She said they hang Jonah's on the fridge, and she was so glad I called.

The moral of this story: I'm not as weird as you people thought. She was so glad I called, too :-)

School Day

OK, seriously, my favorite thing about going to pick-up Abby from school, is getting in her backpack to get that cute little "Report Card" of how she did for the day. When I got in her bag today...I had Jonah's. Although Jonah did very good today, I don't even know who Jonah is! What a disappointment!

I didn't ask too many questions to her teachers because I knew I would read through her report card and get answers to almost everything. They did tell me she did great and didn't cry a bit. (Although when I dropped her off this morning, she gave BIG tears this time. They say it stops in about 2 seconds, so that's fabulous!) They used finger paint today to make the planets because the theme is "Space the Final Frontier." It was very cute, and they said she wanted to put both hands into the paint instead of just one finger at a time. So far, when I pick her up she has been in the silliest mood when we get home. She cracks me up!

Another random note. Last week, they sent home the schedule of events for what the kids would be doing through August. I was really discouraged because out of the 7 times Abby goes, 3 of the scheduled times were "movie days" and 1 other one was "playtime." However, on the Tuesday/Thursday days, they were designated for actual activities. But Abby only goes 1 day a week, on Wednesday. I decided to e-mail the director to see if Abby could move days because had I known Wednesday would be the "play" day, I wouldn't have signed her up. The director, Beth, wrote me back and said what the kids do on Tuesday, they will now do on Wednesday (because most kids go on Tues./Thurs. or just Wed.) When I got all the papers out of Abby's backpack today, there was a new calendar for July, and it had the other "learning" activities listed for Wednesday this time. It made me so excited to see that--Way to go me :-)

Here are a few pictures of Abby this morning before we left for school. She appears to be looking very serious and concentrating. It's cute :-)

I have no idea...

...why in this whole video montage of my child she is only wearing a diaper. We next to never do that, but on these two particular days, it just ended up that way. Abby was going NUTS-O one night, and she was just giggling and kicking all to herself, keeping herself totally entertained. It definitely kept us entertained, too. Seriously, she did this same thing (that you'll see in the video) over and over for about 45min. I can tell you when she went to bed, we didn't hear a peep out of her after about 2min. She wore herself out! I threw in a few other things in this video, too.

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Lately, since this kicking episode (shown above) she loves to roll over onto her back and just play with her feet up in the air with whatever is in her hands. She did this just yesterday under a chair, and she has a slinky in her hands.

We're also dog watching this week. This is Baxter. (Pepper...he's a boy and he's just your type! ha!)
Baxter is super sweet, and he lays wherever I am...Next to the couch, next to the chair in the computer room, by the sink when I'm getting ready in the morning. He's also very good with Abby. Abby is intrigued by his longer hair, but he just licks and licks her. Abby found his leash, and when I said "Uh oh, what do you have?" This is what she did--

How could I forget?

Remember back when I wanted the Princess Chair for Abby for her birthday? We finally got one, all thanks to her fabulous Aunt Lisa! Lisa was shopping at her Wal-mart in Mississippi, and went to that aisle looking for the chair (like she has been ever since I've wanted it so badly.) BUT on this particular day, they actually had gotten a shipment IN, and we ACTUALLY have this chair in our possession! WOOHOO!!!!

THE CHAIR!Abby loving her chair
I'm still obsessed with her super sweet little curls.
But when she first gets up from a nap or in the morning, if I do NOTHING to it at all (such as giving it a good brushin' like it typically needs) this is what she ends up looking like! Yikes!

Success!

This is what I had in Abby's backpack when we got home. The things highlighted in yellow are how/what Abby did.
Hooray! When I walked in to the classroom, of course, I immediately asked how she was. They said she did GREAT, and she didn't cry at all. That's my girl! MY CHILD, napped...ON. THE. FLOOR. for an hour. Ohmigoodness! That's absurd and so exciting :-)

When we came home, she was kind of tired. An hour all day in sleep is NOTHING compared to what she regularly gets. She didn't want to lay down again, so I got out her napmat to see what she would do. She crawled over to it and layed her head down and said "awww." She didn't sleep, but she was in the BEST mood all night long. I can't begin to tell you how hard she made us laugh tonight. The child was hilarious! (Don't worry, it was captured on video, so ya'll will be able to laugh with us once I edit it.) Next Wednesday, I might be able to enjoy my day a bit more instead of worrying the whole time about how she's doing :-)

A little choked up

Today was Abby's very FIRST day of school (aka Mother's Day Out). I won't lie...I'm one "of those" mommies (mommy's? I don't know which way to spell it). I was a bit choked up about it this morning. I didn't actually cry, but I sure felt like I could've! Is that ridiculous? I kept thinking, it's only ONE day a week right now. This is going to be good for us. And it is, but still. The house is SO quiet, Sandy even went to her high chair looking for food when I was eating lunch. (Abby keeps dropping her food to Sandy these days. It's so on purpose because we've been telling her "no" about it, so everytime right before she does it, she glances at me to see if I'm looking. She's a sly little girl!) It just feels strange. I seriously am anxious to go get her to see how everything went....oh, to be a fly on the wall!!

Anyway, of course we had to document this first day. She is supposed to take a nap there--on her nap mat...On. The. Floor!!! I'm totally not seeing it happen, but you just never know I guess.

Her lunchNapmat and backpack Before getting out of her jammies--excited for school! Dressed and ready to go!

I hope her first day was wonderful....we'll see soon enough. She's in the "Itty-Bitty Bugs" class. Isn't that adorable? Itty-bitty meaning ladybugs and rolly pollies :-) I can totally handle that! I pick her up at 2:30pm, so stay tuned!

From May

There were a few pictures I had taken in May that I never posted due to the fact I kept posting and posting about Abby's birthday. These are just pictures I thought were sweet, so I wanted to share them.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the fact that my baby girl has some sweet little curls in the back of her hair!
She's looking back at me asking "Why do you keep taking pictures of the back of my head?"She loves being up on her knees just peeking over the coffee table at me.Then when she sees me...she smiles (you can tell because her eyes are squinted)Although this picture is a bit blurry, her "scrunched up nose" look is hilarious to me! In other news--something happened this morning that I've been waiting and waiting for, and it FINALLY happened!

I walked in to get Abby out of her crib, and she was STANDING to greet me! Hallelujah, girlfriend :-)

Just ONE

Abby and I just got back today from our very fun-filled trip to Dallas. I have lots of pictures to post (but the pictures aren't actually in my possession yet.), and stories to tell, but the main reason we went there was for Abby's 1 year old pictures. Susan, the photographer, has posted ONE teaser picture on her blog. It's SO sweet!
What do ya think?

I can't wait to see the rest! Susan is awesome! Unfortunately, my kiddo didn't want to participate as much in the outdoor pictures, so I'll be very interested to see how those turned out. But once we went back to Susan's studio, she did a bit better. Luckily, Susan has some amazing kids that Abby adored, and they got her to laugh and smile.

Check her out. She's fabulous!

Southern Exposures Photography

I'll be back with more soon. AND, I must say, my husband did a fabulous job posting about Sandy's birthday--don't ya think? What a funny, funny guy! Thanks, babe, for keeping me so entertained!!!