Little Sweetie

Recent photos of a cutie pie:

Alexee wore one of Jaiden's pretty dresses to church last Sunday. It was so poofy that we could barely get her buckled into her carseat, but she looked so cute! She got really upset in the church parking lot when Lane took her "bracelets" off. She loves to play with them and wear them, but we were afraid they'd get lost.

Lately, she's been very interested in having her toe nails painted. She'll go get several bottles of polish from underneath my bathroom sink and then pat the floor to get me to sit down beside her and paint. But of course as soon as I open the bottle and touch her toe, she touches it and wipes it all off and moves on to the next color. So I decided to try to paint them when she was wearing sandals in the highchair. This worked out okay. They're not perfect, but she's very proud of her pedicure and loves to look at them and point at the polish. I just love the way her little sweet feet look in these sandals!
Last night we had boiled shrimp and corn on the cob, red potatoes and okra. Alexee thought it was funny to watch us eat corn, and she wanted to give it a try! Messy but cute! (Notice the bracelets again.)

Bean Art

I had a bag of out-dated beans in the pantry that I meant to use for red beans and rice (I don't know how to make red beans and rice and never got around to trying to figure it out), so we used the old beans for an art project instead. First we made a sunshine:
Rhett was very precise with the bean placement--he did a great job!

Then he wanted to make a snowman. He "drew" (with glue) the snowman all by himself and added arms and a hat. He told me, "I'm really good at using the glue, Mom."
oops...I meant to rotate this picture...the finished snowman:

School T-shirts

This morning was open-house at the kids' MDO program. We went by to meet their new teachers and see their classrooms. I haven't bought the school t-shirts before, but I got them each one today. They were excited about them! Alexee cried when I took hers off after this picture. Rhett's teacher asked that we bring a pencil box and a package of crayons next week...that sounds dangerously close to official "school supplies" to me. In my mind, this is still just Mother's-Day-Out...he's no where NEAR school age, right!?

Canvas for BB

I recently did this name canvas for Heather's son, Brooks. I think she plans to hang it in his bathroom along with the frog canvas I painted for him last year. The colors were based on his cute shower curtain that has orange, white, blue, yellow and green (I wish I still had a picture of it). H, I hope you like it?!

Fountain of Fun

After swim lesson, I took the kids to the fountain area to play. I didn't know if Alexee would like it (she wasn't crazy about it earlier in the summer), but as you can see here, she enjoyed it:



From there, we went to the pizza place for lunch. We met Ali, Lawson, Maylee, Lianne, Garret & Lindy there for another high-energy dining experience.

Rhett becomes more and more independent by the day. This afternoon I came downstairs from putting Alexee down for her nap and found him sitting on the couch with a lap desk in his lap holding a bowl of marshmallows and a cup of milk. He'd poured the milk himself. He'd forgotten to put the milk back in the fridge, but he had rolled the top back down on the marshmallows and put the clip back on the bag (one of the little joys in life for me!). I said, "Rhett, you're so grown up getting your own milk and snack...I hope you don't give me away because you don't need my help anymore." He laughed and said, "I won't give you away--I still need you to help me with the stove, the oven and the microwave." I feel much better.

News from a friend

Last week I received a very exciting phone call from my best friend from home, Darcy. She was calling to tell me that she and her husband and two girls are moving to "my" town!!! Darcy and I became friends the first day of Kindergarten and were best friends all the way through high school graduation. I hate to say it, but when we went our separate ways for college, we didn't stay in touch on a regular basis and 13 years somehow slipped by. When we did get a chance to visit, it was always easy to pick right back up as if no time had passed. The same was true today when she and the girls came over to spend the afternoon. Her husband is in the process of a job transfer here, so they came with him this week. It was my first time to meet her girls, and they are so cute and sweet! Rhett and Hudson Lee are 2 months apart and Alexee and Bostyn are 3 months apart, so they played great together and Darcy and I enjoyed catching up. It was so neat (and a little strange) to see our kids playing together--I don't feel like we should be old enough to have 4 year olds! Now that our kids can play together, it makes three generations of friendship between our families because my Mom and D's Mom were also friends in school!

(Something crazy is going on with the formatting here, and I can't seem to fix it??)

I couldn't resist including some of these funny old pictures of us in high school--I have a billion! (These are pictures of pictures in an album, so they have a glare.) I think the first one was taken at Student Council Camp--too cool! :) The second is from our junior year homecoming ceremony. Check out those puffy sleeves on my dress--they take up half the photo!








I look forward to reconnecting with a special friend and to getting to know her sweet family!

Future Olympic Medalist?

I don't know what's going on with the weather, but I LOVE it--70 degrees in August! It did, however, make swim lesson a little chilly for Rhett this morning. The teacher let him get in the hot tub next to the pool afterward. I've found that August swim lessons are wonderful--the pool is empty! Rhett was the only child in the pool today, and although we were doing a group make-up lesson, he was the only one to show up so we got a private lesson at group rate--yeah!

Back to School

I guess summer is officially over for Lane. He started back to school yesterday. Here are photos from the first week of school 2007 and 2008:

Ankle bracelets

Alexee found another fun use for the hair bands from her purple box:
She is wearing her first Pull-Up in this picture! (Not that she's trying to potty train yet, but I had a coupon, and thought they might be easier to put on her during the day because she won't stay still...plus, I thought they were cute! I hope she does potty train early like Rhett did...we'll see.) I didn't get the camera fast enough to capture her standing on top of this toy table saying "ta-daaa", one of her favorite new things to say. :)

We had a quiet weekend, I didn't take a single picture because we didn't do much of anything. This morning when I went in R's room he said, "Look at this!" and pulled the curtain back to reveal a huge army of ants marching from the window down to the baseboard. They were all attacking a small piece of a sucker that had been dropped between his bed and the wall. So we grabbed Kleenex and I smashed as many as I could and put them into the trash bag and sealed it up. Then I vacuumed up some more, then we went to Wal-Mart to buy ant bait/traps. That's the best I can do for now...we'll see what Lane wants to do with the problem when he gets home. I feel like I have ants crawling all over me (I probably do!).

Happy Birthday...

...to my sweet Grandmother tomorrow, August 9th! The family had a lunch/party for her yesterday. I'm sad that we missed it. Mom e-mailed me this picture from the party: Granddad, Grandmother and their four girls (from L to R) Donna, Rhonda, Linda and Brenda (my Mom).

18 Month Visit

Rhett and I took Alexee in for her 18 month check-up this morning. I've said it before, but I'm always extremely grateful to hear a good report on the kids' health. I never want to take it for granted.

Alexee weighs 28 pounds, 12 ounces and measures 32" tall. Dr. B said she's beautiful and looks healthy and great. She had to get three shots today and didn't like that one bit. It took me, Rhett and the nurse to hold her arms and legs down. She had a bad dirty diaper just as I heard the doctor in the hallway. Rhett said, "I smell something." Of course I'd forgotten to bring a diaper (or wipes) inside, so that got interesting. I asked Dr. B if we could have just a second to clean her up, and R was getting Kleenex wet in the sink and handing them to me (how unprepared could I possibly be!?). Then we had the issue of no replacement diaper. So I sent R out to ask the nurse if they had one we could have. Dr. B heard him and got us one--I'm sure he was totally impressed with my parenting skills!





Words Alexee can say as of 18 months (what I can think of right off--there might be others):
--bye bye
--yey! (cheers/claps for herself and others)
--no
--diaper (goes to get a clean one sometimes when needed)
--uh-oh
--Rhett, brother (sort of)
--Momma
--Daddy
--Mo, Bobba (and she tries to say Grammy and Granddad, but those are a little more difficult)
--dog/Bobo
--tree
--bird
--fish
--cheeeeese (when having her picture taken)
--shoe
--bow
--bwoo (for balloon)
--baby (and "shhhh" when she sees a picture of a baby sleeping)
--monkey
--thank you (sort-of)
--book
--blankie
--ball

Sweet

Just one more picture from the Flippin trip (Mom e-mailed me this one, and I thought it was so sweet):

Back to the routine

It seems like things have been busy lately with activities and going out of town, etc. It has all be very fun, but today was nice because it was a slower-paced day. We did try to go to Jump Zone this morning, but only stayed about 45 minutes because there were two van-loads of bigger kids that were too rough with the smaller kids. We left there and had a sandwich with Lane at Heavenly Ham, then came home for the remainder of the day. We built an indoor tent, a playhouse, did puzzles and played blocks, I caught up on laundry and ironing, etc. We don't have any big plans for the weekend ahead, which I'm happy about. Lane starts back to school on Monday, so the craziness begins again...we'll take a deep breath and look forward to Christmas break! (I really don't wish time away...the kids are growing too fast. Even though things feel a lot more hectic when L's in school, I don't want to wish for graduation day because that means R will be 7 and A will be 4...even with the challenges of having small children, I love things the way they are now!)
I love bath time with Alexee. She's so cute in her towel, and I love to put lotion and PJs on her and comb her hair at night. She looks so fresh and clean and snuggly!
She thinks the powder is funny and gets a little wild with it sometimes!

No pictures of Rhett at bathtime. He's a full-time shower-taker now and doesn't like ANY help at all in the bathroom anymore. :( He was sitting on the toilet (naked) in Mom & Dad's bathroom last weekend when Mom and I walked in and he yelled, "Don't look at me!!". Mom and I went back out to the bedroom and laughed and laughed. He could have asked calmly and politely, but it was just so funny that we couldn't keep from laughing. We gave him his privacy and he did just fine. These little steps toward independence...they sneak up on ya!