Independence Day Weekend

This Independence Day weekend was busy and full of friends, family, and food! It started out a blank slate with nothing planned, and ended up with two cookouts, fireworks, and lots of company!

Friday started like any other day: cloudy morning, lots of coffee, good breakfast company, and a few things on the to-do list...

Friday morning waffles with peanut butter, Audrey's favorite

Audrey gets caught digging the peanut butter out of the waffles

After breakfast, dressing, and a little housework, we played dress-up... Audrey's favorite part? Beads! Isn't she good at coordinating with her outfit? I thought so!

Tossing beads

Accessories make the outfit

When Daddy got home, we ate dinner, started thinking about the weekend, and played until bed time. We ended up figuring out that our friends, the Giddens Family, were having a cookout Saturday afternoon, and so we headed their way...

Audrey, Emmelia, and Ellie play with a water station in the backyard

Elias, Noah, and Audrey on the back porch

Pre-dinner baseball

Audrey and Noah

Smiley Elias

The kiddos

The babies

No one really had a problem with sharing... it was amazing!

Noah watching Audrey eat bread

We managed to escape yet another rain storm while visiting at the Giddens' house, and when we got home, we found a soggy Leeloo and big puddles in the driveway. Audrey splashed her way inside, and we finished our evening at home.

When the 4th rolled around, we bustled around all morning, getting ready for a group of family and friends that we invited over for snacks and fireworks. Kyle mowed and edged, Audrey and I cleaned and cooked, and by about 5pm, Grammy, Gramps, Mimmy, and Pappy were playing with Little A, and more were on the way...

Audrey in her firecracker shirt

Mimmy reading to Audrey

We had brisket sliders, two kinds of hotdogs, brats, baked beans, pinwheels, veggies, watermelon, chips with various dips, margaritas, and lots of tasty dessert things...

Fresh veggie tray

Mmmmmmmm-mmmm-margs

Picture-perfect watermelon

By about 8:30pm, a handful of the group walked up the street a couple of houses to a house foundation that had been abandoned... it's up the hill a ways, and offers a great view of Joe Pool lake, where the fireworks were. By 9:30pm, when the fireworks began, there were probably close to 25 people and their children from all around the neighborhood gathered on the slab to watch the show.

Our view from the slab, pre-show

A blurry Elias with a sparkler

Shakin' sparklers!

Will shares in the sparkler fun

The first of the fireworks

A candy wrapper-style burst

A bomb bursting in air...

...and a rocket's red glare...

Grammy and Gramps spent the night, and in the morning after breakfast, Audrey got to have little story time with Gramps before they hit the road!

Hop on Pop

The Foot Book

We had a good Independence Day weekend! Baby pools were splashed in, friends were played with, and mass quantities of watermelon were consumed. Plus, we got to meet more of our spread-out neighbors! I'd say the only downfall of the weekend was Monday morning, when Leeloo escaped the yard and ran through a burr patch. Oh well, if that's the worst thing to happen on a 4th of July, I'll take it!

Beatin' the Heat

For an early Father's Day celebration, we packed up on Saturday morning and headed down to visit the C-Town family. We started out at Grammy and Gramps' pool, where Audrey got to sport her fancy, high-tech swimsuit floatie:

Audrey in her OP life vest-swimsuit combo

The water was the perfect temperature, the weather was hot and muggy, and it didn't take long for Audrey to decide that being in the water was the place to be. The swimsuit made her quite buoyant, and Grammy had no trouble towing her around the shallows.

Audrey takes the plunge with Grammy

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Audrey and Grammy chat, poolside

Eventually, the neat-o swimsuit became a little cumbersome, and it was time for a wardrobe change. While changing, Gramps brought down some watermelon, and once in her more conventional suit, Audrey's attention temporarily shifted from pool to watermelon... and chalk...

Audrey wearing Daddy's hat, snacking on watermelon, and coloring with chalk

Quite a multitasker

It wasn't long before Audrey noticed the wacky noodles floating around the edges of the pool. She didn't know quite what to do with them, but she couldn't keep her hands off of them. Who could blame her? Especially when Grammy lets you whack her on the head...

Grammy showing Audrey how to whack whack whack

Trying to lift a water-logged "wacky noooooodlall"

Finally, Daddy jumped in, and Audrey got to splash, practice blowing bubbles, and run around the first and second steps at the shallow end of the pool.

Daddy and Audrey in the pool

Waterbaby

Splash Splash Splash!

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalor!"

We concluded the day with a second pool visit at Nanny and Granddaddy's, a cookout with some killer burgers, hotdogs, potato salads, and baked beans, and a smooth ride home, just in time for bathtime. It was a good day.

Changing View

This morning, I was looking out into the room where most of Audrey's toys reside, and it struck me how much I've changed in the past 19 months. After Audrey was born, I had to kind of redefine myself, and I struggled with that process. I had a new moms' journal, and even though I wrote in it about 3 times, one of those entries really sticks out to me:

'At 7:20am, I have been awake for more than 2 hours already, and sit in the living room, staring at her brightly-colored play mat. I still feel somewhat in denial, I think, about motherhood. She feels more like a chore or task I have to accomplish, not a permanent fixture and addition to the family. I get so focused on the daily to-do's that I forget about the implications of Audrey. Now, sitting here with her asleep, listening to the washing machine and looking at her play center, I feel a slight glimmer of realization that yes, she is a person who will be in my life always and will probably outlive me. Honestly, it's still weird to see kid stuff in my house.'

I think it's human to struggle with change, no matter how big or small. Change is uncomfortable. Change is difficult. But so are the things in life worth having. The discomfort, struggle, and work that comes with change makes the result that much better, and you that much stronger. That's been the truth for me so far, anyway (isn't hindsight nice?).

Today, I can't imagine my life or our family with out my Little One. She is the most amazing person I've ever met, and the most important thing I've ever done in my life. Her little Audrey-isms and quarks, her sense of humor, and her stubbornness have been beyond worth the struggle and adjustments that came in the beginning, and the view from the kitchen today is the best it's ever been.

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day, we packed up and headed down to Mimmy and Pappy's with promises of brisket, baked beans, mac n cheese, and other tasty traditional treats. We ate, we laughed, we played in the pink sand, and yes, we even attempted a dip in the pool... attempted, anyway... it was a good day.

Audrey digs in the pink sand, wearing her new bathing suit

Daddy plays, too

Daddy and Audrey

LOVE that belly

Coppertone Baby has nothing on MY baby!

Pillow!

This week, Audrey got a bed pillow in her crib. She's always had 2-3 stuffed animals in there with her, along with her "bay-tee" (blankie), but never a pillow. We were worried that, since Audrey sleeps on her tummy almost all the time, a pillow might pose a safety problem. However, I had noticed that very often when I'd go to get her up in the mornings or after naps, she'd be sleeping on her blanket, which would be all balled up and tucked under her head like a pillow. I did a little research and found the NoJo Toddler Pillow, and decided it was time.

After removing the pillow case, cutting off the tags, and washing it, we tried it out during a nap time. Audrey was thrilled. She got a "pah-noh" in her bed, just like Mommy and Daddy have in their big bed, and she was the happiest kid ever. She spent about 5 minutes sitting up, fluffing the pillow, and emphatically laying back down on it with a satisfied "Aaaahhh!" She then fell asleep on it... and when I say she fell asleep on it, I mean she fell asleep with her whole body crammed on to the pillow.

The next day at nap time, she went right to sleep with just her head on the pillow, and slept the whole nap time oriented in one direction in her crib, with her head nestled on her pillow (which is very unusual for her; she tosses and turns like a pinball when she's sleeping). After 2 days with a pillow during nap time, we decided to let her have it at night, and she slept all night that first night with her head on her pillow, too. She's had it in her bed ever since, and she is one happy girl! Maybe this is the first step in training her to sleep in a toddler bed... who knows?

What we've seen so far is impossibly cute, though, and that one little pillow has made it almost exciting for her to go to bed, so we're all loving it!

Potager Progress

I'm happy to report that my little kitchen garden is coming along nicely. I have to take a moment to express how pleased I am with it's progress; there once was a time when my attention to a plant was basically a death sentence. Now, happily, I am sustaining almost everything I planted! Almost everything, you say? Yes, well, my chamomile didn't germinate, and I have since figured out I didn't treat the seeds like they needed to be treated. Never fear, though- I'll have chamomile next year, darnit!

One of my most favorite things to do in the morning (pre- Audrey waking up, post- coffee), is to walk out to my little potager squares and look for new sprouts, buds, and blossoms. It's hard to believe how quickly the aches & pains of building the raised beds have faded into the past! It's also quite amazing to compare the before...

...to the after:

These are a few pics I took this morning of the garden and surrounding plantings, after it had been raining all night:

Zucchini growing by the back fence

Watermelon

Radishes around a tomato plant, with baby basil growing under them

A wee tomato

Tomatoes, marigolds, and soggy petunias, with basil and carrot sprouts

Bush beans, onions, dill, and marigolds, with an eggplant on one corner, and a jalapeño on the other

Eggplant #1 with a baby eggplant slowly turning purple

Eggplant #2, with another baby eggplant, not quite as purple

More beans, more dill, another jalapeño, spinach, and in the background, beets

The herb garden, close to the house, with 2 kinds of rosemary and a patch of oregano

The rosemary... they've doubled in size since last fall

Thyme, with 3 garlic sprouts behind it