I Want You to be CHUBBY!

Since moving to this new apartment with 3 floors, I have had some serious problems with my knees. After going up and down stairs a million times a day, they really hurt. Not to mention, I'm completely exhausted by 3 pm.

We're either going to have to move again soon to a single level home (really hate moving) or I'm going to have to just conquer the real reason why these stairs bother me so much.

I need to lose weight, and that's that.

So, I was talking to my daughter about my knees hurting and how carrying around a lot of weight is bad on your bones and your joints. I told her that I was going to get skinnier and I wouldn't have so many aches and pains and I would have more energy to play with her.

Well, she had a meltdown! 

She got really upset at the thoughts of having a "skinny mommy." 

It was so cute and I'm so glad I caught it on video.

Check it out....

10 Things I Love About My Daughter

Here are 10 of my favorite things about my baby girl! It's hard to narrow it down to just 10, because there's easily A MILLION things I love about my daughter, but here are some of the ones that stand out in my mind.

10. I love how her little toddler feet sound as she's running and stomping through the house. It's a "joyful noise" for sure!

9. I love her face...everything about it.



8. I love when she wants me to hold her. Now, after a full day of this, around 8 or 9pm, it starts getting old. But when she runs up and asks, "Hold you, hold you?!" It melts my heart, even if I do hear it a hundred times a day!



7. I love her tooshie. It's arguably one of the fattest baby bums I've ever seen and oh so squeezable! She definitely did not get this from me! But her little dimpled tooshie is sooooo flippin' cute!

6. I love her little turned up nose. It was such a surprise to see that nose when she came out, because it didn't look like anyone in my family. But it was a pleasant surprise because it is adorable!



5. I love it when sometimes she comes up to me unexpectedly, pats me on the shoulder or touches my face and says, "Don't worry mommy." She's only 2, so the fact that she's so intuitive amazes me. Because when she does that, it has often been something I needed to hear!

4. I love that she concentrates and can remember things so well. Just from playing with some of her little learning toys and from us talking about them from time to time, she could say and recognize all her letters and numbers by 20 months old. It was incredible! And from Dora and Kai Lan, she can say many words in Spanish and Chinese. We usually don't figure out what she's saying unless we happen to catch it on one of the shows. For example, she was always saying this word that sounded something like, "chee-cho" and we never knew what in the world she was saying. Until one day we were watching "Ni Hao Kai Lan" and they were talking about balloons and calling them, "chee-cho" (or the Chinese version of chee-cho). My husband and I looked at each other and said, "Ah, that's chee-cho...it means BALLOON!" We were amazed because she usually knows exactly what she's talking about, it's mom and dad that take a while to catch on! LOL

3. She is so funny and a performer. She sings, she dances, she twirls around, she likes to kid around and laugh. Being around her is uplifting!



2. She loves to lay in my arms like a baby, all wrapped up in her favorite "soff blayket" (that is actually MY pink Snuggie that's she's adopted as her own) and snuggle in quiet as a mouse (because babies don't talk!). I don't want her to get big! :(

1. And lastly...I love that I'm her favorite person. I don't know how long this will last. I hope I have endless years, but for now, I'm soaking in every minute of it! Sure, the literal hanging onto my legs when I try to walk because she wants to go everywhere I go, the crying when I leave the house without her, constantly wanting to be in my lap, wanting my undivided attention at all times can wear on me...and does. But I also know that this is a time to be cherished. I don't even want to think about the day when she doesn't want mommy as much but I know it will happen before I know it. So, for now, I'm going to enjoy being her favorite, because she's my favorite too.

Cow-Ween!

Blogging and computer time in general has just been no fun the past few weeks. The screen I'm working off of is in black and white and only nine inches (or less), so needless to say, it's been quite a challenge. And this one ordeal has brought me to the realization that I need glasses...ugh! So yeah...fun to be had by all! (needless to say, it's fixed now, hence the post! LOL)

With that being said, Halloween or "Cow-Ween" as my daughter says WAS pretty fun! She dressed up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and was just precious. My mother actually made the dress a few years ago for my niece, so we just reused it for G (the second Halloween we've done this!). She had the perfect long light brown hair to be put in little pigtails and I had a small wooden basket that she calls a "picnic" and red glittery shoes (with blue socks) to finish it off. She was adorable! I'm terrible for not taking more pics, but the batteries in my camera were dead, so oh well.

Here are a few that we did capture! Hope your "Cow-Ween" was just as fun!

This was Sunday, "Cow-ween" day.
We were invited to sing at a Living Water Church in Williamson, WV and
asked Bobby's sister to come help out with G.
She did a pretty awesome job as you can see! ha! Love ya Charis!!!

Our First Visit to the "Puh-kin Patch"

On Saturday we decided to take baby G to a beautiful farm here in Lexington called Boyd Orchards. I was thinking it was going to be a nice crisp fall evening, but boy was I wrong! It was HOT! By the time we leftwere all dusty, sweaty and filthy! But the fresh, cold apple cider from the gift shop that we drank straight from the carton, hit the spot! ha!

AUTUMN IS MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR!

Pictures at the Dr.'s Office?

Hey everyone! I've been MIA for awhile. I haven't been blogging, nor have I been reading regularly. But I am starting to miss you ladies (and gents) and am trying to get back into the swing of things!

I've been really busy with my business and have been enjoying every minute of my summer with the little one. We've been swimming, playing at the park, traveling, and visiting with family and friends. This week she's sick, so that's been a bummer. There's nothing worse than having a little one who doesn't feel good.

When I took her to the doctor I took pictures. Now, that may sound odd to you, but her new doctor was just the sweetest thing ever, so being a habitual card sender, I wanted to pop her an appreciation card in the mail. I've been a picture taking nut lately because SendOutCards added a new feature to their system called Picture Plus 2.0 which allows you to add pics, plus loads of embellishments to them. I've been having SO MUCH FUN making the cutest cards to send to people. Here's the card I sent to Dr. Lear and her staff. She said it was the sweetest thing she had gotten in years...which warmed my heart. It feels good to make someone's day with a little bit of thoughtfulness.

"The Outside"

"The Inside." Isn't this adorable!!!!

There's so much more I could chat about, but I will save that for some future blog posts. Can't wait to catch up with you guys!

Bubbly Beauty

Not much to say here...just wanted to post this darling pic that we took of baby G! Isn't she a little bathing beauty?

Can Your 2 Year Old...?

Ok, it's bragging on my baby time. As if I didn't think she was the cutest and sweetest little thing on the planet, now I'm convinced she's also the smartest! Sure she hasn't even a clue what it means to "pee-pee or poo-poo" in a potty yet. Sure she's not speaking in full sentences or asking for things or quite feeding herself properly, but this child is AMAZING me with some of the things she knows!

Keep in mind that she just turned 2 a couple of weeks ago and was doing this stuff well before her second birthday. But my little GG can count all the way to "tirteen" by herself and recognizes every single number. She can also "say," not "sing" her ABC's all the way through and recognizes EVERY letter. The other day my husband was wigging out because he hears her, sort of to herself saying, "cinco, ces, ciete, ocho, nueve, dies..." She was counting in Spanish! So then he prompted her to start from, "uno" and she counted all the way through to 11! I don't even know the Spanish word for 11 but she apparently does!

So there you go. She's a genius with letters and numbers. But she's a WHIZ with feelings and emotions! She comes to me if she doesn't like something with a sad face and says, "Sad, sad, crynin." Then it takes me a few minutes to investigate and see what's bothering her. When her daddy comes home from work, she runs through the house yelling, "Happy! Happy!" Or when he scolds her for something, she looks at him all concerned and says, "Mad?" How empathetic and in tune with her feelings and the feelings of others! *SIGH*

And it doesn't stop there folks, oh no. MY child also recognizes all her colors! And I wasn't even aware that she knew the color, "pink." But while changing her pink shirt the other night before bath time, she points to her shirt and says, "pank?" I was like, "Oh yes, she's definitely my hillbilly daughter!" LOL Proudly proclaiming that her shirt is "pank," just as country as ever!

And while in the Dr.'s office the other day, she wowed the nurse practitioner on the developmental test they gave. GG could point to the animal she asked for, she could point to the color she asked for and she could even point to the line that was slightly "bigger" than the one next to it. And it also amazes me on a gross motor level that G can jump, bringing both feet off of the floor. She squats like a frog and does a full-on JUMP in the air! I know first hand from doing preschool gross-motor skill testing for Head Start that a lot of 3 year olds haven't mastered this skill, let alone a just barely 2 year old.

Right now, the Backyardigans is going off with the credits running and she's repeating over and over so that I'll repeat back to her, ""Blue? Blue?" Because the screen on the TV is blue. So I say, "Yes, it's blue." Then as the show closes and fades to black, she starts calling out, "The end. The end." I'm telling ya'll...my child's a genius! *SIGH* I love her!

Now if I could just get her to direct her poo-poo to a potty, we'd be set!!!

Gabby's 2 Year Old Princess Party

She had a ball!

Her Grammy (she calls her "May") made this dress for my niece for a flower girl dress. We decided it would be lovely as G's princess dress.

Here they are eating some jelly beans out of ice cream sundae glasses that I used on the table.

The decorations....

Each chair had a wand and a bow. Both came from the Dollar Tree...total cost, about $1.50

Table cloth, paper crowns and the hanging thingies from the chandelier all came from Hobby Lobby. Not sure how much it cost...I stopped keeping track by the time I bought this stuff! But I love the iridescent purple and the hanging crowns and castles added just the right touch.

And THE CAKE!!!!

It turned out sooo pretty! It was a lot of work decorating it myself (blog post to come), but it was worth it! And I think Gabby tried to sneak a taste or two!

We had lots of activities. My cousins let me borrow their Fisher Price bouncy house and the kids loved it! My sister-in-law Deana agreed to do face painting. She's so talented and the kids had a blast with that! And We decorated sugar cookies. That was a big hit and I think I will do it again because it was so easy and took up a chunk of time. LOL But they also played in the yard, in the sandbox and in the little playhouse. It was sooo much fun!

Here are some pics of the fun!

Aunt Charis

Cousin Zoe

Cousin Alex


Cousin Ashley got a pretty little butterfly!


Cousin Christian

Gabby loved decorating cookies!

And so did Ashley...

My sister Amy helping out her son, Alex.

Bouncy fun!

Nana and P. Paw

Time to blow out your candles...

Time to eat cake!

Let's open presents! Zoe helped...

Love from Daddy...

It was a great 2nd birthday! Thank you to everyone who came to help us celebrate our little Gabriella!