Hello Ped Egg, Goodbye Calluses!

Umm, have you heard of the Ped Egg yet? I definitely hadn't until my super cool friend Karson let me in on the newest craze! Remember the "slicer" they used to use at pedicure places that are now outlawed, well, this is it's replacement!! You yourself can own your very own Ped Egg for only $9.99. Just stop on by your local CVS, Walgreens, or any other place they sell "As Seen On TV" products. I just used it and I am way impressed. I felt very safe using it (if you follow the directions) and at no point was I endanger of slicing my foot off. I kinda have a collection of pedicure type products and this one is legit people! No more excuses for nasty dry feet in this house anymore! :)

The Life of a 17 Month Old

I haven't done a thorough update on Annalee's "tricks" lately and I wanted a list for her baby book, so here goes! Sorry if it's long and boring to you...I'll add pictures later.

Words she can say: hi, bye, Mama, Dada, Papa, Ray Ray, Mammy (Grammy), Mimi, nana (banana), sh (fish), ball, by (butterfly), baby, Mal (Mallory), No, ju (juice), shoe, shoowee (when something's yucky!), mouth, nose, eye, ear, knee, b b (belly button), mean mean (green bean), B (for any letter of the alphabet!), bee, dide (outside), woof, meow, moo, hot, bubble, night-night, Bobo (a character in one of her books), bite, bow, weee, I know there are more, but these are all that come to mind. She also babbles constantly, it's so fun to watch and wonder what she is saying to herself.

She can pretty much point to anything when we ask her where something is in a book. She can go and get lots of things that we ask her to get...like the remote, lots of her toys, and other random things.

She will run to her high chair when I say the words breakfast, lunch or dinner. She'll also run to the bathroom when I ask her if she wants a bath.

She's a climber! Her new favorite place to be is on top of our coffee table! She loves to sit up there and play. I'm cool with that (I can't stop her from climbing on it) until she stands up and literally walks off the edge expecting you to catch her! This girl is fearless.


She's obsessed with shoes! She loves putting her shoes on and taking them off. She will point out people's shoes in books and in real life. I guess we better increase our closet space!


She wakes up talking to the things in her room! She loves the pictures on her walls and I'll hear her saying Mama, Dada, Baby to the picture of our family. It's so sweet to hear first thing in the morning. She also loves to carry around pictures of people from around our house. She also takes great care of her baby dolls by feeding them, wrapping them in blankets and taking them on strolls in her doll stroller.


She still says Hi to most people that we pass when we're out in public or on a walk. One day we had just opened the front door right when someone was jogging by and she belted out a loud Hi and waved. The person looked so shocked and waved back. She's our little greeter!

She gives the best hugs and kisses!! I love it when she wraps her sweet little arms around my neck and gives me a big squeeze.

It's amazing how much energy she has. She wakes up raring to go and is that exact way until her head hits the pillow. She's not much of a snuggler and rarely sits still for more than 3 seconds.

This girl loves all things summer. Popsicles (or Papa sicles as we call them now since every time I ask her if she wants a popsicle she says Papa!), swimming, water in general, being barefoot, being outside as much as possible, playing in the dirt and picking up sticks. We're going to have one sad chicka when it gets cold outside.

She definitely has her opinion and lets you know what it is!! Goodness. I know this will be a great character trait one day, but right now it's a bit of a whip. :)

Born to be a Wildcat and a New Uncle (To-Be)!

I finally got around to taking Annalee's picture in her "Born to be a Wildcat" t-shirt. Look for it in your next issue of ACU Today!






Also, a big congrats to Rachel (Micah's sister) and Blaine on their engagement today!! We're looking forward to your wedding this summer and the addition of a new Uncle for Annalee! Rachel's ring is gorgeous. I tried to get a picture of it, but it was so bling bling, that my camera wouldn't focus!

My Little Fish

**thanks for the comments on napping, if anyone else has advice, I'm still interested in hearing it!

Last week Annalee started swim lessons!! Summer told me about a great place to go and Karson decided to bring Mallory too because it was so close to her house. So far, so good. Today we "dunked" the kids for the first time. They were a bit surprised, but no one cried. The mommies get in the pool with their babies and we all sing songs and do fun swimming activities. After lessons today we headed up to a different pool to practice our skills. It's definately summer time!


"Hey, it's my friend Annalee," says Mallory.



"Yippee, we get to go swimming!!"

Naptime Question

Ok, I need some motherly advice! Annalee has been refusing to take her second nap of the day since last Sunday. When did your kids transition to only one nap a day? When is a good time for that nap? I know each kid is unique, but I need somewhere to start. Help!!

Caleb's Birthday Party

We had a great time on Saturday at Caleb's 2nd birthday party. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Annalee and Caleb together! Oops! Happy B-day Caleb!

Annalee with her Aunt Ray Ray (which she can say now!!)
Trying out Caleb's new bike...maybe this needs to be on our Christmas list this year. :)
Thanks for the push Uncle Jeremy!
Swing that bat girl!
This girl sure does love her daddy!
Weeeee!

Taking a reading break. Seriously, she had so much fun playing with all of Caleb's new toys.

2nd Post of the Day!

I never wrote about Mother's Day, so here goes! (mainly for my own memory record) Annalee decided she wanted to wish me a Happy Mother's Day at 6 am!! She was so excited about the day! :) Micah graciously took her for me and they had a special daddy/daughter pancake breakfast at Ole South Pancake House while mommy slept in! Don't worry, they brought me some pancakes too. I was awoken by the sound of my present being ooched across the bedroom floor. Micah had hidden it in his shower all week because he knew that was the one place in the house that I would never look!! (I hate cleaning showers and his is the worst of all!!) The funniest thing is that I actually cleaned his entire bathroom that week and skipped the shower! He and Annalee put a custom basket together from Williams Sonoma filled with baking stuff! I love it. He even went with a color scheme! Thanks hun. That evening we cooked out and had my mom over for dinner. It was a very relaxing day!

We had to celebrate early with Micah's mom. We all traveled to Arkansas for Rachel's college graduation. We were barely there for 24 hours, but it was fun to be part of the festivities. It was fun hanging out in Rachel's front yard before we had to catch our flight! (You find all kinds of things while packing up a college student!)

New Favorite Pastime

Well, it's official, Annalee has a new favorite pastime. My mom bought her a sand and water table as a Mother's Day present to me! (I was really wanting one for Annalee.) We put it together a few days ago and it was an instant hit, but today we reached another level of excitement when we actually filled it with water! She was soaked from front to back and head to toe by the time we went inside. Thanks Grammy for the fun new toy.

A Day in Grammy's Garden

I have been waiting to post these pictures of Annalee and her cousins, Jack and Katie. Kandi and I snuck out to my mom's house a few weeks ago to take some pictures of the grandkids. Kandi made them into an awesome shutterfly photo album for her for mother's day. We had fun on our secret mission!! There were lots more than these, but these are some of my favorites.

I've been tagged

It's a good thing too, because I have had nothing to blog about lately. Actually, I do, but it has to wait a few more days. This isn't going to be that exciting, but I needed to write about something!!

What Was I Doing Ten Years Ago:
May, 1998 Seriously one of the most glorious times of my life. I was a senior in high school, dating Micah, getting ready to do all of the fun graduation stuff and packing for college. I was carefree, giddy and hanging out with my friends 24/7!

5 Things On My To-Do List Today:
1. go to the bank
2. finish laundry
3. shop for May b-days and showers
4. take dinner to the Snelsons
5. wrap graduation presents

5 Places I Have Traveled:

• Trinidad and Mexico-mission trips
• Maui-honeymoon
• Greece-class for ACU
• a bunch of the states for random reasons

5 Snacks Or Treats I Enjoy:

• Dr. Pepper
• cherry slush from Sonic
• hot tamales
• chocolate chip cookies
• pizza

What Would I Do If I Were A Billionaire:
hire a masseuse to give me a massage everyday, shop for other people, and build a playroom for Annalee's toys

Places I've Lived:
no where exciting-all in Texas

Jobs I've Had:
summertime nanny
fundraiser for ACU (not fun!!)
phone answerer for the financial aide dep. at ACU
Old Navy cashier
1st and 2nd grade teacher
soon-to-be pre-k teacher!!

People I'm Tagging:
Karson and Leah!

Welcome Judah James!!

I am so proud of Summer!!! This chic is amazing! I'll let her tell her entire labor story in her own words, but let me just say that I was so honored to be a part of Judah's birthday. I was so worried that I would be busy or unable to get a babysitter for Annalee when Summer went into labor, but everything worked out perfectly. Thanks Mama Jo for keeping Annalee all day so that I could be with Summer!! Here's a pic of the sweet baby boy and another one of Annalee at the ballpark later that evening.

Seriously, I'm impressed

Ok, so today was my first grocery shopping trip since my earth day resolution. I was a little hesitant about setting my reusable bags on the belt, but the bagger lady was up for the challenge!! She was so excited to try to get all of my groceries into my 4 bags, and she did it!!! I had to take a picture when I arrived home because I was so impressed. I know not every bagger will be that thrilled by my request, but she sure did make the first time a whole lot easier.

Going Green

In case you didn't know, Earth Day is tomorrow. Back in my teaching days I would always talk to my kids about Earth Day and how important it was to reduce, reuse, and recycle. It wasn't until last year that I decided to actually practice what I was preachin'!! Last Earth Day our family became recyclers!! I bought two matching trash cans to replace our gigantic 33 gallon trash can and labeled one for recycling. It has been so easy to make that important change.

This year, I've decided to switch to reusable grocery bags instead of paper or plastic. I'm sure it will rock the Target lady's world when I ask her to fill up my cloth bags, but I'm up for it!! We'll see how that goes.

Do you do anything to make the world a little greener??? (I'm looking for suggestions for next year!)

I love chips!

I'm pretty sure this is what Annalee would say if she could speak in sentences. I couldn't resist getting her picture with all of those chips. We love mexican food and patios in the spring!

The Duck Pond

Annalee visited her first duck pond this week. She had a blast watching all of the ducks. It took some coaching, but she finally "threw" one piece of bread to the ducks. She was definately sad when we had to go. Thanks for inviting us Summer, we had fun!

I'm Over It

Ok, I'm over being mad at my curd (see previous post if you're confused!). I think my cupcakes turned out pretty cute and yummy. I had fun baking, Karson!

I hate curd

I just have to vent. Tomorrow Karson and I are going to do some baking and so I thought I'd be smart and do a little prep work ahead of time. I decided to try a recipe from Martha (you know, Stewart) and it called for a curd filling. I've never actually made curd before, but how hard could it be right? Well, mark my word, I will never make it again!!! After one hour of stirring, I finally decided it was curd despite the fact that it didn't reach the magical 160 degree mark. However, I'm pretty sure that I reached that temperature based on the amount of sweat that I produced. These better be the best dang cupcakes that ever existed. Although they probably won't be since I didn't follow the directions exactly. I'll let you know tomorrow once the final product is complete. Argh!

Central Market Junkies

I think one of the greatest things about our neighborhood is the fact that there are so many cool places nearby. One of our favorites is Central Market. This place is genius. Every Friday and Saturday night they cook burgers on the patio and have a local band playing. The best part is the playground. Annalee is in heaven whenever we go up there. She just runs around saying hi to every kid and acting like she's part of the gang. The last pic is just a cute one of Annalee sitting in the spot where a wall furnace used to be in our house. She thought it was her own little seat!

Easter

We had a great Easter celebration yesterday. Annalee was a pro at egg hunting!! She literally picked up every single egg and put them in her basket in about 2 minutes flat! It was so fun to watch. It was a little chilly, but at least it didn't rain on us.

Ball

Couldn't resist posting this video of Annalee calling an Easter egg a ball. She calls anything round "ball." Seriously, apples, oranges, grapes, eggs, actual balls. It's cute now, but not so much as a kindergardener! We'll have to work on our vocab! A special thanks to Aunt Kandi for the super cute dress (and swimsuit and flip flops!!) Also, take note of the exaggerated l sound at the end of ball...oops, I think I caused that when I was teaching her that word.