Thursday, July 22, 2010

LL's First Pony!

Sort of - haha!  Today was another "girly" first.  Lorelai finally has enough hair to make a mini-ponytail!  It really is the CUTEST thing ever!  There's not much to say about it, but I took enough pictures of it!  Enjoy.  :)







And then she started cheesing for the camera:

Because of the angle, her head looks huge (haha)




Having a snack with Daddy:


I LOVE having a girl!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Grocery Cart

We don't normally shop a Publix because it is soooo far away from our house, but we needed some things specific to Publix, (plus I wanted a sub and Matt wanted sushi.  BTW - if you didn't know, Publix has the BEST subs EVER.  I discovered them when I was a lowly cashier in highschool.  Did you know I worked at Publix?  Yep - 3 years!) so we decided to make a little "outing" of it on Friday.  Actually, I don't think that we've EVER taken LL to Publix before.  I think she may have been with her Grammy and Pop before, though.  Anyway, if you haven't seen them, Publix has little (well, they're not little AT ALL) grocery carts that look like race cars.  We decided to let LL ride in one of those and she LOVED it!  I sure wish they had those at Winn Dixie!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Crazy Sleeper

The other day, I went to peek in on LL while she was napping (I STILL do this ALL the time.  I think it's a habit from checking on her when she was younger.  Anyone else still do this??  I even do at night!) and this is what I saw.  :)  I've never seen her do this before, but it was really adorable.


Monday, July 19, 2010

Cupcakes

While Mamaw and Anna were in town, Anna and Mrs. Becky (Grammy) baked some cupcakes.  Then, Anna and her new friend, (a family friend of ours) Caroline, decorated them.  Anna decorated a cupcake for everyone in our family and put our initals on the top.  She even made one for Lorelai!  We don't usually give LL so much sugar just as a regular dessert, but I knew that Anna really wanted her to have it, so we just let her go for it.  Needless to say, she LOVED it and we got some cute pictures.  :)








4 Generations

Matt's grandmother (Mamaw Lucy) and cousin (Anna) have been in town all week visiting from Louisiana.  We don't get to see them very often, so we've been spending as much time with them as possible.  In fact, I haven't seen Anna since she was 7 (I think) and she's 12 now!  Mamaw Lucy was here last year at the same time as Matt's other grandmother (MeeMee) and we got some generation pictures then.  While Mamaw was in town, we wanted to make sure to do that again.  Mamaw Lucy is Mr. Roger's (Pop's) mother.  Can you see the resemblance?  I'm so glad that Lorelai got to spend so much time with her Mamaw.  It was so precious!

Last year:

This year:

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Gentry's Pictures

Gentry was in town the other day and Grammy had asked her to take some pictures of LL while she was here.  You might remember the pictures that she did here and here.  While we didn't get a lot of great ones (hello!  toddler who won't hold still!) there were a couple of cute ones. 

My favorite:

Matt's favorite:

These would be SO cute without the paci (grrr), but it was the only thing that kept her from fussing about the tutu.


We also invited Kye and Emily over to try and get some of him, too.  Same thing with LL, but there were a couple of cute ones of him, too.
Kye's favorite thing (golf)

We're going to go see Gentry in Tallahassee next Saturday for some mud pictures she's been wanting to do, so I'll post those pics when we get them.  You can see Gentry's website here.

Date Night

Last Saturday Matt and I asked my mom to come over and put LL to bed for us so that we could go out on a date night.  We haven't been on a date since our anniversary date in Atlanta at the beginning of June, and all of our weeks/weekends are crazy until school starts.  We wanted to sneak in a little date before it was too late! 

We decided to go to Red Lobster, but not to really order a full dinner.  Instead, we just ordered an appetizer of calamari (which is HUGE) and split it.  It was a great idea because we didn't get mega full, we LOVE it, and it wasn't as expensive!

After our "dinner" we headed to the movie theater to see Eclipse.  I had seen in before with Emily, Chrissy, Ashley and Casey the night that it came out, but Matt hadn't seen it and actually wanted to.  I didn't mind seeing it again!  I actually think that it was a really good movie!

After the movie we didn't do anything exciting - just headed home, but it was a nice little date night and it was much needed!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Tough Stuff

Before you read this post, it might be best to read this post from Kelly's Korner.

I had originally intended to not post anything on this subject.  But I've had a really rough day, and then I read that previous post from Kelly's Korner, and it was like God was giving me a go-ahead and post what I needed to. 


Friends.


This has been a really rough subject for both me and Matt for the past, well, almost 2 years or so.  Some of you know, and some of you don't, but our church had a pretty big "splitting" a little over a year ago.  It was January 2009 and a month before LL was born.  Well, in this split, I literally lost every friend that I had a church.  Obviously there were people left that I knew and talked to, but I lost a lot of *close* friends when that happened.  Every close friend that I had at church.  Because of all of the difficult circumstances that I'm not going to go into, those friendships were not able to be maintained once the split happened.  I thought for awhile that maybe we could move past some of the details of the church stuff and just continue, but that wasn't possible. 


Other than church, life just happened.  Babies create strain on friendships.  All of a sudden there is another little person to consider and, as much as you want them to, things just can't stay exactly the same.  So for a million other reasons: selfishness, babies, growing apart, different priorities, different stages in life, etc, I look around and realize that there's not much left.  Sure, there are some friends left, but even those friendships (if I'm honest) aren't the *best* friendships that I'm talking about.  Having a friend, and having a BEST friend are two completely different things.


Now, I know some people may be thinking, "You have a husband.  Shouldn't he be your best friend?"  And the answer to that is, yes, he should be.  And my answer to that is, yes, he is.  But having your husband as your best friend, and having a GIRL best friend are completely different ball parks. 


In addition to losses over the past 2 years, there have also been gains.  I am slowly starting to make new friends who share the same "life stage" that I'm in, and some other friends are entering this "life stage", so it's all slowly starting to come back.  But I still don't have a "best friend".  And that's tough.  It's really hard some days because I miss it a lot.  A whole lot.


But I don't really know what to do, ya know?  You just can't create a best friend.  It's not something that can be rushed.  It takes time and commitment and growing and those things just don't come quickly.  I understand that. 


It's just something that I've been down about and have really been struggling with.  And then seeing Kelly's post on Kelly's Korner really just brought it all home.  And I do realize what I'm missing.  And it's hard.  It's tough.  It sucks. 


I do want to say that I am thankful for the friendships that I do have - regardless of what stage they're in.  Old, new, close, drifted apart, etc.  I'm grateful for every friend that I have.  And every friend that I'm making.  I'm also extremely grateful for my amazing family.  Not just my little 3 person family, but my entire family.  They have been great and have really stepped into alot of the friendship roles that I have needed in the past 2 years.  I just needed to share about how I've been feeling.  And to ask you to pray for me and this tough time in my life that I'm in. 


Maybe this time in my life is purposeful to bring me closer to God.  And if that's what it's for, I'll gladly take it.  It's easy to talk the Christian talk, but to walk the walk and say "Anything for Your glory, Lord" is alot harder.  I've been trying to walk my walk a little more.  Maybe that's where this all stems from.


But it always feels better to vent a little - especially after a tough day like today.  :)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

17 Months!

Lorelai,

Well, sweetheart, 17 months is here!  I don't know what it is about this number, but it sounds so big to me!  In just a mere month, you will be a year and a half old!  Wow!

This is a picture of you a year ago.  My at how you've grown!

We have had another great 4 weeks home together! We have been going to swim lessons 4 days a week and you are currently in your last week of lessons.  Only 2 more days of swim until next summer.  You do not like swimming lessons AT ALL, but you are doing fantastic at it!  You scream, cry, and even growl during your lessons, but the biggest thing of all is that you are DOING IT.  You are grasping the concept and doing what Margie wants you to do.  And you are surviving.  And floating.  But, as Margie says, you are a swimmer, not a floater.  You absolutely HATE doing Starfish.  I just keep telling myself that it will all be worth it when you are 4 and can swim like a fish with no fear of the water.


We just took a trip to Atlanta to see Oma and Opa over the 4th and you did awesome.  You weren't scared of the crib there at all like you were last time.  And you just loved on your Oma, Opa, and Arthur until you had them all wrapped around your little finger.  You were an angel on the car ride which is a MAJOR blessing that you're getting better at traveling.  It was a little sketchy there for awhile.  Our portable DVD player broke awhile back, so you haven't had that to entertain you, but you haven't needed it!  Yay!


One huge thing that you've learned these past 4 weeks is that you can nap in the car!  This was also something very sketchy for awhile!  You actually took an entire 1 1/2 hour nap in the car on the way to Atlanta!  Yay!  And anytime that I put you in the car after lunch somewhere, you conk out in about 5 minutes.  It's so cute and I'm glad that you're learning to do it again!


Lola is still you best friend.  I was just telling Daddy last night that I feel like you guys are evenly matched right now.  She used to tower over you and I was so scared of her hurting you.  Now it seems like you are the same size equivalent.  Probably in about the next 2-3 months you're going to start giving her a run for her money!  You've also started calling Bono by name ("Babo") and it is one of my favorite things!  You'll go to the door or the window and beat on it and just holler for him.  It is so adorable!



It's official - you have also outgrown all of your flip-flops and are now in size 5 shoes.  When I try to put your flip flops on, they leave a mark in between your toes, so I feel bad making you wear them right now.  You've also outgrown your Nike's and your Converses, but I'm not going to buy you anymore close-toed shoes until closer to fall because, with my luck, you'll be a size 6 by then!



You have been talking up a storm lately!  You are literally learning new words every single day!  Your word count is up to 62 words with a few two-word sentences thrown in!  A friend sent me a message and said that her pediatrician said that you are talking on a 24-month-old level!  Wow!  That's 7 months ahead of the game, sweetheart!  Imagine how you'll be talking by then!


I know that every parent thinks this about their child, but I really and truly know that you are so smart.  It just amazes me how well you pick up on things, what you understand, and what you are able to tell us back.  You are just so so so smart! 

Your new thing lately is that you want to see how many things that you can hold in one hand.  Flowers, toys, anything.  The other day at Cracker Barrell you got 7 of those little pegs from the peg game in one hand!  I don't know why this is so important to you, but you do it all the time!  It is really cute.



In the next couple of weeks (especially when swim is over) I think that we're going to start working on potty training.  I just feel like you can get it and that I don't want to wait until 2.  That just seems way too old for me.  We're going to give it a go and see what happens.


I love you so much.  I feel like I tell you that all the time, but that I never tell you that enough.  I love being at home with you and I don't even want to think about this summer coming to a close.  You are the little girl that I always wanted and God has definitely blessed me beyond what I deserve.  You are perfect and I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful daughter!

I love you!
Mommy