Day 4: The Park at Dusk

Jackson clapping on the swings..

Grayson enjoying the slide...

Jackson enjoying static electricity...

Avery climbing in 3-year-old style...

Now that everyone has left town, Grayson has been wondering where all the excitement went. She's had to settle for a balloon and visits to see the "draga" (aka big green plastic character"dragon") at harris teeter the rest of the week.

Day 3: Party On

(A side note from the last post..at the science center we learned that an anteater's tongue is over 2 FEET long. Grayson just had her 18 month check up and she's barely 3 feet tall. What?!)

We had to skip church because both Gray and Jackson had icky colds. Sidewalk chalk on the back porch at Toad Hall.

Avery requested "pink cake with purple icing" for her 3rd birthday, so Aunt Mimi's Bakery opened for the afternoon.

The finished product was a BIG hit. One of Avery's favorite things to draw is "sunsets". She does them way better than me with an icing bag, but the sunshine on the top of her cake was as close as I could get.

The birthday girl, who I feel like was just born yesterday!

Day 2: Science Center

Maymay and Peeps treated us all to a trip to the Natural Science Center. Grayson said, "amls?" Yes Gray, add a few more vowels in there, we're headed to see the animals.

I told Avery to snuggle up to Grayson for a picture. Gray was skeptical...

Then she got into the love...

Most of the "amls" were sleeping that day, except we did get a close up view of the howler monkeys, the tiger came within inches of spraying Avery (eek!), and the goats were ready to eat some more leaves from tiny hands.

And the wallabies (who were sleeping last time we went), we hopping around. After Grayson saw them jump across the grass and then stop, she promptly looked at them and said "aga"(translation: "again").

Blog Catch Up

Cousins came into town for 5 days and then it was triple coupons at Harris Teeter. Now that our grocery deals have been purchased (over 3 trips mind you...yes, 3 trips) and pics have been uploaded, its time to catch up on the blog.

Day 1: the park
Jackson in the tunnel (don't mind the drool, this picture was way too cute not to post with those big blue eyes)

Cute girls in their hoodies trying their best to share the shovel.

When did our child's hair turn blonde?

Avery l.o.v.e.d. the slides. And we all did many loads of laundry after we enjoyed the-mulch-is-still-soaking-wet-park every day.

Goats, Tigers and Meerkats, Oh My!

As a child, I had big dreams of becoming a vet. Instead of Barbies, various Pound Puppies inhabited my room. Fast forward to high school where I realized vet school was an extra four years and I said no thanks. And then I had a big realization that I'm not so good with blood (not so good meaning the sight of it makes my head spin), which was going to be a problem. So in college, I decided I'd become a zoology major, only four years needed in that, and I could still work with animals without the surgery piece. Good compromise. I remember wondering if I'd work at a zoo, or travel to some exotic location and study lemmings. After a year and half in the program with calculus, organic chemistry one, and a pig dissection under my belt, I decided I'd rather work with people. I could settle with pets of my own. Or with visits to the Natural Science Center....

Grayson was basically in awe the whole time that the animals we read about were alive and moving. And then she giggled when the goats ate leaves out of her hand.

Weekend Away

This weekend was a sweet time up at Camp Cheerio with the women from our church. I had my camera all weekend but it sadly didn't make it out of my bag very often. Here's our cabin, minus Melanie (if I had photoshop, you'd be in there Mel!).

We got to celebrate Amy and Amy's birthdays with cake (yes, same name, same birthday)...


And then I got to come home on Sunday to this little snugglebug who apparently had a BIG, FUN time with her daddy this weekend (see post below).

I so enjoyed time away with new and old friends where we really had the chance to connect without the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life, but also so enjoyed coming home to my sweet husband and little girl. Who, by the way, is now saying "wa-wa" for her "woobie" (or for her mama's woobie for those of you closely examining the above picture). And just from when I left her to when I got home, she now puts the "oooo" in shoe in addition to the "sh" and promptly says "shew shew shew" whenever she takes off her socks and shakes them at your nose (for the smell of course).

Daddy/Daughter Weekend

Mil was gone on a women's retreat this weekend. Gray and I lived it up . . . as you can tell.


(cameraphone pictures, clockwise from upperleft: Peeps reading to Pookie after he brought over a couple of steaks for dinner. Gray decided to wear her apron, fleece tobog, and backpack for much of Saturday night. Actually she decided to wear her tobog while we watched basketball and ate snack too. This morning she decided to put all her stuffed animals in the rocking chair and read to them - she's a sweetheart. She also wanted to try on all her clothes from the dirty clothes bin - eww - that's four shirts and two pants over her outfit. We grabbed breakfast at Smith Street Diner with Kevin and Anna, Jeff and Eli and Pookie and I shared every bit of our breakfast. Grayson decided to be extra snugly with me since I was the best option she had. She smiled most of the weekend - thankfully - but did say "mama?" a few times.)

Look a Likes

Mil's been spring cleaning and came across this old picture of her and her grandmother (Mamaw). We figured Mil was the same age in the picture as Grayson is now - and they could be twins with their hair clippies.

Please note: she made me promise to make sure all of you know that the harry, pale, and scantily clad couple in the background is not her mom and dad.

Snowfall

Our furry child was up first and acting like a maniac in the backyard with the new snowfall.

Our other child was more pensive about it when she woke up. As a side note, she frequently holds her pinky out like this when she sucks her thumb these days. Funny girl.

The big snow came before I could snag some rainboots at the upcoming consignment sales in town. So she was rockin out snow pants with her pink converse one stars. Harris Teeter helped us out with some waterproofing. Reduce, reuse, recycle. It looked silly but worked perfectly. She was still very pensive the whole time we were outside. I think she couldn't quite figure out why the snow was all the way up to her shins this time. Or maybe why she couldn't see her feet. Or feel her hands.