more pics from our busy week

I am so thankful Amanda has inherited her parents love of reading children's books:) We read a stack of books together and then she decided to read to me, see the cute video below.

Wednesday- I told Amanda her baby sitter was having a birthday and she decided that it was a good excuse to have cake and a princess party! Amanda loves cake and can't wait until the next birthday..........which would be daddy's:) Don't worry daddy I promise to talk her out of a princess party:)

This week we went to open gym at Gymboree. Amanda moved most of the equipment into the middle of the room and made an "invention" it was pretty interesting to watch. Her little girlfriend had fun crawling through it:) Yes, I did make her clean it up afterwards:) Could we get a patent for this invention please daddy?

Amanda loves to read to me:) She told she plans to read to her new sister too when she gets here. She told me today that her baby sister told her she is "tired of being in my tummy since it is so dark in there!" This story was about a bunny who goes to a fair, rides and moon bounce, and doesn't obey his mommy and gets lost.

Friday- a girlfriend called me and asked us if we wanted to meet up for a spontaneous lunch at Red, Hot, and Blue. I agreed and promised to not wear makeup if she didn't. We had a great time with her little girl who is about 6 months older than Amanda and her little man is 13 months, they are both adorable children and I really enjoy my friendship with their mom. She's awesome and was good to bring out the spontaneity in me.

After lunch Amanda and I headed to the library and read a stack of books and checked out three videos. They let you keep them for one week. Of course, we have to make sure they are returned promptly since they just raised their rates to 30 cents per item per day they are late:) That is the main reason we don't check out the books we just read them there:) Not to mention the last time we checked out books only to get them home and find dried food (spaghetti sauce) in between the pages of several books. Gross! I tried to disinfect them the best I could but think it is pretty sad that people allow their children to destroy books that tax payers pay for and don't even belong to them. Ok, I will step off of my soapbox now:)

What a fun week with lots of time for lunch dates ( I don't think we ate lunch at home this week, yikes!) and playdates with friends for which we feel very blessed:)

Park day pics

On Thursday we went to a park for a day of fun. Since we were EARLY we had to wait for the doors to open for the puppet show:)

Amanda was so excited about the tickets:) I was excited about the pony tail accessory she let me put in her hair. I have wanted her to wear fun things in her hair for soooo long and she finally let me thanks to Ashley:) We had lunch with Ash on Tuesday and she had one in her hair and then Amanda asked for one in her hair. Thank God for peer pressure at 3.)

She looks so big waiting on the steps for the show to begin:)

We saw Sleeping Beauty and afterwards the puppeteer let us take pics, he didn't seem too excited about the pics, just look at his face:) Oh well, the look on my girl's face was all I cared about:)

Next we rode the carousel. This carousel is just amazing and very old. They restored it and I think it just beautiful:)

Here is the music box that still works:)

I couldn't help but think back to when Amanda didn't like carousels or moon bounces and now they are two of her favorite things to do. She chose to ride the bunny.

After riding the carousel we went to the cafe and bought some lunch and had a picnic outside with a lot of friendly ants:)

Then we played on the playground which was kinda interesting. It was very artsy and not that exciting to me. Amanda's only complaint was that "there is no slide, why don't they have a slide at this playground?"

Not sure what this was but Amanda had fun with it

Of course the swing was and always is her favorite:)

We finished our day with one last trip to the carousel, this time she rode the tiger. She said, "I have never ridden a tiger before!"

What a fun day and the 3 hour nap afterwards really made the trip well worth it) We look forward to the next show!

Fun at the park

Wow, what a beautiful day together at the park! The trees surrounding this park were beautiful and the little stream that flows under this bridge made the most calming sound. God definitely knew what he was doing when he created such a beautiful world for us to enjoy and Amanda and I enjoyed it today!



Our morning started early but with some funny questions from Amanda while we were getting ready to go. I told her is it hard for me to bend down a lot because it hurts since I have a baby in my tummy the other day when pulling weeds.



This morning she said,"I am not married and I don't have a baby in my tummy but my tummy hurts when I bend down so I can't bend down today." ha ha Then she asked, "is my baby sister going to leave a big hole in your tummy when she comes out?" I told her "no the doctor will use stitches so there will not be a big hole." She asked, "what are stitches?" "Where are they going to cut you?" "Will it hurt?"

I told her no because they will give me medicine so I won't feel it. I wanted to say it hurts like you wouldn't believe so that is why you should always be nice to your mommy but didn't. I figure I will be using that line a lot during in the teen years so I don't want to overuse it now.



The park was a little drive for us so it was an opportunity for more questions. We ran into some traffic and she wanted our car to fly. I told her that wasn't something I could do. She asked me, "why doesn't our car fly?" I told her cars do not fly only birds fly. She replied, "well, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang flies!" (her daddy has read her a book about Chitty and she has seen the very beginning of the movie before I turned it off because part of that movie still scares me so I didn't think it would be age appropriate for her.)



I told her that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is just "pretend it isn't real!"

She very emphatically replied, "Well, why didn't anyone tell me that?"



We had a wonderful time at the park and didn't get lost getting there and even arrived 47 minutes before the puppet show started......(2 firsts for me in one day) but on the way home I took a wrong turn and ended up in another state:) I haven't learned how to work the GPS (my hubby has been tutoring me but it takes me a while to understand anything to do with maps, etc) For some reason Amanda figured out we were lost and started to panic! I told her it would be fine we just needed to find a certain road. She got all worried and said, "Oh, I just want daddy! Where is he? I know he doesn't have a conference call!"



Then I remembered my hubby telling me if I ever needed to get home to hit this button and say, "go home" I did just that and this sweet little GPS voice guided me home. I was instantly relieved and thank God for the genius that invented this! I only wish I had it earlier like when I was 16:) This could have saved me years of being lost!



I looked back to tell Amanda what I remembered daddy saying only to find her totally asleep and she ended up sleeping for 3 hours and 17 minutes:) This is a girl who only naps on Sundays. (church makes us all so tired) I guess her little body really needed some rest. Now, she will probably be up late.......but we will be out at a social tonight so our poor baby sitter will have to tire her back out:) I am sure she can since Amanda said she just "wore her out" yesterday! ( I will pics later of our day at the park:)

Our week so far.........

I have been ordered by my sweet hubby to get off of my feet and rest for the rest of the evening! Man, am I glad I change my mind about SUBMISSION before I got married! It is pretty nice:) ha ha

So I will journal for the week so far.......this week we started off with daddy being home on Monday so we went out for ice cream:) We finished planting our flowers just in time before the rain started. Amanda has decided "I don't really like yard work mommy." She didn't like getting her hands dirty even though we gave her gloves to wear......ummmmm.........she did enjoy her job of watering the flowers so at least that is a start in making her our future lawn care service:)

We finished the day by trying a new pizza place in town for dinner and a birthday celebration for my brother:) Amanda was so worried that if we didn't get to mamaw and papaw's house "right away" we would "miss the cake" She really loves cake and celebrating birthdays and couldn't wait to "tickle her Uncle":)

On Tuesday we woke up and Amanda asked if daddy was home again. I told her he had to go back to work and she replied, "it's a good thing, we can have peace and quiet and no lawn mowers." ha ha We had no idea the sound of the lawn mower disturbed her "peace and quiet"

We met a girlfriend we hadn't seen since February and her little girl for lunch. It was so nice for me to catch up with her mom and the girls enjoyed being together again:) Then we jetted off to sports class and learned to play soccer:) After class we had a few minutes before a play date with another little friend so we did a little shopping and of course Amanda talked me into getting her a "treat" She really had been such an angel all day so I was easily talked into it. Plus, being pregnant with number 2 has brought on a "mommy guilt" that I can't quite explain but has left me giving in to her suggestions a little more frequently. I know, I know, it's bad but will come to an abrupt end in August I am sure if not before then:) ( I'm finishing up reading "Mommy Grace" which really is helping me deal with "mommy guilt" I think most moms experience whether they choose to admit it is a different story:)

We met our friend for a play date and then went to the grocery store to pick up a few things.........by the time we got home we were both beat and I told my hubby all we had done and considering we are suppose to be "taking it easy" and "lightening our schedule" he was a little shocked we had run so much.

It is just hard not to because I know we will be slowing down and be stuck at home more when the baby comes, so it is sorta our last "hurrah" and the "mommy guilt" of knowing I will not be able to just run and run with Amanda once the baby is born.......

Today Amanda's playmate/babysitter came to play. They played go fish, planted strawberries, a panda grass head, did an egg experiment, cleaned out Amanda's "special activity drawer" in the kitchen, and played with play dough:) Amanda also introduced her to one of her favorite shows:) We also enjoyed celebrating baby sitter's birthday:)

After the sitter left Amanda declared, "Miss __________ wore me out!" ha ha I laughed soooo hard!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had a lot more energy today and was able to get a lot of cleaning done which made me feel great!

Tomorrow, we are going to see a special play and then a puppet show called "Sleeping Beauty" we normally wouldn't do both in one day but since it is quite a drive away and we already paid for the play tickets before we scheduled the puppet show tickets we will try and do both:) It should make for an interesting morning:) We will have to compromise and miss cooking class-but we can't do it all:) Plus, the regular teacher will be back tomorrow so I am really not that worried:) We will catch up on pics soon.........when we stop running around so much:)

sweet video and bible story leg

Amanda helped me this weekend with some organizing of some stickers we use at bible club. She asked if she could use some for a special project and this is what she did:) I asked her what her project was called and she told me, "my bible story leg" I have never heard of a bible story leg before but I guess Amanda has discovered a new way of teaching:)


I took a lot of video when Amanda was playing in her pool and was going through them and found this too sweet to not share! Amanda was playing in her pool and then says "thank you daddy, thank you mommy" for buying her the pool:) I love when Amanda uses good manners and when she does it without being told... just makes motherhood all the more rewarding:)

Weekend fun:)

Saturday after pulling more weeds we decided to paint with sidewalk chalk (which was messier than I expected) Amanda is in to mixing colors so she mixed the blue and yellow to make green. I told her she looked like a green monster and to go "roar" for a picture and this is what I got:) Definitely filing this one in her wedding day slide show pics:)

On Saturday we went out to breakfast as a family. I saw an IHOP commercial the night before and told my husband how good it looked to me. He was thrilled that I wanted to go there for breakfast since I am not a big breakfast person and the thought of eating french toast with anything more than butter on it usually makes me sick...but like they say having a baby changes things:) The line at IHOP was way too long so we decided to go to Bob Evans, yep, talked daddy into it only because he was starving by that point. We couldn't believe it when we got the same waitress we had last time and were scared.....but ended up with free bacon, pancakes, and biscuits, so we were OK with the slow service. After breakfast we then shopped for some patio furniture. (yes we have been doing this since last summer) Just can't find something we like for the right price of course, Amanda loved every chair she sat in and would have us sit in them and say,"that's cum-toe-bull mommy." She is so much easier to please than we are:)

I love this relaxing pose:) On the way home we picked up some pretty flowers for Amanda and I to plant this weekend after the weed-pulling is done:) She's getting really good at pulling weeds:)

I walked into the sun room on Friday afternoon only to find an Alligator with a little present in it:)

Amanda loves her new pool and when her daddy filled it with water he sprayed her on purpose. Amanda laughed hysterically and then said, "why would you spray your little girl?"

Amanda enjoyed playing lifeguard and pretended to be a Great Wolf Lodge and was telling all the children what to do just like real lifeguards do. (I didn't realize she watched the lifeguards so much when we were there in February but I guess she did because she sure did imitate them down to their gestures and all)

Isn't this the life? Hanging out in the pool:)

On Friday morning my girlfriend and I took our kids to a place full of moon bounces:) I had never been there before and it was a blast. The children play in one room of moon bounces and slides and then when the whistle blows the kids go to another room full of more moon bounces and slides:) My girlfriend has a boy and a girl and Amanda followed her little boy everywhere!The kids had a blast together and as we walked to the car Amanda said, "thanks for bringing me here mommy and asking my friends to come!" Then she asked when we could come back and if her friends could do a "playdate" at her house:) She just loves her friends!

I loved this wooden train they had to play in.

She must have climbed up this bounce house at least 10 times.

She looks so grown up to me with her hair back. Today she told me, "I am just growing up overnight!" I couldn't agree more!

Opps, not suppose to go down on her tummy but once I told her she didn't do it again. It is my fault for not telling her the rules before we started playing:)

Her little friend was waiting for her to come out:) So cute!