Earrings and tears-

Well, the girls decided to get their ears pierced. Ok, Catherine decided and Lydia wanted to do it because Catherine was. However, I am not so sure Lydia knew what she was in for!!

Catherine had found one earring out in the workshed at the back of our property. She came in and asked when she could get her ears pierced and Scott said he would take them that weekend. Well the weekend got busy and time went by, but sure enough Sunday morning- Catherine remembered. She had apparently told her Sunday School teacher because when we went to pick her up, the teacher said "oh I hear that the girls are getting their ears pierced today."

We left church and had a huge list of things to do- all over near the old house in Snellville. We finished up just before 6 and amazingly enough Claire's is open until 6:00 on Sunday! So, we headed over to get their ears pierced.

Catherine, who was bound and determined this is what she wanted, volunteered to go first. They drew the little dot on her ear and she grinned. Then they pierced her ears and the grin left, but she still never shed a tear. She was stone cold through the whole thing, and very proud of her earrings when she was done.

Lydia, watched all of this and probably thought it wouldn't hurt. Boy was she surprised. She got up there and thought it was over after they marked with the marker. When we told her it wasn't she started to lose her enthusiasm. They did the first ear and she just burst into tears crying. I had to hold her down so they'd pierce the second ear (this was part of the agreement- if you got them pierced, you had to do BOTH ears). She just cried and cried when they were done and quite frankly I think she may have been a little upset her sister didn't give her any indication of the pain this would cause.

Of course, moments later, the girls were happy and looking in the mirror at their newly pierced ears. They vowed to cooperate while we put the alcohol and cleaned them everyday and they got cute little bags that said they got their ears pierced.

So, I guess the hard part is over- or so we shall see when evening comes and it's time to clean and spin those earrings!

The mom.

Ella is 11 months old

Time sure does fly and when you're behind on posts like I have been. It's weird writing a "my child is one month older post" only a day after the last one!!!

Anyways, Ella is still not walking, although I venture to say she can and just won't. Her new thing this month is her talking. She talks all the time!! She yells at the kids when I am telling them to do something. She loves to talk on the phone to daddy or grandma or Lolli or Crickett. And she loves to talk to her "mammas". This is what she calls all the baby dolls- Mammas. I keep trying to tell her it's a baby and she insists on calling it a mamma. She loves baby dolls- she holds them, pats them and kisses them with big, open mouth kisses!. She also loves her "Puck" which is what she calls her new cousin, Huck. Usually she is very clingy to me, but when Huck is around, she is anxious to leave my arms so she can see him, hold him and kiss on him. She thinks she is such a big girl when she holds him and pokes him and he just tolerates it!!!

She now has 5 teeth, 2 on the bottom and three up top. She has a bulging upper gum where I think her 2nd front tooth might bust through, but so far it hasn't made it's way out yet.

Stay tuned next month for some "year in review" photos as well as an update on her 1 year check up!

The mom.

Ella is 10 months old!

Ella keeps getting more mature and toddler like each day. It's amazing how quickoy she seems to be growing and of course, next to her nephew, she just seems so old!! She is now cruising along everything- not walking on her own yet, but loves to be on her feet. I call her a spider at home because she will often walk along the walls, in and out of rooms, and never drop to her knees to crawl. Personally, I think she could walk if she wanted to, but apparently she doesn't want to.

Anyways, she is very talkative and likes to mimick sounds. She likes to yell for "Bubba" at his soccer games and still adores him. He carries her everywhere and she just plays with the big kids like she's one of them.

She has recently decided not to eat much baby food, but instead eats about anything I give her. I will just break it up really small and she will eat hamburgers, fruits, veggies, and pretty much anything else. When she's done, she'll just toss what she doesn't want on the floor (a habit I am trying to break!).

Enjoy the pics!
The mom.

A visit to Florida

It has been almost 3 years since we have been down to Naples to visit Grandma Sue, Aunt Angela and Uncle Jonas, so we decided to take a vacation down there the week before Memorial Day. Scott was able to take the days off of work and we all traveled down for a nice relaxing vacation.

The kids did wonderful on the very long car ride. They entertained themselves with reading books, singing and eventually I even gave in and let them watch a movie (for those of you who don't know me, I am anti-TV in the car unless it's a long trip- I guess 10 hours counts as a long trip :)

We arrived in Florida in the middle of the night, but the kids didn't miss a beat waking up that morning ready to play! We enjoyed the pool and visited the beach a few times. This was Ella's first time at the beach and she seemed to enjoy eating the shells. She wasn't as big of a fan of the waves and water, but she didn't seem to mind crawling in the sand or getting sandy (much like Lydia was at this age).

My Uncle Alex (not to be confused with Scott's brother-aka the kid's Uncle Alex) came down from Michigan for a few days. We had fun getting to hang out with him and play with him in the pool and Scott enjoyed his company for his morning runs.

The older kids had a blast playing with my cousins Dominick and Samantha. Dominick is about 18 months older than Harbin and they had fun playing in the pool a few days in a row. Harbin was able to pick up swimming just like he did last summer and was jumping off the diving board, going down the slide and swimming everywhere. Catherine was very fearful this year and didn't want to get in the "deep" ever without her swimmies. She wouldn't go off the diving board and it was like torture to get her to jump off the edge. Lydia became quite the swimmer while we were down there and even though she can't come up for air by herself yet, she could jump off the diving board and swim to the ladder. She would get so worn out doing that over and over and over again!!!

If you notice, I don't have nearly as many pics as normal and that's not because I was too lazy to upload them. My camera was stolen out of my van the day before we left for Florida, so unfortuntely I only had Harbin's camera to use. It's a very nice camera, but I was not nearly as talented at using it as my old camera and a lot of my pics weren't that great. We did, however, have the opportunity to get some professional family pictures taken and I have put a link on the right hand side so you can see those. The sun was very hot and bright that day, so it was a little bit of a rough photo shoot, but the kids behaved well and I think we got a few good shots of all of us.

More summer pics and post to come...
The mom.