Five Guys!

YUMMY! I think is the word that comes to mind when thinking of Five Guys! Definitely worth the drive into Mobile. Just look at that burger! Goodness on a bun! Presley and I went with our friend Karri today. Of course we also stopped at Castles and Crowns to get Miss P some outfits. Because I just love me some smocking! =) Presley will be debuting her bubble suit tomorrow when we go to the Gulfarium! [stay tuned for some great pics!]

Presley thoroughly enjoyed her grilled cheese and fries!

Although I must say it's not as good as the hands down GREATEST burger place ever:

But, I would have to drive far, far out west to get this again. So, I'll just settle for Five Guys!

these are the days

Gone are lazy days where all I did was nurse and hold and cuddle my baby. These are now the days that are full of trying to entertain a toddler, keep her from climbing the walls, trying to coax her into eating healthy meals, etc. Oh, if only I had known to truly revel in those moments of bliss instead of wishing she was bigger and able to do more things. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Presley at this age, I just wish I would have known then that she would be grown up soon enough and to ENJOY my baby at every stage. Oh well, there's always (hopefully) the next time to do things another way!

Presley just amazes me everyday. I can't believe that she knows how to do some of the things that she does! I have been trying to video her doing her new tricks so everyone can see them versus me just talking about them. But that is as hard as getting her to look at the camera for me and smile. [and you can probably tell from these pictures that that's pretty hard! ha!] Presley can give you a "high five" now, and find your ear, nose and eyes when you ask her to. My baby is growing up! :(

amen

Presley has started saying "ame" [which is amen] when we say it after a prayer. totally precious...totally melts my heart!

Gymboree fun!

Presley went to a birthday party at Gymboree this past Sunday. It was our first time going and she loved it! There were probably 10 babies there and Presley isn't ever around any smaller kids. I don't think she knew exactly how to react to that because she mostly played in the corner by herself. (Well, really with me!)

The picture above has half of the birthday girl Piper in it! She and Presley were sitting beside each other and I tried to take a quick picture and then Piper was off like a racehorse! Ha! Presley was trying to pull at her tutu when Piper crawled away. Anyway Presley was so cute playing at Gymboree and hopefully we can go back again soon !

13 months!

Well, we have officially been in the toddler stage for a month and I must say, it's been wonderful! Even the fit-pitching moments! It's so awesome to see Presley's personality now that she is growing up.

Presley is definitely a little copycat! She imitates just about anything back to you these days. If I shake my head no at her, she just wiggles it from side to side too! ;) Ha! If I'm chewing gum while talking to her, she starts smacking those lips up and down! And about a week ago I was pushing her tugboat around in the bathwater making the vroom noise. I let it go and she started pushing it back and forth and blowing/spitting the vroom noise back at me! Now, almost every bath involves pushing the boat and making the noise. =) She'll also pick up a book and bring it to you, saying "booh booh" wanting you to read it to her. Then she will sit in your lap for all of about 10 seconds listening to it, then promptly start squirming to get down!

Little Miss is walking everywhere. I can't even remember what it was like to have her just crawl anymore. It has been fantastic! I love that she is walking now. She honestly doesn't get into more things than she did when she was just crawling or cruising the furniture. Don't get me wrong...she is a super busy little thing! That definitely hasn't changed! I just like not having to carry her everywhere. Oh and you can see her outfits better when she walks! HA! ;)

Presley is DONE with bottles! [Yay!] And now drinking 100% whole milk in a sippy cup. We had been mixing in about 1/2 a scoop of formula, just to get rid of it, until a few days ago. I think this also helped in the final transition of just drinking whole milk. Presley is a pretty good eater, most days. Getting her to eat veggies is still a challenge, and I anticipate it to probably continue for the rest of toddler-hood!

These pictures were taken tonight at my parents' house. Presley is riding my brother's old rocking horse in the first one. I mean it's really old....he just turned 30! She wouldn't ride the hippo. She just wanted to push it. with a basketball in it. go figure!

trazy hair

This is what our niece Kole used to call Presley's hair! TRAZY! She couldn't say crazy and it was so funny to hear her say it, because crazy is the perfect word to describe it! From the beginning Presley's hair has been wild. Take a look at it here. See what I mean? It never fails to look like the above when she gets out of the bath. And when she gets hot and sweaty the ends turn curly! It's kind of precious, that girl's hair! ;)

She's doing her trademark face here. She scrunches her nose up at you and blows through it. I'm sure you're thinking "that's cute?" But it really is!

Between Us Moms

I read an article recently that discussed mothers who work outside the home and mothers who stay at home with their children. I wish I could remember which article and which magazine it was from! (my brain is still reeling from pregnancy with Presley brain!) Anyway, the article discussed the pitfalls of each choice. (I hate when the word "choice" is used. some moms HAVE to go back to work after baby in order to live....stepping off soapbox now.) It was a really interesting read because most of the time you are either on one side or the other, meaning you are working or staying at home. It's hard to see the other viewpoint when you aren't living it directly.

But, it got me thinking. I know just in my personal experience I absolutely had to return to work. It wasn't a matter of just being able to afford little extra vacations and such. It was a matter of we wouldn't be living in a house, driving 2 cars, etc. I wished, super hard, that I could somehow be able to live my dream of staying at home so I could raise my babies, cook nutritious meals from scratch and have my house be spotless. Ha ha! How funny is that? I quickly realized in the 12 weeks I was on maternity leave that that (most of the time) isn't the life of a stay at home mom and it isn't so easy. I felt like I never got a break and the only mommy-mommy interaction I got was from a 2 hour get together that met twice a month. Granted I know that my experience was only 12 weeks, but I think I got a pretty good taste for it. I would still love to be able to be with Presley 24/7, but I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that staying home isn't in the cards right now for me, maybe it won't ever be. I'm extremely blessed to work 3 nights a week (although night shift is killing me....literally I'm a zombie.) and have 4 days off with Presley where I DO get to play the role of staying home mommy.

I know that some stay at home moms do have wealthy husbands, thus not worrying about money. And I also know that some stay at home moms pinch penneys and clip coupons to be able to do so. And you know what, I admire EACH of them! I can't imagine being in either person's shoes, because well, I'm not. We as a human race have an awful habit of judging others as if we know what is going on. Well, we don't because even if you can be lumped into the same category as another person, you are not them. You do not know what they face every morning when they get up and what they go through in a day. My hat is off to all of the stay at home moms and work from home moms......you gals rock! =)

It's so easy to say that working moms have it made- you get the career and the kids. And it's so easy to say that stay at home moms have it made- you get to be with your kids...at home.

But you know what the awesome thing about motherhood is...
there is no one right way to do it!

your child will love you no matter what.

Growing like a weed

I realize that I still have another week to go before Presley is 13 months old. But I had to write this post now, because I will forget all of the awesome things she is doing now. Just in the past week it seems, Presley has grown in leaps and bounds. I feel like tomorrow I'll be taking her for her driving test :(

- waves. I'm not talking the fist crunching thing, actually waving her hand from side to side. It melts my heart!

- says bye and hi. Not bye-bye, which was really ba ba (like the sheep noise). She graduated to full on saying byyyyeeeee and hiiiiiiiiiii. Literally that drawn out too! ;)

- "dances" to ANY kind of music. Dancing in this sense means swaying her body and humming. It doesn't matter if the music is a soft lullaby coming from her music box, this girl's gotta bust a move!

- when you say "I'm gonna get you" she runs TOWARD you, not away from you. It's the most adorable thing ever! She just laughs and laughs when she's coming toward you!

- blow kisses. She will kiss (which is an open, wet mouth) her palm over and over and we are trying to teach her to let go of it now.

& these last two things are just random things that she has done once, but they were cute so I'll post them for me to remember later!

- I walked over to the trash bag we had and threw something away. I told her this is where we put the trash. Later that afternoon, she picked up a toy and waltzed right over to the trash and threw it in there. Ha!

- I was holding Presley on my hip walking through the house and she randomly started saying yay and wanted to clap, but she could only get to one hand. So, she just started clapping on her chest with her one hand!

Oh goodness. I almost forgot!

Presley hasn't had a morning bottle in 2 days! I just got her up and gave her a sippy cup with milk and fed her breakfast right then. Normally we would have a bottle first thing and wait a little bit for breakfast.

And then tonight was the first night without a bottle. We changed our bedtime routine a little too, so I hope that isn't too much change for her. We did a bath, brushed teeth, offered water sippy cup, said prayers, rocked a little and then went into the crib. She did ok with it tonight, but I think she was just exhausted because she only took 1 nap today. I guess we'll see how it goes the rest of the week.

And here is the picture that I promised of Presley and her new shoes!

shoe technology. wait, what?

We ventured out to the mall this afternoon and Presley talked me into some super cute (and ridiculously expensive) shoes! They are her first pair of Stride Rites. Which will hopefully last until the next theoretical kid can wear them. Who am I kidding, these things are white! Hopefully they will last until Presley wears them out! She has some really cute white summer sandals from Target. And while they are fashionable, practical they are not. When her foot sweats in them, it slides around and I was really afraid that she would turn her ankle in them. She is pretty good at walking barefoot, but shoes have presented a new obstacle. So, my only solution was to buy new shoes of course! ;) I researched which shoe to buy for new walkers and these little things came up. Apparently, they have "Natural Motion System" which is a bunch of fancy stuff on the shoe that mimics barefoot walking. So I guess you pay for the technology! I had to get little Miss Flintstone Feet a 4 WIDE. Ha! Which surprised me, but I didn't want to have to buy another set of shoes in couple of weeks when she outgrew these. ;)

The Backyardigans

Here are our backyard shenanigans when Jaden and Kole came over to spend the night on Thursday. It was Presley's first time on the slide and she loved it! Of course, she needed help going down, but she was a pro getting on the steps. She also wanted to stand up and hold on to the sides. But being as we are still a little top-heavy and easily topple over, Mommy wasn't a big fan of that! The jungle pool was also a big hit again. Kole liked to lay completely down in it and relax. Jaden was more interested in eating a snack, so that's why he's only in one picture! I know they had a great time. More than once, Kole told me that she had a great day! :)







recap~
1. Presley loves getting in and out of the pool.
2. even more than that.......Presley LOVES her cousins!

invisible bugs?

I know these pictures are crazy blurry. But it was the best I could do with Presley squirming like mad. I have no idea where these bumps are from. Jeremiah thinks they are from playing in the grass yesterday, but I'm just not convinced. They were not present until I got back home this afternoon from seeing a movie. So I think that time period is too long for them to show up if it was really the grass. I am baffled. Presley isn't acting like they are bothering her though. So I guess that's good. I really hope they are gone by the morning, because they are awful to look at. :(

Rome wasn't built in a day

and apparently neither are blog backgrounds! I have spent many, many hours on this stupid thing trying to make it work. I should have just shelled out the moolah like a smart person would have and let someone else do it for me. But nooooooo, I had to try and be thrifty.

Regardless........

WELCOME TO THE NEW BLOG!

I just felt the need to make some changes, so I did. I like it better. Well, hopefully I'll LOVE the end product! Just bear with me for a few more days, and I promise you will like what you see!

Today I married my best friend,

and I can't believe it was 4 years ago. But these years have honestly been the best of my life! I love him more today than I ever have before and I so blessed to call Jeremiah my husband. I can't imagine having anyone else by my side. Happy Anniversary Honey!

Happy 4th!

We are so grateful for all of the men and women who have fought for the freedom of this country! & we are so blessed to live in a country where we are FREE to worship God!

Happy 4th of July from our family to yours!