Girl Weekend

Last weekend, the girls and I had a weekend without Jeremy. He took a youth trip to Montgomery for the weekend while we stayed back. We were so excited to visit Steel City Pops twice during the weekend. We also had a Saturday night girls date at Billy's in downtown Northport. It was fun to spend some quality time with my girls but we sure were happy to have Daddy back home :)

Kelly and Chris joined us at SCP :)

Ava had the Strawberry Cream

Greta and I shared the Hibiscus

Greta had some of my Greek Seafood Nachos! Yum!!

Ava had fried shrimp, her favorite.

We went back to SCP's and Ava tried the coffee flavored one.

Greta and I had the Blueberry Cream!! It was delicious!

I sat on the back patio and read up on our love languages. It was a fun restful weekend!

Funnies From Ava

I wanted to post a few things that Ava says or has said in the past. I don't want to forget.

The ABC song:

Instead of "A-B-C-D-E-F-G..."it was "A-B-C-D-EAT SOME CHEESE!" for the longest time. I didn't correct her because I thought it was too funny! Somehow she learned it correctly. I ache a little on the inside when she now sings the song correctly :( I am, however, happy to report that like almost every other child out there, she sings the "L-M-N-O" part as "elemento P." Every childhood has to have that memory!

Frequent sayings:

"I'll tell you what!" She says this a lot while walking down the toy aisle at Target. We visit the toy aisle at least twice a week, so we hear this a lot!

Her stuffed flamingo is "fermingko"

And lastly, when she gets in a tizzy, she says, "Oh my doodness!" Too cute!

Greta @ 14 Months!

I am so bad... I haven't posted one of Greta's monthly updates since she was 10 months. Ouch! Everyone says that you cannot keep up with the second child the way you can keep up with the first one and I am living proof! But I do try and that is what really counts. I feel like I am as fair as I can be with both of my girls and what I cannot do for Greta on the blog, I make up for in cuddle time :)

SO, with that disclaimer, let's get started:

Stats from 1 year:

Weight: 19 lbs. 4 oz. (25%)

Height: 28.5 inches (7%)

Head: 75%

She is still my petite little baby girl. In the last month, she has gained enough weight to put her facing forward in the car. She feels like such a big girl!

Stuff:

• Greta sleeps in the same bedroom with Ava and they both sleep 12-13 hours every night.
• She takes a 3 hour nap in her pack-n-play in the guest bedroom. She and Ava start their nap at different times, and though the nap overlaps, there is a need for them to be in different rooms.
• Miss Greta Beth has 5 teeth! There is a little cuspid coming through the gums on the bottom, but it isn't quite in yet.
• She is in size 4 diapers
• Greta wears a size 4 shoe and wears 9 month-12 month clothing.
• Her hair is so blonde!!! It isn't a white blonde, it is more of a champagne blonde. So pretty with her blue eyes.
• Greta took her first steps last month but she insists on crawling. I am not worried about it at all. She will walk when she is ready.
• We started Greta on a sippy cup last month. She still has a bottle twice a day, but the sippy cup of water is for throughout the day. She has done really well with it.
• She takes a 9 oz bottle of warm milk in the morning and a 9 oz warm bottle of milk right before bedtime.
• At lunch and dinner, Greta will eat a 4 oz container of pureed veggies and a 4 oz. container of fruit. She will usually have milk or water to drink. No juice.
• Greta can say: "Mum" (mom) "Dad" (dad) "bah" (bottle) "boh"(ball) "bye" (book usually her Bible) "Hi" (hi) and "bye-bye" (goodbye) She has lots of "B" words down pat! "Dah" means "that," and she will usually point her finger at whatever she wants. She also says "puh" for dog. I think maybe she gets the "p" sound from puppy. I taught Ava to say "dog," but I think I have taught Greta to say "puppy."
• She is much quieter than Ava. For a while, she didn't talk. She babbled and hummed, so I didn't worry about her speech being delayed, but she just preferred to be quiet. :)
• Greta is very sensitive. She doesn't like loud noises or large groups of people. She sees visitors to our home as a threat to her personal space, so she likes to sit on my lap or Jeremy's lap until she gets comfortable with the people around her. I also know that whenever we have a play date at a friends house, I will need to keep her with me for the first 10 minutes. She takes her time getting comfortable before she will get down and play.
• Greta's favorite toy to play with is balls.
• If I am eating any food and Greta sees me putting it into my mouth, she will drop whatever she is doing and crawl to me really fast. She LOVES to eat whatever I am eating! Whenever I break off a piece of my food and give it to her, she smiles really big and hums. It is so sweet :)
• Greta is definitely my cuddler! She will lay her head on my shoulder and sit for several minutes at a time. This is so silly, but I call her my "ittle." I just took the "l" off of the word "little." She loves that nickname!
• Greta is a Momma's Baby, but she is also a Daddy's Girl. This has just become a recent thing. She gets so EXCITED when Jeremy comes home from work (if she is awake) She loves when he leads singing at church and when he comes to our pew to sit down. It is so sweet to watch her and Jeremy.
• Greta's lovey is named Emmeline. She takes Emmeline everywhere! Recently, I have started calling Emmeline "StinkyDoll." She gets so dirty and nasty from being taken everywhere. I am reminded of Grossie! (Ava's lovey until Elephant took its place)
• Greta sits through her Bible class and worship. It is now really rare that I have to take her out of both. She is a really good girl.
• Greta can climb up the slide in our backyard and has just learned to turn around and slide down on her belly.

I have probably missed some things, so I will just post different things as I think of them!

Patio Picnic & Backyard Fun!

When Jeremy got off of work, we had a fun little evening planned for our backyard. Jeremy mowed the yard and the girls played on the swing-set. Greta learned how to climb up the slide several months ago, but she had not mastered how to slide down. She would get to the top and then cry for me to come get her down. Well, today she finally learned how to slide down. I had to sit back and let her fall once or twice, but she finally did it! (And she didn't even cry when she fell!! Tough girl!) After the girls got thoroughly nasty and sweaty, we had a little picnic on our patio. I laid out one of my favorite quilts on the concrete and Jeremy served our dinner to us. He and I had cocktail style shrimp while Greta had her vegetable puree with Hawaiian Delight and Ava had chicken nuggets with A1 sauce :) It was simple and probably not very nutritious, but it was fun and memorable. The girls knew we were doing something out of the ordinary and they played right along :)

My girls playing on the slide:

Our patio picnic:

Look at their sweaty heads and pink cheeks:

Daddy fed Greta and I helped Ava get started:

Ava and Greta wanted sips of Daddy's water:

And then we all took turns putting a rag on our heads: (I really don't remember why, but the girls both laughed hysterically, like belly laughs. Go figure!)

We worked up an appetite for a free Target cookie:

What a fun evening! Sometimes simple is best!

Yard Work

While Jeremy was mowing this afternoon, Ava decided to get her kiddie sized mower and help out :)

There Is No Parenting Handbook...

When Ava was born, I knew that I didn't have a parenting handbook. I knew I would have to figure things out on my own. And I was ok with that. But, still sometimes I wish I had something to help guide me. You know what I mean? In those situations where you think, "What do I do?" "what was Ava thinking?" Let me give a personal example:

Yesterday, Ava woke up screaming from her nap. I walked into her room to find her laying at a strange angle with her leg double stuck in the slats in her bed. When I say "double stuck," I mean that her leg was bent with her foot touching the back of her thigh. It was stuck in two places the lowest place was her calf right below her knee, and the highest place was her thigh right above her knee. In the past, I have been able to just shimmy her leg up the slat until it comes out. But not this time. I worked on it and worked on it. I couldn't put vaseline on it because she was wearing pants. Meanwhile, Ava was screaming and Greta woke up from her nap upset because she heard the commotion. I had to turn Ava over on her stomach in the bed so that I could try to get her leg out. I had just reached the conclusion that I was going to have to saw her bed in half when all of a sudden her leg popped out. I called Jeremy very upset and explained what happened. I held Ava in my arms while she and I both calmed down. When I took off her pants to look at her leg, a bruise had already formed and it had already started to swell. I called one of my nurse friends (Keri) and explained what had happened. She said that if Ava was able to put pressure on it and walk on it (and she was) that it was probably not broken or fractured. She told me to put and ice pack on it for 20 minutes and then take it off (20 minutes on 20 minutes off) Keri told me to give Ava Motrin for inflammation and pain relief.

Whew! What an ordeal! When Ava woke up this morning, she still complained about her leg hurting. She took the morning pretty easy with an ice pack. Eventually, she got up and played and Greta stole the ice-pack. See what I mean about a handbook? Even though I don't have one, I am thankful for friends that I can call up in a bind :)

D'Atra's Graduation!!

D'Atra recently graduated from Troy University! We are so proud of her!! We got up super early to drive down to see her walk across the stage. Afterwards, we went out to eat at Santa Fe Steakhouse. We had a great time with her and expect great things from her in the future! 

Little Mermaid T-Shirts

Jeremy is a sucker for anything Disney. One evening, he took the girls on a date while I attended a house warming party for a friend. He sent me a picture of the girls in their new Ariel shirts :) I LOVE THAT MAN!

Roger Day

Our Storytime group recently took a trip to see Roger Day in the Hoover Public Library. It was so much fun!! Greta had a ball and Ava was not so sure about all the silliness. She gave me a very stern look and shook her head "no." :) I would have thought she would be jumping up and down to the songs, but she wasn't. Who knew? Oh well, the rest of the family and the group had a great time!