Better Late than Never

In May, we had pictures taken with some sweet friends of ours.... Brandon and Amy Henderson of Auburn Heritage Photography.  I work with Amy, and Brandon works for the Opelika PD so we have a lot in common.  They brought their sweet Kate to our session and we loved seeing her.  Here are a few of our favorites from the session:

Parker's First Day of School

August 20th was the "official" move up day at day care.  It was the first day for students as well, so Drew was in charge of getting Parker up and dressed.  My only request was that he take a picture of her with her backpack on.... 

My girl is getting too big!!!

I-Phone Dump Take 8

first ponytail

drying off after the pool one day

eating cake at Riley's party

bathtime with daddy 

rocking at Cracker Barrell

reading mommy's book

stirring the muffins

wearing daddy's boots

helping dada

Twenty Months

I can hardly believe that sweet Parker is twenty months old!  She is growing like a weed and surprising us every day with what she knows (or picks up on!).  

* Parker has started "counting".  I count things for her a lot.  One day, I was trying to get her attention and said "One" and she turned around, looked at me and said "two" (and held up 1 finger).  I was shocked but so proud.  (We are working on the finger thing...)  

* We have foam bathtub letters and rather than have all 26 letters plus 10 numbers I pulled out the letters in her name and 1, 2, 3.  We spell her name on the tub and talk about the letters and also count 1, 2, 3.  The other night she pointed to a letter and said "p" (wrong letter, but great concept!).  Another proud mommy moment.

* Parker is LOVING books right now.  I bought a copy of Eight Silly Monkeys and board book copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to take with us on the plane.  We have read both of those books so many times!  She will occasionally pull out a different book, but her Monkey book is a favorite right now.

* We still love to sing and dance.  We sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, Patty Cake, If You're Happy and You Know It, The Wheels on the Bus, and Five Little Monkeys.  Her hand motions are hilarious, and if she wants to sing a certain song she will do one of the motions from that song (For example, if she wants to sing Five Little Monkeys she pats her head).

* Parker is becoming more and more comfortable with Bentley.  He has been much calmer around her lately, too.  It is nice to be able to leave her outside with Drew and Bentley and come inside to cook, switch laundry, etc.  She has even started petting his back.  She definitely loves the dog.

* Parker was supposed to start a new class at school next week, but Drew called Monday after her picked her up and they had to move her up a week early.  Too many babies came in Monday as teachers went back to work so she moved on up.  (I'm still going to count next Monday as her official "first day" because her cute dress was not hemmed for her to wear even on Tuesday.)  She has done GREAT this week being in the new room.  She has napped well, eaten well and played hard.  We loved her old teachers, and they certainly loved her, but it was time for us to move on.  Parker was bored in the baby room....

Fun With Friends!

We have had some fun times with friends lately... unfortunately, I didn't get them all on camera (or phone in these cases), but here are a few snapshots of our fun!

bath time with Kate

hugging on Millie

sharing drinks with Linley

tummy time with Ansleigh

ice cream with Addie Ruth

We also had lunch with my teacher friends at a sweet friends house.  We got to play with Anna Rae, Wesley, Lucy and Allison, Kenzie and Emily.  Parker played in sweet Lucy's room and on her rocking airplane for a long time that day.  She also loved Wesley's trucks :) and stole Anna Rae's baby.  (I guess we can say she's well rounded... babies and trucks!)

Houston Part 2

Jager did his research before we headed out there.  We had talked about going to the zoo or the aquarium and he talked to some people that he works with about those two ideas.  They said the zoo would be too hot and the animals would be sulky.  They suggested instead of the aquarium that we drive down to Galveston to Moody Gardens to visit their aquarium.  I am so glad we did that.  We got to see Galveston and that aquarium was perfect for Parker.  It is smaller, but for P's attention span, it was great!!  She got to see penguins, sharks and lots of fish!

After the aquarium, we went to an area of Galveston called "The Strand" to eat dinner.  It is an older area of town and was really neat.  We had dinner on the water again at Fisherman's Wharf then walked a few blocks over and just walked through "The Strand".  We stopped at a candy shop called "La King's Confectionary" and loaded up on some yummy fudge, taffy and milkshakes.  We could have spent a ton of money in there on homemade candies!  

Sunday morning, we got up and went to church and lunch with Jager before heading to the airport.  We had a short, but wonderful visit.  We saw a lot of Houston in a short time and can't wait to go back to visit again!

Houston Part 1

We left for Houston last Thursday, early, early in the morning.  After an early wakeup call, we were nervous about how Parker would do on the plane.  I am very thankful to say that she did excellent!  We flew with her as a lap baby and gate-checked her carseat.  (We were somewhat hopeful there would be an extra seat that we could put her in, but both flights were full and overflowing!)  We let her down to walk and play in front of us until we were made to pick her up to taxi and take off.  She gripped my arms pretty tightly at take-off but never once whimpered.  We had snacks on hand, but she preferred the pretzels from the flight attendant.  We also had a sucker on board (hence the stains on her outfit below).  

I bought her several new books, and we downloaded a Mickey Mouse episode to the i-pad as back up. We did not plan the trip during nap, because I knew that she would not sleep in my lap.  She sat in my lap the whole flight (about an hour and a half) and read books and snacked.  We did pull out the i-pad for the last 20 minutes before descent.  Once on the ground, we got the stroller and car seat and headed to Uncle Jager's house.

Once Jager got off work, we headed to the Kemah Boardwalk.  It was a really neat place.  We ate at the Saltgrass Steakhouse, which was great, then went to walk around the Boardwalk.  They had several "child" rides, but we decided to take Parker on the train.  It proved to be a great decision because she LOVED it!  

After the train ride, we put on pajamas and loaded up, knowing she would fall asleep on the ride back to the house after such a long day (with a short nap!).  

Jager had to work Friday morning, so we decided to head into Houston.  He had taken mom to Rice Village a few years ago when she visited, so we decided to try it again.  Drew loved driving through Houston and seeing downtown.  We passed Minute Maid Park on the way in, drove by downtown and also by Rice University.  After lunch and a little exploration, we drove through the Medical district and dropped mom off to visit with Jena and Buddy Phillips.  Parker had fallen asleep at this point, so Drew and I continued exploring Houston and let her nap!  We found the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium and drove by the outside of the Houston Zoo as well.  

playing with Me-Merri's bracelets in the car

Once we got back to Jager's house, Drew and Parker played with his dog, Elli.  Parker did well with Elli, considering her size.  She loved throwing her the ball (as she does with Bentley!)

Drew and Jager went back into Houston Friday night to go watch the Astros play the Pirates.  Drew really enjoyed going to "The Juice Box" (as it is known by the locals) and seeing another MLB park.