My reaction: WHOA

Soooo, this is what Avi looked like one day last week when Drew brought her home from school! All I could say was, "WHOA!" The pictures really don't even do it justice...she was absolutely dirty from head to toe. Right before Drew got there to pick up Avi, her teacher said she fell on the playground and got mulch ALL in her hair. The entire part of her hair was jam packed with mulch. The only thing I could think was how in the world am I going to get that mulch out of her hair?! Just washing it didn't do the trick. I had to run her hair under the faucet in the tub for several minutes to work all the mulch out! The bathtub was FULL of mulch, which she thought was hysterical until later that night when she saw how dirty the tub was. She asked her Nana to clean it out it was so dirty!

Obviously Avi thought being so dirty was funny! Oh, and of course she was wearing her "extra" clothes when Drew picked her up. It must have been one of those days!

Her flip flops were permanently embroidered on her feet!

Happy 4th!

We had a fun, family-filled weekend celebrating Independence Day this year! On Saturday, we spent the day with my family. Both of my sisters were here with their husbands/families. We spent the day playing games and we ended the day with a great supper my mom and dad cooked. On Sunday, we stayed around our house until mid afternoon, and then we went over to Susan and John's house (Drew's aunt and uncle) in Browning Creek to spend time with his family. We enjoyed another great supper and the fun fireworks. Avi was mesmerized by the fireworks this year (she was scared of them last year). All in all, we had a fun weekend. Time to get back into the routine tomorrow. Only 2 weeks left until new baby Anthony arrives!

Avi hugged Abbi before they left, and I was grateful to get a good snapshot of them together.

Avi is very into "watching and helping" anyone cook these days. She loves to stand in a chair next to me and help me stir. Lots of fun.

She was so proud of her "little ponytail" I put in her hair yesterday. Usually I just put a barrette or a bow in, but her hair is thicker now, and the little ponytail seems to help the bow stay in better. She loves it.

More fake smiles! They're growing on me, though! I tell ya, she really is a sweet child, and she brings us so much joy. Oh and, that gap between her front teeth is awesome! I love it.

Boppy Popcorn

I feel like I have so many things I want to blog about, but I can't seem to get them organized in my head to blog about any of them! I guess that's what happens when you are 36 weeks pregnant! Yes, you read right, I am 36 weeks, and I will be having this baby girl in 3 weeks. I talked with my doctor last week, and we are planning to have a scheduled C-section on Wednesday, July 21st unless she decides to come sooner on her own (unlikely, I'm sure, just because I'm smoldering in this heat!). Anyway, we still don't have a name nailed down. It's kind of a non-issue around our house it seems; Drew and I just don't really talk about it. However, I find it interesting how important it is to other people! It doesn't bother me, it's just funny! I keep assuring everyone we will have a name by the time we go to the hospital! On the other hand, Avi decided a little while back that the baby's name should be Boppy Popcorn. Quite a lovely name, huh? Boppy is what she calls her blanket, and I can't remember why she chose popcorn to go with it, but she does love popcorn! We've thrown it into the mix of names, but I don't think it's really in the running. What do you think? My dad and my nephew got out my dad's high school year books and started looking up names. They definitely came up with some interesting ones! My "favorite" was Jeffie Jane...yes, he had a girl who went to his school who was named that (sorry, not trying to offend anyone!). So, the name game has been fun, but it will soon end, and we will move on to bringing this nameless child into the world, which brings me to my next update...

I've told my husband for a while that I wouldn't have another child in the house we live in now (it's only 1250 square feet), and I also didn't want to be pregnant/taking care of a new baby while building a house. Well, guess what? I'm doing both of those things I swore I wouldn't do. I'm so glad God has a sense of humor! So, we are set to start the foundation on our new house any day now. The dirt work has been finished for a few weeks now, and we are just waiting on the builder start the foundation. So, needless to say, we have a lot going on around here. I'm excited, anxious and nervous about both endeavors. It is going to be an interesting next 6 to 8 months!

I couldn't post an update without a few pics of Avi. She's having a great summer. I can't believe she will be 3 in September. She's lots of fun, and I'm amazed at how girly she is...she loves playing with her baby dolls, she wants to wear a dress to school everyday ("I wanna wear a big dress mama!"), and she loves to put on lipstick to "make me even prettier." Not sure where the lipstick thing came from at all...I hardly ever even put it on myself! She's a sweetheart.

Avi loves to play in the sink, "doing her dishes." Oh, please lord, let her keep that desire as she grows older! Ha!

Avi loves to make a pallet on the floor. On this particular day, she unrolled her school nap mat and wanted me to take a picture of her with her baby dolls, Penny (left) and Amy (right), hence the fake smile!

The Beach

Avi and I went to the beach last week with my mom, my sister, Sheri, and her two kids, John Michael and Madison. We missed having my other sister, Abbi, there. Unfortunately she is teaching a class right now and couldn't get away to join us. We tried out a new venue this year--the Beach Club near Fort Morgan, AL. It was very nice, and I think we will go again. The first two days we were there, it rained in the morning. In the above pic, Avi was looking outside checking out the rain...wishing it would quit, especially since we had already put on our sunscreen and were ready to head to the beach!

SO, while it was raining, Avi and Madison decided to make funny faces at me!

And we finally got to go to the beach!! Avi loved the sand, and thankfully we had a week of fairly mild temperatures with nice breezes. The oil clumps started coming ashore late Friday afternoon, and we left Saturday morning, so we were very lucky to enjoy a clean beach while we were there. The rest of the pictures are of our "photo" session on the beach. Since Abbi wasn't with us this year, I had to play photographer. Not sure I got anything great, but some of them are pretty good. I love beach pictures!

Pony Pigtails

(FYI, I've posted several entries today.)

After mastering the ponytail, we moved on to "pony pigtails" as Avi likes to call it. Yesterday, I fixed her hair in pigtails for school, and when I picked her up from my mom's yesterday, she still had them in! I was shocked. She was SO proud of them. They were really cute, too.

She had to show off the back of her pony pigtails.

Loving her daddy :)

A ponytail & an afternoon on campus

Avi's loved her first ponytail...although you wouldn't be able to tell by the picture! As I mentioned in the previous post, she has a habit of not wanting to smile for the camera. She's not unhappy; she just wouldn't give me a smile. All afternoon, she kept feeling her ponytail to make sure it was there! Doesn't she look like such a little girl with her hair pulled back?

A couple of weeks ago, we enjoyed a beautiful spring afternoon on the drill field at MSU. Avi thoroughly enjoyed playing in the water fountain. She got the entire front of her dress wet! She wasn't bothered by it, though. She also colored with some sidewalk chalk, but I wasn't able to get a good picture of that.

She made Drew climb all the stairs in front of Swalm with her. The girl loves to climb stairs.

Had to throw this one in. Last summer, Avi's cousin, AnnaClaire, passed a cool Barbie Jeep down to her, and I finally bought a replacement battery for it last week. She loved riding in it last summer (even though she couldn't steer it; we just got her going in a circle and she loved it!). However, this summer she just wants to sit in it and pretend to drive. Why did I spend money on a battery if she doesn't want to ride in it, I don't know! Hopefully as the summer goes on, she will get used to it again and actually "drive" it! Looks like Drew is enjoying it more than Avi! I think he was trying to coax her into driving it.

The fake smile

It's official. I think we have entered the fake smile era, if she will give one at all! Lately when I'm taking her picture, she either turns her head and won't look at the camera, won't smile at all OR she gives me the fake smile. Lovely :).

Notice the shoes in this picture...she LOVES to wear my shoes, and these have been her favorites lately. She clomps around like they are her shoes. It's pretty funny.