The 4th

Thought I had better post some pictures from the Fourth of July before it's like, October or something. We spent the holiday in Williams with my family; it was the tail end of our two-week vacation (more to come in future posts).

Williams puts on quite a celebration for the Fourth, even though it's a town of less than 400. They have a huge parade and then fill the park with kiddie activities like a train ride and jump house. I remember going to it as a kid myself and it was always a lot of fun. It's funny to be on the mom-end, watching Georgia do everything while I snap pictures from the sidelines.

This was also Georgia's first year experiencing fireworks. We weren't sure how it'd go since she is afraid of loud sounds like thunder, trucks and motorcycles. We were skeptical, but as it turns out, she loved them! She loved telling us what color each one was and she would put her little hand on my arm and look at me and say, "Again?" as if I had the power to make them go. I wish I did. :)

Collecting candy from the parade with a little help from Aunt Celia

Kiddie train ride at the Williams park

Swim time at Granny's house

Daddy and Lola

Lola, Granny, Gramps, Celia, and Georgia

Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?

If you know Georgia, you know that she loves all the Disney princesses. Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, etc. She is also starting to take notice of the prince in each of these movies, too, and gets very excited when each of them gets married. She has told me on several different occasions that she wants to marry Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. Look out, Ariel.

A new game that she has started playing with Andy goes a little something like this:

Andy gets home from work and Georgia is very excited to see him. She lifts up her arms so that he'll take her hands and then she suddenly goes limp so that he can lower her body to the floor. Her eyes are closed and she is 'sleeping.' Andy says, "Oh no! Sleeping Beauty fallen asleep! I'll have to kiss her to wake her up." Then he leans down to kiss her and she suddenly is alive again. It's pretty cute. But the other day while they were playing this, I heard Andy say his line about Sleeping Beauty, and Georgia, with eyes still closed so as not to be out of character, whispers, "No, I Snow White." Oops! Sometimes it's just so hard to tell.

First Haircut

I know you might not believe it, but Georgia recently had her hair cut for the first time (minus having her bangs cut around 18 months old). She's almost two and a half and up until now, her hair never really needed cutting because it's so curly. But it was starting to get a little shaggy and hard to comb through, so I knew it was time.

In order to save a trip to the salon and a few dollars, I did it myself. I kept telling myself that it's really difficult to screw up curly hair, but that didn't stop a few tears from rolling for fear that I was butchering her goldy-locks.

To keep her still we put Beauty and the Beast on the computer and promised her an ice cream cone after it was finished. It worked really well, despite the few times I got in the way of the movie and she told me, "Move, Mom, move!"

Funny face before

From the back; before


Watching Beauty and the Beast


All done!

Mom makes good on her promise

All in all I think it turned out pretty nicely. She was a good customer.

Finally Back

I'm baaaa-aaaaaack!! Did you miss me? I've been missing you, too! I finally have a minute to update - both the girls have summer colds so we are staying home from church today.

It's been a crazy few weeks and I'm flooded with events of the last month to talk about; I don't even know where to start. I need some time to sort through all my thoughts and all my pictures. But I can whet your blog-appetite by showing a super cute picture of my now-5-month-old daughter. Time is flying by so quickly. She is weighing in right around 17 lbs.



Stay tuned for more to come!

Four Months

weighing in at 15 lbs and 7 oz.

Father's Day

We had such a fun day celebrating the Daddy that we love. We left encouraging notes throughout the house for him to find and then grilled steak and made homemade stuffed mushrooms for dinner, followed by a fun outing to Maquoketa.

Sundays always throw our nap schedule off, so we let the girls sleep as late as possible and then drove to Maquoketa to the drive-in theater to see Kung Fu Panda 2. Georgia LOVED it. As soon as the previews started she began clapping her hands and yelling, "Yay!!! Woohoo!" Some of the fighting scenes scared her a little and she kept asking, "What happened?" I did my best to explain what was going on. At one point there was a scene involving a sad baby panda and she started to cry; huge tears rolling down her face. "It's a baby, Daddy, it's a baby!" She has such a sensitive heart.

Here are some pictures of our little adventure:

Out With the Old...In With the New

Good-bye to this (old, icky and couldn't clean dishes properly) :


And this (which I looked at for over two weeks) :


And most definitely this (which I let pile up cuz I HATE doing dishes) :


Hello to this (which is totally awesome, works well and matches my other appliances) :


And this (purchased used from a dear friend who moved away) :


And of course, this (can't go without the matching love-seat) :