Back to Stay at Home Mommy Duties

With Kyle returning back to work, I am resuming my duties of stay at home mommy. Today marks my first day keeping my two little ones on my own. It's so interesting to see the growth in  both Allie-Ann and Belle. Allie-Ann is so independent, there's not really much I do with her other than the educating part...ha! Belle requires a little more attention but at times I find her entertaining herself with Allie-Ann. I'm looking forward to another year of being at home and taking care of these monkeys. It's a tough job and I find myself many days wishing to be back in the adult working world, but I have treasured these years and will forever be grateful for this time. 


Allie-Ann doing her tumbles with her new leotard. She has really gotten into the Olympics and watching the gymnast. Maybe she will like this sport. 

The next Shawn Johnson or Mary Lou?

 The life of a stay-at-home mommy!!

Children's Museum, Ice Cream and Gymnastic Uniform

To celebrate the Olympics we decided to make some cupcakes and homemade ice cream. I've been meaning to let Allie-Ann make her very own ice cream from her ice cream maker that she received on her 3rd birthday....(yeah, we are just now using it)....bad parenting, I believe. The ice cream, surprisingly, turned out pretty darn good. We had so much sugar in us last night that we ended up crashing before the end of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. But, it was a lot of fun for Allie-Ann to make her own ice cream. 


I also put some pictures of Allie-Ann going to the Children's Museum in Rock Hill. 


And, we picked out Allie-Ann's new gymnastics uniform yesterday...well, Allie-Ann picked it out. I saw so many cute leotards that were a little mellow but she wanted pink. I mean you have to wear sunglasses to shade all the pink. It's so bright and shiny, but you should have seen her face when she put it on....priceless.

Getting ready for cupcake decorating...I think Belle wants in on the fun. 

 Helping Daddy hammer the ice!

 This takes intense concentration...

 Her pink leotard!!

 Enjoying the homemade ice cream!

York Museum

We took Allie-Ann to the York Museum....a gem of a place. She had so much fun exploring and learning. I think she also enjoyed having some much needed one-on-one time with her mommy and daddy. I can't get over how fast she is growing...she's a little girl now. Kyle took her to another children's museum while I was working. She had a good time there too. 


We are back home...for good, I hope. 

 They had a Peanuts exhibit...it was the cutest thing. 

 Harvesting her vegetables!!

In other news, we have signed Allie-Ann up for her first gymnastic classes for the upcoming school year. It was a tough decision for me because I really, really wanted to sign her up for ballet but after seeing Allie-Ann doing tumbles all around the house and her love of balance beams, I crumbled and went with gymnastics. She is super excited and is ready to go today. Now...how, do I pick out the cutest 'pink' leotard for her. 


In Belle news, she is getting her front two teeth...she's so cute with them, and she is continuing to crawl around like crazy. I will post pictures of her soon, too. 

Week 1 Down

This was a rough week but I'm confident that the next week will be so much better. For starters, after 3 days of training to prepare for scoring National Boards portfolios, I came down with the stomach bug. It was dreadful...I can't really remember a time of being this sick. It took a solid 5 days to recover from it. I mean, I spent 24 hours in my in-laws guest bedroom. I didn't leave the room, I was so sick. And of all places to be sick...at your in-laws. But they took very good care of me and were very patient with the whole mess. I'm thankful that I'm completely cured of the bug and can continue with the work I set out to do for the National Boards. 


On a positive note, both Allie-Ann and Belle have been having the time of their lives. They go to the pool each day, play on Kampa's massive playground, and the toys....I can't even begin to tell you about all the toys they have access to. Grammyma even helped Allie-Ann make gingerbread cookies. It's just been none-stop fun. They also have been very good which is great since we have still another week to go. I'm so grateful for such wonderful in-laws. I do believe I have the best! 


Here are some pictures that we took from the week. If I had felt better I would have been blogging more but I had absolutely no desire to even be near a computer for the last couple of days. I'm sure we will have more pictures to post now that I'm on the mend. 

Grammyma has some awesome decorating supplies. Allie-Ann was in heaven!

Belle figured out the walker and loved it. She enjoyed being able to go where she wanted all by herself. 

Enjoying Pool Time! 

Blueberry Picking

Well, we went on our annual blueberry picking yesterday and found that the hail damage caused the farm to close. But, they still allowed you to pick on your own by an honor system, so we went for it. We found some really bitter blueberries but we also found some really yummy ones. It was worth the risk because who can really deny blueberries when they make such a scrumptious pie and cobbler. This time Belle went because last year this time she was only a couple days old. Just like Allie-Ann, she spent most of her time eating the blueberries. So Kyle and I worked like mad to try to get as much blueberries as we could with a 3 year old running around and a 1 year old strapped to my back. There wasn't a lot of people out there so the field was basically ours and the weather was just perfect, overcast  and mid 80s. It was a lot of fun and we are now filled with tons of blueberries in our house....can I say blueberry muffins for breakfast! 

Love this girl!!!

 And this one too!!!!

Comparisons and Belle's 1 year checkup

We've had many people look at Belle and say..."I don't know who she looks like??" Well, the mystery is solved because my mom came over with a picture the other day and I completely lost it when I saw it. My mom's baby picture is completely Belle...it's amazing. See for yourself......


Here's my mom when she was about a year old.

And here is Belle...

Crazy, right...they look like twins to me. So the mystery is solved, Belle looks just like my mom...ha! If that's the case, she's going to be a beauty, because my mom was a knock-out back in the day...(not that you aren't now mom, if you are reading). She won all the beauty contest at her high school.  She was (oops, is) really so pretty. So, thanks mom for bringing this to our attention because she really does look like you. I mean, look at those cheeks and ears. 


It was brought to my attention that I didn't post Belle's 1 year photos. We'll we've been busy and I just haven't had the time to have a photo session with her yet but will soon. So for now, I will leave you with some flashback photos of Allie-Ann's 1st birthday to compare with Belle's 1st birthday.


Oh, and we had Belle's 1 year checkup the other day and she is completely healthy. As much as I hear from people that she is a chunky monkey, her stats prove wrong. She was in the 20% for weight....if that was right. But her head was in the 70%...should I be concerned??Ha! 


Here is Allie-Ann at her 1 year birthday. 

I do know that Allie-Ann had a lot more hair than Belle. But...they both sure liked the cake. Here is Belle. 

On a completely different note...we are packing up again.... Ahhhhh!! Just when I thought that we were home for good, I found out this week that I will be an assessor for the National Boards. So I'm heading to Charlotte for 2 weeks. The fun never ends, but I'm looking forward to this opportunity and felt that it was too good to pass by. Unfortunately, Kampa and Grammyma will have to put up with us for a little longer....yikes! 

Back Home....

It was a long night but we are finally home for good! As much as I've enjoyed the month of June, it's nice to be back home and know that you don't have to pack, you don't have to plan, and you can simply be lazy for the rest of the summer. Both girls had a wonderful time on their vacation to Colorado and the beach. Two different worlds and I must say that I favor the beach with little ones. It is so much easier. 


On a different note, I know now that I HAVE to get Allie-Ann into swimming lessons. I meant to get her in before we left for Colorado but it just didn't pan out. She so desperately needs to know how to swim. My poor legs, and feet are blistered from carrying her around in the pool. She also is more timid of the pool, which she hasn't been in the past....uh oh. I literally could carry her around the pool and not hold on to her at all because she had her hands so tightly wrapped around my neck. Yeah, I looked like one of those moms....you know the ones that have no clue how to raise children. Lately, I've looked more and more like a clueless mommy. Sometimes I just feel like a failure. This parenting stuff is tough and I don't think there are any answers found in a book on how to do this stuff. Allie-Ann has done so well but I tell you these last three weeks have been tough, from throwing fits in the park because she didn't win at BINGO....(yeah, that's what I said too), from tee teeing all over the chick-fil-a playground (a complete horror story that I have absolutely no time or energy to blog about) and from constantly wanting to be held, and not sleeping!!!!! I tell you, I think we are done with having children....ha! I hope being back home will make things better for us all as we return to our normal routines.....we will see. But, as much as we (mommas and daddies) have to go through raising our children to be sweet and respectful beings, I will say there are many times that I look at Allie-Ann and Belle and say to myself...they can't possibly be mine. I'm so proud of how smart each of them are and I will say that I've never seen a single time where either of them have been mean to others and that's the most important thing when all the dust clears. 

Belle having a drink and resting from her last day on the beach!

Happy 4th!!!!

We had a fun-filled day for the 4th and were completely exhausted by the end. But, as I'm writing this on Thursday morning, both of my precious girls are up and ready to go. I was hoping for a late wake-up but that's not happening in our household. It always seems to backfire on you when you keep them up. So I think we will have a late morning before heading out to the beach today. Yesterday involved a fun day out on the beach and looking at many different sand castles that were created for a contest. The winner created a snowman all decked out in red, white and blue. It really was quite impressive. Then we went back inside to rest up for the parade later in the evening. Kyle and I went out to decorate the girls stroller while they both were resting. We then got them up to participate in the annual bike/walk parade. Allie-Ann loved it, and was waving her flag and shouting, "Happy 4th Everyone!" It was adorable. Belle just rode in her stroller, eating all the decorations....ha! We then went back to have some dinner and cool-off time before heading back out for all the festivities in the park. Kyle and I took Allie-Ann out and left Belley Boo with Grammy. Allie-Ann liked having some one-on-one time. She met a friend while playing and pretty much played with her the entire evening leading up to the fireworks. We had to go get Grammy for the fireworks and found our spot on the lawn for the end of the day display. The fireworks were lovely and when they concluded with the Grande Finale, Allie-Ann said, "Stay calm everyone, there are more to come!" I don't know where she gets her humor from, but she is hilarious at times. So here are some pictures of our 4th of July events. Hope everyone had a fun, and safe 4th!!