Our First 2007 visitors

One of the greatest things of living away is getting your friends and family all to yourselves when they visit our nice warm climate. This past week we had Ryan (the best man in our wedding), Courtney and Brayden come to stay and play. It was a great trip.

Ana took them to the acquarium of course! Here she is pointing out the baby belugas while she sings the song, "baby beluga" and (below) all the "whale sharks and Mr. Ray sting rays"

We also hit our local park and back yard for outside sun & fun
All the kids had a blast playing soccer on the tennis courts:

Look here Brayden, this is a tennis court. See how green it is. It's a lot of fun in GA. You wanna move here too?????


Taylor: you're not my mommy!


Thanks for this GREAT sand/water table Grandma Mary. We love it!


AND, of course, a trip into our world is never complete until you get a hike with a WATERFALL



THANKS for coming and visiting. Come back soon!!!!!

More Discovery World fun

Ana walking the blank to explore the ship


Captain Ana at your service

Taylor "walks" the blank too

All clear in the helm......

The Little Sailors are hungry. Ana makes up a yummy dish for crew mates Henry and Lucy.

Helping Cook Dinner

This is one of Ana's newe favorite post-nap activities.

SO CUTE!

8 month shots

Courtesy of STUDIO E

9 months old

What a girl this Taylor Lorraine is.

9 months has brought upon many a wonderful things:
1st: (1 hestitate to say it outloud) SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT.
Yes, that is right. Dear Taylor has finally decided that a straight 12-13 hours of sleep is the way to go. She now goes down between 6 and 7 PM and sleeps until I go to get her, playing happily away, at 7:30 AM. Don't get me wrong, there still are many nights that loud wails can be heard periodically from her room, but the fabulous thing is that these go away within 10 or less minutes without mom/dad intervention

2nd: Masterful Manuevering.
while she is not walking yet, this girl can move! She is incredibally purposeful in her attempts to keep up with Ana and she just LOVES to play with, chase and throw any ball in sight!

3rd: Language
Speaking of "balls", that is among her small and growing verbal vocabulary... will we have another chatter box on our hands???? Currently she says, with conviction, Dada = Dad, Bah = ball, Baba = bottle (and anything new that she wants to label, but can't), ahdah = all done, and the sign for more when she REALLY REALLY REALLY wants more!!!!!! Overall, this girl talks NON STOP... hmm where does she get that from?

4th: EATING all table foods
Yes it's true and NO I am NOT exaggerating. She eats what we eat all day. From grilled cheese, to steak, to asparagus spears. She chomps away at all we have. AND.. I got the clearance, given her off the charts weight, to stop pushing formula. So we only have to give 3 or 4 bottles a day and let her take what she wants. YES!!! No more bottle chasing. Man that was not fun!!!! Although, I'm noticing now that she doesn't have to have it, she is preferring it over the sippy cup. GO FIGURE!

9 mo stats: still our big girl!!!!!
weight: just shy of 24 lbs. (> 95%)
height: ______ (>95%)

Stranger Anxiety
We continue to work on staying happy away from mommy, which any of you who've been blessed with Taylor away from me know she makes it about 30 min - an hour, but who can complain about that :)

PASSION
She also continues to be our passionate spirit, quickly and dramatically changing emotions on us until her next whim of desire is met, but again, how can you complain about that.. Aren't we all looking for a little more passion in our lives?!

Ana Masters her Fine Motor Skills

"Help Mommy. The door is stuck. It's locked!!!", yells Ana from inside her room.

That is right. Ana LOCKED her door from the inside (note to new home buyers: find ones that have bedrooms doors WITHOUT locks). And, for how good she is at following our directions, amidst her fear we couldn't get her to unlock it.

SO... here you see Justin disassembling the door from the outside.

Lesson of the day: door handle safety mechanisms are a MUST..... now I just have to find one that BLOCKS the LOCK!!!!

Couch cuddles

Daddy & his girls bonding.

Nothing beats a quiet Saturday morning cuddling on the couch. It doesn't happen often, but when it does Daddy eats it up.

BLUEBERRIES

These girls LOVE blueberries. And, even though they're about the messiest thing around, we tackle them often (heck, if you can't use your stay at home mom time for messy blueberries, what can you use it for???)

And the Birthday Party: The Little Gym

This place was great! They engaged all 20 kids, aged < 1 through 12, for an hour and a half. Then we tied it all up with pizza and cake at Rocky's. What a day. Everyone had a blast!

ANA GOT A BIRTHDAY PARACHUTE RIDE


PRACTICED HER BALANCING & BALL SKILLS


GOT SOME BUBBLES



AND BOTH GIRLS PLAYED LONG AND HARD WITH FAMILY & FRIENDS




THEN IT WAS CAKE TIME!!!!


Notice our little helpers, Jake and Maia, in the background!!!


And, YES, Taylor had her first taste of a cupcake sugar high (Thank you Aunt Christie!!!!!)

Your Only 2 once

And Ana enjoyed every minute of it, form day break to sunset. She began the day ripping open presents from Nani, Gagi and Justin and I

OUR LITTLE MUSICIAN!!
We searched high and low for this harmonica and microphone. She LOVES to sing & hum her favorites, and make up her own!




Then headed to discovery world on the lake for some boating fun with Gagi, Henry, Lucy and Amy and I

-petting Mr. Ray the sting ray-


-look here Lucy, this is the anglerfish-




-WOW, this is a lot of work naming all the fish-


And ended with a dinner with Auntie Jess, Uncle Laury, Addy G, Alex and a DORA BIRTHDAY cake with a sparkling "2"


"OOOO wow Nani.. THANK YOU!",
yells Ana as Nani carries in the sparkling cake.


And the theme was DORA, of course!!!!