We had a playdate at Ethan's house and the kids got to wear their costumes. They were all adorable, but my prize goes to little Catherine in the pumpkin costume. Also, Alyssa Kate had some ladybug rain boots to match her ladybug costume. So cute!! Poor Caleb was not too happy with his costume, even though he was a darling little pumpkin too. Part of the fun for us moms is torturing the kids by making them take a picture before we can leave. Are we mean or what?!?

My little Hershey Kiss...

The kids had so much fun playing outside. I think Kaleigh went up & down the slide 15 times or more. The only way I was able to get her inside was to bribe her with cake! The whole way home she talked about "Amber house playdate".

I babysit Maddie a couple of times a month and she and Kaleigh are such good friends. They are only 10 days apart in age and have alot of fun together. Here are some pictures of them trying on these adorable jackets that my mother-in-law bought and then playing in the playpen (they wanted in there). Maddie is very sweet.

Dressing Up

Kaleigh likes to dress herself now and the results are pretty funny...











She is trying on one of her costumes. This kitty cat costume is from last year but it didn't fit too well then. She also has a Hershey Kiss costume. We will probably have opportunities to wear both.










Jill hosted Bunko this month and I was so impressed to see everyone dress up! There were some cute & funny costumes.

Kaleigh & Noah with their cowboy boots


At the pumpkin patch















Kaleigh "shopping" at Toys R Us - Kaleigh was so funny. We were walking through the store and she started pushing the little stroller. Then, whenever she saw something else she liked, she started carrying those things around too. At one point she had about four big things that she was towing through the store!

Fair Day
Well, I decided we just couldn't stay at home on Kaleigh's birthday, so we ended up going to the fair in the rain. She rode her first ride so I felt it was a success. Then she got to "milk a goat". Notice her very skilled one-handed approach. She also got to see lots & lots of goats. And it was all free!

Kaleigh's Birthday Bash
We had Kaleigh's party on Saturday. We grilled Shish-kabobs and ate outside. It was a gorgeous day. Then Kaleigh opened LOTS of presents from our giving families. Whenever she opened a present, she would say "open" meaning she wanted to get the toy out of it's wrapping and play with it. I thought this was much better than her just saying "more". Be sure & watch to the end of the slideshow so you can see the rainbow cake I made. It was a pain but I think Kaleigh appreciated it. And for her now, cake is synonomous with Birthday.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, KALEIGH!





We can't believe our little baby is already 2 years old. We celebrated her birthday this weekend with our family and today we are supposed to go to the fair, but it's not looking so good...


Some milestone information -


Kaleigh is a little chatterbox right now. She wakes up talking and doesn't stop unless she's got her thumb in her mouth. I love hearing her melodic little voice. She uses simple sentences like "You hear that choo-choo train?"


She's learning manners and will usually say "Thanks, Mommy" whenever I give her something. When someone sneezes she almost always says "bless you, ____" and if she sneezes, she says "Bless you, boo boo" because that's what I used to say to her.


She can count to ten and sing her ABC's. She loves to sing other songs too, like "Jesus loves me", "Wheels on the bus", and "twinkle twinkle little star".


She can name a lot of shapes, including circle, star, heart, oval, diamond and triangle.


She's working on potty training - some days are better than others. She will sometimes stay clean all day, but only if I take her to potty every couple of hours.


She likes to dance and work puzzles, and her favorite toy will probably be her new little kitchen that she got for her birthday. She loves TV, but I try not to let her watch much. She says "Baby Einstein?" every time we start messing with the DVD player.

She is starting to get a little bit of the terrible 2's, throwing tantrums and saying "no" alot, and "I do it" showing her independence.

I will post some pictures later because (drumroll, please) we are finally getting high speed internet! Yay! I feel like it's my birthday too.

New York City, here we come!
At least in 5 or 6 months hopefully...

My good friend Amy called yesterday. She and her husband, Jeremy just moved to New York and will be there about a year, and she wants to know when Nathan and I can come visit. We have both always wanted to visit New York, so we are planning a trip for the spring. It will be great to see Amy again. She has lived far away for several years now, so we don't get to see each other much. Only once or twice a year.

All that to say, I'm already planning the trip in my head. We will shop & window shop, go to museums, see a show, and try to attend a taping of a TV show. I'm looking for good suggestions of things not to miss, so if you have been, please give me some input.


What is mom cooking for dinner these days?

A blog would not be complete without a funny Kaleigh anecdote, so here it is. We were eating supper last night and I had made a pot roast in the crock pot with potatoes, carrots, and onions. Kaleigh got one of the onions on her fork, held it up and said "Look, Shelly! A worm!" Now I've cooked some strange things in my lifetime, including cookies without flour (an accident) and vegetarian spinach meat loaf (on purpose but a bad idea) but I'm pretty sure serving worms would be an all time low. As for her calling me Shelly, that's what happens when you laugh at your child instead of correcting them. She started calling Nathan and me by our names a couple of months ago, just every once in a while. Now she does it all the time. What a mess!

Hello all! I know you are all looking at this picture of me and wondering...

"How can I get hair like that?!?"

Well, it's not easy. To achieve this look - First of all, you have to be from the South. That is a must. Second, you must have big uncontrollable hair to begin with, and third, you channel the spirit of Dolly Parton and think "big, big, big". Good luck to you all.

My little Pirate

Every week Kaleigh and I go to storytime at the Benton libray and they read books, sing songs and make a craft. The theme this week was pirates so here is Kaleigh showing off her pirate hat. We also have been going to Little Lambs story time at church on Fridays and it is a lot of fun too.

On that same note, I really need some advice about K. I know this is going to sound horrible, but I've taken to shutting myself in a room for a few minutes just to get a little break from her or to do some cleaning, pay bills, whatever. She literally will not leave my side to play with her toys or anything. If I try to sit down, she's on top of me. The only way I can get a break is to turn on the TV for her and I hate to do that. It's not that I don't spend time with her, I do. I've tried giving her my undivided attention for a while, hoping she would be okay to play by herself for a while, but that doesn't work. My only idea is to have another child for her to play with, but my friend Ellen assures me that it may sound good in theory but in reality - not so much. Am I just looking at this all wrong? Any ideas?

Caught in the act...

Sunday after church we had some friends over and Kaleigh took advantage of our distraction to close herself in the study with a magic marker. She wrote all over some note cards, her legs, her hands, her mouth, the walls, and the door. We're not sure what she would have done next if Nathan hadn't found her! Luckily it was washable and everything came clean.

Also I wanted to mention that Kaleigh is now a big football fan. I think it started when she was with my family over labor day and my brother had her watching it. Saturday night we watched the LSU game (which they won 48 to 7, I might add) and she was so into it! Every time they scored she ran around with her hands in the air saying "touchdown, touchdown". When I had to put her to bed she kept asking to "watch football" over & over. It's really not surprising, considering that I was watching LSU play while she was born.

Branson Weekend

We just got back from a fun weekend trip with some wonderful friends. We all had a good time together on a ski trip earlier this year and decided to try a shorter trip together. Everyone else brought their kids, but Nathan and I decided to let Kaleigh stay with my parents. We figured 10 adults and 4 kids in one condo was plenty, and I selfishly wanted to do as much riding as possible at Silver Dollar City. All the kids were really good, though, even Ben! (just kidding, Ben).

It looks like my legs are cut off at the knee in this picture.








Look closely at the sign above Nathan's head... In the kids area at SDC they had this giant ball pen about 5 stories high where you can shoot these foam balls at each other or as I had fun doing - drop them on your friends heads.






This giant swing was the new ride at Silver Dollar City. It scared me worse than anything I've ever ridden, but it was fun. See if you can see Nitzia's face in this picture. She looks about how I felt when I rode.

The whole group - I'm hoping Kaleigh will not be mad at us when she's old enough to realize that we left her at home.

Anyone out there still reading? - I realize it's been over 2 months since my last blog. I won't even try to catch up with pictures, but here's what we've done - weekend getaway with Nathan's best friends from Magnolia & their wives, my first ever reunion w/ college friends in Hot Springs, New carpet for the house, my cousin's wedding in Lake Charles, another friend's wedding in Memphis, get togethers with friends and even a very fun slumber party, going out on the lake in my father-in-law's new boat, and having friends visit from out of town.

A little about Kaleigh - she can count to 10 now, just don't ask her to do it on command! She no longer uses bad words, she can now pronounce "fork" better than I can with about 4 syllables. She calls me Shelly all the time instead of mommy and is now putting lots of words together. For example, she walked in the kitchen last week with her finger held out and said "Gross, booger, you see it?" Sure enough, there on the end of her finger...

One funny story (at least it was to me). We were on Joe's boat last weekend and Joe took off. I didn't have a good hold on Kaleigh and she fell forward and hit her face on the boat. She was really crying hard and I was looking closely to see if anything was bleeding or cut. I couldn't tell if she had hit her nose or her mouth and I was asking her "Kaleigh, what hurts? What's the matter?" Her wailed response - "my craaackerrrrr" So I looked down and yes, there is her dropped cracker on the floor of the boat. As soon as I handed it to her, she stopped crying.

WHAT did she just say?!?

As many of you know, living with a toddler is not without its funny and sometimes hilarious moments. One of the funniest things is hearing Kaleigh repeat words that we say, sometimes in context, sometimes not, but always cute. Or at least we used to think so...

We figured since Nathan and I keep the naughty words at a minimum (did I mention all the home improvements lately?) that we wouldn't have any problems in that area with Kaleigh saying those kinds of words. Well, we didn't take into account her pronunciation of seemingly harmless, everyday words. For instance - "sit". Well you can just imagine how that one could come out.

Most recently sitting down at dinner with my parents and sister, Kaleigh picked up her little fork that she eats with, looks at it, and says "fork". Only it didn't come out that way. She's not so good with the r's yet, you see. Needless to say, a few of us very mature individuals had to giggle a little bit. Well, this made Kaleigh want to say it again and again... By this time Nathan is getting on to us for laughing and I'm pretty sure my mom had stuff coming out of her nose. My dad down at the other end of the table from Kaleigh is just going "what did she say?" This really got us going! So, if my innocent little girl dines with you anytime soon don't be surprised at what you may think you hear.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!
"A father carries pictures where his money used to be." ~Author Unknown

In honor of Father's Day I wanted to post some pictures of Nathan with Kaleigh. I have to brag on him a little bit - he is such a great husband and dad. He helps so much with Kaleigh, even after a long day at work and enjoys playing with her, reading to her, teaching her and much more as you can see in the pictures. And Kaleigh just can't get enough of her daddy either. We know she won't remember much from this age, but she will look back and see the she was always loved and taken care of.















Scroll down for more pictures and some other new blogs if you haven't checked here lately.

These are some before & after pictures of our backyard. The brown is when we had tilled it all up into dirt preparing to plant our grass seed. The green is about two weeks later after the grass had started to grow. It still has some work to be done, but it is much better than when we started.










Kaleigh driving her new boat - at least SHE thinks it's hers. Her Poppa doesn't mind letting her think that either!
Eating was just too much for her!

A picture of one of my cakes from class.

While I was gone...
I know, I know, it's been almost 3 months since my last blog. I will try to do better, but for now, a little update on what we've been up to.
It's been all about the house lately. We finished our floors in the dining room and kitchen, have finally picked out a carpet for the LR (and maybe the whole house, that's another story). We got 2 new ceiling fans for the LR and a chandelier (sp?) for the dining room. And we tilled up the whole backyard one lovely Saturday and planted grass seed (which is doing really well on one half of the yard, the other is weeds). And I also planted a garden in the yard. I have tomatoes, squash and a few peppers.
It hasn't been all work though. We have celebrated my birthday, my mom's birthday, Nathan's mom's birthday, and my brother's birthday. We've gone out twice on Nathan's parents beautiful boat that the just got. We've also been to Wild River Country twice. I'm taking a cake decorating class so hopefully I will be able to make cakes for Kaleigh's birthday (& any future children).

Some recent pictures : Kaleigh with hair! A friend gave us this cute outfit with this adorable hat.
We went the daffodil festival Sunday at Wye Mountain and took pictures.

We have been doing some work at our house. Kaleigh was a big help...