Sunday, August 30, 2009

Skylar update

I really do need to get back into the habit of blogging more often. I promised my dear friend Victoria that I would make a conscious effort to try and post more often but sometimes I just never get around to it because of cooking, or laundry or taking care of the baby.

Speaking of the baby....Skylar will be one year old a week from today. I just can't believe that it has been almost a year since God blessed us with that sweet angel. Now that she is a "BIG GIRL" (you know....being almost one and all!) her little personality is truly starting to emerge. A couple of days ago she woke up on the wrong side of the crib. Even though she had slept for about ten hours she was just cranky and miserable. When I was getting her dressed she kept pushing me away. She just did not want to be messed with. After she had her Very Berry fruit cup and a NutriGrain bar she was a little ball of sunshine so we went and did our grocery shopping. This child absolutely LOVES to go shopping. She gets lots of attention from strangers because she is so dern cute but sometimes it gets really annoying. Especially when that person wants to stand there in the store and chat. Ugh!

At almost a year old Skylar has no teeth. Nope...not a one. Not even a tiny white glimmer of one just under the surface. She does have a little more hair though. Not much, but enough to put a little clip in. She just started crawling two weeks ago. It took her strong desire to slobber all over her daddy's cell phone to move her big juicy butt across the floor to get it when he laid it down six feet in front of her. She crawled to it, chewed on it for a minute and now a couple of the keys won't work. Sweet baby slobber must act as a cement or something. Who knows. She is in her walker most of the time lately. She runs through the living room, around the dining room table and into the kitchen...trying desperately to run down a dog or a cat. The day before yesterday she actually did pin one of our cats between her walker and the sliding glass door. That child is hell on wheels. I have to wear shoes when I'm in the kitchen making dinner because if not she bangs into my heels or runs up over my toes.

I have an appointment on Labor Day (her birthday) to get her one-year portraits done at Sears so I'll be sending those out to everyone. I just wonder if I should wait and send them out at Christmas with the Christmas cards. It would save money I suppose. I just get anxious though when I get really great pictures of her. I'm just excited to share them.

Well, I think I will close this for now. I am upstairs and the baby is downstairs sleeping in her crib. I think I need to check on her. Nitey nite.



Eating a french-fry at the Gwinnett Braves game on August 22nd.



Daddy was helping her clap for the team.



Our back porch. It looks nice and big when it's clean. Daddy and Pootie were both swinging. I didn't have to push him though =O)



Crawling to get to her Daddy's nasty funky "taking out the trash" shoes.



This pic is a cute one. She was moving so it came out a little blurry.



Hanging out with Miss Tina again.



Sweetie Pie and Smokie Joe absolutely love the new washer and dryer. Before I grabbed the camera Sweetie Pie was actually in the dryer.



Sitting on Momma's desk - looking at pictures of herself on the computer. Aunt Lovely, notice how her sock is half-hanging off her foot!



She had such a good time in her new ball pit/pool



See, she has enough hair to finally hold a clippie!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Summer Happenings

It occurred to me about a week or so ago that it has been four months since I last updated our blog. I knew that it had been awhile...I just hadn’t realized how long of “a while” it had actually been. I get online periodically and read updates on other blogs I am following but yet I didn’t take the time to type out an update on ours. I think I keep this site as more of a record for me to keep of some of the things we’ve done and the changes taking place in our family on a semi-regular basis. Even Robert doesn't keep up with my blog. I want to say that it's because he's here with me living out each day and experience and already knows what's going on but that's not it at all. He hates to read and it would be too much for him to read my sometimes lengthy and wordy posts so he just sits back and lets me deal with what's going on. No one else keeps up with our site so again....this is pretty much for my eyes only. I send out pictures of Skylar with the web address to this page and hers and no one pays attention and visits the site and/or leaves us comments.

*** IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST TIME VISITING OUR SITE AND YOU ARE FAMILY OR A FRIEND THEN SHAME ON YOU! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL THIS TIME???? I FEEL LIKE I'VE BEEN POSTING FOR NOTHING. ***

Let me see if I can catch everyone (dare I hope it?) up to speed on what is or has been going on. In June we took a vacation to Florida to spend time with family. We stayed for a week with Robert's sister, Regina and her two girls, Rose and Sarah. We left here on Saturday morning at 5:30am and got to my Aunt Jeannie's house by 2:30. I think we made pretty good time considering we stopped to eat at the most disgusting Denny's ever (in Cordele, GA just off of 75 - don't ever stop there) and we stopped to gas up and let the dogs out to pee a couple of times. That evening a whole bunches (yep, I said "bunches") of us went out to eat at Bob Evans. It was me, Robert and Pootie (Skylar's new nickname), Jeannie and Byron and Steven, Regina and Rose and Sarah and also James and Alacia. We had such a nice time and the food was great. I miss Bob Evans. I have yet to see one here in Georgia in the three years we've been up here. That and Denny's and since the Cordele incident I don't think I care to ever eat at another one. Since I am on the subject of restaurants and food (isn't it every fat person's favorite subject?)- there is this Chinese buffet that my mom and Robert and I used to always go to in Lake Mary that I swore up and down we would make it to while we were in Florida this summer. Never happened. There were just too many people we wanted to spend time with and just not enough time. Now if the rest of the family would just move their butts up here I wouldn't have to vacation in the sweltering hot sticky heat that is Florida.

Okay, so where was I? Oh yeah....Bob Evans. Well, we did that and went back to Regina's and crashed. On Sunday we went to Lake Monroe in Sanford and had a Father's Day get-together with my side of the family. We knew about four months in advance that we would be in Florida that week so I asked my Aunt Jeannie to plan a gathering for the family and just lie to everyone as to why they were getting together. I know....lying is WRONG. Anyhoo...it dawned on me that we would be there for Father's Day so that was the "reason" we went with. I talked to my sister, Becca a few weeks prior and she was telling me that they had planned this big party and everyone was coming and couldn't we just come down for the weekend? I told her Robert was working and that we just didn't have the money to make the trip. She was sad but accepted it and that was that. Rosie went with us to the party since she really didn't have anything else to do. Gotta love summer vacation! Anyway, when we got to the lakefront we circled the block a couple of times so we could see if we could spot the family's picnic site. We found the pavilion they were at so we circled the block and parked our car really far down and out of site. We got the baby in the stroller and packed up all her junk and turned the video camera on and started walking down the sidewalk towards the pavilion. You may wonder why the video camera? Well, if ya know my sister Becca and how dramatical (Rosie, isn't that your "ism") she can be you'll understand why I wanted the camera rolling. Well, as we started to get closer my cousin, Gloria looks up from tending the hot-dogs at the grill and just stares...like she's not quite sure what she's seeing. When I raise my finger to my lips to shush her she started waving her arms or maybe it was more like a bird flapping it's wings. (LOVE YOU GORLIA) <~~spelled wrong intentionally - long story. So Gloria starts running towards us and this catches my sister Krystal's attention and she starts flipping out. Then Becca saw us. She was sitting on a bench and stood up to come towards us and then had to sit down....head and hands between her knees to keep from passing out. Becca said, "I'm SO glad you guys were able to make it!" Robert and I informed them all that WE were the reason the gathering was even taking place...that it was all planned months before at my request. They were shocked. Gloria and Becca blubbered like babies and that's the reaction I was expecting.....gosh you guys are so predictable! Everyone was surprised to see us...I got to see all my nieces and a couple of nephews....cousins, aunts & uncles. It was great. Everyone LOVED my daughter....naturally....because she's so yummy delicious! We put Skylar in a bathing suit and she played in the fountain with her Daddy and cousin Vonnie. A good time was had by all. After that we went back to Regina's to relax a bit and then went to Jeannie and Byron's and visited with them and my niece Amanda and her kids.

On Monday we went to the Sanford mall and had pictures done at Sears of Skylar and Rose and Sarah. After hanging out at the mall for a while we went and got a few groceries at Wal Mart and went back to the house and I made a spaghetti dinner. Tuesday I made two pans of Shepard's pie and a German chocolate cheesecake (from scratch) for the company we were having that night. Jeannie & Byron and James & Alacia and Ernie (my dear old friend who is like family) came over for dinner and dessert. We hung out and talked for a while and then everyone went home. On Wednesday Robert & I and Alacia took the girls to the Magic Kingdom. Sarah slept the first half of the day. Skylar was awake the whole day until we got to It's A Small World. She was so exhausted there was nothing waking her up. We stayed for the fireworks and got back to the house really late. Thursday afternoon Jeannie came over to visit while I did some laundry and packed a bunch of our stuff to leave the next day. That evening we went to my best friend, Leslie's house for dinner and a movie. Pootie and I passed out during the movie. What a terrible guest I was. It was good to see Leslie and to have her meet my daughter for the first time.

Friday we made the very long drive back to Georgia. We brought Rosie with us and we played a travel alphabet game on the way back a few times. It kept us busy. Pootie was content in the back seat with a Twizzler for a couple of hours at least. She kept swinging and shaking it and whacking the dogs with it. Then she stuck it in her mouth and realized that it tasted good and so we had to take it away from her as she had a thick line of red drool dripping off her chin and onto her chest. It was so great when we finally got home. Our cats were glad to see us. We had friends house sitting while we were gone so they weren't totally alone.

While Rosie was here we went to the YMCA a couple of times, made several trips to various malls and went to Chattanooga and went to Rock City at Lookout Mountain. Grandma and Grandpa eventually came down to get her and then she stayed a couple weeks with them.

The last Monday in July Robert ran a red light on his way to work, totaled our Durango and another car and sent him and the other guy to the hospital. The ER kept him off work for three days and because he wasn't able to lift Skylar I had to take the week off of work. He takes care of her during the day while I work and I take care of her at night while he works so thank goodness we won't have to get another vehicle right away. State Farm gave us $4000 for the Durango and I meant to save every dime but we ended up spending $1200 on a new washer and dryer since the dryer on our old stackable unit quit.

Well....I think that's just about everything. For now anyway.


Dinner at Bob Evans



Robert, Pootie, Becca, me & John.



Pootie and her daddy playing in the fountain.



Anna, Ryanne & Vonnie at the Father's Day picnic.



The Fathers being honored for the day. Robert, Kevin, Terrance and Byron.



My gorgeous nephew, David and his beautiful mother, Becca.



Skylar and her Uncle John. He was commenting on how heavy she was.



If looks could kill. Skylar didn't like her Dodie being swiped by her cousin, Valeria. "Swiper no swiping! Swiper no swiping!"



Sarah looked like she was either leaning over to toodle or to get away from Uncle Robert.



Sarah Elizabeth & Skylar Isabelle watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Monday morning before going to have pictures done.



Rose and Sarah at the mall. The look on Sarah's face is priceless!



The german chocolate cheesecake that weighed at least 8 pounds.



The girls in the stroller right after we got to the Magic Kingdom. Sarah hadn't yet passed out.



Boy that castle sure does look small behind us!



Pootie Roo McTureous - sporting her very first pair of mouse ears. They stayed on her a full 15 seconds before she ripped them off her head.



Sarah, Alacia, Rosie, Skylar & me waiting for the Philharmonic show to start. Note our fantastically cool yellow 3-D glasses.



Aunt Jeannie was having a conversation with Sarah.



Skylar and her Aunt Lovely.



Pootie and her daddy in the pool at the Y.



Food Court Pootie!



I love taking pictures of flowers! This was at Rock City Gardens.



Rosie and I - Rock City, Lookout Mountain



Another great picture of me and my better half.



Rosie in front of Lover's Leap.



How serene.



The rainbow tunnel.



Lover's Leap



I couldn't resist taking a picture of this sweet old couple. I hope Robert and I are still holding hands 50 years from now.



Pretty, pretty....



flowers.