Joy on the front porch!!!

Who has the greatest niece in the world?? ME of course. Actually I have a lot of great nieces and nephews but one in particular has a daughter exactly one year older than mine and that equals great hand-me-downs! We seem to always see each other in June for a wedding and she hands off a large box of goodies to me. This year we did have a wedding (in April) but they couldn't make it so FedEx did the hand off for her!

This was the box that was on our doorstep and as you can see...Annslee liked it and from the looks of her needed some new clothes!

Mama liked what was inside and believe me, this photo does not do justice to the amount of clothes and shoes we received.


I am sad to say the last time we saw them was last June (they live in Florida) and we wish Annslee, Hannah and Abby could see each other more....fun cousin time!

Here is my niece and her hubby at the wedding last year. This photo was taken after hours of dancing so Annslee was getting pretty tired but still wanted to be at the party

Here is Annslee with Abby...the most recent "wearer" of the clothes. This picture was at the rehearsal dinner as they were enjoying some crabcakes


Annslee and Hannah had a blast together all weekend. When we left on Sunday Hannah cried and said she wish we lived in Florida too ; )


I had to add this one in since Annslee isn't smiling in any of the others..as you can tell she had a BLAST at the reception. We had to drag the girls off the dance floor for dinner and then they were back out there!




Finally, here is Annslee sporting her new flip flops and cover up from her cousins' stash. She is so excited because now she has shoes like Mama!

Pool Time...finally

Our neighborhood pool is FINALLY open. I don't know why pools around here don't open until Memorial Day as it is plenty hot enough to swim earlier than that. Anyway, we are very happy about it since we have such a water bug on our hands. It will eventually be a salt water pool but it isn't yet. Yesterday Mia came to swim with us and as usual they had a great time together.

The girls needed a popsicle break...notice the Backyardigans beach towel..love it!

The girls are always so sweet together and we can't wait to swim with them again soon!

Here she is doing some more practicing with wearing hats!

No crying this time..I promise

This is for all of you who think I am such a mean mommy for getting her out of the tub ; ) She had to get in last night to wash off the bug spray and sunscreen. The original plan was not to wash her hair (her decision) so I put it up on top of her head in a clip.

She seemed to like it being up and splashed for a while

She located Barney and thought he really needed a bath

A couple of these are blurry because they were "action" shots!!


Finally she decided it would be more fun with wet hair so she started dumping water on her head !

Family Time

We had a great time today at my sister's house hanging with the cousins! I grew up surrounded by all my cousins so I know how important this bonding time is. As usual, Annslee had a blast. Once again..my retail therapy got me...the firecracker shirt she is wearing was meant to be saved for the 4th but I don't know if it will still fit then so what the heck, she is wearing it today.

Here she is with Gabe who is 9 months younger than she is ... not sure he is as into the hug as Annslee is ; )

Daddy is fun to hang on! As you can see from Shelby..rabbit ears never go out of style

The big cookie was great but Annslee only ate the icing part

The three older kids have these game things and Shelby's has a dog game on it...as you can see Annslee loved "helping" her play it. At one point she was laughing so loudly Shelby had to hold her ears : )

I think this may be the best group shot we've had in a while. Everyone is looking at the camera and smiling...well, Gabe was kind of smiling...close enough!

*As a footnote to my "retail therapy" admissions. I love shopping at Osh Kosh. You can buy something there and if you save the receipt you can return it even years later and they give you back the amount you paid for it. So if you must shop before you know the size you will need..this is a great place to do it risk free! Of course I am keeping some things because maybe Malia can wear them.

Weekend fun with friends

We had our friends over to cookout and I thought I had the perfect outfit for Annslee to wear. I got it before we even had our referral (retail therapy) and it was a 2T so I thought she could wear it. I put it on her and she complained it was too tight. Oh well, we switched to shorts and a shirt with stars. She seemed to like the switch : )

Here she is with my friend Jana who is having a baby in November! Doesn't she look great!

Of course she got in the pool for a while then decided using Gabby as a horse would be more fun..

Thank you!

On this Memorial Day weekend I wanted to take a minute to say thanks to all those who keep us safe and free!! I know many have sacrified so that we can all celebrate this holiday any way we choose. I have huge admiration for our millitary and for the families they leave behind as they go serve. God bless our troops and God bless America!!

Zoo X 2 !!!

Yep, we went to the Zoo twice this week!! We had plans to take my nephew on Friday and then Tracy called and wanted to go on Wednesday and we said SURE! Good thing we have a Zoo membership. We definitely have made good use of it as Annslee is an animal lover.

We got there and saw that the elephant show was going to be at 2 o'clock but we knew we wouldn't still be there. Luckily when we got to the elephants the trainer was practicing for the show so we got to see the tricks afterall. It is hard to see but in the picture below he just caught a football..then he would drop it and kick it back to the trainer.

The kids loved looking at all the animals and it was fun to watch Jack since it was his first trip to the Zoo.

I hope this is some indication as to how she will be with her baby sister but I somehow think it will be different when that little one is "yours" She did love feeding Jack his bottle.

This picture of the girls cracks me up. We tried to get a good photo of them together all day long. I think the looks on their faces pretty much sums up how they felt about being asked to pose again.

Today we made our second trip to the Zoo with Isaac. Annslee, the Zoo Veteran, was happy to show him around.

This picture is for all our Floridia Gator family and friends : )


On a hot day the Rain Room is always a big hit. Annslee was soaked but she had a great time. *click on the collage to enlarge and see her expressions..priceless



Here they are on the ride home. They were recounting to me their favorite animals, eating an apple and then when I looked back next...they were both sound asleep... must have been a perfect day

Bathtime fun..and then not so much....

I realized last night that I hadn't taken bathtime photos since maybe this post or this one. Bad Mama!! So I grabbed the camera as we headed into the bathroom. Usually she doesn't want to take a bath in our big tub and wants to go upstairs to her bathtub or the shower instead but after tonight I think that will change.

She loved it until I started draining the water. She flashed me a smile then started to add water. I stopped her and got a very sad girl. I know she looks so devastated in the last two photos but I promise she was laughing minutes later as she ran through the house in her "cape" as I was trying to wrestle PJs onto her!

*just noticed the clock...the batteries are dead..I was not bathing my child at 12:30 in the morning ; --also noticed that if you enter through bloglines the slidshow isn't showing up so just hit your refresh button and it will...

Wearing Hats

One thing we know is that when we are in Vietnam getting Malia they will expect our daughters to wear hats to keep the sun off them. When we were in China we experienced the "clothing police", aka sweet ladies who would admonish us for having an inch of NaNa's skin showing when she was sweating in the 70 degree weather, so we know what we are in for. However, keeping a hat on a baby is one thing but Annslee has a mind of her own so we need to start practicing this. She has gotten really good at keeping sunglasses on but hats usually don't last very long. Hopefully by the time we go she will like wearing hats..she looks so cute in them after all!!

I don't know why but in this photo it looks like I only put sunscreen on her from the waist up. Actually her arms are the color of her legs. I do apply sunscreen (50 spf) to her entire body everyday. I know she won't burn but I read somewhere that the damage the sun does to your skin is done in the first 6 years of your life. I don't know if that is true but I do know that even if you tan and don't burn you still are damaging your skin. So all you Mamas out there put sunscreen on your sweeties!

This is a visor she got last summer from Aunt Stacy and she thought it was a good way to start. At least the sun would be off her face : )

She likes to give kisses through the rails on the stairs and we don't mind a bit!

Maybe softball??

Well, we know she is a professional golfer but today she decided to try out her batting skills. At first she would knock the tee over but after a while she really sent the ball in the air. As with her golf swing she alternates between doing it right and left handed.

Playgroup

We had our playgroup today and there were about 15 little girls running around and only two boys. The older of the two boys (he is 4) said "Where are all the boys??" In a few years he will LOVE coming to these things LOL

It was beautiful outside so we spent most of our time there. Our wonderful hostess had a huge selection of dress up clothes so Annslee picked a purple dress to wear for a while. As usual she loved the swing the best and seemed to like pushing it as much as being pushed.

She insisted on sitting at the "big girl" table and raised her juice because she noticed Zena did...cracks me up!