after having so much fun at grammy's in her pool, we went to target to get the exact same one on monday with hopes that it would fit nicely on our deck. score! the perfect place to splash and kick after taking a walk to pick up our csa box this week in 90 degree weather. mother nature must've forgot that it's not supposed to be that warm here yet. shame on her.
thomas begged to be out on the deck with us, but when he saw that water was flying he quickly fled back inside leaving just us girls.
and speaking of swimming, the girl had her first class as a "little snapper" last night and rocked it. she's the youngest of the three in her class. the other two boys are two and a half, basically twice her age. she was more willing to do things than they were. her daddy was quite proud to tell her and i how well he thought she did after the lesson. there was no need for me to get in the water. the only thing she needs to work on is to stay sitting on the step when it isn't her turn. easy enough!
so nice to get away for a week and head home to see friends and family. 500+ photos taken. way too much heat and humidity. a whole lot of doing nothing and hardly anytime spent online. here's a bit of what we did :
saturday : the first photo of our road trip. the girls in the backseat with bear. granted we were possibly a mile into the trip and stopping at mcdonald's for andy and i to get breakfast.
sunday : a trip to one of our favorite places when visiting my mom, my aunt and uncle's farm. we love it out there. we had just gotten back from a short trip on the four wheeler to see some cows up close. the girl loves them and i thought she was going to push andy off so that he'd get out of the way and she could get a closer look.
the girl with her new friend, sammy. we weren't sure how she'd react to the two dogs since they're larger, but she loved them. and love is an understatement.
monday : my sister and her family came to visit. a sneak peek for my sister at some of the photos i took of them. our niece is just shy of being three months younger than the girl.
tuesday : i blow a mean bubble with a bubble pipe. and i love days where this is the most exciting thing i did.
wednesday : a mini road trip to tiger town to see my former co-workers and friends. so good to catch up with them. not sure why i didn't think to get photos with my former designers? the girl came home with fabric swatches from the design library and played with them all the way back to my mom's. this is tracy and bhr after lunch at one of my favorite restaurants.
thursday : the two crazies "swimming" in the backyard. the girl adores the water if you couldn't tell. in fact, she ended up taking a bath in the pool that night and enjoyed every moment of it.
friday : the girl and her grammy playing pictionary. she can tell you what animal you're drawing no matter how well you can draw.
saturday: trying to take a photo of these two in their matching dresses. yeah, right. this is one of the better ones. the outtakes are hysterical.
sunday : eating breakfast before hitting the road. the girl stole grammy's napkin and proceeded to rip it to shreds. how nice.
and now it's back to our routine. getting caught up on work + e-mails. andy starting a new rotation. loving on the furry one who feels that he was neglected for a week when i know that he was indeed well taken care of.
a few days late. and she wasn't so thrilled with the photo op this month. 6 photos total and this is the best one of the bunch. the girl is moving at the speed of light these days. and nothing can stop her. she runs. she screams. she has a great time doing about anything.
at 15 months, camryn :
weighs 25 pounds. she loves to weigh herself, these days. go figure.
current nicknames : peeps, peepers. we're trying to call her by her actual name more so that she knows what it is.
runs, runs, runs. she's not interested in getting anywhere slowly.
continues to love books. especially anything animal related. favorites are "buzz, buzz busy bees" and "brown bear, brown bear". i think i've memorized them both at this point.
loves bubbles and her many bubble wands. in fact, i had to get a container to hold all of her bubble paraphenalia. she loves blowing on them, even inside when there's no bubble solution on it.
adores her five stuffed bunnies. she hauls them around and they can be found all over the first floor each day.
continues to love birds. and her newfound love of our neighbor's dog, buddy. she absolutely loves him and wants to see him up close when we're outside.
goes to bed by 8p each night and is up between 7-8a each morning.
still hanging on to her morning nap, although it's rarely longer than 20 minutes these days.
the banana fad may finally be waning. she really is enjoying grapes these days.
just completed her last session of parent/tot swimming lessons and is moving into little snappers.
is so social and loves to be around people and seeing whatever they are up to.
runs after thomas shrieking - which he loves. also enjoys giving him kisses.
i've been meaning to get this on video for awhile now and finally did today. when you ask her anything, mama is usually the answer you get.
as for the last question : "who's got the hot stuff?"... two weeks ago when we were getting ready for church, andy was upstairs showering and i was getting the girl ready. she kept calling for dada so we went to the bottom of the stairs and he peered down and asked her that question. as we'll call her big stuff or hot stuff or whatever on occasion. she answered mama and we both about died laughing. it's become an inside joke of sorts now.
that was what was going on in our house today. andy's parents came to visit for the weekend and so we spent the day adjusting to just being the girl and i. and thomas as well of course. there were good parts and bad parts. i can't complain too much. it would've been nicer had the weather been not so cloudy and wet as the girl and i discovered a new park today on our evening walk. the baby swings are at the right height for this tall mama and i promised we'd be back! especially since someone was a little less than thrilled that the threatening sky was chasing us back home.
this was after her afternoon nap. i wanted to snap a photo of her hair when she wakes up but of course, with camera in hand it was quite tame. i don't know what she does in her sleep but her hair is usually quite the sight. i'll take being rewarded with a post-nap smile. and that's the only pacifier that she has these days - and has for the last month or so. and it too will soon be history. sianara binks.
well, almost anyway. today the girl tested out of parent/tot and will officially be in the next level of swim lessons when the new session starts in two weeks. very cool, but a bit bittersweet as well as i think we all look forward to swim lessons as they are now. the good part? me not donning a swimsuit each week.
i know she'll do great. she loves the water and we also are lucky enough to have the same teacher for the next session who the girl adores. the teacher even signs with her. love that she enjoys this so much and is learning a life skill at the same time. a definite win/win.
a month or so ago when i was checking out a local restaurant's website to see if they took reservations, i came across an advertisement that they were participating in an event called "burgers + brew". in a nutshell, it's a pairing of local restaurant, farmers and brewers raising money for a food group that promotes buying local foods. i quickly sent an e-mail to my friend to see if she wanted to go and she was in as well. so saturday we drove to a local brewery. and it didn't disappoint. this is our friends paul and cindy with andy as we were about to try our first burger.
with our tickets, we got to choose three of the 10 burgers being offered which were all paired with a short pour of beer. hard decisions! everything looked so good.
this was one of the favorites from our group. "lamb patty crowned with a fried quail egg and gruyere cheese served with an organic esb or coffee stout." really good. and awesome presentation.
my number one burger was the "better than rhubarb pie" burger from one of the local restaurants that i've only been to for brunch twice. "a beef patty, rhubarb marmalade, blue cheese and baby arugula dressed with citrus chive vinaigrette and dijon mustard. served up with a stone soup beer." i wanted another one all day yesterday. i'm sure it isn't on their usual menu but i'd be there in an instant if it was.
after our three mini burgers, we stuck around the brewery for an actual pint of beer. they have an island wheat that andy bought for me a few weeks ago that i've enjoyed so it was nice to have it at the actual locale that it was made at. and very cool that they actually use wheat from the northern part of the state to produce it.
an awesome event. well worth the price of admission. a great way to spend a warm saturday afternoon.
