a birthday, a shower, and a new little family member

We have had so much going on lately that I haven't had a chance to catch up on blogging. We celebrated Sassy's birthday at the Rosepepper (yum), went to a wedding shower for Jon's brother, Jeff, and his fiancee, Kellye, and went to meet Jon's cousin, Allison's new baby, Sean. (I'm sure any English majors are cringing at that sentence and the blatant misuse of commas...)July was over before I even realized it. Am I the only one who feels like the months are flying by?

Kellye, "Sassy," and Kristin

An attempt at a picture of Sassy with all three grandbabies

Lilly and aunt Kristin

I loved this picture--I have no idea why Mamie was making that awful face when Branson got close to her--she is crazy about him!

Kellye and Jeff opening gifts

Lilly and her daddy doing a little fishing in the pond while the gift opening was going on (don't tell anyone!)

Sweet little one-and-a-half week old Sean next to big man Hollis

miserable mockingbird

Well, I can't sleep, so I might as well blog about why. I got out of bed three nights ago thinking that Mamie's sound machine had malfunctioned and switched to the bird songs. Nope. It was the real thing. We have a mockingbird in our tree that has decided to sing all night long and does NOT stop. I truly don't understand how it can be so loud inside the house. I was in the front yard last night at 2:00 am yelling and throwing things like a crazy old woman. Tonight, at midnight, I just got done literally throwing some of the girls' building blocks out of our window into a tree while screaming at the bird. (I guess I'll be looking for those in the yard tomorrow.) It is making me CRAZY. I can usually sleep through anything, but something about that bird is driving me completely insane. Then, I got on Google. What did we do before the internet? Will our children ever understand that we had to go sit in a library and look through reference books to write a paper? Anyway, I'm getting off track...I found the answer to my question about the bird. Now I feel too guilty to throw anything or yell at him anymore. Apparently, he's just a lonely little bird trying to find love and all of our noise gets in his way during the day. Here's what I found on one site that was basically echoed on every site I found:

"As irritating as it is to miss out on sleep due to a Mockingbird singing at night, Consider for a moment our own actions. We run our factories 24 hours a day, Planes fly in the skies, we run chainsaws, lawnmowers, and a whole host of noise making toys both day and night.
We do these things, some out of need, and others, just because they bring us joy. Thankfully the birds don't have an inclination to pull out a shotgun and blast us into oblivion in order to get a nights sleep.
Finding an acceptable noise to drown out the singing is about the only thing we can do until a mate is found.
Remember, he is trying to attract a mate, his song is a courting song. If we stop to consider... we may remember what kind of nuisance we once were, when we went a-courting."

I guess I'll quit throwing blocks and turn the sound machine up a little louder...

Please cross your fingers that Mr. Mockingbird finds a mate...tonight.

at the zoo with 14 kids

Friday we took a little "family zoo trip." There were 14 kids in all (although 3 of them were old enough to really help out with the little ones). I had a few field trip flashbacks, but it was much more fun and much less stressful :) All of the kids were great! We stayed for a picnic lunch and then headed back home for our swimming lessons. I will definitely rethink the double stroller next time we go. I was worn out!

A group shot

Looking at the clouded leopard--my favorite

the three babies--Ty, Lexi, and Mamie

Mamie LOVED the goats. For some reason, she has always picked out the goats in her books--"goat" was one of the first animals she knew. I'm thinking most kids go for horses, cows, or pigs...I doubt "goat" is usually at the top of the favorites list for most kids.

Kind of makes you want to be a goat, doesn't it?

playing with jars, swimming pools, and feeding ducks

Last Saturday I took the girls and went to Huntsville to see my parents for a few days. We stayed until Tuesday afternoon. Lilly and Mamie had a great time and got more than enough attention. Lilly also got to eat at her favorite restaurant, CiCi's pizza, TWICE. I'm sure that was probably the highlight of her trip. (Once when we were leaving CiCi's I asked her if she liked her lunch and she said, "Oh mom, it was a dream come true.") My dad already had the pool blown up on the deck when we got there and was putting buckets of hot water in it so they wouldn't be cold (we don't have a "heated" pool in our backyard at home). My mom and I took the girls to the park one day to feed the ducks. Mamie loved telling all the ducks "bye-bye" when they swam away.

Mamie did this several times a day--she LOVED playing in CJ's jar cabinet.

Just playing with my jars.

Swimming with Pop

At Big Spring Park with CJ

Lilly feeding the fish

Mamie is saying "cheese"

Mamie having a hard time keeping up with big sister

Sitting on the lion

Mamie checking out a couple of ducks

I just liked this picture--Mamie had a new booster seat at CJ & Pop's so she could sit at the bar and she loved it. She also loves eating anything with her fork. Eating with a fork is serious business...

happy 4th!

We had a wonderful 4th of July and were so thankful that it rained but didn't rain that night. We took the girls to Richland to play and see the fireworks. They had so much fun playing in the gigantic inflatable paradise. Mamie got her first turn in a moon bounce and loved it. Lilly worried all day long about the noise from the upcoming fireworks. We had to stop at Walgreens on the way and buy her some earplugs. She wanted to put them in immediately (we did make her wait). They both loved the fireworks and neither one of them ended up being scared--thank goodness. We would have been ill if we had driven that far and they had hated it. Zach and Kim met us and brought Hollis for his first Fourth of July experience. He did great. Hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

Our little family--complete with pink earplugs :)

Lilly in the moon bounce

Mamie peeking out of the moon bounce--deleriously happy

Going down the giant slide

the girls

Zach and Hollis--hitting the bottle

In addition to the earplugs, Lilly also kept her arms up like this the ENTIRE time to cover her ears. It was hilarious. At one point, she finally asked someone to remove the juice box from her hand so she didn't have to move.

Three little cousins--

I didn't know I was actually in this picture so forgive me for looking like a big dork. I thought Jon was just getting the kids. He always takes the most flattering pictures of me...ha ha

water weenies

We had our first day of swimming lessons today. I decided to go ahead and start Mamie with Lilly this summer even though she's still pretty little. Lilly has been so excited that she has talked about swimming lessons, Miss Erin (her teacher), and being a guppy (from "Little Bill") for weeks now. She asks me every day, "When it goin be swimming lessons?" So, with all the excitement, combined with their love of the water and swimming pools, I was extremely optimistic that this would be a huge success. Not exactly. Lilly wailed pretty much the entire time about not wanting to go underwater, and screamed in sheer panic when the teacher would put Mamie under the water. I'm sure it will get better--it has to. Lilly had a few moments of calm where she seemed to enjoy herself, but mostly just obsessed over not wanting to go under the water. Mamie did pretty well, especially when Miss Erin put her underwater. I'll post again at the end of this little 2 week experiment and let you know if we're swimming or not! Just arrived--excited to get in the pool and learn to swim!

Mamie was not so fond of being put on her back.

Lilly did pretty well at this part--notice the choke-hold she has on her teacher

Mamie coming up from under the water--big girl!

One hilarious thing that I forgot to mention... The swimming teacher was asking Lilly, "What do you do if you are walking or playing by the pool and you fall in?" (looking for an answer here like, "kick to the side" or "float on your back") Lilly looked at her very seriously and said, "You Die."

i saw a caterpillar way up in the tree...

Lilly learned this song at church and also at "buh-cation Bible school." She has been singing it ALL the time lately. Just thought I would share (mainly so my mom and dad and sister could see it). I probably should have done this while Mamie was napping so she wouldn't have been next to Lilly screaming "cheese" the entire time. Oh well. Hope you can still understand it!