3 and a HALF!



This silly little girl is 3 1/2 years old now!  She is full of imagination, creativity, and lots of personality!  She constantly amazes us with phrases she says and things she remembers.  She currently loves painting, drawing, playing with friends, science- "investigating" things, Sunday School, going to the park, playing in the dirt (Mommy's least favorite activity), and animals.  Her favorite color is purple and her favorite food is waffles with Nutella.  She says she wants to be a teacher like Daddy when she is "all grown up" and she can "tell the kids what to do."  She has become very cautious lately and takes awhile to warm up in new situations.  Ainslee loves her family and is always so excited to spend time with her extended family members.  She is an amazing big sister.  She is still just as opinionated as ever and there is not much you can do to change her mind. :)   I'm hoping this trait will serve her well in adulthood.
We love you so much Ainslee Grace and are so proud of the little girl that you have become!

10 Months

Hattie Cakes is 10 months old (and a week, but please ignore my tardiness).  She has changed more this month than any other!  She is babbling all the time, sometimes even shouting.  Lots of dada, mama, yaya, ahhh sounds but I'm not sure if she means anything by them yet.  She can sign "more" and for sure knows what it means.  This kid is an eater!  Quite surprising considering her initial snubbing of food.  I think she would sit in her high chair for several hours if you just kept giving her something to eat.  This is quite nice for when we go to restaurants.  There is one stipulation these days- she must be able to feed herself.  She doesn't really even like for me to put "real" food in her mouth anymore.  What.A.Mess!  Some of her favorites are avocado, banana, beans, cheerios, blueberries, and cheese.  It's hard to find a variety of foods that can be eaten with only 2 teeth (that aren't even all the way in). 

She is all over the place.  She can crawl on all fours, but will do so only on carpet.  She finds she can go faster by sliding on her stomach on our wood floors.  She is pulling up on everything, and can even pull herself up and onto the ledge of our stone fireplace, ugh! 
It is so fun to watch her learn and really understand new things these days.  She loves to point to the things she finds interesting and have you tell her what they are.  She is starting to appreciate books, but will only sit through a couple of pages.  Apparently, all this excitement and movement make it quite difficult to fall asleep.  Naptimes have been challenging, but once she falls asleep she is usually out for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours (twice a day).  She has done great in the nursery at church and will let just about any woman hold her.  She is still a little leery of most men, but sure does love her daddy! 
I love watching Hattie and Ainslee interact even more theses days.  It's so cute when they crawl into their play tent and laugh and play together.  It amazes how well they already play together, I can't wait to watch their sister relationship grow!

I love you to pieces sweet little Hattie Cakes, but if you could hold off on turning a year old, this Mommy would really appreciate it! :)

Pulling up on EVERYTHING

She has a very good "sad" face!

How does your garden grow?

We were so glad that GG was able to come spend an extra week in Kerrville with G-Ma and Grandpa after the wedding.  We had lots of fun playing, especially in the garden.  GG helped Ainslee pick lots of blackberries.  They also had a blast riding around on Grandpa's Ranger! 

Picking berries with GG

 G-Ma teaching Hattie about blackberries

 Rows of corn, lots of varieties of beans, and onions (I think)

 Garlic!

 Tomatoes

 Squash

Waco Wedding

On May 15th, Jason's cousin Rachel married Nick in a beautiful ceremony.  It was so fun to see many members of the fam that we don't get to see nearly enough!  The reception was in The Roosevelt Room, a gorgeous building in downtown Waco.  Ainslee was so excited about dancing, she could hardly stand it!  We had a wonderful dinner and danced the night away.  Ainslee finally stopped and said, "Mommy, I'm exhausted!"  We took that as our que to head back to the hotel, another first for both girls!  Let's just say we've definitely had better nights of sleep, but I think Ainslee had fun.  We woke up early, enjoyed breakfast, and headed out to the Cameron Park Zoo.  I was quite impressed!  The weather was perfect- cool and sunny.  There were also maybe 10 other people in the entire zoo (since it was a Monday), it was great!

The beautiful bride and groom

 Everyone looking at the camera AND smiling - a first!

 Playing on the bed in the hotel room, at one point in the night we were ALL sleeping in this bed

 A super fun tree house in the zoo

 Ainslee being eaten by a snake!

 Cute little monkey!  Don't worry, he's on the other side of the glass.

 Hattie was mesmerized by this elephant!  I think it was Ainslee's favorite too.

 The girls had fun pretending to be monkeys...

But I think Daddy had even more fun! :)

Teeth!

Way behind on my blogging, but for posterity's sake I must mention that Hattie finally cut her first tooth on Friday the 13th!  She got her bottom right, middle tooth at 9 1/2 months!  She woke up on Saturday with the left one too!  I haven't been able to get a picture of them yet, but stay tuned!

Mother's Day '11

This was my first Mother's Day as a mother of two!  I loved hearing Ainslee talk all about "Mudder's Day" and receiving all the sweet pictures she made me all week, leading up to the big day.  We had our annual Mother's Day lunch at Grammie and Pop's house this year.  We celebrated three generations of mothers: Memaw, Grammie, G-Ma, and Mommy.  I was a terrible picture taker, but here are a few.

Hattie got to hang out with Uncle Rob

 She got to play with his iPhone- it appears to be serious work!

 Here is a sequence of pictures in our attempt to get a decent family pic...maybe next time

 Grammie snuggles

As I was tucking Ains into bed, she whispered, "Happy Birthday, Mommy."  Such a sweet little girl, even if she was a little off on which holiday it was. :)

Just Because

When did this little girl start looking like such a big girl?!

 It's amazing how still you can get her to stand with M&M's at stake :)

 I love this little face Hattie makes.  I thought I better capture it, since I don't think it will be the same if/when she ever gets teeth.

 Studying the camera

 These sisters love each other so much, it really just amazes me.  It is so fun to watch them play and interact with each other.  I heard them both laughing so hard the other day and snuck around the corner to see Ainslee laying on her tummy next to Hattie.  She said, "Mommy, were're playing like we are snakes!"  I love that she thought of a game that Hattie would be able to play with her.