Day at the pool

We hit the pool this morning for the first time this year.  I am trying to figure out what I want the girls to wear in the pool this year to stay safe.  We bought these life jackets last night to try out:

 Emily loved her life jacket and kept it on the whole time so that's good since she likes to play around in the water and be independent.  Abigail didn't really care for hers and technically it's a little big on her.  But the infant life jackets are so constricting and she kept crying in the store last night every time we tried one of those on.  They have huge foam pads on the back of the head and she hated them.  This afternoon when we went back to the pool, I left Abigail's life jacket off and put her in her float from last year.  She seemed to like that a lot better and I didn't have to hold her.  So we'll see how it goes.  I liked the float because it has a seat in it and I can be hands free for small amounts of time if I need to.  With the life jacket on this morning she teetered to the side and went under water when there was a little "crazy" going on with Emily in the pool.

There was another Emily at the pool today and she brought this big airplane float.  My Emily latched onto it and told me she needed it to swim.  I finally had to pry it from her hands to give it back to the poor child that brought it : )

It was a good first day back to the pool : )  Just to share a little story for Abigail to remember one day.  We ate fruit snacks this morning at the pool and one of hers fell under the chair.  When we came back to the pool this afternoon she found it and tried to eat it!!!!  It was faded by the sun, really gooey, and was sitting in a warm puddle of pool water . . .but she decided it was still good enough to eat.

The Rest of May

Wow . . . I can't believe May is over!  The last two weeks have been very busy.   Last Saturday, the girls and I went to Montgomery to my parents house because I had to work in Auburn/Peachtree City for a couple of days.  The girls had fun staying at PawPaw and Dee Dee's house. :

 On Monday evening I got to have dinner with my sweet friend Rita.  I haven't seen her in a year so this was a great treat:

After my conference on Tuesday, my parents met me halfway and brought the girls back to me.  And Dee Dee rode back home with us to stay the week!

Abigail found Emily's princess crown and wore it one morning.  She kept saying princess over and over:

 

We also enjoyed the sprinkler and pool since summer heat is officially here:

 I love babies wrapped up in hooded towels . . . .

 . . . and I love seeing kids with their feet crossed:

The girls loved my dad's chair that he brought and read books together one afternoon . . . so sweet:

Sunday was my birthday!  We enjoyed lunch after church and my parents told the server it was my birthday : )

and Joe and Emily picked out flowers and a cake for me.  Emily had been telling me for a couple of weeks that she wanted to pick out a pretty cake for me with lots of flowers.  I think she did very well!

If you look closely at the bottom right you can see where Emily tried a taste:

 

On Sunday evening, Abigail enjoyed curling her tongue like her daddy:

 . . . and another favorite of mine . . . watching babies look at books with their daddy:

On Monday we took it easy around the house.  The girls enjoyed playing in the laundry baskets:

And Emily had fun putting toys in Abigail's bed after her nap:

Tomorrow we hit the pool for the official start to summer!!!!!

Dinner Time!

Tara and I made a new recipe tonight.  We are 3 for 3.  This dinner was so good!  We have cooked fish, chicken and tonight we made shrimp scampi with salad and bread.  I had to make the shrimp stock early this afternoon since it took an hour to simmer and then it had to chill in the fridge.  So here are all my shrimp shells boiling with some veggies to make the stock:

 

 It says you can freeze the stock so good thing this recipe turned out good because we have lots of stock left over. One recipe only needs 1/2 cup of stock.

Here is our shrimp scampi . . . in a word  . . . yum.  We served it over rice and had NONE left over:

Abigail loved following Taylor and Emily around.  Emily wanted Taylor to cover her with blankets and paper for some reason so of course Abigail wanted to be covered up too. She just laid on the ground and hung out with them:

She has also discovered the joy of sitting in a basket.  She did this last night and Joe got a picture:

The problem is that she kept trying to get in Emily's doll pack n play and got stuck head first today.  She hollered until I ran in there to get her out : )

Emily tried to put her princess dress on Abigail and she liked it.  So I helped her get it all the way on her and she walked around for a little while with it on:

 

Abigail turned 19 months old on Monday.  When she had her 18 month checkup a few weeks ago she weighed  21 pounds 7 oz and is 32 inches long.  She continues to be in the 50% for her height and 25% for her weight.  Her vocabulary is really growing and her laugh brings a big ol' smile to our faces.

Summer Came Early . . .

The south got the memo too early this year that summer is here!  It's been in the 90s this week.  So I decided it was time to get some yummy summer veggies at a local farmer's market.   The girls and I went on Saturday morning and got all of this for $19.  Emily picked out the watermelon herself and did a great job:

They were giving out balloons at the market and Abigail never let go of hers.  She cried during nap time and bath time when she had to hang her balloon on the door.  At bedtime she sat in Emily's room looking at books and held on to her balloon the whole time.  After Abigail went to bed we popped the balloon so she wouldn't have a meltdown on Sunday morning:

Since Abigail didn't get to wear her Easter dress on Easter morning, she wore it this Sunday.  Dee Dee made this beautiful dress for her:

On Sunday, Emily gave me a pretty Mother's Day card that she picked out all by herself.  She was so proud of the pretty flowers on the front. 

That afternoon we went to a local mall and rode the carousel.  You can't tell in this picture, but Emily really is happy that we were there:

Abigail decided she didn't want to ride on the animals.  She was content to just be on the carousel.  So we rode around while she pointed to all the animals and jabbered away:

 

It was so hot on Wednesday that we decided to pull out the pool.  We filled it up in the morning and let the sun heat the water.  It took Abigail a while to decide to get in the pool:

 

But once she got in that was all it took.  She didn't want to get out:

The first thing she said to me when she got up from her nap was "poo . . .poo".  So the girls spent late afternoon in the pool also.  Since Abigail skipped her snack to get in the pool, she was starving by dinner time and ate everyone's corn:

Yummy Goodness!

Tonight Tara and Taylor came over for round 2 of cooking dinner together : )  We decided to roast a chicken in my new baker:

 

I've never roasted a chicken before so I was impressed with how juicy it was.  We put potatoes, onions, carrots and mushrooms down in the chicken and around it and I rubbed the chicken with a chili lime rub.  We had some veggies left over so I roasted those on a pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper . . . and we discovered that those veggies tasted AWESOME!  So we learned for next time . . . I plan to just put the chicken in the baker and roast the veggies separate.  We all inhaled the veggies on the pan.  The chicken was so juicy and yummy.  Tara made some keylime cupcakes that were delish!

Because the chicken was going to take so long to cook, Tara made these appetizers that were yummy goodness:

 

 Enjoyed the company ladies!!!!!

 

In other news, we got our monthly church newsletter today and Emily made the cover!!!!

 

Go Emily!!!!!

Weekend Travel

This weekend we went to Birmingham for my nephew - Sawyer's birthday party.  They had inflatables outside and it was GORGEOUS weather for an outside party.  We even ate dinner on their deck that night.  Here is the Birthday boy!

 

All the kids had fun on the big inflatable jump zone but my parents also brought their smaller one and Abigail enjoyed getting in there.  She laughed and bounced while Emily and Sarah jumped around her:

 

 I had not seen my sister and her family since January and it's amazing to me how big Sarah and Sam have gotten in just a few months:

 

On Sunday we visited Joe's sister and husband.  Joe's mom is there visiting her this week.  Emily found Leslie's glasses and tried them on:

And Abigail tried on Uncle Vann's Auburn hat:

 

 . . . and on the way home we passed this cute dog riding in style on the back of a motorcycle!  He even has his own pair of goggles!!!!