Blaylock Reunion

Last weekend we drove to Mississippi for the Blaylock Reunion (my mom's family). It was hotter than all get out . . . I have never sweated that much in my LIFE! Luckily we had a kiddie pool and slide for the kids. Some of the "big kids" enjoyed the slip n slide as well.

There were 49 of us in attendance! Everyone made it but Joe (he was working) this year. Here are all the beautiful people : )
My Granddaddy and Granny B would be so proud to know we all spent time together.

Here are my mom and her two brothers:

10 grandchildren:

21 great grandchildren:

We spent the day eating lunch and the kids playing in the water:
Here is my crazy brother going down the slip n slide:
My uncles solving the world's problems:
On Sunday we went to church in Oxford at the church my mom went to growing up:

Emily and Sarah wore their matching dresses that my mom made them:
I have fond memories of walking to church with my grandparents from their house right down the street. My mom was born and raised in this house:
Here is the town square. You could also walk here from my grandparents house:
My granddaddy owned a drug store on the square. It's now a bookstore:
Here is sweet Abigail in her car seat. Emily rode in the van with my sister and Abigail and I rode with my brother and Mandy. This sweet girl spent most of the weekend just like this:
We had a good time in spite of the heat and long hours in the car. It was great to see everyone! Thanks for putting up with your sometimes cranky passengers Robert : )

Aquarium

We were so glad that Michelle and her clan were able to come to Atlanta on Sunday afternoon so we could have a smaller version of our planned weekend together. On Monday we went to the aquarium together.
We got there close to lunch time so we ate outside the aquarium before going in. As you can see from the picture Abigail had to have her lunch right along with everyone else:

When Abigail started getting tired I tried walking around with her in this carrier I am borrowing:
She tried to sleep but never did . . . too much going on. So I put her back in the stroller and we also took turns carrying her. She crashed the second we got in the car to go home.
I asked Michelle how it would feel if Abigail was her 4th baby and she said. . . "not too good."
This was the first time Emily decided to touch the sting rays and starfish:
She also still enjoyed running around with her cousins more than actually being at the aquarium:

Emily swimming

Last week I feel like we finally made some headway on Emily's swimming lessons. We usually go so she can cry the whole time she is there . . . I was getting frustrated because the place I take her wants each child to learn to float on their back for 30 seconds before moving on to other skills . . .like actually swimming! So on Monday I had a mission to speak to the supervisor about Emily's lessons. But I was pleasantly surprised because he said that some kids stall on certain skills and sometimes it's best to go ahead and move them up to the next class anyway. So he observed her and said she was fine to go to the next class starting in August . . . finally! And wouldn't you know it . . . our neighbor gave her some floaties and she started swimming around the pool by herself and floating on her back by herself because of the security of the floaties:
So at Wednesday's lesson she floated on her back with no help from the teacher! I should have gotten her some floaties a long time ago : )

I also had to run to the mall last week to get some makeup so I stopped by the play area in the mall to let Emily play a while:
Abigail enjoyed watching all the kids running around. It's hard to believe by this time next year she'll be running around with them.

I finally got around to removing my cook books from the bottom level of the bookshelf because Abigail keeps going over there and pulling them all off the shelf. I put her books there instead and she enjoyed playing with them just as much:
There is a song that Emily loves to listen to. It's about marching around the alphabet and picking one up when the whistle blows. So we reenacted the song and Emily LOVED it:
By late Friday afternoon though this girl sent us for a loop. She had a fever on Wed night and then no fever on Thursday. On Friday she woke up fine but by late afternoon her fever was creeping back up again. The doctor said I could bring her in late Friday but I had forgotten that Joe took my car to work on it, so had no car seats to get her there. So of course her fever spiked at over 104 on Friday night AFTER urgent care closed : ) So I took her to the ER. I'm glad I did because she had strep throat and it was so nice to get her started on antibiotics right then instead of waiting another 12 hours for urgent care to open on Saturday morning. We opted for the 1 time shot of antibiotics vs 10 day dosage. The shot really hurt though. Kids never get sick in the middle of the week or in the middle of the day do they? She spent Saturday just like this. She wouldn't walk because her leg hurt from the shot so we had to carry her to the couch and that's where she stayed the whole day. By Saturday night we made her get up and walk to the bathroom and she cried the whole way . . . bless her:
My sister and her family were supposed to come spend the weekend with us doing lots of fun stuff. Emily was so sad when they couldn't come and we were pretty bummed out too. But by Sunday she was feeling much better so Michelle and fam made it a short trip and came on Sunday afternoon. She still didn't want to walk on her leg but when I told her they were on their way she jumped off the couch and started running around. Her leg was miraculously healed : ) On Monday we went to the aquarium and Emily loved playing with her cousins! Those pics will be posted soon.

Friends

Emily's friend Julia came over to play today. Her mom and sister were supposed to come too but Lilly was sick. We made some jello from some jello molds my friend sent us . . . but it didn't turn out too well so the girls just ate it from their bowls:
They also enjoyed playing outside and playing C@ndyL@nd:
This evening Emily, Abigail, and I met our neighbors at the pool and had fun swimming. They had an extra pair of arm floaties and Emily did so well with them! So it will be much easier going to the pool with both girls. The only hard part is potty breaks . . . luckily my neighbor could help with Abigail while I helped Emily.

9 Months Old

Abigail is 9 months old today!

Wow . . . I can't believe that Abigail has lived outside of me as long as she lived inside me. My baby is 3 months away from her 1st Birthday! She has two bottom teeth and LOVES all finger foods. We have bypassed baby food and moved on. She has eaten peas, bananas, cheerios, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, and even chicken! She scoots around wherever she wants to go and Emily loves watching out for her. She weighs 17 and 1/2 pounds and is 27 inches long. She is a very busy and happy baby! She has cut down on her daytime naps for sure. She sleeps about 1 to 1.5 hours in the morning and about 45 minutes in the afternoon. At night she sleeps from 7 to about 6:15 or 6:30 so she appears to be our early riser since no one else in this house likes to be up that early : )

Here is our fun photo shoot this morning:
Last night when I picked the girls up we started singing "Patty cake" and Abigail started clapping her hands together. We were so excited that it registered with her what we were saying. So of course I got it on video : ) Enjoy. I personally think this is the sweetest video ever made: