Friends

Flower Girl

Posted on by Amy
We came down to Florida on Saturday so Miss could be a flower girl in my friend’s wedding. I was a little nervous about how she would do, since she wasn’t able to be at the rehearsal, and my friends are not people she sees often. I showed her You Tube videos of flower girls and had been asking her for a few days what a flower girl does, to which she always answered, “She drops the petals on the floor.”


She was absolutely perfect.






She was all about business as we were getting ready to go to the ceremony.


Very focused.


Getting in her zone.


I was nervous about leaving her at the end of the aisle, but wanted to be up front so I could coax her forward if necessary. I kept telling her that she would walk down the aisle and drop the petals and then Mommy and Daddy and Lass would be waiting for her up front. I was seriously nervous that she would freak out a little bit. In addition to her inexperience with the role of flower girl, I was also a bit worried because I had woken her up before 5 am to catch our flight, and then she napped for only about 30 minutes on the ride from the airport to the hotel. Plus it was crazy hot and humid and buggy at the ceremony, so I was concerned that she would be cranky. I should know better than to underestimate my girl.


She started a little bit slowly.




Then she got going and did a beautiful job.


She dropped her petals just as she was supposed to.


She was absolutely precious and I was in tears watching her.


Though I was squatted down at the end of the row of seats at the end of the aisle, she never did see me until she was right near the front.


She kept going though.




When she got to the front, she seemed to notice that she had a bunch of petals left in her basket.


So out they went! Priceless.


I was incredibly proud of my big brave girl.

Big Steps

Posted on by Amy
One of the hard things about moving around the country for school and other stages of professional training is that you end up making wonderful friends and then missing them when everyone inevitably moves on to the next stage of life (the real job stage). I’ve lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina, before finally settling here where my husband found a great job. I miss my friends from all the places I’ve lived. I don’t see them often enough. Fortunately this past weekend we had a fantastic visit from some of our closest friends we met in North Carolina. It was so fun to see them. It’s always good for the soul to spend some time visiting and talking in the comfortable way that old friends do. The girls really enjoyed playing with our friends’ kids too. It was a special weekend.

It was special in more ways than one, since Lass took her first steps on Friday!
We tried to get photos and video footage, but naturally as soon as my husband grabbed the camera, she stopped stepping.

She’ll be walking all over before we know it. I’m planning her first birthday party, which is so hard to believe.
Little sister is getting so big.
And big sister is too. She will most likely be starting preschool twice a week this fall. I say most likely because I am not completely sure I’ve managed to fully commit myself to the idea. I found a fabulous preschool. I really like the owner and her vision for the school. I love the way they teach there. I really think Miss would love it, but it makes me a little anxious to think of leaving her somewhere else for three hours twice a week. I think it will be a great experience for her, so I know I will get over myself and enroll her. I’m pretty sure… This is a big step for me.
I’m also thinking of enrolling her in a dance class in the near future. This girl loves to dance, as you might have noticed from my multiple posts about family dance parties and videos of her dancing. This weekend we happened to have the TV on when “Angelina Ballerina” came on PBS. She had never seen the show, but she was fascinated.
Right away she asked me to get her a tutu and she started trying to imitate the dance steps.
Plie
Pirouette
Arabesque
Not bad!
We’re gearing up to go visit some more friends from my graduate school days in Kentucky. Two of my friends are getting married and Miss is going to be their flower girl. We’ve been getting her dress fitted and watching You Tube videos of flower girls so she’ll have some idea what to do, since we won’t make it down in time to go to the rehearsal. I can’t wait to see Miss as a little flower girl! And I can’t wait to see my friends on their big day.

Weekend Fun

Posted on by Amy

We had a wonderful long weekend here. We had a visit from a long-time friend of mine (a former college roommate!). She met my girls for the first time and became fast friends with Miss.


Lass is experiencing some stranger/separation anxiety right now, so she wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy with our guest, but she did lots of smiling from a distance.



It seems that the weather has finally cooperated with the calendar (though not until yesterday, which was 90 degrees!) and summer has arrived. We spent the morning yesterday at the pool. My husband had to work all weekend, so I took the girls by myself and therefore have no pictures of our first pool outing of the year. I was doing good to keep track of Miss while holding Lass constantly, so photo time wasn’t really going to happen. I tried to set Lass down in a tiny bit of water in the zero entry area of the pool, but she didn’t want anything to do with that. Then I tried to put her in our portable exersaucer thing. I should have known better. She didn’t like it the first time I put her in it at home.
But on that first day she eventually got a bit used to being in the thing, so I thought maybe she would do better at the pool. When I put her in it she immediately started screaming and trying to climb out. So she spent the entire pool time in the Ergo, which was okay too.

During nap time I finally got out our water and sand table, which has been in the box for a few weeks since it has been too cold to play with it. We didn’t have any sand but the girls didn’t know the difference when I filled up both sides with water.

Lass felt like such a big deal being able to stand and play with her sister.




There was tons of splashing.


Miss was just scooping the water onto herself!
And she was very diligent about watering the landscaping.
Including the rocks.
Then she realized how wet she was and begged me to get a towel and dry her off.
I wiped the front of her clothes with the towel and dried her feet. I thought she might be upset about her wet clothes and ask to get dry clothes on. But she just went right back to splashing herself and pouring water everywhere. It’s going to be a fun summer.