Grandpa and his Girls

We were over at my dad's house the other day while he was watching my two nieces, Cassie and Julianna. The girls were all outside playing and they decided to come in to rest. First Cassie climbed up on the couch and laid down with grandpa. Then Julianna wanted to sit on grandpa's lap too. Not to be left out of the action, Libby then wanted to sit on Grandpa's lap. So this is what we ended up with! Then everyone pretended they were sleeping! The girls love their grandpa!

Who's Dana??

Here is Libby and "Dana"

Yes, we can teach Ginger to walk up a balance beam and go down a slide, but we can't teach her to chase bubbles!

Have you ever noticed the strange things your kids do and wonder where they came up with such things? I often wonder about some of the things Libby does, but today I'm speaking of one thing in particular! Whenever she plays with her bubbles she tries to catch them with her bubble wand when they are floating around in the air and calls to them, "Dana, Dana!" She calls all the bubbles Dana as she tries to catch them...like she's looking for a lost friend. "Dana Dana Dana!" I don't know how she came up with this game, I don't know how she came up with the name, but it really amuses me to watch her play bubbles! Isn't that why we have kids anyway...to amuse us?

Setting it free...

One of my friends emailed this to me and I thought it was kind of funny, so I thought I would pass it along!

Fugged and Wowed

For those of you who don't read "Go Fug Yourself" I came acrosss this and thought it was Hilarious! Especially if you follow the celebs...this is dead on for Matt! So I hope it makes your sides ache as it did mine! Enjoy!

CAMILLA ALVES: Hi, honey. I thought you were going to change before you left the house.

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: Nah. It's all good, baby.

CAMILLA: From across the room, I thought you were wearing some crazy jumpsuit

.MATTHEW: Just keep livin', Cam. Just keep LIVIN.'

CAMILLA: I AM living. I just would have hoped that you would put another shirt on. You've been wearing that one for three days now.

MATTHEW: Parenthood is WILD, man. It's just so WILD.

CAMILLA: (giant sigh) It is wild, Matthew. But we're in public. This is your movie. I'm tired too, you know, and I managed to put some effort into my appearance.

MATTHEW: I'm just so stoked and awed by the miracle of life, man. We should all be naked right now.

CAMILLA: I do not know what I'm supposed to do with you.

Happy Birthday to you and you and you...

September is a busy month for birthdays! It seems like everyone is having one! So I'm taking this opportunity to give a big shout out to all my family and friends who are celebrating this month!

Happy Birthday, Cassie!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday, Suzie!

Happy Birthday, Richard!

Happy Birthday, Kennita!

Happy Birthday, Jo!

Happy Birthday, Hailey!

I hope I haven't forgotten anybody! Hope you have a great birthday and a great year!

It was a beautiful day!

Yesterday was such a great day. I was surprised when Libby and I went outside around 11am to find that it was warm and breezy! Not too warm, not too breezy...just right! And no humidity! That is my perfect day! It's been a little chilly at our house this past week so we welcomed the chance to play outside! Libby was playing and I grabbed my camera and played around with it for a while. I got some good shots of Libby. I've posted some in this posting, and the others (in B&W) along the side of the page. I hope you were able to get outside and enjoy the day as we did!

Isn't she just so photogenic? and beautiful?

I love this picture! It really shows her personality!

I think she was trying to climb up the slide with slippery shoes on!

Libby said if you hold your arms up in the air you go down the slide faster! Wee!

Here she is on her tire swing! She only gets to play on it when she is wearing dark clothes because its an old old tire and all the black rubs off on you and your clothes!

In this pics, she appears to just be sitting on a spool...

...But its really this big tower thing Mike built out of industrial size electrical wire spools...Here she is sitting in the middle...

And this is a full view of the tower and her sitting on top. She is way up in the trees! It scares me to watch her climb up that thing, but she loves it!

Ginger the Wonder Dog!

Inspired by the all the little doggies we saw at the circus doing tricks, we decided to teach our own little Ginger dog how to do a trick of her own! Here she is walking up a balance beam on an incline, up to the clubhouse, and then down the slide! Let's hear it for Ginger the Wonder Dog!

What have I done to my daughter??

This was this morning....She wanted to take Betty Bunny and Ginger Two to school with her today, even though she knew she had to leave them in the truck while she was in school. She even gave them hugs and kisses good-bye! She's just so sweet!

On this day, she wanted me to take her picture because we were borrowing grandma's Nintendo DS (pictured) and we had to return it after school.

A pic for no particular reason!

She wanted me to take her picture on this day because she was wearing this outfit when she had her pics professionally taken. It will now forever be her "picture" outfit!

I'm beginning to think I take too many pictures of Libby. Or maybe she thinks everyday is "her first day of school." Before we leave for school, not everyday but a lot of the days, she wants me to take a picture of her, with her backpack on, in front of the kitchen door, with my cell phone camera. How can I say no...it's just so funny! And instead of saying, "Cheese" for her picture she says, "Animal Crackers!" which is the name of her school! So here are some pics of Libby before she goes to school!

A day at the Circus

When I heard the advertisement for the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus on the radio I thought that sounded like something Libby would really enjoy. Then I thought about it again, I decided maybe all my nieces and nephew would like to go, too, since they hardly ever get to do something all together! Well Saturday was our circus day adventure! I might just add, before I go any further, that I was going into this with a positive attitude, excited about how much all the kids would enjoy the circus and each others company. Unfortunately, I did work the night before so I only got 4 hours of sleep before the circus. I'm not very patient when I don't get enough sleep. Things started out ok...I picked up Libby -- she had been camping out with her daddy the night before...I picked up Nathan -- he was at the fairgrounds with his daddy as they were preparing for the nights tractor pull...Then we went to my brother's house to pick him and my nieces up. We got everyone loaded into my truck and were on our way! Yay! To the circus!! I think we might have been in the truck 7 1/2 minutes before the arguing began! Nathan and the two oldest girls were in the very back...Libby and Julianna in the middle. Nathan was the only one not fighting. I thought at first it was just me, not being very patient because of my lack of sleep, but I noticed my brother was getting perturbed as well! The only time they were quiet was the ten minutes they were eating their McDonalds that we stopped to get them along the way! It seemed like that hour long drive into the city lasted 4 hours! But finally we arrived! Everyone was excited to go in! We make our way to our seats and the circus starts shortly after. I had the misfortune of having Libby and Julianna sit next to me. They fought the whole time! Libby was getting so irritated with Julianna that day. Neither one of them would sit still. They kept bouncing up and down in their chairs and wouldn't sit still. Finally, I smacked Libby on the butt cheeks and told her to sit down and be quiet. So she cried instead. She cried a few other times throughout the whole event and I don't even know why! I was beginning to think maybe she didn't get much sleep either! At one point I tried to get Julianna to sit with her daddy, that lasted about 5 minutes and then she was back. The older kids were pretty good during the circus at least! Once the circus was over we headed back home. I was hopeful that everyone would be tired and fall asleep on the way home. Not so much! The fighting started in again! Nathan was getting annoyed too, because at one point he pretended to be asleep just so he would be left alone! It was the longest day ever! Maybe next time I get a bright idea to do a family outing I will do it in very small groups! Anyway...here are some picks of our special day:

This is Libby pretending to be a pig before we left for the circus!

Here is my attempt to get a pic of all the kids together before we went to our seats. Of course, they had just spent an hour in the truck, so standing still AND being together for a picture was really the last thing they wanted to do!

Here is myt 2nd attempt at a group photo. I gave up after this!

Here are the elephants. I thought Libby would get excited about them, but I think this was during her first crying spell!

Here are some horses and zebras doing tricks. Libby did like this part.

I forget what they called these...wave poles, wiggle sticks, wobbly poles...I don't know. Anyway they were very very tall, they swayed back and forth, and the two acrobats did tricks. What made this so cool is that they were right in front of us because we were up so high too! The ending was probably the coolest because both of the acrobats slide down the pole upside down really fast and stopped all of the sudden right before they hit bottom! It was impressive!

These are the clowns and clown cars. I think Libby was crying at this point, too, because she didn't get very excited about it!

Aah! Here is Libby with a smile on her face! She is enjoying some cotton candy! This was her first time! She had never had it before and she liked it! (Can you believe that stupid bag of cotton candy was $12! It also came with a felt circus top hat, if that makes a difference!) Nathan bought this spinning circus flashlight thing for $20...that he ended up giving to Libby...Parking was $8...I'm glad I only spent $13 on the tickets! Aah, but seeing the joy on the little kids faces from spending the day at the circus...PRICELESS!

Tipton Co. Pork Festival!

It's that time of year again...time for the 40th Annual Tipton Co. Pork Festival! It my sound lame to you, but 'round these parts it is a BIG deal! The Festival takes over downtown Tipton with tents, rides and of course festival food! Yummy! The festivities started Thursday evening with the kick-off parade. The grande parade is Saturday afternoon. It's bigger and better than the Thursday parade but I knew we wouldn't be able to make it on Saturday because we are going to the circus! Anyway...back to the Pork Festival...Unfortunately, we weren't having the best weather!

Here is Libby waiting for the parade to start. It wasn't raining when we left the house, so I didn't bring an umbrella or raincoat or even a jacket for my poor baby. Luckily, I had this umbrella in the truck. And Libby was a little chilly, but very excited so she wanted to stay and wait for the parade instead of going home! What a trooper!

Finally, the parade begins! Of course it didn't start until 5:30, and I thought it started at 5:00, so we sat out in the rain waiting a little longer than we needed too!

Here is the Pork Festival mascot, I guess you could say...Pork Boy!

I let you in on a little secret...The main reason Libby was sooo excited about the parade is because they throw candy out to the kids! We came prepared! Notice Libby's nice little bag compared to the boy next to her who only has his hands! Libby doesn't mess around when it comes to candy!

Other kids are content with a few pieces of candy...But Libby doesn't stop until each piece is picked up! Although when we got home, she went through her bag and picked out all the peppermint candies and threw them in the trash because she doesn't like those! She just wanted to get them out of the way from the start!

This odd looking fellow is "Jim Dandy." He is the mascot from the locally owned "Jim Dandy Restaurant."

What would a parade be without tractors (in Tipton anyway)!?

Everyone knows this guy....It's Ronald McDonald!

Libby had said early in the night that she had never been to the parade before and I reminded her that we went last year. Then all of the sudden she remembered that we also came to the pork festival last year with Katie and they have ice cream!! So we had to get ice cream again this year. She picked out a chocolate covered banana and was very excited about it! Mike made the mistake of calling it a chocolate banana and Libby shoots back, "No! Covered!" It was pretty funny!

This concludes our evening at the pork festival! We weren't there long enough to get an elephant ear, so we may have to go back today after Libby gets out of school!