Swimming!

We took Cheyenne to our neighborhood pool this afternoon. It was so hot outside and I was dying to get in the water and cool off. The water temperature was perfect! Chey tried out her new swimmies. She did pretty good with them. It's going to take some practice but I think by mid-summer she'll have it down. We're ready to go swimming at Nana and Poppa's tomorrow!

16 Months

This morning I had planned to get mine and Cheyenne's picture taken together. It was going to be a maternity type thing where we would do pictures of my belly and Cheyenne, etc. Well we got to Portrait Innovations and they wouldn't do it. They do not do "bare belly" pictures. So we just had Cheyenne's picture made. This was supposed to be a gift for father's day but it looks like we'll have to go somewhere else or not do it at all. We did get a few good shots of Cheyenne. This is the 1st time having her picture made since she was 11 months at Christmas. She is most definetly a toddler now. Doing pictures when she was stationary was much easier. With her running around now it was so hard! I definetly won't go by myself next time.

Memorial Day Cookout

Riding the tricycle

Heather and Gavin

Maggie and Cheyenne

We had a big cookout with our friends today. We actually got everyone together! We usually have to work around Jason's schedule since he does nights and holidays but it all worked out for today. This is the 1st one of the summer for all of us and man was it different than last year. We had David (3), Allie (19 months), Cheyenne (16 months), Maggie (1 year) and Gavin (4.5 months). It was crazy!

Dancing Queen

Chey loves to dance. When a song comes on t.v. that she knows she stops what she's doing and starts dancing. Same if I put in her kids songs CD in the car. Here she is dancing to the beginning of "The Backyardigans." I think this is her favorite show. She'll do the same thing when William is watching M.A.S.H. She loves the music in the beginning.

Strawberry Pickin'

Messy girl! Mommy and daddy did all the work...Cheyenne just ate the whole time.

Yummy strawberries

Daddy showing her how to pick a strawberry.

This morning we took Cheyenne strawberry picking at Rudd Farm. We had so much fun! After Cheyenne realized that she could eat the strawberries that's all she wanted to do! She tried to eat a couple of green ones and quickly spit them out. I showed her how to eat the "red" ones and she caught on. She would point to one and say "red" and I would tell her yes and she would eat it. She got so messy but it was a great experience with her. I want to take her again before the season is over in a couple of weeks.

Sidewalk Chalk and Strawberry Shortcake!

We spent the majority of the day today at home. We did go to church this morning, but I spent 3/4 of the time in the nursery. Cheyenne only last about 10 minutes or so before they had to come get me. Oh well, I guess it's just going to take time. While she was napping, I got to go do some shopping by myself! Carter's was having a big sale so I got Cheyenne some clothes for this fall and winter and Hailey a few things as well. Cheyenne and I played outside until it started raining with her new sidewalk chalk! This is the first time we've done this and she really got into it! After dinner we went to the grocery store and got the fixings to make strawberry shortcake. Cheyenne got to have her own for dessert. We don't have much planned for Memorial day. We're going to cookout with some friends tomorrow. Hopefully the rain will hold off long enough.

Katie's 18th

The yummy cake!

Chey in the pool Emma and Chey sharing some pudding with Nana, although I don't think Nana got too much of it!

We spent yesterday afternoon at mom and dad's celebrating Katie's 18th birthday. She got a new top for her Amigo ( her car) a lap pad for her laptop and after school gets out I'm taking her skydiving. No I'm not going myself, but she told me a few years ago she wanted to do it, so I'm going to take her. Emma, Cheyenne and Noah (John and Connie's grandson) played in the pool for a little while. We then had dinner and an awesome homemade ice cream cake made by mom and Jen. It had swiss cake rolls cut up, fudge, vanilla ice cream and I'm not sure what else but it was good!! Happy 18th Katie!

Playdate!

This morning we had a playdate with Gavin, David and Maggie. The kids did pretty well together. This was their first "official playdate" together. David is 3 and Cheyenne and Maggie are both 1. Gavin is a little over 4 months. We had lunch together and played outside for a little while too. This is such a great time for Kristie, Heather and I to catch up! Here's a picture of Cheyenne and David having lunch.\

Beaufort, NC

This weekend we went to Beaufort. William's "Uncle George" and "Aunt Carol" have a house there on the water on Front Street. We were married there 2 years ago. It's so beautiful there. We ate at The Spouter Inn on Friday night, outside on the water. Cheyenne needed a bath and Carol has a HUGE tub with jets and everything. So Cheyenne and I took a bath together. I was afraid she would slip by herself in there or get lost. After filling the tub on we turned on the jets and it made lots of bubbles. She has never enjoyed a bath as much as this one!

Saturday we got up early and took a boat ride out to Shackleford Banks. This is an island about 10 minutes away where there are not houses. Just beach and wild horses. This was Cheyenne's very 1st boat ride. I think she enjoyed it. When we got going fast, she turned around and layed her head on our chest so the wind wasn't in her face. We spent about 2 hours out there shelling and playing in the sand. We did get to see the horses. Pretty cool! We went back to the house and had lunch and Chey took a nap. Then we packed up and headed to Fort Macon. William and I were supposed to be married there, on the beach, but the weather didn't cooperate. We took the chairs and umbrella and Cheyenne's sand toys. She had so much fun! She would find shells and put them in her bucket and dig in the sand. This was a much different experience than our beach trip last summer when she was 6 months old. She basically sat in a little pool under the umbrella then. Now she was all over the place! It was so cool to see the amazement in her eyes at all the new stuff.

After eating breakfast this morning at the Boardwalk cafe (Cheyenne had grits for the first time! She actually liked them..) we went to the Aquarium at Pine Knolls Shore. It was on our way home and Cheyenne has never been to an aquarium. She loved all the fish. She would run to a wall of fish and say "sish!" It was hard to keep up with her. She also loved the sting rays. They were in one of those tanks where you can pet them so William would hold her up and she would try to touch them as they swam by. All in all we had a great trip. She didn't sleep in the car on the way down and back as much as I would like and the DVD player didn't hold her attention for as long as I would like, but we made there and back in one piece. Maybe with a little less sanity...

Enjoying our bath in the big tub!

Cheyenne loves her new shoes. They're crocs! Whenever I said "go get your shoes" these were the ones she chose from the 3 pair a brought.

Finding sea shells.

Cheyenne and daddy at the Banks.

The wild horses.

Cheyenne at Shackleford Banks.

Cheyenne playing in the sand.

Cheyenne took over my chair...

Cheyenne and mommy at Fort Macon.

Cheyenne and daddy looking at turtles at the aquarium.

Day 5, going okay.

Cheyenne in her "big girl bed." (Toddler bed)

Today was day 5 of Cheyenne napping in her "big girl bed." It's got guard rails on each side about 1/3 of the way down. to keep her from rolling out. It's going well, I suppose. Her naps have gotten a little shorter. When she would wake up in her crib she would get comfortable again and go back to sleep. Now when she wakes up about an hour or so into it she is in a new place and knows she can get out. A couple of times I've been able to catch her before she gets to the door and tell her to get back in the bed and lay her back down and she has gone back to sleep to finish her nap (another hour or so). Today was not one of those days. Only got 1 hr and 15 minutes out of her all day. I think with time she'll get comfortable in that room in the new bed and will be fine. That's why I started now, to give her a couple of months of napping in there before tackling night time!

This picture is when I went to get her up yesterday (after a 2 hr and 20 min nap! yay!). She had just opened her eyes when I snapped the picture. She sat up and gave me a hug and pointed down to her diaper and said "pee." She got down from the bed and walked herself to the bathroom. I put her on the potty and within a minute, she peed! We have been doing a little bit of toilet training (at predictable times like right after she gets up in the morning, after snacks and meals and before her bath). That's normally when she goes. She's been doing really well, pottying about 50% of the time. But when she told me yesterday that she had to go and walked straight to the toilet, I was amazed. She's really starting to connect the idea of "going potty." I'm not rushing this at all, but she's doing great!

Mother's Day

Today was my 2nd Mother's day. It was wonderful. Cheyenne and William made me eggs and waffles this morning. Yum! We did a little shopping for furniture for the deck...didn't find anything yet. Then we spent the afternoon at Grandma Lucie's. She always has a Mother's day cookout. We had a great day. I feel so blessed to have this little person in my life. She is amazing.

Big girl bed!

Breaking News! Cheyenne slept in her big girl bed for the 1st time today! I reall wanted to get the nursery painted which is currently Cheyenne's room. Chey's new room is all ready for her so I thought we would try a nap in there. I sat her on her bed and gave her her blankie. I read her a few books and did our usual routine. She sat up when I was walking out and got out and followed me. This happend a couple of times but each time I told her it was sleepy time and the 3rd time she got in the bed and stayed. I watched her on the monitor and it took her a little while to get comfortable but within 10 minutes she was asleep! I am so proud of her. A new room, new bed and she did great! We're just going to do naps in there for a while..we'll try nightime maybe around the end of July. I did get 3/4 of the nursery painted. I'll finish the rest when William gets home and he can take Chey for a little while.

Pudding Painting!

We tried the painting with pudding in the tub again today. We haven't done it but the one time back in November when Chey was about 9 months old or so. She made the pudding herself then we took it upstairs and she was just dying to get into it.

Cheyenne asked for her duck so I got it and she was trying to feed pudding to it. So funny!

William's Dream Come True..Chicago and Wrigley Field!

Friday morning William and I flew to Chicago. I bought him tickets to a Chicago Cubs game for Christmas and we made a weekend out of it. He has always wanted to go to Wrigley field. We arrived at our hotel around 2pm on Friday and got settled in. We walked downtown and made our way to Navy Pier. This was a really cool place. It had a Ferris Wheel, mini golf, IMAX theater, restaurants, and all kinds of other stuff. It was quite a walk from our hotel. I think we probably walked 2-3 miles by the time we arrived back at our hotel that evening. We had dinner at Harry Caray's. Thank God it was right across the street. It was really good, a little pricey. Saturday we made our way to Wrigley field. It was crazy all the people! Wrigley field is the 2nd smallest stadium as far as Professional baseball ( I believe). There were about 40,000 people at this game. The cubs did win, which made William extremely happy. Could you imagine going all the way to Chicago to watch them play and they lose? After the game we walked across the street to the "Cubbie Bear." It was extremely crowded so we headed on back to our hotel and took a much needed nap. We had dinner around 9pm at P.F. Chang's. It was the only restaurant close by that didn't have an hour or so wait. It was good though. We skipped lunch so anything was sounding pretty good to us. We arrived back in Greensboro this afternoon and my dad picked us up the airport. Cheyenne had stayed with my mom and dad for the weekend and we were so anxious to see her! She is asleep now. She had a very short nap ( I think we woke her by accident when we got to the house) so she went to bed early. She was so tired! We had a great trip, but it's so good to be back home. I could never live in a big city. So much noise, traffic and so many people crammed into such a small area. I love living here in the "country" and having grass and trees around!

View of downtown Chicago from Navy Pier.

Us riding the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier. Downtown Chicago is behind us.

Autumn-26 weeks pregnant in downtown Chicago.

"Finally made it to Wrigley Field!!!" William in front of the stadium. Walking into the stadium I watched William's face. He was like a kid at Christmas getting his very 1st bike. I've never seen him so excited

Us before the game at Wrigley Field.

The view from our seats. We were right behind home plate under the deck. It was about 65 degrees but we were in the shade...a little chilly!

Displaying the "W" flag after a win over Florida Marlins 6-1.
William showing off his new cubs shirt. Look how much weight he's lost!