Sarah's 18 month Appointment

Here is Sarah this morning at her 18 month doctor's appointment.  She did very well.  She is in the 75% percentile for everything!  She is 32-1/4 inches long, 26.2 pounds, and her head circumference is 18.5 inches.  All in all, she is doing great! 
She is holding the doll that her "Aunt Beth" brought her back from Texas.  She loves her!!

Feed Me Books Friday: Summer Reading Club

Well, we have joined the summer reading club.  Yes, I did say "we".  We all joined as a family.  Sarah has her reading club log and Michael and I are sharing a log.  We'll see who gets the better rewards!  As a result ... here are Sarah's first books that she has checked out from the library.  She didn't get her card today, but we will be sure to get it next time.

This exciting little board book introduces the alphabet to infants in a humorous game of tag, "a told b, and b told c, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree. Whee! Said d to e f g, I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree." The entire lowercase alphabet makes it to the top of the coconut tree and "chicka chicka boom boom," they all fall down! Colorful and eye-catching, the artwork bewitches little ones, while the sing-songy prose encourages listening and learning.

How could your child not love a book with characters such as Zachary Zebra, Orfo the Orangutan, Bismark the Buffalo, Igor the Egret and lots of funny underwear. Poor Bismark, he doesn't get to wear any underwear. Or does he? Lots of alliteration in this very funny little book that your pre-reader will just love for you to read to her.

Feed Me Books Friday: Favorite Books

This week, I'm featuring books that we just love to read. For Sarah's first birthday, her "Aunt Beth" gave her this book by Betsy Snyder. At the time, Sarah enjoyed looking at it and feeling the different textures, but she now really likes to look at the book and gets the humor of it all. One of her favorite pages is "have you ever kissed a walrus?" She likes to kiss the walrus and feel the whiskers tickle her face.This is a recent new favorite book. This is a sweet story about a little duck (Dimity) and his frog friend (Frumity). This story tells about their day and the fun that they have playing together. We got this book a long time ago, but Sarah didn't care anything about it. Now, we have read it about 6 times in the past 2 days!

What child doesn't like Good Night, Gorilla??? Well, actually, I'm not a huge fan, but I think that is only because we have read it about a million times! Sarah loves to look at this book and she laughs at the zookeeper's wife's eyes when she realizes that she is not the only one awake in her bed!

Sweet Cousins

I feel that Sarah is very fortunate to have cousins that live nearby. When I was growing up, I obviously knew my cousins, but I don't feel that we were very close. We didn't see each other very much. Of course, I didn't know that I was missing out on anything until I met Michael.


Michael was very close with his cousins growing up. He still remains relatively close to some of them. They get together at family events and we've even had some of them over for dinner just because we like them -- shocker, right?! :)

Sarah loves her cousin Steven Riley. He was born 4 years before her almost to the day! She loves getting to play with him. Well, Steven Riley now has a little brother -- John Colton.

Sarah doesn't quite know what to think of him. She sees him in pictures and mostly just calls him baby, but she is starting to call him Toto. That is her version of John Colton. As you can see above, she's not really sure why Steven Riley is kissing John Colton instead of her!

She loves her cousins and I hope that they will always be good friends!

Fun with Rice and Beans

If there is one thing that I have learned in my job with Early Intervention, it is to try to access all areas of development. Enter the sensory bucket. In EI, many special instructors have a sensory bucket. Basically, it is a bucket with a variety of different textures inside. This are used for a variety of different reasons. I like to use mine to have a child talk about what they may find inside of the bucket. Other professionals may use their buckets with children who have various sensory processing needs. In my bucket, I have easter grass, rocks, rice, beans and a few sticky spiders, frogs and lizards. We use the shovels and rakes to find the bugs. Here's the results when I tried it out on Sarah ...

Fun with Friends

Friday night, we were pleasantly surprised to be invited over to a friend's house for dinner. We were excited because as "non-parents" we had all hung out regularly, but we just haven't been able to spend much time together since all of our little ones take up so much time.

Eveline was born in September, Sarah in November, and Audrey in March -- so you can tell that they are very close in age. However, they are all so different. It was so much fun to watch them play together. Of course, Sarah always has to have a baby doll; luckily, Audrey shared with her.

Thank you Lazenby's for opening your home to us and the whirlwind known as Sarah!

Claire's Birthday

Saturday, we went to our little friend Claire's first birthday party.

It was a wonderful time and Sarah enjoyed herself! Claire, and her parents, live two houses down from us. Annah and John threw a wonderful party. We had Donato's pizza (which was fantastic!) and pink champagne! Who cares if it was a kid's party -- Claire turned one and mommy and daddy lived through the first year! It was definitely cause to celebrate!!! Another thoughtful thing was that Annah had potted plants to give to each of the mothers because of Mother's Day. I thought that was super sweet. We are not really close with this family, but I would like to change that. We need each other as friends, neighbors and believers in Christ.

Happy Birthday Claire!

Tori and Dean ... for better or worse

Okay, I admit it. I am addicted to reality shows, well specifically Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. This season has been really depressing! They have been married 4 years and have two beautiful children, Liam and Stella. However, there is some sort of disconnect going on between them. The past two episodes have had me almost in tears.

Michael and I have been married for 4 years and have Sarah and Gus (can't forget the dog-child). I don't want to feel a disconnect, but I feel that everyone has those fleeting moments from time to time. I think the most important thing is to take time for each other and come back together to being one! Don't forget what you wrote on your air-sick bags (T/D reference)!!!

I know that this weekend is mother's day, but you wouldn't be a mother without your husband ... therefore, do something special for the two of you. Reconnect with each other, love each other, cherish each other always!

Feed Me Books Friday: Books about Mothers

We have two books that we read on a regular basis that have to do with mothers. The first one is a favorite by Karen Katz. Actually, Sarah loves all of her books! This is a book that we often read before bedtime when we are cuddling. It goes through numbers 1-10 and everything that mommies do ... all the way from one nuzzle wuzzle wakeup hug, to five kiss it all better boo boo hugs, ending up with ten goodnight I love you hugs.

One of our other favorites is a relatively new favorite by Ezra Jack Keats. This book is about lots of different types of animals and their mothers. The mother provides instructions to their babies, such as "Dive said the mother, we dive said the one. So they dove and the played on the rocks in the sun." Reading books with Sarah is one of my most favorite activities. I love to read to her and never get tired of hearing her sweet baby voice "eed eed mama" (translated -- read read mama)!

This post is linked to Feed Me Books Friday at The Adventures of Motherhood.

Sunday Events

We had great friends visit with us at church yesterday. We were excited to have Beth and BJ come with us. Michael was excited too because he was teaching Sunday School. They seemed to have a good time and by the end of lunch, Sarah had warmed up to them ... FINALLY!!

Check out the day's events at Beth's blog.

Last night, in the middle of the storm, we had our friends Chris and Amanda come over for dinner. We have not gotten to hang out with them in a long time, so it was great fun! Although, thanks to Chris, Michael is even more obssessed with the potential harm and danger from Obama-care. Sarah eventually warmed up to Amanda, even though she refused to share a strawberry with her. However, she was scared of Chris. At one point, I think Sarah had even forgotten Chris was there, but then she bumped into his leg and ran straight back to mommy! That's okay little bug, mommy will always protect you!

All in all, a great Sunday!

Sarah loves to play outside!

Sarah is definitely an outside little girl. She loves to be outside. We have been on a mission lately to find the very best parks for her to play in. So far, our favorite is a "secret park" that not many other people know about located in Hoover. I can't tell you where it is because then more people would start to show up! :)



Anyway, we try to go to the park about once a week at least. I can definitely tell that she is growing up fast. When we first started going to the park, she was a bit apprehensive on the slides and swings. Not anymore! When we pull up she gets so excited and then goes running to the slides. She is doing much better and walking up the steps and loves to go down them by herself. The slide is "mine, mine"! "Mama, mine", she says, as she is waving her hand in protest as to say no help mama -- i'm a big girl! :)



Slow down growing up little girl. You're at the best age yet and I want to enjoy every minute of it! Besides, some days you outrun mommy and daddy!

Feed Me Books Friday: Books you can Sing

Okay, so I'm several days behind in my posting. Although some of you would say that I am months behind. However, I'm trying to do better! I saw this post today on another blog and decided to write about one of Sarah's new favorite books. Before she was even born, I saw a set of paperback Eric Carle books at a consignment store. I like his things, so I bought the set. I really haven't let her look at them because I didn't want them messed up, but she found them in her book basket the other night and ever since we have to read this book at least 4-5 times a day!

Basically, this book goes through each of the days of the week.

Monday, string beans. Tuesday, spagetti. Wednesday, zooop. Thursday, roast beef. Friday, fresh fish. Saturday, chicken. Sunday, ice cream. All you hungry children, come and eat it up! The book repeats all of the previous days each day. Each days food is presented by a different animal, like a porcupine, dog, cat, fox, etc. At the end of the book, there are the lyrics and the music for the song that goes along with the book.

Sarah loves to read and sing/sign with the book on the pages that she knows. I really recommend this book to anyone! Happy Reading!