A work in progress

Hayes has been a thumb-sucker since she was itty-bitty. I can't remember exactly when she started, but all I know is it seems like forever! She is almost 3 1/2 now and we have been talking about quitting for a little while, not really drawing any negative attention towards it, but just talking about it. Our goal (okay well really mine) was for her to stop by the time she starts her 3 yr old preschool class in September and she has been on board with this too. My mom brought her some cute turtle band-aids a few weekends ago (thank you, Nana) b/c she is 3 and just really likes band-aids. I randomly asked her last week if she wanted to put some on her thumbs. YES!!! So she wore the turtle band-aids off and on for a couple of days and then on Sunday she went grocery shopping w/me and I let her pick out her own. She picked Dora of course. She has worn those band-aids like clockwork and I am so excited to say she is on DAY FIVE of not sucking her thumb. CRAZY! I hope her good streak will continue. We have made sure to give her lots of positive comments and praise. I'm just so proud of her b/c it has been so natural for her the past 3+ years. I have talked to lots of other moms whose children have sucked their thumbs and they have told me they had to promise some big things as a reward for their kids. Hmmm there will be no dog or kitty cat in her near future, per her daddy, but I told her if she could stop sucking her thumb we would have a party for her. Cake, balloons, ice cream, whatever! I'm just so proud of her and I'm very thankful for that $2.75 dora box of 20 band-aids which I thought was a complete rip off at the time. Thankfully she is only using 2 a day. I will buy her all the boxes she needs if she just keeps it up. GOOOOOOOOOOOO Hayesie Daisy!

Cousins

Our Dothan cousins came to town last week to visit. It is always such a treat. They are all so sweet and all play so well together, despite their age differences! We also love hanging out w/our Willoughby cousins here in B'ham and got to celebrate Alice's 9th birthday with a swim party. We are thankful for family who doesn't mind driving up here to play and be together and make memories. Thanks Aunt Alyssa for a great time. We love y'all sooooooo much. Please come back soon!!!

Daddies

And one from last year... Happy Father's Day to all of our sweet and special daddies! Daddy, Papa, Grandaddy and Pop Pop-you are all loved very, very much and we are SO incredibly thankful to have each of you. Thank you for loving us and our babies so much!!

A trip to Honey's

On Thursday I took Hayes and Watson to Prattville for the day to see Honey, Nathan's grandmother. She's only an hour from us and since Watson is a little bigger and her house is not so far that I will lose my mind if he screams the entire car ride, I thought it was a great idea to go for the day! And yes it was a great idea. We played at the park, at her house, ate lunch, and then tried to get Watson to nap with no luck. It was a great day. We'll be back soon hopefully!! Honey is so sweet. She is our only living grandparent left, between Nathan and me. H & W love her and we had a great visit. My new goal is to go at least once a month. I would give anything now if I could take my children to see my grandmother and play and eat lunch and go to the park. I knew this of course when my Grandmama was still here, but by the time Hayes was big enough to start knowing her, Grandmama just wasn't quite all there anymore. When she was here in Birmingham in her last year of life Hayes and I did go visit her a good bit, but she was too little to remember and Grandmama was too old to remember!! I have a picture of her and Ease, her twin, in our guest bedroom and Hayes just looked at it a few days ago and asked who they were. They would have all loved each other so much and had so much FUN together! Life is just so short. Relationships and memories are so important. And I want my babies to have that with Honey and all their grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins. If you have any extra time I would highly recommend reading Kisses from Katie today-it is really good and wow, wow, wow, her ministry just gets more amazing every time I read her posts. So inspiring!

Tastes like summer

W found a new favorite food for himself (something other than cheese!)

Summer Days

We are thoroughly enjoying our summer. We have been busy one minute and lazy the next. We've been to the library twice which I am so excited about b/c they have lots of fun things going on every day I did not know about, chick fil a, played with some friends, read books, played outside, and eaten way too many snacks and popsicles. Watson's new hobby/obsession for the past couple of weeks is books. He loooooovvvves his books. Especially his abc book or any animal book or any book with sounds. I'm so excited that he gets so excited about stories. Hayes' new thing is to "play kindergarten." I went through all of my old kindergarten boxes in the garage and pulled out lots of new books for her and old lesson plans and crafts. Every day she wants to play kindergarten and do some kind of project. It's been fun for her and it is fun to look back at those activities we used to do every year at school. My mom gave me a pedicure gift certificate for Mothers Day and Hayes and I went last week and she got one too! It was fun. She sat in lap the whole time which did not make for the most relaxing pedicure. She loved it though and now has some neon pink toes-her choice-way better than the neon green she was eyeing at first. We are looking forward to a relaxing and low key weekend. Always exciting to have daddy all to ourselves for 2 whole days. Happy Friday!

Dora and Diego

We are taking advantage of all the free/cheap things around town this summer so far! Our big girl is a huge fan of Dora these days. She knows all the characters on the show which is really funny that she listens and pays attention and always wants to invite Dora to come over to play at our house. I asked how we can do that and she said we can get them out of the tv? The mind of a preschooler is very sweet and curious and interesting, bless her heart. McWane has the new Dora and Diego exhibit open now and she had a blast. It was fun and there were lots of "explorer/rescuer" things to do. Watson's favorite was the slide. He is quite the climber as most 15 month-ers must be. They went up and down over and over about 100 times. Watson is at a great age now-15 months-to soak up everything and learn! We can see his wheels turning all the time. He loves looking at fish and ducks or turtles or anything he can see up close, oh and he LOVES all his books. It's fun to watch him learn. I'm sure we will be back at McWane alot this summer. It's a great place to play if you hit it just right and it's not too crowded, usually a small chance though.