A few days in Paris

    We just got back from a long trip to Paris. My oldest brother Damon got married and it was one of the most beautiful weddings I've been to. I loved the laid back style and the fact that Mary Ann and Damon didn't have any attendants, just 3 really cute flower girls just itching to walk down the aisle for a sucker. The weather turned out perfect. It rained before setting up and just after most of the clean up part, which is pretty awesome for an outside barn wedding. It was great to see Damon so happy and in love. They had friends from all over the states come in to celebrate with them. Such a beautiful wedding, day, and bride. We love that she is part of our family now!

AnnElise is in the middle waiting for her sucker

What's the 1st thing a girl in a white dress do? Play in the dirt, of course!

The mischievous little man!

    
    I really enjoy visiting Paris, but I think AnnElise enjoys it more. She and Hardy were spoiled rotten. AnnElise didn't eat a single vegetable while we were there. I thought she had until I realized that Grandbobba was sneaking all of them off of her plate. Instead she was handed smarties by a sweet lady at church, cake, cookies, and suckers. Hardy was in the same boat as AnnElise. He had his 1st sucker at the wedding, and was given plenty of cake. They did, both, eat tons of fruit. Its still a treat for them. AnnElise picked apples from Mom's tree, and helped her pick okra for dinner one night. Grandbobba brought over a tractor tricycle for her, and she got sleep with Daniel one night and me another. Mostly we were afraid that she would wonder around the house late at night if one of us wasn't on the mattress with her. They both did surprisingly well with little sleep and crazy nap schedules. Everything else aside, AnnElise's favorite thing about Paris is my family. She adores each of them and gets plenty of attention from them.

  
   We got to visit with Mama Dot for a bit. We just love her and hate that we can't visit with her as often b/c we're so far away.

   We even got to hang out on the farm for a bit. I really like to watch the corn harvest, though it was a little depressing because of the drought. Hopefully farmer's insurance will kick in and help out a lot. I made a call as soon as we entered into Henry County to see about raw cow's milk. Much to my surprise, it was quite easy to find some. The kids have been drinking it up. I'm a big fan of it's health benefits. So much better than the vitamin depleted, homogenized milk from the store. Looks like I'll be milking a goat soon. We also tried Kefir for the 1st time. Its like drinking thinned yogurt, but also a lot healthier. AnnElise said she liked it, but only came back for a couple of sips. I'm not a fan of yogurt unless its in my smoothie.

Hardy's 1st Birthday

 

   Hardy turned 1 last Friday, YAY! I didn't expect him to do anything new that day, but sure enough, he learned to walk backwards. If my memory is correct, AnnElise began walking on her 1st birthday. She'd already taken several steps for over a month, but she became a walker that day. So, on Hardy's big day, he became a backwards walker. I watch him backing up to everything now. He had a fun day, but the most fun to be had was the day after for his party.

   We've been working tirelessly over the last week or more getting the house ready and party planning. So much work is put into the 1st birthday party and they don't even remember it the next day. Our theme for his birthday was Olympics, even though they've been over for 2 weeks, I wanted to stick with it and play some games. Hardy and another little boy that is only a week younger kicked off the games with unrolling toilet paper, Hardy's favorite thing ever. Hardy definitely won since he's had quite a bit more practice. I have to give credit to Daniel for thinking of this game for the wee ones.

  

   We had several games for the kids and gave gold medals to the winners at the closing ceremony. I think the kids favorite part was blow up water slide. I thought it might end up being too cool for it, but the weather was perfectly hot and humid for some water balloons and water slide.

    Our awesome neighbor and small group friend made some special cupcakes in ice cream cones to resemble torches. She made all of the cakes and they were delicious. I think one slice had about 1,500 calories.

Cupcake torches

Hardy really enjoyed his cake, but it took some time for him to realize that it was a good trade off from the watermelon he'd been gnawing on. As you can tell, he was really upset when I took the watermelon away from him. Once he got a good taste of cake, it was demolished and devoured.

Our favorite babysitter came to celebrate and thanks to    
 her mother, we have all of these great pictures to help tell the story.

Where has the time gone?

     We've been super busy the last few weeks trying to finish up some projects around the house in time for Hardy's 1st birthday party. Thankfully our house will be in much better shape that AnnElise's 1st birthday. Daniel is busy as usual with the outside projects and I've been busy with the usual DIY decor and trying to keep my two little tornados from tearing up everything. It seems Hardy likes to follow in his big sister's footsteps and destroy the book shelf every time it gets reorganized from the last time. So, for now, the books remain on the floor. I know that as soon as I put them up, he'll be tearing them down again. Like most people's book shelves, books can't just be placed back up, there's an order to it: color, size, hardback/paperback, content, etc. It takes too much time for it to be destroyed in just under a minute. Plus, he doesn't touch them as long as they lay on the floor! So it looks like I'll be organizing the book shelf during Hardy's nap right before his party.

    Besides Hardy's party there's so many things that I look foward to coming up soon. My favorite season is almost here, AnnElise will be starting a Mother's Day Out program, my oldest brother, Damon, is getting married, and Daniel will be back in school studying to be an EMT at the FD. While I'm not really looking forward to Daniel going back to school for a semester, I'll be happy for him to have it done and for it to help him in his career. It helps that he'll be in class for the 2 days a week that AnnElise will be at Sonshine School.
   I have to admit that I am really excited for AnnElise to be in school a couple of days a week. I think she'll love it, and I know that she needs that extra socializing with other kids her age. Not only am I excited for her, I'm excited for myself as I'll have a bit of break, but not so much for Hardy. I know that Hardy will really miss her, but maybe there'll be a few less bruises and head bumps for him. I'm hoping that all of those bumps and bruises will toughen him up, but I think he could use a break from them. Maybe we'll have some more playing in the mud days since AnnElise can't stand to be dirty.

  

Sweet Summertime

   Sorry about my long absence from blogging! I've been feeling overwhelmed lately. Hardy has been walking for over a month now, but just recently he's walking REALLY well and into everything. Well, he was into everything before, but it seems he's gotten faster at it. And with Hardy walking more, AnnElise has regressed in her potty training. I'm hoping to get this corrected fast. If AnnElise is back to using her potty all of the time by the end of this month, she can go to Cousin Camp at her Mamaw's and Papa's for an ENTIRE WEEK. I know AnnElise would have so much fun, but I also have a lot to gain from this as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and lots of M&Ms on hand to get her back on track. She can only go if she's potty trained. Mamaw and Papa are really brave for planning an entire week trying to keep up with 7 kids.
   Aside from Hardy walking now, he just had ear surgery last week to get tubes. He seems sick a lot. Every time he got a runny nose, he also got an ear infection. He'd been on 4 antibiotics in 6 months so we decided tubes were his best option. A super quick procedure early one morning and he was back to normal the very next day. Now, we're on to planning Hardy's 1st Birthday party. Time surely seems to fly by with 2 very active children.
   Aside from trying to keep up with the kids, I've been trying to make everything I pin on pinterest. Being crafty is hard with young kids, but its nice to have something else to do especially with this killer heat wave and drought keeping us indoors more than normal. We have certainly taken advantage of the Y swimming pool this summer. I sense some relief this week, but I'm really looking forward to  Fall.

Bed TIme AnnElise

       As I sit here typing, I hear AnnElise in her bedroom loudly singing and clapping to Patty Cake, Oh God you are my God, ABC's, and Jesus Loves Me interchangeably. Its a routine that we hear most nights after we put her to bed. She doesn't go to sleep quietly. Some nights she talks to her animals and yells "no" at them over and over and sometimes she's yelling that at us. She'll go on and on yelling, "Mommy! NOoooo!" and switch out Mommy for Daddy or add in Hardy. Its really cute to me. She's so content talking and singing to herself. I know I say this all of the time, but she really does have such a sweet spirit.
    AnnElise does not always exude her sweet spirit especially during errands to the grocery store. We were at Kroger yesterday when we passed up those huge carts with driving cars in the front. The carts at Kroger are not great (the ones a Publix don't feel like a bus so I never mind using it and AE can't climb out of it). They are low to the ground with a buckle that AnnElise can get out of repeatedly so we always get a regular one even when I have both of the kids. When we passed up the fun cart AnnElise threw a fit ALL through the store! I knew I couldn't make her happy so we hurried along and only got 4 things. Two different people who work for Kroger brought her a sucker and stickers and she was happy. Hardy doesn't ever mind. He's usually content and doesn't know much of a difference, for now. The employees talked and smiled at them. Hardy was eating it up and giggling, and AnnElise just kept on eating her sucker with no sign of a smile. Not everybody gets to see AnnElise's sweet spirit. Sometimes they see her tired, stubborn spirit. I'm happy to see both. I appreciate it and love her more wholly for it.
    Just tonight, she had me in tears as she threw out prayer requests. She mentioned EVERY single person on Daniel's side of the family and a couple from my side, as well as Daniel, Hardy and me. Here's the surprise, AnnElise even remembered to pray for Hannah's belly baby, a baby girl due in Sept. I'm shocked that she was listening to me when I told her about Hannah having a girl and even wanted to include her in prayer. Sometimes AnnElise's tired, stubborn spirit wears thin on my nerves after a day of tantrums, but her sweet spirit always wins when its time for prayer, Bible story, and singing.

Isaiah 41:10 condensed

Its never too early to start teaching Bible verses! I am a very proud mama. North Blvd CofC sends out a memory verse for our kids to learn. This is the shortened version of the one they sent out b/c we tried the longer version, but its just not happening yet. I'll keep working on it and hopefully I can get her to memorize ALL of it, but its pretty long for a 2 year old. It was hard to capture this on camera. She kept moving and jumping around then climbing over the couch. I even tried to bribe her with a cookie to be still. This is the best we could do! ENJOY:)

World's BIGGEST Fish Fry

   We survived the World's Biggest Fish Fry! Well, we didn't actually go to the Fish Fry to eat fish (they fry up over a ton of fish, hence the name) this year, but we did go to the parade and to the carnival. AnnElise had fun and Hardy just hung in there. Maybe next year Hardy will have a lot more fun. We got to hang out with family and see some friends. It was a good weekend and great to see all of the family and even hang out with the future sister in law!

AnnElise and her Uncle Damon flew the trick kite

She helped Nana cook breakfast... in matching style

Uncle Joe let her play his guitar, its a tradition now

She got to hang out with her very cool Aunt Ashley

We got in two visits with Mama Dot

and rode the carousel with her daddy

Oh, and we got to hang out with the future SIL!