Tag Archives: friends

Summer in December?

Since we were out of town for Thanksgiving, we just pulled out our Christmas decorations this past weekend. Saturday morning we put up the tree, then Saturday afternoon, we played in the leaves. Sunday was busy with church stuff and some work we had to do inside, so today I wanted to get outside to hang Christmas lights. Andrea has been mesmerized by even the dinkiest light displays in other people’s yards, so I wanted to put a decent amount up in our own yard this year. Plus, we’re actually going to be home for Christmas to enjoy our lights and decorations for a while this year. (Not to mention the fact that I wanted to actually use some of the new LED lights I got on super-clearance when our local BJ’s Wholesale Club went out of business earlier this year!)

Anyway, I went out about 2:30 after picking Andrea up from school and running some errands. Andrea came outside to “help me” and play while I hung lights. We both lasted about 20 minutes before realizing the long-sleeved shirts we had on were way too warm. It was over 70 degrees outside! I changed into a T-shirt, and Andrea had been wearing a sleeveless dress over a long-sleeved shirt, so I took her shirt off and put the dress back on without it. MUCH better. Andrea has been begging to wear short-sleeves ever since I switched over her wardrobe for fall, so she was thrilled. I couldn’t believe it was warm enough to be hanging Christmas lights in short-sleeves!

A little while later, a neighbor girl saw us and came over to visit and play with Andrea. They played sidewalk chalk, bubbles, tried a couple of games of hopscotch and hide-and-seek (Andrea was outmatched by the 8-year-old neighbor girl), and threw the ball around for a bit. I was so impressed that Andrea was so good about staying in our yard – even when her friend darted across street or when one of her balls rolled into the road, Andrea ran to the edge of the driveway and then stopped in her tracks. She’s not great in parking lots still, but at least she knows not to run into our street! I must be doing something right. 😉 At some point, the other girl heard the ice cream truck off in the distance and ran inside for some money. I didn’t really want to buy Andrea anything from the ice cream truck, but I knew she’d want something if her friend got something, so I grabbed my wallet and took her across the street to buy an ice cream sandwich (her favorite treat ever since her Granddad introduced them to her at the lake this summer). Andrea had never seen an ice cream truck before (other than on Dora), so she was pretty excited about the adventure, as well as the ice cream sandwich.

The girls sat down together on one of our front steps, and were so cute eating their frozen treats outside – in DECEMBER – that I ran inside to grab my camera of course. They hid and yelled “Boo!” when I came back outside (the neighbor girl’s idea I presume?), but they happily sat back down on the step to continue eating their ice cream while I snapped a few pictures. Andrea was in dreamland about playing out with an older girl and eating an ice cream sandwich, so she wouldn’t acknowledge my requests for her to look at the camera, but I liked this one of her making a coy little smile while taking a bite of her ice cream…

Eating a treat from the ice cream truck and playing outside with a friend, wearing a sleeveless dress. All while Mom hung Christmas lights - on Dec. 5th!

Oh, and I’ll post pictures of the lights later. I need to buy a couple more extension cords to get all the new light sets plugged in. 🙂

Birthday Party Fun

Yesterday morning was supposed to be Andrea’s last day of soccer, but the game was rescheduled for next week due to some rain we got Friday night. At first, Andrea was pretty disappointed, but she quickly forgot about soccer when we reminded her that she was going to her friend Ryan’s 4th birthday party. She started talking non-stop about Ryan after that. It was a Halloween themed party and the invitation said to wear a costume and be ready for pumpkin painting. I didn’t want her wearing her good Cinderella dress, because I was afraid it might get paint on it, but I realized we had a second (machine washable) Cinderella dress that she could wear. It was a good trial run for her hair and I got to try out the Cinderella headband I made for her. Her hair looked good, but I found out I really needed to pull out the hairspray to get the updo right for our church’s trunk-or-treat on Sunday night.

When we got to the party, we thought it was a little weird that there were no cars out front. It turned out that parents weren’t staying at the party – a party for 3 and 4 year olds! I was pretty freaked out, but the birthday boy’s parents and his aunt and uncle were all there and in costume, and we were the only other adults standing around. I wasn’t worried about Andrea, but I felt really strange just dropping her off for someone else to deal with for a couple of hours. The mom has a few kids, and I see her at pick-up and drop-off all the time, but I don’t actually *know* her. Andrea told us to leave, so we ran an errand, got some lunch, and wondered what else were supposed to do with our unexpected free time. When we picked Andrea up later, she was having a blast. She said they painted pumpkins, opened presents, and played in Ryan’s playroom. And apparently, they served pizza for lunch, but the mom told me that Andrea said she didn’t like pizza, so they made her PB&J instead. (She will eat pizza, but it’s definitely not one of her favorites. I usually have to encourage her to eat it.) At least she knows how to speak up for herself!

I just snapped one quick photo on the way in, but it’s not great because the lighting was all wrong. I knew at the time it didn’t turn out, but I didn’t think it mattered, since I’d take more at the party, but obviously, that didn’t happen.
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After the party, Andrea talked even more about Ryan, and sounded like a little girl in love. It was hilarious. She told us that she can go to Ryan’s house any time she wants. And then she told us that next year for Ryan’s party she wants to be a hula girl. I thought she was going to give Paul a heart attack! LOL. She was so worn out after the party that she told us she was tired and asked us to take her “straight home.” We did, and she went down for a nap almost the moment we got home.

And just a cute funny from later in the afternoon… Paul was cleaning out his wallet and pulled out his Delta AMEX credit card (sample image). Andrea immediately pointed to it and said, “That’s for travelling!” (Well, it sounds like “trabbeling when she says it.) We were a little shocked, and asked her how she knew that, so she pointed to the (triangular) Delta logo on the card, and said, “Because that arrow!” Then we asked where she saw that, because we really weren’t sure why she knew the Delta logo at all, and she said, “At the airport!” Of course she did. She hasn’t been in an airport since we flew to Missouri in April. We did fly Delta then (we usually do), but still… she remembers a logo from 6 months ago? Crazy.

Tonight we had a blast at our church’s Trunk-or-Treat. I’ll post more about that tomorrow after I have a chance to go through all the pictures. 🙂

Play time!

Andrea is having a lot more fun these days – she figured out how play with her toys all by herself. She will reach for a  rattle, pick it up, and shake it. She then usually tries to shove it in her mouth and gum it to death. She also can pass toys from one hand to another. We have noticed that she often grabs for things with her left hand, so we are wondering if she may be a leftie like her Uncle Thor?!?

Yesterday, we went in the tub and I showed her how to splash the water with her hands. She caught on quickly and LOVED this new trick. She sat and splashed and splashed for a long time and was sad when “tubby time” was over. I also held her sort of floating on her back and she would pull her feet up to her chest and then splash them down into the water.

She also grabs at her toes ALL the time now. In fact, I think it’s disrupting her sleep because the first thing she does when you lay her on her back is start swinging her legs up and down trying to get a hold of her feet.  This also causes her to kick the tray on her swing a lot, and she gets mad that it is blocking her from reaching her feet. Her toes were apparently quite an exciting discovery for her.

Announcements!

It took us while, but we finally got Andrea’s birth announcements out in the mail, so if you are coming to this blog for the first time after getting her announcement, welcome!

You can click on the Photo Gallery link to the right to see lots more pictures of Andrea.
We just added a Month 3 album with some brand new pictures, so enjoy!

Thanks to everyone for all the cards, emails, phone calls, flowers, and gifts over the past few months. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful baby and to have family and friends as amazing as you.

Busy day!

Our friends Darryn and Ellen are in town this weekend to visit us and see Andrea, and Paul’s cousin Kim drove down to visit also, so we took our guests to the Georgia Aquarium today. It was Andrea’s first outing in her stroller (other than a little walk down the street) and her first trip to the Aquarium of course. She is a little too young to enjoy the fish, but she really liked the staring at the lights. She especially loved the color-changing lights in the atrium and the blue glow of the big jellyfish exhibit. 🙂

Then in the evening, we took Andrea to her first wedding! One of Kelley’s friends from Emory was getting married at the Chapel at Glenn Memorial UMC on Emory’s campus. We all got dressed up and went to the wedding and the reception at the Michael C. Carlos Museum (also at Emory). It was an extra special wedding, because Kelley’s friend Susan was the minister. In between the wedding and dinner, Andrea took a bottle of breastmilk from Dad! She took to it right away and drank well. We won’t be doing that often, but it will be nice to have the option of using an occassional bottle. The table we found at the reception was right by the band, so it was quite loud, but Andrea slept in her sling right through the whole thing, so Mom had her hands free. Yay!

We came home exhausted from our long day, and after feeding Andrea, we both fell sound asleep for six straight hours – from 11pm to 5am! She slept this long a couple days before, but it was from about 9pm-3am and Mom didn’t go to sleep at the same time, so it wasn’t as refreshing for Mom.

First bridal shower

Last night, I took Andrea to my friend Lynn’s bridal shower. I fed her right before we left home, and she slept the whole way there in her carseat, and then slept in her sling cozied up to Mom during the shower. I was able to eat and visit with everyone without interruption. Andre managed to sleep for over 3 straight hours – what an angel!