Happy Friday!

I absolutely love when I get up to go find Ainsley because I haven't heard her in a few minutes to find her in her room reading a book in her rocking chair. 

Such a stinker!

She's become quite the independent baby and likes to do things herself, but she still needs her Mommy to cuddle and rock her when she starts to get tired.  She's been trying really hard to reach up for the door handle, but can't quite reach it.  She'll stand on her tip toes and grunt while trying to reach it, but once she realizes she's still too short, she gives up.

If you mention going outside, she'll find your shoes for you and bring them to you and then get her own.  She's started trying to put her own shoes on, but she's far from successful with that task. 

She likes to take her baby on walks all around the house.  She's not very nurturing toward her baby and will grab it by its head to yank it out of the stroller when she's done.  The baby will then go flying a few feet as Ainsley throws it behind her.

I love this one with the combine and farmer in the background.

Not only does she throw her baby around, but she also throws her toys as she cleans out her toy box looking for the perfect toy to play with.  The perfect toy is, of course, always at the bottom of the toy box, which means every toy has to come out.

Nope, don't want that one...

Ainsley can show you where her tongue is if you ask.  See?

Another new trick is climbing by herself (with no Mickey car as a step stool) onto the chair in the living room.  I put the mail and newspaper in the chair this morning.  I ran to the other room for a minute and came back in to find her in the chair going through the bank statement and hitting herself in the head with the newspaper, and giggling while doing it.

Yep, looking at this bank statement, I can see that I used up a lot of Mommy and Daddy's money!

Joel and I have got a kick out of Ainsley answering questions.  If you ask her if she wants to do something, she'll reply with a "ya", while shaking her head no.  Sometimes she just shakes her head no and doesn't say anything.  She's a little confused!  When she shakes her head no, she actually means yes. 

I've laughed a few times over the last week because Ainsley can crack herself up.  She's done it on numerous occasions lately.  Last night while trying to get her to go to sleep, we were all laying in our bed and I was laying on my pillow.  Ainsley didn't want me to lay on my pillow for some reason and kept trying to push my head off.  I stood my ground and kept laying on it while reading and she finally got a big fist full of my hair and pulled as hard as she could.  That got Mommy off the pillow real fast!  As she did it, she was laughing.  No joke.  She knew what she was doing and laughed.  Of course, Daddy's reaction of laughing after realizing what she was doing didn't help the situation.

Speaking of bed time, Ainsley has discovered how to "jump" on our bed.  Her feet don't actually leave the mattress, but she thinks it's pretty fun.

Any time Ainsley hears any type of music, she has to dance.  She'll bend her little legs and squat up and down, or swing her arms back and forth.  It could be a short commercial on tv, a song from one of her toys, or even me singing the ABC's to her and she has to get up and dance.  The other night, a song came on the Disney channel about a train and she started dancing immediately.  When the line for "choo-choo" came on, she even hit the choo-choo part on the head saying it exactly as the song lyrics came.  Joel and I both looked at each other in amazement.  I think it was a coincidence, because we replayed the song to see if she would sing it again, and she didn't the second time.  Here's a video of her dancing and "jumping" to the song.

I took Ainsley out on a walk this morning in her pink car and we had a first.  She fell asleep a few blocks from home.  She was sitting straight up in it and her head just slumped over and every little bump I hit her head would jerk back up and then go limp again.  I felt so bad for her and there was no way I was going to be able to carry her back home, so I kept stopping to wake her up every few feet.

Asleep behind the wheel

You would have thought I would have learned my lesson this morning, and use the stroller for longer walks, but Joel and I went for a pretty good walk this evening and took her pink car again.  Sure enough, she fell asleep around the same spot she fell asleep this morning.  There was no waking her up tonight, though.  I'm glad Joel was with me and he carried her the rest of the way home.  His arm was a little sore by the time we got home!

Asleep behind the wheel again

Before our walk, the neighbor's dog, Puma, came over to visit Ainsley.  Ainsley loved chasing him around the yard. 

She came home from Lisa's yesterday afternoon and was wore out!  She didn't even budge when the flash of the camera went off while I took the picture.  I just love my little Sleeping Beauty!

I've been meaning to mention this for awhile now, and actually forgot about it until I asked Mom if she had the same experience when Ainsley stayed with her last week.  For the past few months now, actually it's been this way for as long as I can remember, Ainsley doesn't want a blanket covering her while sleeping.  Maybe she's never liked it.  I can't remember her ever leaving one on.  But, now that she's been sleeping with us at night (bad habit, I know), we notice it more.  She sleeps in between me and Joel, and we both have the blanket on top of us.  As soon as we try to cover Ainsley with it, she starts whining and kicking it off.  I mean, she can be dead asleep and she still knows when we try to cover her up.  It's crazy!  Mom said she didn't leave a blanket on while she stayed with her either.  I'll reach over sometimes in the middle of the night to feel Ainsley and she'll be freezing (to the touch at least) and try to cover her up, and get kicked.  I guess she isn't too cold, otherwise she'd let me cover her up.

Below are some random pictures from the past week.

Popsicle time!

Coloring with Daddy



She had a hard day

Ready to go to Lisa's