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

Father's Day 2012

Sunday was Joel's second Father's Day and Ainsley got him a little gift, along with a card that she signed herself with her new crayons.  (She loved coloring by the way!)

Helping Daddy open his card

We had a cookout at our house for lunch and enjoyed the afternoon with family.  I think Jim even caught a little nap in the sun room chair while everyone was outside playing. 

Jack and Jim

The boys had a lot of fun with Ainsley's balls.  Literally within the first couple of minutes being outside, Joel drop kicked one of Ainsley's balls and it landed in the tree and was stuck.  Jack was able to climb up the tree and shake the limb to get it down.  He had a little trouble getting back down, though.  (It was pretty high!)  So, Thomas came to save the day in his flip flops and all.  He climbed up the tree and got Jack back down.

Thomas tried to talk Jack into turning on the water to the hose and getting Joel while Joel wasn't paying attention, but he caught Jack before he could do it.  Thomas is the one that wasn't paying attention, and Jack was able to get him pretty good with the water, which Jack thought was pretty funny....until the hose was turned on him.

Notice the ball flying at Jack???  They thought they could stop him by hitting him with balls.

Got him!

Uh-oh.  Game over.

Lani was little mother hen with Ainsley and kept her entertained for quite a while.  Ainsley didn't like it very much when Lani would try to grab her hand and walk with her though.


I walked into the kitchen to find Lani helping Ainsley put her shoes on!

It's kind of hard to see Ainsley's face, but she's not liking Lani grabbing her hand!

We put some water in Ainsley's pool and I put her in a swimsuit.  Lani decided she wanted to get in also, but she didn't have a suit.  Well, that's no problem when you have a chunky monkey of a baby and a twig for a niece.  Yep, Lani was able to wear Ainsley's size 3T bikini.  Lani is 6 and Ainsley is 16 months and they wear the same size!  Granted, that bikini is a little big on Ainsley, but the bottoms were still a little big on Lani. 

Lani wearing Ainsley's bikini

Ainsley got Grandpa Bill some peanut butter cups, and she thought they were pretty good!

Ainsley reading the card that she got for Grandpa

I got one!

Mmm....that's pretty good.  Too bad Mommy only let me have one bite.

Thomas tried teaching Ainsley a new word, and was successful one time at it.  I just hope both him and Tanner remember that paybacks are hell and one day (hopefully way, way, way down the road for Tanner) they'll have kids that Joel and I will be able to teach things to.

Ainsley decided to show Uncle Thomas a pretty cool trick. Uncle Thomas didn't care so much for this trick and was afraid she was going to fall off.  She doesn't get bumps and bruises on her head by not being a little dare-devil (although, Mommy wishes she wasn't so brave most of the time).

Watch me stand on my Mickey car!



See....it's pretty easy and FUN!

No, Uncle Thom-you stay back.  I can get down by myself.

Ainsley was wore out after everyone left and fell asleep within the first ten minutes of everyone leaving.  She had a busy day!

Jim wanted to hold Ainsley for the picture.  Don't mind that she's not looking at the camera!

Grandma Rita and Lani

Freeman's

Best picture we got...Dad's talking and Ainsley isn't paying attention!

I was gone for four days and came home to find that Ainsley had outgrown most of her shoes.  Really?!  So, this week I'm shoe shopping.  She's been in a size 5 for a few months now, so I should have known it wouldn't be long before she moved up a size, but I was caught a little off guard.

Ainsley's started to say a few new words since I've been home.  Saturday morning, she said "car" and says it quite a bit now.  She'll go get her Mickey car if you ask her where her car is.  When I'm giving her food in her high chair and she asks for more (still in sign language), I'll repeat "please" a few times to her so she knows to ask for "more please".  She finally said it Saturday morning when asking for more strawberries at breakfast.  It comes out as "pease" instead of "please", but you can understand what she's saying and it's pretty cute!

Joel asked her if she'd pooped over the weekend and, of course, she picked that word up and has said it a few times.  I'm sure she's going to continue to expand her vocabulary at a fast pace, but three words in two days when she hasn't said a new word in a month or so is enough for me for awhile.  Grandma Shelly tried to get her to say "Grandma" while I was in Dallas, and she thinks she said it a few times, but I haven't been able to get her to say it for me yet. 

I was in Dallas for the most part of last week and Ainsley stayed with Joel and Mom while I was gone.  She went to Lisa's for the first few days that I was gone and she got her first pretty good bump on her head when falling into the Cozy Coupe car outside (or that's the story Drake told) while at Lisa's.  I made Joel take a picture of her head so I could see how bad it was when I got home.

Bump on Ainsley's forehead

The day she hit her head, was a not-so-great day for Ainsley.  Rita picked her up from Lisa's that afternoon while Joel finished cutting wheat.  While rocking on the porch swing outside, Ainsley threw up all over Grandma Rita.  She didn't throw up again that night or in the days after, so we don't know what caused it.  I'm just glad I didn't have a sick baby back at home while I was in Texas, because that would have been so hard on me.

I think Ainsley had fun at Grandma's house and didn't really want to leave her.  Mom dropped Ainsley off at the house Friday afternoon and Ainsley didn't want anything to do with Joel.  She just wanted her Grandma!  Joel said she cried for Mom and it took her awhile to warm  up to him.  Granted, she had just woke up from a nap, so I'm sure that was some of it.  At least, that's what Joel keeps telling himself!

My trip to Dallas went well.  I came home 5 pounds heavier, but that's to be expected.  The food is awesome down there and it's hard not to indulge.  It was good to see everyone in the office and visit with them.  I only get to do it a few times a year, and that can be hard when you work with some of them on a daily basis.  We had our company mid year meeting (my reason for flying down) and it reminded me of how great my company is.  Our company is a very "young" company.  What I mean, is that I think only two or three employees are over 50.  Our CEO is awesome and has three young daughters, and is a great guy.  I had to chuckle to myself during the meeting when our CEO used a scene from the movie "Shrek" in his slideshow.  I think he's seen the movie a few times with his girls!

I'm on a mission this week to find my baby girl some new shoes.  My mission over the next month is to get at least 5 pounds off before our "anniversary" vacation to the Riviera Maya at the end of July.  I finally talked Joel into going away for our anniversary.  We haven't been anywhere (besides a few weekend getaways) since our honeymoon and that was 7 years ago!  We're both due for a relaxing vacation.