Girls Trip & Atlanta Wedding

This past week Ansley & I went on a girls trip to New Bern, NC with Candice, Heidi Cay, Sarah, Emma Kate, and Willis. We had a great time going to the pool, the beach, and just hanging out together. I was really impressed with how well Ansley did being around the other girls. She ofcourse loves to be with older kids so she was in heaven. She was definitley worn out by the end of each day and slept great!

Ansley and I headed back a day early to pick up Rob, we then headed to Atlanta for one of my sorority sister's (brandy) wedding. The wedding was great and it was so nice to hang out with all of my pledge class again....It has been a busy last couple of weeks but we are looking forward to our vacation in Harbor Springs.

Here are some pics from this past week.

Pics from Bran's wedding

Butterfly's & Dragonfly's

Kelly asked me a while back to paint some paintings for Madison's big girl room. Of course I said yes, I would so much rather paint her something then for her to drop a lot of money on a painting that I could do for her. Plus it is something neat for Madison to have in her room and to say her Aunt Jenni painted them for her.

Here are the pictures I painted (2 butterfly's and a dragonfly). Believe it or not, I painted them from sketches I drew first. I had to draw the pictures so I could make sure we had all the colors in each painting but they weren't the same either (if that makes sense)...Kel sent me pictures of Madison's bedding and I went from there.

I can't wait to see them in Madison's big girl room :)

4th of July Weekend

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July Weekend! On the 4th, we just hit the pool and then went to a cookout at The Wansley's house. We were all having a great time and then around 6:00 Ansley became really clingy and felt very hot. I took her temp and she was running a 103.2 fever! So our plans changed and we headed home (didn't want to get the other kiddos sick). Thankfully Ansley's fever was back down by the time she went to bed. Needless to say, our 4th of July didn't go according to plan (but when does it ever!?!). We did manage to watch the fireworks on TV.

Ansley was feeling much better and her fever was gone on Saturday. We decided to lay-low and relax so Ansley could get some rest. We then headed over to The Hall's house for another cookout and a great firework show. Ansley DID NOT like the loud noise of the fireworks and had a meltdown around 9:30 so we had to cut our night short.

But, we still managed to have a great weekend spending time with friends. I wasn't able to get a ton of pics but here are a few.

Ansley still hates to get in the water. She just rather sit on the edge and kick her legs in the water or walk around the pool checking everything out.

happy girl

(below) Ansley was obsessed with this car. We may have to get one!

and she loved the scooter too

meeting baby Phillip for the first time

On our way home from Atlanta the other weekend, we stopped by our friend's Phil & Stephanie's house to meet thier baby boy, "Phillip". Phillip is now 8 weeks old and is just precious. And ofcourse Stephanie looks amazing for just having a baby 8 weeks ago.... we were also able to see Colin & Anne-Ross who live around the corner from Phi & Stephanie.

Another great weekend in Atlanta

Two weekends ago we were in Atlanta (sorry to post this so late). I was helping host a baby shower for one of my best high school friends who is expecting her first baby in September. Aunt Kelly was also a host for the shower so we got to spend a lot of time with her, which is always nice. Saturday morning was the shower for Cryise and Saturday night we went out to dinner with Jenifer and Angie. It was nice to get away and just catch up. My parents watched Ansley saturday night since I was at dinner and Rob went to the REM concert with Matt and some other friends....

We had a great weekend in Atlanta, even though it was a bit exhausting. Unfortunately, it seems like whenever we are in town we have so much going on. But it is nice to still be able to spend time with my parents.

Here are some pics from the weekend.

being silly in my pool float

pics from Crysie's baby shower, baby Parker got some great stuff!

The Hostesses

Mommy-to-be, Crysie

Ansley helping Crysie with the gifts

the painting I did for baby Parker's room

Suzy with baby Luke (Lisa's new addition)

The high school girls & the moms

(Lisa, Mrs. Luckey (Luke), Crysie, My mom, Kel, Mrs. Yawn (Crysie's mom),

Mrs. Opitz, Suzy, Ansley, Me)
Me, Crysie, Lisa (Luke), & Kel
Ansley & Ella playing (trying to share the toys)

Crysie got this great Auburn quilt made by Suzy's mother-in-law

18 month checkup

Today Ansley turned 18 months. We can't believe she is already a year and a half. In the past 3 months she has changed so much. She is communicating a lot more, she can say about 15 words (which the doctor was pleased with) & and a lot of gibberish. She loves to answer "yes" to everything. She has gotten really good at using a spoon and trying to use a fork to eat with. Of course, she is still a very picky eater (I guess she got that from me)! She now likes to run everywhere instead of walking, and loves to play chase with her daddy:)

As for physical development, Ansley is now 24.6 pounds (50-75 percentile, was in the 45 percentile), and is 34 inches tall (jumped from the 60 percentile to now 95 percentile). I am sure they just measured her wrong at last checkup, I doubt she grew that much in 3 months. The doctor said she is going to be tall and skinny....I guess we will see :)

Ansley luckily only had to get the MMR shot today (she still hated every minute of it) and we now do not have to go back to the doctor's until her 2 year check-up. I can't wait to see how much Ansley develops in her communication by then. I am always nervous that she isn't saying as much as she should, but she is also shy around unfamiliar people. So she communicates with us more then she does with others.

(Sorry about all the pictures of her looking down, it is so hard for her to look at me these days)

Ansley loves her doodle pro

Another favorite, reading books

Charlotte History Museum

Today Jenna & I took Treyton and Ansley to the Charlotte Museum of History. They have a really neat exhibit "Toy Time". It is an interactive exhibit of giant-size folk toys. Ansley and Treyton were able to play with large-scale handcrafted wood versions of popular kinetic Folk Toys throughout history... It was really neat, and they had a great time! Plus it was free for them, so you can't get better then that :)

old version of the bopper (I would prefer this one over the annoying ball popper)