Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend with the Hoelzle crew at Mimi and Pappy's house and had a great time! We spent lots of time visiting and hanging out in the backyard while the little ones enjoyed the baby pool. It was Mae's first water fun of the summer and I think she might finally be getting some sun on that pale skin of hers.....unfortunately Mom still has some work to do on her tan.:) Such a fun and relaxing weekend. We always enjoy time with family! Here are some pics (mostly of Mabry enjoying the outdoors) of our weekend......

Mabry and Cousin Ella
Mabry and Aunt Catie-Lou
Mabry LOVED the watermelon
Mabry and Cousin Caden being entertained by Aunt Bethany! Thanks Bethany!:)

Family Pic
Mabry in the baby pool
I LOVE this expression on Mabry's face....we see it quite often! I'm so thankful Hilliard captured it with his camera!
Mae wasn't too excited about getting water poured on her:)

Another expression we see all the time:)
Pouring water on other people, especially Daddy, is super fun!

Mae Mae

I feel the need to post some sweet pics of our little girl after that last post ended on such a sad note. I wanted to reassure all of you that she is still a happy, fun-loving girl and hasn't been scarred too much by her "Backyardigans" episode. These pics are old but they are all I have right now.....I will get some better ones soon!

TV Land Misery

So, somewhere along the way our daughter has found a love for the TV show "The Backyardigans". I am not really an avid TV watcher myself and not an advocate for my child watching very much TV at all. Most days, Mabry and I don't even turn the TV on during the day. However, desperate times call for desperate measures so I have occasionally been known to let her sneak in an episode of "The Backyardigans" (because this is the cartoon I like the most - I think their singing and dancing is super cute and it is a pretty mellow show). Thankfully, Mabry has never taken a TON of interest in sitting down to watch the TV show all the way through....mostly she just enjoys watching the introduction and the end when they sing and dance. This is probably because I would sing the theme song of the show to her and Andy downloaded it on the computer and has been known to play it for her over and over again.:) She has this super cute dance that she does with her hands in the air, swaying back and forth and shaking her cute little bottom so it is pretty tempting to play the theme song just to see her dance. So ANYWAY.....the other day I decided to turn the show on so I could video her cute dancing. Well, I didn't get any footage of the bottom-shakin' dance but I did get this video of some extreme emotions........




This video is of Mabry at the beginning of The Backyardigans........

And this is her at the end of the show.......

I am not usually one for taping my daughter crying and showing it for the amusement of others, but I thought her extreme emotions this day were pretty amazing. I had no idea this was coming....I had only hoped for some cute dancing but you never know what you are going to get with this girl.:) Needless to say, we haven't watched The Backyardigans since.

Mae in May

Here are some recent pics of our little fireball. Mabry is at a very fun age, although we can see the signs of defiance making their appearance.:) Unfortunately, my reprimanding doesn't seem to phase her in the least.....she just smiles at me and even laughs at times so we are going to have to find something that works and FAST! Mae is definitely an outside girl and loves to play with balls, pine needles, leaves and smell all the flowers (or "zsha zsha" as she calls them). Her favorite indoor activity is walking around in our shoes. She is the perfect mixture of girly and sporty if you ask me! But, I might be a little biased. Mabry never ceases to amaze us with her fun-loving personality. She is such a silly girl.....we have no idea where she got this from! She keeps us laughing and our heart full on a daily basis. Thank you God for blessing us so abundantly and giving us such joy in this life.

Mabry loves taking a bath!

Mae with a big-girl ponytail!

In other news......Andy and I had our first night out alone together since Mabry was born! We went to a beautiful wedding for one of Andy's childhood friends and Mabry stayed home with Oma (Andy's mom). We really enjoyed ourselves, although I was a little preoccupied with wondering how Mabry was doing. We made many phone calls to check in and we are SO thrilled that she did great. Thanks Oma for taking such good care of our baby! Here's to many more dates to come!!

Happy Friday!

Fun at the Zoo

So, we went to the Zoo a couple of weekends ago. (I am starting to notice a trend in my posts.....I usually get around to posting pics of an event about 2 weeks after they happen! Oh well. Better late than never??) Anyway, we met Andy's sister and her kids at the zoo and had a great time seeing all the animals. Here is our day in pics.....(sorry most of these pics are kind of dark.)

Even more exciting than the animals.....Mabry had her first taste of Dippin' Dots! Yummy!
Mabry spent lots of the day riding on Dad's shoulders which made my life pretty easy:)

The zoo is fun for kids and WORK for Mom! Ha. I promise I was having a good time, just ready to put this girl back on Dad's shoulders!
Is this ME in 10 years??!


Bryce watching the "monkey thing" eat peanut butter.

"The Zoo Gang" minus Andy
Julia, our sweet little navigator, showed us on the map where to go next.

All in all, a fun day at the Zoo!

Turkey Hunt

Andy got to go turkey hunting with his brother-in-law, Jason, recently. They had a great time and Andy even brought home a turkey which I look forward to eating.:) Julia and Bryce went with them out to the lease and had a great time playing in the great outdoors! Here are some pics from all the fun.

Way to go Andy!

Julia and Bryce didn't get to do any turkey hunting, but they sure did their share of some good ol' FROG HUNTIN'!

Uncle Andy with the "frog catchers"!

Bryce with his frog-catching contraptions

Sweet pic of brother and sister having such fun together!

Julia and Bryce hard at work!


Sweet Julia with her "frog cage"!

Since I didn't have any pics of our little Mae in this post, here is one just to hold you over until next time........:)

Happy Thursday!