Our ‘Fair’ Little Lady

This weekend, Helen Grace and I took off on a road trip to see her ‘Auntie Em’ in Philadelphia, MS, whose motto is ‘Our Fair Town.’ I’m afraid we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies with our car parked to the rim- hahaha! It was our first long solo road trip, and I wasn’t sure how she would do. The drive was about three and a half hours, and Helen Grace did pretty well. On the way down, we made a short pit stop in Eupora at a gas station to change her diaper and let her run around for a minute. Soon, thunder rolled overhead and the sky got really dark, so I started getting her back in her carseat. I felt a HUGE raindrop hit my back and then another one and another one, so I threw all her toys in her lap, slammed her door, and ran like lightning around to my side of the car as the rainstorm hit. There was a little old man standing under the overhang of the gas station, and he was laughing so hard as he watched this shenanigan that he was literally slapping his knee. Oh, lordy, we all had a laugh at ourselves! Helen Grace was a trooper until the last 45 minutes, and then we pulled out the Praise Baby DVD to make it through the home stretch. Thank you, Ms. Mimi for that little piece of heaven!

On Saturday, Em, Helen Grace, and I had a great ladies’ lunch with our friends Beth, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s daughter, Rylie. Beth was DG with us and married a Philadelphian. Elizabeth was a Phi Mu at Ole Miss, worked with me at PwC, and married a Philadelphia and a friend of Beth’s hubby. We hadn’t all been at the same place at the same time in years, so it was great to be able to catch up and watch Helen Grace and Rylie play together. The girls met when they were little bitty babies, but this was a whole new experience with them walking and talking. We hope they will be neighbors on Sorority Row one day! We spent the afternoon shopping in all the cute stores, and then Emily took us on a tour of the Neshoba County Fairgrounds which was an experience in itself. The fair will start in a few weeks, but we were able to see everyone getting their cabins ready for the big event. Seems like a Grove on a whole different level! We rounded out the day with a dee-lish dinner at the local Mexican hot spot, where HG encountered her first sucker. See more below.

Sunday morning, we headed back home early so that we could spend some time with John. Helen Grace was really an angel on the way home. She must be an Ingram Hill fan like her mama…can’t take a road trip without some Ingram Hill playing!

Auntie Em, we had such a great time visiting with you, and we couldn’t have asked for better QT with you. Thanks for being the hostess with the mostess and making all of our favorite snacks, and we can’t wait until our next girls weekend!

"Mama, are we there yet?” Saying hello to her friend, Rylie Awwww, we caught them sharing their lunch! Of course, they found these perfectly sized chairs on our shopping trip. KISSES! Little Miss Priss found Mama’s purse. You would have thought she would have been exhausted after a FULL day, but no such luck.

The guy at the Mexican restaurant gave HG her first sucker…not sure I would have given it to her this soon…or a green one…but why not, I guess?

Helen Grace found Ginger and wouldn’t let go! And as a bonus, Em found some cute pics on her camera from the weekend of Helen Grace’s birthday party.LOL, I’m speechless!

Chatty Cathy

Helen Grace has been up to so much lately. She wants to tell you all about it, so have a listen…

At thirteen months:

• Her wave is changing. She used to wave her whole hand, but now she just waves her fingers.
• She’s still figuring out how to work a straw. Most of the time she can’t suck liquid up it, but she will always smile and say ‘mmmmmm’ after she sips your drink.
• She would much rather walk than crawl and is getting close to an official running pace.
• Unfortunately, she has learned how to take her diaper off….yuck.
• She is great at sitting in her chair and rocking like a big girl. When she gets to a new place, she can find all the rocking chairs in the house in five minutes flat.
• She is saying Mama, Dada, hot, woof, bye bye, and hi sometimes. As noted in the video below, her talking is much more defined, but we still can’t figure out what she’s saying most of the time.
• She loves to hug and then squeeze her friends, like she has been doing with our legs. The only problem is that the squeeze is pretty tough when applied on a 20-lb child.
• I have found her first freckle- it’s on her right forearm. I’m afraid she will be covered in them like her mama. :(
• Even after a year, it still amazes me how my voice can soothe her when she’s upset or tired. One of the many blessings of being a mama!

Welcoming Isaiah

Our friends, Billy and Sarah Egner, welcomed their first child, William Isaiah, into the world on June 2nd. While John and I were able to meet him at the hospital, Helen Grace hadn’t gotten to see him yet. We took supper over to them last week with Chris and Emily, and Helen Grace couldn’t get enough of looking at him sleeping in his bouncy chair. Of course, the only problem was that as she clung to the bouncy seat to get a closer look, she made the seat bounce and would startle him. We have a lot of learning to do before adding one of those to our family! :)

John and Billy are part of a group of long-time buddies including Larry and Chris. With the addition Larry’s son, Thomas, a few years ago and now Billy’s son, Isaiah, the boys’ club is growing by leaps and bounds! Welcome, Isaiah!!

The boys at our wedding in 2006: Larry, Chris, John, and Billy New Year’s Eve 2009 with the first little guy, Larry’s son, Thomas  Welcoming the newest guy in the club in 2010. Helen Grace is patting Billy on the back and saying, “Well done, Uncle Billy, well done!”

A Peek Into Our Life

Two disclosures before I share these videos with you:

** Please ignore the chaos that is my house. These days, I have given up picking up anything until after HG’s bedtime.

**I promise that my child does wear clothes most of the time. Some of these videos were shot around meals, at which time I now completely strip her since food goes EVERYWHERE.

Helen Grace always loves to play with curtains.

A quick video from Helen Grace’s favorite part of Kindermusik.

Helen Grace can’t pass a purse without putting it on her shoulder. In this way, she is definitely her mama’s child. The only problem is that most of the time, the purse is MUCH heavier than she could possibly lift, but she is a stubborn little girl and doesn’t give up easily.

This weekend, Helen Grace took me on a tour of the house, which ended in an impromptu game of soccer in the kitchen with her daddy.

Daddies

Happy Father’s Day! Helen Grace and I are blessed to have the sweetest daddies around and ones that would do anything to make us happy. We enjoyed celebrating by a brunch with the family at Mesquite Chop House, a ride out in the country (ultimately to get HG to fall asleep which was a success!), and a lazy day together around the house.

In and out, in and out, in and out Someone was getting cranky by this time… Yeah, she’s over it. Getting the full-out back arch!

Weekend In Review

Kindermusik is back!! Since the church is under construction, we are meeting in a new room- one of the preschool rooms which has walls LINED with toys…ugggghhh! The moms of the walkers spend the whole time trying to get our kiddos away from the toys and back on the blanket to listen to Mrs. Karen. At least the shakers kept her attention! This summer semester will be a whole new experience for sure. We visited with my cousin, Jessica, and her family (hubby Jeff and kiddos Ryan, Reagan, and Reid) at Bubba’s house when they were in town from St. Louis visiting Ole Miss. We sure hope cousin Ryan will choose Ole Miss so that we can see them more often!Up and down, up and down, up and down.  This is her new favorite activity. She takes the new diapers out of the pink bin, opens them up, and stuffs them into her play thing. Endless hours of entertainment!Now she is able to get on and off her scooter all by herself. Still working on making it move while she’s in this position. 

Lending a Helping Hand

Grandma had to call tonight to share a funny story. At her house, she has a cast iron dachshund door stop in the living room/foyer. When she got home tonight after dropping off Helen Grace at the ball park with us, she walked into the kitchen to find the cast-iron dachshund standing at the empty dog bowl in the kitchen….bahahahaha! Apparently, Helen Grace thought that poor dog never got to eat, so she dragged it through two rooms to get to Buster’s dog bowl!! And she was smart enough to know which one was the dog’s and not the cat’s!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Grandma and Geggy brought Helen Grace up to Memphis to meet us after work and watch DaDa play in the Morgan Keegan company softball game tonight! We had a great time with our long-time friend, Summer Lynn, and one of our most loyal blog readers, Hope. By the end of the night, Helen Grace had taken everyone for a walk around the park! Go, DaDa!!!

“Look, Mama, my first Barbie!” (She won it in the kiddos’ raffle drawing.)

Check out how good she’s getting around now. Funny to think she’s only been walking two and a half weeks.

Sprinklers Galore

Today we had a little adventure at the sprinkler park in Collierville with our FTM friends, and oh, what fun! Helen Grace was very timid at first- I think because of the cold water- so she hung out around the drain with the little ones until she got brave. Then she started dragging me around by the finger and watching the bigger kids run through the sprinklers. After a quick snack break, she was ready to go and walked directly into the sprinkers! I was happily surprised, although she does love the shower so I shouldn’t have been. Her favorite was one that looked like a rainbow with several arched beams that would go through a ‘rainstorm’ of water speed. She would run into the water spray (with me following behind by the finger), turn around and run right out, and let out this loud, high-pitched squeal. I had to turn her toward me to see her face to make sure that the squeal was one of DELIGHT and not fear, but she had a ball and got completely soaked. I look forward to spending a lot of time there this summer!

Afterward, we went over to Mary’s house to enjoy some pizza, mama fellowship, and craft making for Father’s Day. Thank goodness for Mary’s creativity or else poor John would have had a boring, store-bought card/craft for both his first Valentine’s and this Father’s Day!

Even in the last day or so, Helen Grace has started walking much more often on her own, and she is getting so good at it. She will go all the way across the room now and seems to do better if she has something in her hands to distract her. I love watching that little waddle! Tonight, before bedtime, she gave me her normal kisses but got a wild hair and started laughing, shrieking, and hugging me really tight over and over and over. We probably both have concussions from all her bouncing and giggling, and I think I have lost a little hearing. John and I just couldn’t stop laughing at her crazy behavior. She must have stolen some sips from my Diet Coke today- ha! Helen Grace always keeps us entertained!