Free Fun with yogurt stackers

Hannah loves playing with these yogurt cups that we have transformed into stackers. We build with them and she knocks them down. She also has fun using them as nesting cups and stacking them inside of each other. She takes one and a time and moves it to the next stack. Yeah for a FREE toy! For more free fun head over to Run the Earth Watch the Sky.

Mimicking Housework

I bought Hannah this baby sweeper with her birthday money. Teri gave me the idea..and I thought that it would be a great way to involve her in "helping with the housework". I was so excited when I brought it home...but Hannah was so scared of it. I had never seen her scared of anything before, but when I would turn it on, she would run over to me, cry, and squeeze me tight. We left it out with the toys so that she could see it but didn't really play with it for a while. I pulled it out again the other day...she still doesn't car for the sweepers voice, but if I keep it turned off, she enjoys pushing it and helping me vacume. Here's my little helper:

It seems appropriate to quickly write about one of the things I love for Things I Love Thurday in this post. I LOVE my shark vacume sweeper! My wonderful mother-in-law bought this for me for Christmas. I use it multiple times a day...what a great gift! It's wonderful because it doesn't plug in, so I just keep it in my front closet and can quickly sweep up the messes that happen throughout the day. It plugs in to charge (but keeps a charge for a long time) and emptys with the click of a button. I can use it on floors and carpet...such a great tool for busy moms!

Bringing some sunshine to Mr. Mullins

Tuesday was another fun summer day. We spent the morning at Bell Creek Park with our friends from mops. I left her camera in the car..so no pictures, but maybe we can get some from Trenda.

We came home for a nap and then went over to visit Roger Mullins. Hannah loves spending time with him in the nursery at church but hasn't seen him lately because he broke his foot and has been home bound. I knew that Hannah would love to see him, and that she would be a ray of sunshine to Roger as well. We enjoyed our visit and Hannah was spoiled as usual. Mrs. Mullins gave her 2 teddy bears and a box of animal crackers...she was in her glory. Aren't they so cute together?

Roger had surgery on his foot on Wed. morning. We are praying for a quick and successful recovery.

Fun times with Ezra & Tobin

Yesterday, Mommy and I went to spend the afternoon with Tobin & Ezra while their Mommy went to work. We had so much fun. We all started the afternoon with nap (some took longer than others..Tobin won with a 3 hour nap!) While Tobin was sleeping Ezra and I went outside to play. We played on the teeter totter and as always Ezra was so patient with me. He went nice and slow and loved watching me get so excited about going up.

Then we played basketball. Ezra was making slam dunks...maybe he'll be a basketball star one day.

We also had lots of fun splashing in the water on the little tykes table from that mornings rain. :)


We made our own play dough too. Ezra had so much fun measuring out the ingredients!

When Tobin got up the play dough was ready. We all had a snack together and then played with the play dough. What a fun day! :)

Tobin had fun making hand prints in his play dough


The boys loved tickling me

50+ Words at 15 months

I can barley keep up with all of the new words that Hannah has been saying! We are having SO much fun! She is quite the chatter box, and communicates very well. Some have been asking me what she can say and when put on the spot, I can't always come up with a very good list. But...I have been keeping track on my fridge (thanks to Trenda for the chart, if anyone else wants one let me know and I'll email it to you)...here's at least the ones that I have recorded:

1. Hi
2. bye-bye
3. momma
4. dadda
5. juice
6. walk
7. eat
8. O's (for cheerios)
9. hello
10. up
11. down
12. rocky (she says rocky rocky when she sits in a rocking chair or when she rocks her babies)
13. baby
14. thank you
15. cracker
16. go
17. okay
18. hot
19. shoe
20. binki
21. book
22. pretty
23. puff
24. ball
25. bubble
26. nose
27. eyes
28. apple
29. boo
30. peek
31. watch
32. help
33. hat
34. yes
35. no
36. Papa
37. fish
38. wash
39. bath
40. beep
41. boom
42. Pop
43. all gone
44. what's that?
45. cold
46. wow!
47. please
48. duck
49. pasta
50. more (she said "boo" for more for a long time..and now she's got it)
51. kitty
52. puppy
53. yay!
54. open
55. happy
56. choo-choo
57. car

she also knows lots of animal sounds:

elephant, lion, dog, cat, pig, cow, sheep/goat, fish, rooster, etc.

People ask me if I miss teaching. I do miss the classroom, but I sure do love having my own little student now. There is nothing like getting to teach your own! :) She's a super fast learner and soaks it all in. Seth and I think it's actually kinda scary...but what an absolute joy she is!! :)

Grad party, going away party, and baby chicks

Yesterday was a busy day...but we really enjoyed the time with our church family. We started the day off at Kyles house for his graduation open house. It's hard to see Kyle moving out of youth group and into college...we sure will miss him. We are super excited about what God is doing in his life, and know that God has great things in store for him!

We came home for a little bit so that Hannah could get a nap, then headed off to the Sissoms house for Jon's going away party. Jon leaves this week for deployment to Iraq and will be gone for a little over a year. We sure will miss him, but know that he is in the Lords hands. We are thankful for his willingness to serve our country!

The highlight of Hannah's day was getting to see baby chicks at the Sissoms. Jolene brought home 3 baby chicks that her kindergarten class had hatched. Hannah LOVED them and got very excited to see and touch them. I was actually really impressed with how gentle she was with them. It was neat to see her enjoy yet another new experience.

Hannah also had lots of fun playing with Mr. Sissom while we were at their house. She bounced a ball back and forth with him for a good half an hour. She loved riding on his shoulders(it kinda looks like he was having fun too! :))...he's a little bit taller than Mommy and Daddy so she gets way up there! :)

A new photo tip

Last week while reading my friend Trenda's blog, I learned a great photography tip. Trenda is really into photography...and does such great work. (You can see some of her great work at her blog: six little feet) One tip that I have learned from Trenda over the past several months is to use as much natural light as possible, so I have really been working on that. Well in her blog post the other day, she mentioned that the first hour after sunrise and the hour right before sunset are referred to as the golden hour due to the warm, golden color casts they produce. So I decided that I would try it. We went out to play around 7:00pm and these are the pictures that we got. I was pretty excited...what do you think about the color? Thanks for the tip Trenda!







I absolutely love this one (above)...my favorite of the night.