The 19 Month Old Post...a few days late

So, we got our Mac back last week and thankfully all of our photos and movies and music were saved!!! It was worth the $1300 price tag to have all that back. Since that day, our laptop has been staying in our basement or in our bedroom but nowhere near the kitchen or any beverage! I've only been on the computer about twice a day which is great for me too!

Miss A turned 19 months old on August 25th. Above is a pic of her in her new bikini from her Granny (my mom) in Shreveport.
Here are some of her favorite things: books, dogs, beads, bubbles, relaxing in the bathtub while leaning back and reading a book, and kicking. She also enjoys blowing kisses and giving kisses and hugs.
Her new words: "gick" for kick when she stands and kicks her legs in the bathtub
"gook" for cook or cookie
"tas" for trash
"beach" for beach but sometimes it sounds like she is making a short "i" sound rather than the long "e" sound...
"bees" for beads
"bee" for bee
"I you" or "I-luh" for "I love you" 
"doggie" or "dog" for dog
"mo" for "more" while also signing it
"all duh" for "all done" while also signing it
"watch" for "wash" while also signing it
She now slaps her arm when she says "no"...I think this is sign language she made up to go along with "no" to really add emphasis. I think it may be her version of crossing her arms.
We are still struggling with her throwing food when she is done eating so our solution currently is to have her help pick up her food and throw it away after we get her out of the high chair. Is it just our 1 1/2 year old still throwing food??
That's all I can think right now...as many of you know...toddlers are like sponges and are learning new things all the time!
She also enjoys making sounds for different animals. If we ask her what the cow says, she will say "moo". She also does the sound for sheep, lion, cat, and of course dog.
She has become really good at repeating us too which of course reminds us to be on our best behavior! :-)  Here's Miss A eating spaghetti and another photo in her new bikini from her Granny:

Above: Miss A trying out the Swiffer.
To the right: Miss A with her Grammy and Daddy watching bubbles on the deck.

Boo...

On Wednesday, our wonderful Macbook Pro laptop met its end. :-( We haven't had our dear laptop a year yet. While I was sitting at the table checking email very quickly after lunch, Audrey was also sitting at the kitchen table in a chair. She was playing with a couple of my books that were on the table. She slid one over and it knocked over my glass of ice water. The water poured over the keyboard on my laptop and onto the floor. I will not mention the not-so-nice word that slipped out of my mouth nor will I mention the very loud "NO! that came out of my mouth. But I jumped up and grabbed a towel to dry up the water and was still able to use the internet. I thought that I had luckily missed a bad situation but I was wrong. Later I came back to the laptop to check on it. This was when I realized that things were not OK. The computer was off and when I tried to turn it back on, it would start come on and then shut off. It did this a few times so I unplugged it and sat it on my lap. That's when I noticed water on my shorts and realized that all the water had not been dried. I finally got the laptop on and got online only to see the screen turn black and see red lines at the top of the screen!! Then the laptop just started beeping! AAAHHH! I shut it down and then later tried to start it up again after opening up the back and drying out the batter. I got it turn on and got online again. This time it went black and had red lines going up and down the screen! I knew this wasn't good. Today, Miss A and I took it to the Apple store and had to leave it with them. The laptop is being sent away to the Apple experts and we are hoping that our hard drive will be saved and that we will still have our photos and movies that we loaded onto iPhoto but never backed up onto an external hard drive. There is a flat fee to send it away (water damage is not covered under the warranty)...care to guess the grand total?
That would be $1300!! We don't have to pay it till it comes back but that was not an amount of money we were anticipating on spending right now. We will just have to budget our money this month and just cut back on any extra spending.
You may wonder if we have learned any lessons from all of this? Well, yes, we have!
We will be purchasing Time Machine for Mac...this is a wireless service that automatically backs up your computer every time you turn it on.
We will no longer be keeping the computer in the kitchen...it will only stay in the basement or in our bedroom.
The laptop will always be on some kind of elevated table so that Miss A and our other children will not be able to reach it.
No drinks will be allowed near the computer....whatsoever!

Right now, I am posting on my sweet husband's work computer. I can only check email on his computer when he brings it home from work in the evenings or if I get a chance to check email at a friend's house.

Apple says the computer will likely take about 4 business days to be returned to us but it could take up to 10 days. In the meantime, I am learning to enjoy talking on the phone again! Ha! I know that God is showing me something through all of this and I think it has something to do with the amount of time I spend on the computer. :-)

Finally...the Shreveport Trip Post

I have finally uploaded my pics from Shreveport to Picasa. I have attached a slide show of pics from our trip. Sorry for some of the typos in the slide show and for some missing captions...Picasa wasn't working well when I was making the slide show.

For a brief recap-
Our flight to Dallas from Dulles was packed and it was a long flight but A did great because we were blessed to sit next to a woman who was only a few years older than me who happen to also have a child of her own (not with her). She happily took A from me to hold her when I put the stroller away and held A a couple of times throughout the flight. The woman was actually pregnant too and due with her 2nd in mid-October! She was good entertainment for A and we talked the entire time. She was truly an answer to prayers!
In the airport in Dallas was a challenge because I had to get food for us while A did NOT want to stay in the stroller. Once we got food, it consisted of me trying to eat and feed A while she ran around the seats near our gate.
The plane to Dallas was blessedly empty...only about 20 people or less were on the plane so she had plenty of room to roam.
While we were in Shreveport, we were able to see almost all of my family while we were there. Audrey also got to try many "culinary delights" while she was there..."culinary delights" is a nice way of saying "food that she doesn't normally get to eat when we are in VA". She got to try Sonic tater tots and their grilled cheese sandwich. She tried a push-up/push-pop for the first time and got a chance to eat at some of my favorite restaurants while were there.
She slept well at night while we were there and Aunt Arien was amazingly able to get Audrey to sleep one night when my best friend, Ashley, and I went out to a movie. Arien's trick was to wear Audrey out by letting her and cousin Nate and their dog, Macy run around inside and outside. It worked! She gave Audrey milk and put her down easily to sleep. Arien is the first person to get Audrey to sleep besides Evan and me...truly a miracle! She rocks!
For the flights home: the flight from Shreveport to Dallas was actually cancelled. But luckily we got on the next one out and it was packed! We sat next to a grandmother who noticed how tight the plane was and how tight we were going to be next to her. :-( Thankfully the flight was only over half an hour and A didn't melt down too badly. We mostly put stickers on the window.
In Dallas, we got some food and I let her walk around as much as I could. She wanted to walk on her own though so that meant if I redirected her, she sometimes chose to sit down in the middle of the airport to show her defiance. AAAhhh!
The flight from Dallas to Dulles was full but thankfully there was one empty seat between us and the guy on our row. He seemed to be oblivious to A's whines because of his nice earphone in his ears. For the first 20 minutes of the flight, A whined and got upset and I tried everything...finally letting her pull things out of our backpack while she sat on the floor of the plane. I quickly realized this was not going to work because of the need to keep most of the things in the bag. I quickly prayed that this dear child would fall asleep or watch a movie on the DVD player I had borrowed and carried on the plane. My prayers were answered when I picked her up and laid her on my lap and she closed her eyes and went to sleep even while the captain was making his rather loud announcement on the intercom. Sleep overcame me as well and we slept most of the flight. Miss A woke up when the captain came back on to announce our dissent. She wasn't too happy about waking up and her ears bothered her too so the last 30 minutes were a little rough but nothing I couldn't handle.
Since our trip, everything is all relative to flying with a toddler now. So...if A is having a restless moment in the doctor's office? I think to myself "No problem! At least we aren't in a plane!". If we are waiting in line at a store or shopping at Wegman's and she is screaming...I just think "At least we aren't in an airport...I can handle this!".
This line of thinking reminds me of right after I gave birth to Audrey. I kept being asked about any pain I was having and I downplayed any of it because it all seemed inconsequential because I had just been through natural childbirth! How could I take Motrin for post-partum cramping when I had just felt the mother of all cramps??? (Later I did accept the Motrin but turned down the Vicodin!)

Anyway, no more delay...here is the slide show:

Not Me Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.


-I did NOT make brownies Saturday night only for us to finish almost all of them yesterday (with a little help from Grammy).
-My toddler did NOT scream at the top of her lungs several times throughout the grocery store this morning.
-I did NOT let her play with a Tums bottle just to stop the screaming.
-My toddler did NOT chew on the lid to the Tums bottle and almost tear the safety seal off before I could even pay for it.
-We did NOT drive 40 minutes to IKEA on Saturday only to buy a box of batteries and 2 cardboard magazine boxes!
-We did NOT feed pizza to ourselves and Miss A because we thought that was the only food option at IKEA (besides the hot dogs and cinnamon buns) only to discover later that there was a nicer restaurant upstairs!
-We did NOT let Miss A stand in the back of the shopping cart just to keep her happy during our shopping trip.
-Miss A did NOT learn to say "Wee!" from her mama as I "drove" her around in the cart while she held on tight while still standing in the back.
-Miss A has NOT been slurping up water that is on the bathtub after E or I shower!
-Miss A did NOT put almost all of her waffle in her little potty on Sunday after breakfast and then proceed to somehow bust open the lock on the cabinet in the bathroom.
Miss A taking a look around at IKEA on Saturday-
-Today, my toddler did NOT close herself in the bathroom while I was on the phone and did NOT proceed to splash her hands in the toilet.
-Next, she definitely did NOT use a wipe that she found either in the toilet or trash can to dunk in the toilet and wipe the seat and make a nice watery mess on the floor.
-She then did NOT...absolutely NOT proceed to drink/suck water from the soaked wipe that she had been dunking in the toilet!!!

What have you or your child/children/husband/pet NOT been up to this past week and weekend? Please share in the comments or post a Not Me Monday! on your own blog and let me know! :-)

Out with the old...in with the new...

As many of you know Miss A was able to fit in her infant car seat for quite a long time! That was all thanks to the Peg Perego that goes up to 22 pounds and 30 inches and Audrey staying in the 25th percentile for height and weight. But she finally went over 22 pounds and 30 inches and it was time to move her up to a bigger car seat. (Plus we will need the infant car seat for her baby brother soon!)
So, knowing Miss A would not be sitting in the Peg much longer, I took one last photo of her in it and then took a photo of her in her new seat-the Britax Marathon-on the first time she rode in it.

Miss A in the Peg Perego-
Miss A in the new seat-Thanks to the size of our car and the way that Britax makes their seats, we were easily able to keep Miss A rear-facing in the new seat. She can stay rear-facing until she is 35 pounds which will probably take till she is over 3 years old with the rate that she gains weight. We are so happy and thankful that she will be able to sit rear-facing for that long.

For those that are curious, there is no harm to a child to have their feet touching the back of the seat. As they get older, they learn to cross their legs. If there is an accident when a child is rear-facing, injuries to legs are rare and if they do occur, they are much easier to heal than a neck or spinal cord injury that occurs more often when a child is forward-facing.

Miss A can see much more from the window now and she seems to enjoy her new seat!

Home Playdate

Today, Lindsley brought Z and baby K over to play this morning with Miss A and me. We had a great time and Z and A together were hilarious!
Here are some great photos that L took with her camera:

Miss A and Mr Z-Z giving kisses to A-

Miss A giving kisses to Z-
Miss A with Baby K...trying to get her used to the idea of a baby brother-
Giving Baby K a hug-
Baby K just hangin' out-
Here are some pictures that I took-
Miss A pulling Z by the shirt collar...poor Z! I am sure he will not forget that incident! :-)
Miss A trying out "babysitting"...we are going to have to work on her putting her arms and legs on babies-
From A to Z...
Kisses!
Miss A blowing kisses...E taught her how to do that recently-
Just Z...looking so much like his daddy in this photo-
Miss A hugging K with his cute babylegs on-

Mmmm...Monjuni's!

While we were in Shreveport, my mom treated Miss A and me to Monjuni's! This was where Audrey discovered the fine art of dipping bread into tomato sauce. She also enjoyed eating some of her granny's spaghetti...as you can see from the pics...she was truly in heaven while eating at Monjuni's and her face just got messier and messier as the meal progressed. She was pretty much silent the whole time and just ate to her heart's content. She also looked as if she was about to fall asleep towards the end of the meal.

A, B, H, and P!

This was a playdate when we were in Shreveport with my cousin Paige and her two kiddos: Harrison and Bailynn. Miss A and I drove to Paige's parents' house in Bossier for morning playdate. Paige was so wonderful to drive in from Monroe so we could hang out. It had been since April since we had seen Paige and her family when they were moving from Boston back to Louisiana and they stopped by for the weekend. Miss A and Harrison had a fun time playing and jumping in the crib (as you can see below) and it was so wonderful to see Paige and her children! Harrison has the best hair and smile as you can see from the pics and Bailynn has the best disposition...so easy going!
Hare-Bear cheesin' for the camera-

Miss A cheesin' for H-
Miss A sharing her snacks with H-
Miss A wondering how H can jump that high-
Paige holding Miss A and her baby, B-
Paige and family-we miss you and love you and can't wait to see you again!

Some quick stats...

Miss A had her 18 month appointment yesterday. She did really well during it and didn't fuss when they weighed her, measured her head, and measured her length. She took it all in stride. She weighs: 22.4 pounds and is 31 inches long. Her head is 46 1/4 around. Her weight puts right under the 25th percentile and her length is in the 25th percentile and her head is in the 50th percentile. If you've been reading and keeping up with these posts about her weight, height, and head you will see that she stays steadily in those percentiles.

She got her 3rd polio vaccine yesterday. The doctor and I had reworked her vaccine schedule and had her down for the chicken pox vaccine. I decided I wanted to wait till she is school-age to give her that if she hasn't gotten it on her own before that time. But the pediatrician who is pretty laid back suggested that she get it a month before this little boy is born because she said I don't want A to get the chicken pox with a newborn at home. So, it looks like A will be getting the vaccine in early October...way earlier than I ever thought she would get it. :-(
Because she has a cold, I also didn't want her to get a "live" vaccine yesterday because Dr. Sears suggests that a child be at their peak health when getting a live vaccine such as the chicken pox vax or the MMR vax. The pediatrician agreed with me and that was the reason we decided on the polio vax yesterday because it's a "dead" vaccine meaning it doesn't use a live virus. So, we also decided that she will get the MMR vax when she is 2 years old. I really wanted to split up the vaccine and spread out all three shots but Merck is no longer splitting up the vaccine and they are the only ones that make it.

The doctor loved Miss A and Miss A was very social and talkative during the visit. She even decided it was a great time to take off her diaper while the doctor was talking. I had her in a Bum Genius that velcros so of course it was super easy to undo. Next time, she will be in a diaper that snaps or hopefully training pants!!

Pineville Playdate

While we were in Louisiana, we drove 2 hours south from Shreveport to Pineville and met up on Sunday, July 26th, with Scarlett, Damon, and their daughter-Stella, Kelli and her daughter-Olivia, Angel and her daughters-Sarah Grace, and Carrie Beth at the Louisiana College campus. Scarlett was my roommate in college and my matron of honor in my wedding. Kelli and I have been friends since college and the same goes for Angel. Angel was also my Big Sis in our dorm and we were in the same sorority.
When we arrived, we let the girls play for a while and then went to get some BBQ and head back to Jen S.'s house. Jen is a great friend of Scarlett's. She and her husband were so nice to let us hang out at their house with their twin girls. Here are some photos from the event:
At LC-Audrey in the parking lot by Hattie B's (the cafeteria) and in front of English Village housing:

Some of the girls and Damon on the Tudor housing lawn/sidewalk. Can you tell by the fog on my lens how humid it was that day??
Audrey following Sarah Grace to Tudor Hall (the boys dorm)?? Thankfully the summer means the campus is nearly empty!

Stella and Audrey during lunch:
Audrey doing one of her fave things...trying out new cribs: (This was taken at Jen's house...this is one of her twin girls' cribs.)
Audrey and Stella hanging out in the Barbie car:
More Stella and Audrey:
Carrie Beth, Sarah Grace, Olivia, and Audrey trying to get a grasp on a kitten. Check out Audrey's curls...her hair got so curly in that Louisiana humidity! I loved it!
The ladies and their little girls...from left: Scarlett and Stella, Kelli and Olivia, Me and Miss A, Angel and Sarah Grace and Carrie Beth:
Just the ladies:
A few of the girls playing-Miss A, Olivia, and Stella:
Carrie Beth, Sarah Grace, and Olivia cheesin':Outside, Scarlett holding Audrey while she waits her turn to ride in the Barbie car...I was trying to get a good shot of Audrey's curls:
Sarah Grace giving Audrey a ride:

Audrey didn't mind who drove her around just as long as she was able to ride along. So Sarah Grace let her sister do the driving and they all checked out the little "radio" inside:
It was so wonderful hanging out with all of these ladies and their little ones. It was a blessing to be able to see them again especially when it had been a few years since I had seen some of them and had a chance to meet some of their daughters for the first time. Thanks to Jen S. for opening her home to us and letting our daughters play in their daughters' room and with all of their toys, the Barbie car, and the kittens. She was a wonderful hostess!
I can't wait to see all of these ladies again and we hope to make this a habit when we travel to Louisiana again...next time E will come along too!