We have a crawler

David is officially crawling! He's slow right now, but he definitely has the concept down. He will be taking off before we know it.  He also loves to pull up on the coffee table and couch right now. We call him the wrecking ball cause he will pull up to stand at the coffee table and knock everything down that was sitting there. He is ALL boy, that is for sure! He is crazy in the bathtub- pulling up on everything, trying to stand and get out of his little inflatable tub. Needless to say, I am exhausted just keeping up with him now, not sure I'm ready for him to crawl!

We went to the Georgia Aquarium last weekend. Presley loves "sea creatures" and had a great time looking at all the fish and animals. I think her favorite were the sea horses and penguins. 

Auburn Visit

We decided to head to Auburn today to walk around and get lunch with the kids. It is only about 45 minutes from the base so it was the perfect day trip!  It was so fun to go when there wasn't a game and we could actually drive around. We both have so many memories from places all over campus! It's awesome getting to bring our kids here. 

My favorite one below!!

Presley enjoyed a Toomer's Lemonade! It's crazy to think that my parents and I came to this exact place 12 years ago when I was attending Camp War Eagle (freshman orientation).

 My old house!! 328B East Thach!! Lots of memories here.

Presley, the Artist

I meant to include this in my post last night. Presley has been into arts and crafts for a while now. She loves to paint, more than crayons and markers. She used to cover the entire page in colors, painting a little at a time. It's hilarious to watch her work. Her teacher at school used to tell me that she would work so hard on her paintings long after the other kids have moved on to other activitiesRecently, she has started staying in the lines and actually coloring the head a different color than the body. I've been really impressed with her skills and wanted to post pictures so we'll have a place to go back and look at her work. .

This was a few months ago

  Now...

 

She likes to randomly select a family member to receive a picture in the mail, so watch out! You  may be next!  Here she is in action today... notice she's wearing a dress. This morning, she came in the room when I was laying out her two outfit choices and she said, "I sure hope one is a dress today." It had been two days of shorts, so I conceded...

My Sweet Girl

Presley is so full of personality these days! I had no idea how girly she was going to be till the past year. She is so into princesses, fairies, painting her nails, wearing dresses (princesses don't wear shorts apparently), dancing, wearing lots of jewelry, wearing her glass slippers daily.

I really didn't expect her to be like this since I'm not very girly, but I guess that doesn't matter. On that same note, she also acts more like a teenager than I ever expected a 3 year old to act. We get lots of "UGH" folding her arms and marching off to her room. I didn't mind her picking out her clothes at first, but when it was the same dress everyday, I started to push shorts and other outfits. Since David was born, she has insisted on me putting her to bed. I don't mind, but it's become quite a process. We say prayers, tell a story and sing a song. But after that, she started to stall and beg me to stay with her, give her water, the list goes on and on. Well, we have now implemented two new systems... I lay out two outfits for her each morning and she gets to choose which one she wants to wear. I also let her do her accessorizing, which she loves. It's going pretty well, although she was not amused today when both her choices were shorts. She came around, though, and even told me, "I do look pretty in this." I don't know what gave her the sense that she's only pretty in dresses, but we are really trying to reinforce you're pretty in everything.

The other new system is at nighttime. Cameron created a princess chart and if she goes to bed with no whining, she gets a sticker in the morning. Today, she was very proud to put her sticker up. Hopefully, things will continue to go well on both fronts.

We went to storytime today and she did make me laugh.... the teacher had the students go around the room and say their names. She said, "Presley Elizabeth Smith" and it was precious! I love seeing her come out of her shell and be such a big kid!

I also wanted to document this week cause I think she is finished with naptime. The past few weeks she hasn't been sleeping during naptime. We started just having her rest and giving her a book to read for an hour and a half.  I think we are officially done with an actual naptime.  How did she get so big...  

Caden's party and David 8 mos update

We went to Birmingham the past 2 weekends to visit and celebrate Caden's 3rd birthday! It was great to get to spend so much time with everyone and get to see Rere, too!!

Here they are playing doctor

 Caden's bounce house... BIG HIT!

Presley wanted to be a mermaid, then changed her mind to a pirate princess. Since the mermaid costume I was attempting to make didn't look all that much like a mermaid, I was ok with her changing her mind.

 Charelette did such a great job on the party. They had a treasure hunt, which Presley loved!! She's had a treasure hunt several times in our house this week reenacting the one from the party.  

 My sweet man chillin' in the pool during the party.  

 He was so beyond tired after playing all morning... he fell asleep in grandmom's arms during the presents. 

 Presley has started packing some things during our trips. When we went to Dallas, she snuck in her glass slippers and Belle dress. When we went to Birmingham, she packed her glass slippers and Barbies. On the way home, she laid them all out.

Cameron's schedule has been great the past few months.  We've been really lucky and spoiled getting to spend so much time with him. David just loves to watch him and play with him... I have a feeling these two will be quite the pair when he gets a little older.  He just turned 8 months and has changed a lot. He's finally on a good nap schedule (although his naps are before and after Presley's...gotta work on that).  He's sleeping really good at night- going to bed around 6:30. I think I spoke too soon last time when I said he was sleeping through the night. That lasted about a week. He's back to waking up around 4am, eating and going back to sleep till 8:30. I might be able to soothe him back to sleep or let him cry it out, but since I'm trying to pack some weight on him, I just feed him. He's still a very easy-going baby. He loves to jump in the jumperoo and loves to play with anything that Presley is playing with. He has this funny teradactyl voice that we all mimick. It even scared one of his little friends, but he does it when he gets excited. It's hilarious to hear him squeal like this. I think he may have a bit of a temper... he sometimes gets so angry when his toys don't cooperate how he wants them to. He's almost crawling... he will lay down and scoot pretty good across the floor. I think he'll be crawling before we know it. He's starting to pull up on tables, chairs, etc. He can get to a sitting position from laying and this is often how we find him in the crib when he first wakes up.  He sleeps on his tummy most of the time. The past few naps he has been sitting up and just falls asleep and slumps over.. it's so pitiful and I moved him once, but he keeps falling asleep like this. I'm trying to get brave and sneak in and get a picture of this...

 He loves swinging at the park.

 He wanted that hair dryer while the Care Bears were getting hair and makeup done by Presley.

Presley and Cameron washed my car this weekend... she loved getting to help!

 We've been spending lots of afternoons pulling out the baby pool, water table and sprinkler. She can play out there for hours and David loves the baby pool and table.

 And finally...everyone knows how much Cameron loves Dunkin Donuts. Well, they love him too! He traveled so much in his last job, he used to know the staff at the Dunkin in the DFW Airport and they knew him.  Well, Cameron and Ms. Carolyn from the Columbus DD see each other probably 3-4 times a week. This was the first time she had met David, who she apparently had heard a lot about. This was also my first time meeting Ms. Carolyn.  She is sweet and was so excited David let her hold him. Let's hope there is a Dunkin wherever our next stop is or I don't know how this family will make it...