I can't believe it's July already! Goodness, the fourth of July is tomorrow, and I've gotta wash the shirt Jonathan's wearing below for tomorrow's Independence Day festivities :) But before starting laundry and tomorrow's salads and hamburger patties, I figure I'll throw up some of the photos from the past few weeks. The photo of Abby above was taken on the potty of all places, but I love it!
Jonhathan received this "hand digger" as a fun gift from his Aunt Susie and Uncle Jordan. 
It was an instant hit and a welcome addition to his construction site.
My mother has totally saved our tails the past few weeks as "Nanny Nonnie." Following the unexpected loss of our nanny of three years, Mom came down for two separate weeks to help with the kids while we looked for a new nanny. We adored Joy, who watched the kids for the past three years, but the circumstances under which she quit were odd and stressful, to put it mildly. We are grateful to have found a wonderful woman who officially began this week. Jonathan gave Carmen a ginormous hug before she left today, and Abby declared "Carmen friend!" after Carmen's day babysitting the kids last week. I was so happy to come home today and see Carmen was totally delighted with her day, telling me over and over again how glad she was to have found our family. Hopefully this will turn out to be a really great match.
The kids thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with their Nonnie, though, and we're incredibly grateful for her time with us! Papa got to come down for a weekend, too, and David, Nonnie, Papa and the kids went down to Galveston to spend a Saturday crabbing while I visited dear friends from college.
After a fun week with Nanny Nonnie, we all headed up to Dallas together to celebrate cousin Lucy's 1 year birthday! It was such a treat for the kids to have company in the back seat, and I'm quite sure Nonnie is the reason that the drive up was so peaceful compared to the trip down.
Saturday morning before the big party, we headed to the park. Jonathan elected to stay back at the house playing with his Papa, and Abby thoroughly enjoyed the wagon ride with her Daddy.
I took loads of photos and was disappointed that they didn't turn out better focused, but I still love these because they show my sweet daughter enjoying a morning with her wonderful daddy.
Lucy's birthday party was about the cutest thing EVER. Kimie did a lovely job with the decorations and made this fabulous ladybug cake. I wish I'd captured more of the party, but I got distracted visiting and only pulled out my camera a few times. The rest of the party and all the lovely details you can catch on Kimie's blog here.
Kimie, in black, donned the ladybug wings Carrie brought along.
Abby particularly loved the red sparkly antennae provided by Carrie. The food at the party, pictured above, was wonderful! A highlight of the whole weekend was that Abby and Jonathan got to spend more time with their Aunt Heather, who came down from Oklahoma. They just LOVED playing with her at my parents' house, and Abby's been asking for Aunt Heather ever since we came home.
Happy Birthday Baby Lucy!
My sister in law is a genius. It never would have in a million years crossed my mind to use colored butternut squash instead of chocolate icing for the baby's cake, but geez... that's brilliant.
And Lucy loved it.
My parents gladly donned the antennae for Abby's amusement, and I actually found it just about as funny as she did :)
After a fun whirlwind of a weekend, we returned home Sunday afternoon. My brilliant plan to travel during naptime is not at all brilliant if you have a child who really, really prefers to sleep in her own bed. Abby started by saying, "Abby tired... Abby naptime. Abby crib, lay down, crib." Then things started falling apart, "Turn off light! Turn off! Turn off light!" pointing with near panic to the sun outside her window. The window shade did little to actually dim the car. From there the next two hours went straight down hill. Again, you gotta respect that she was tired, was willing to take a nap, and just needed the conditions we ALWAYS provide for naptime. But that really didn't make things any more tolerable. What did lighten the situation, however, was my sweet son singing, "If all the rain drops were gum drops and lemon drops, oh what a rain that would be! ..." and a slew of other children's songs over the screams (yes, top-of-her-lungs-totally-bananas-screams) of his sister. Jonathan tried to comfort his sister for a few minutes, and when it didn't work, he just went about singing. His coping skills were much more effective than mine. I was considering hopping a bus to Houston at the next truck stop and leaving David with the drive. But I didn't, and soon (well, 2 1/2 hours into the trip) they were both peacefully sleeping.
Aaaah, toddler-hood. Abby is more fun by the moment. She can express SO much now and talks in at least 3 word sentences most of the time. She makes jokes, and then tells you they're jokes by shouting, "Joke! Joke!" and clapping for herself. The celebration is way more hysterical than whatever she's actually identified as a joke. She's also already enthralled with pretend play. Yesterday she brought me a pretend puppy in her hands for me to "pet puppy gently" and "give puppy kisses, Mommy."
On the other hand, the test of wills of a toddler is... well, it definitely tests my will. But this little exchange just a few minutes ago actually made me laugh:
Abby's losing it, so I approach her to begin the bedtime routine. "Alrighty, Abby, let's go find your jammies."
"No, Mommy, NO! Mommy GO AWAY!"
"Abby, that's NOT how we talk to Mommy. We do NOT yell for Mommy to go away."
"Mommy... PLEASE go away." She pauses, looking at me with a tilted head as if to see if that one's going to fly, and I give her a "Really? You think that's going to work?" look with my raised eyebrows. Then a second attempt, "PLEASE go... this way!" and she points down the hall to my room.
Seriously, I'd love to go that way, but I have two kids to wrestle into bed before I get to go that way.
I've got one down now, and one to go. Off to do the last round of stories!
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