Recent pictures

Jeremy and I on our last camping trip. We had a great time playing cards that night with our friends the Troutmans. With this potty training thing happening, Brooke is now into "dressing" herself. I'll let the pics tell the story. Step 1.....
Step 2....she still needs a little instruction, don't ya think??
Just thought she looked cute in this one. I think she's eating some candy.
This is from our trip to Birmingham. Wolfe and Brantley love seeing their Uncle Saylor (Jeremy's bro).

My garden & yard

I wanted to post some pictures of the how pretty my yard looks right now. I took these this morning. These are my black-eyed susans. I planted them last year and I didn't think they were going to make it. I obviously was wrong!This is one of my rose bushes. This was also planted last year and was doing fantastic until Japanese beetles ate it up about a month ago. It is finally starting to bloom again but you can see all of the chewed up leaves.
These sunflowers are coming up under one of my birdfeeders. My mom says that we have magic soil. They bloomed from seeds that the birds dropped. They are so pretty and I can see them from my kitchen table.
This is the produce that I harvested this morning from Abby and I's garden. There are 2 cucumbers, 1 bell pepper, 3 banana peppers, and lots of tomatoes. The tomato plants are covered in fruit and I will soon be overcome by them. Free tomatoes, anyone?
Here is a picture of the garden. On the left are the stalks of more sunflowers. Next to that are zuchinni and in front of them are cucumber. On the right you can see my green beans starting to grow. I will have to stake them this week. On the far right, outside of the picture, are my tomato and pepper plants. This is my first garden and I am thrilled with its success. I am already planning next year's crop.

Potty training at not quite 2 1/2!

Brooke eating her first meal in her booster seat.

I have been happily teaching Brooke to use the potty this week. "What??", you say!! "Happily" and potty training don't belong in the same sentence! Well, Brooke has proven us wrong. I realized on Friday that she was ready to start the dreaded process when she was holding her privates while playing in her bathing suit. I put her on the potty and she actually went a little bit. I will hit the highlights of the last 5 days: Did fabo Sat. morning but still scared to relax and "let it flow". Same situation on Sunday afternoon but getting better. Monday was good - actually pooped in the potty. (sorry for the language- just speaking as a 2-yr. old would) Yesterday was the break-thru day. Only had one accident all day and got much more comfortable on the potty. In her words, "I do it Mommy, I do it!" She's such a big girl!! The best thing that happened yesterday was when she woke up from her nap. She usually wakes up very happy and plays for a while in her crib or just calls out my name to come and get her. When I heard her crying/whining for me I thought that maybe she had a foot stuck in the rails or something. When I got to her she was standing up "holding herself" and saying "potty, Mommy, potty!" with a frantic look on her face. I picked her up to notice that her diaper was completely dry. She sits on the potty and goes really well. Hurray!! I haven 't had such an easy go of the dreaded potty training before. Thank you, Lord, for life's little blessings. She woke up this morning and the first thing she said was "potty" and she went pretty as pie! That's my girl!

July, so far...

I did get strep throat. Felt horrible for 3 days and then revived.

We took the kids camping at Locust Lake S.P. the weekend before the 4th. We had a great time and I think we'll try that park again sometime. There was a "beach" on the lake that the kids loved and a great bike trail around the lake. The forest there is really pretty - it reminds me of western NC, my absolute favorite. The only bad thing that came of the trip was my nasty case of poison ivy in unmentionable places - yikes! It's my punishment for peeing in the woods... The picture above is of our campsite. The weather was amazing - we actually had to wear sweatshirts in July!!

Not much else to report. I will also attach a pic of the kids and some more friends on the 4th. They were all watching Jeremy shoot off illegal Alabama fireworks. I am aware that you are wondering why Brooke is dressed as a Power Ranger...she's 2...

For some reason my pictures were uploaded in a weird order. The other two pics are from our jaunt to Coney Island on Thursday. Took the kids to the NY aquarium, ventured onto the beach ( a dirty place filled with glass and trash - apparently Coney Island is on the decline), and ate Nathan's Famous hotdogs. The kids had a blast.

Adios!