Riverbanks Zoo (in June)

Going to see the birds - mostly the PENGUINS!

Yes, that blur is what we see often in our house!

So I'm way behind in blogging and posting pictures and I hope to catch up on it. My scrapbook is the same way. I signed up for lots of swaps and spent all my crop time making my swaps instead of being able to work on Julia Grace's scrapbook. Don't get me wrong - the swaps are fun and some folks sign up for way more of them than me. I usually do the buy and bag and I'm doing the cookbook swaps. I have one for June and one for July due the end of this month - yikes!

Back to blogging and pictures. We went to Riverbanks Zoo on a Monday in June. We wanted to do something outdoors and every direction we looked (towards Atlanta, towards Asheville) had thunderstorms coming in the afternoon - 80% chance. I was frustrated when I went to bed on Sunday because Mallory and I really had our hearts set (and bags packed!) to go somewhere where there was water for sure to picnic and swim! I woke up Monday and checked the Columbia area. They were okay on the weather - all the storms looked liked they would bypass them later so off we went to the zoo! I know it was not at all what we planned but I know we had just as much fun! Enjoy the pictures!

Our Little Fishes...

Swimming in the pools in Sun City!

There she goes!

Mallory enjoying our time in the pool!

Our little fishes about to go outside in the sprinklers after dinner...

My parents community has 4 pools and since it's a place for "active adults 55 or BETTER" children can only go swimming at certain times. Julia Grace is not allowed in their pools until she's 4 and potty trained however. So... Mom got a splash pool for Julia Grace to play in in their backyard while Tracy and I took Mallory off to the pools. This is from Father's Day weekend - we spent 4 hours after lunch between the outdoor and indoor pool swim times. We had a lot of fun! It was supposed to be around 100 degrees outside that day - the pool temp was 89!

After dinner that evening the girls went back out again and played in my parents backyard. My mom had also gotten a hopscotch sprinkler and both girls played in that too. Julia Grace took turns running through that and then jumping in her little splash pool.

We also played catch with this velcro paddle/ball set (don't know what you call it) until it broke - gotta take that back to Walmart. I've already bought a replacement set elsewhere for $1 more than Walmarts and it's so much sturdier. Julia Grace has learned to take the ball off and throw it too. Now we're just working on catching!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 32nd Anniversary to Mom and Dad!

Swimming Lessons

Day 1 of Swimming Lessons - Julia Grace is afraid of nothing as we pretty much know but now it's confirmed that taking swimming lessons is a good thing! She's been trying to get me to just let go of her in the pool but once she went totally under and popped back up she seemed pretty surprised that that would happen! She's held on a little bit more in the last few lessons. She doesn't mind being dunked - there are 2 girls that cry any time "dunk" or "under" is mentioned at the lessons!

I do think unless something happens in the next 2 days we'll be repeating the Water Babies class. I don't feel comfortable with what she's learned to pass her on to Water Tots (she's close enough to 3 which is the age limit to move her up to it). In Water Tots the parent doesn't get in the pool with them and they are expected to hold on to the side until the instructor comes for them. Julia Grace isn't always wanting to kick and swim when we're supposed to be. She is getting what they're doing, just not when they want her to do it. Today she was content to be floating on the noodle that was meant to encourage them to let go of their parents and go on their own kicking and "scooping" with their hands. She will still get a certificate on Thursday for completing the program though. She is trying and she likes going to 'wimmin'. She's been excited to go and not given me any trouble getting ready to go in the mornings because she's ready to go. I'm glad she's excited about it and not dreading it!

I'll keep you posted on the lessons and we'll get more pics this week!

I think I'm about to go crazy over here...

Wow. To say that my plate is full right now would not even begin to explain the half of it really!
Mon, Tues, and Thursday this week we took Julia Grace to swimming ('wimmin' as she says) lessons. She is having a blast! We missed Wednesday because I got off work late. It reminded me greatly why I exited the grocery business in the first place - rule 1 in grocery - you NEVER get off on time EVER!

I don't have the pictures where I can upload them, but Tracy and Mallory came to day 1 of swimming lessons and took some pics. I hope to get more next week. She's taking lessons Mon. through Thurs. at the Swim Center for two weeks. Today she was dunked under water for the first time - didn't phase her a bit! She looked surprised the first time she went under but the other 3 times she just wiped her face and looked around wide-eyed!

My mom's scans and blood work came back. Her iron is low and she is stable. I think she's a little disappointed that it's stable and not a decrease in mass size, but like the nurse told her - we'll take stable! Mom has hair growing back too! :)

My mom's sister, Kaye, however, who has been being treated for cancer as well has had some of her numbers up on her last tests and it's not a good sign. I will have to let you know more as I know more. My sister's nodule on her thyroid was not cancer and that's a good thing.

A coworker of mine has been diagnosed again with cancer - I don't know all the details - I hear bits and pieces because I work opposite of this lady in my department for the most part. She has been told it's stage IV and that it's from her prior bout with melanoma. I know she was scheduled to see a surgeon for a consultation yesterday. Hers has moved to her lungs and I am not sure where else. Her name is Linda if you would like to add her to your prayer lists.

Julia Grace - I'm not sure where to begin with everything. I've not really put a lot on my blog about her I realize. She has qualified for therapy through Baby net. She has an early interventionist named Kim who is great! The EI comes out once a week to work with Julia Grace and work with us on things to help her progress. Julia Grace doesn't speak too often and her communication skills are lacking. Her fine and gross motor skills were way above her age and they have told us she's really smart! I know that the words are in there and we just have to coax them out of her. She's trying hard but we don't know what's not clicking. She has a speech evaluation tomorrow at noon and has already been referred by our EI and our family doctor for speech therapy. She will be having a hearing test on Monday to rule out any hearing problems being a source of the communication issues since my family has enough to consider it a family history of hearing problems (mom and sister wear hearing aids and have for a long time). On Tuesday we have our EI come back out for a weekly visit and on Wednesday, the EI, Julia Grace and us parentals will meet with a district 2 person to see if she qualifies for a program or speech therapy through the school district this fall.

Did I mention in all of those appointments that we still have 'wimmin' going on and that I will have to work at some point?

Oh, and on another - great!- note - Monday we are switching over to Charter - bye bye bunny ears and converter boxes and hello cable TV and Internet that actually WORKS! And might I mention that it should be less than the prior phone/Internet bill from the evil company who can't seem to make anything here work. We are however doing away with the home phone. This is new territory for me - my sister's family did this for quite some time. So if you have the home number, you should lose it. We are keeping our phones with Sprint - we're happy with them and even with not using the home phone at all since April, we've not gone over on our minutes. The home phone itself physically broke, but the wiring for the phones has been so staticky and fuzzy for over a year that we rarely used it anyways. AT&T never could make it work quite right. Now we won't have to worry about that!

Other than that we're just trying to tie up loose ends on other things and Tracy's plugging along with Shelton Properties. This July marks 4 years that he's worked there! It's hard to believe that much time has passed! I have some house projects I hope to get started and some others to get finished in July as well.

July 2 is my mom and dad's 32nd anniversary! July 3 they are coming to town and staying through Sunday July 5th. We're having a multi-family cookout on July 4th with my sister's dad's family (mom's ex-husband), mom & dad, and us. July 5th we get to see Jayne and Steve off at the airport - they're taking a vacation to the Dominican Republic (sans kids) for a week. I know they can't wait! I'm excited to see them again too - hate that I don't get to see Greybaby now that he's 1. Riley and Greyson are staying in Canada with Steve's parents for the week so I'll have to squish their cheeks when they come back to visit later this year! July 6th - Mallory comes back to stay for another 2 whole weeks of summer vacation! I am really enjoying having her here more often - I know she's loving it! :) The second week of July is the Anchor's "Mission Trip" (Hope Point's children's summer program) and Merissa plans their time well! They serve the Lord in various venues for a week and they have great fun doing it! People always ask when our church has Vacation Bible School and I love to tell them about what an awesome thing our children do instead! Don't get me wrong - I love VBS and I know Mallory does and I'm sure Julia Grace will - but it's so refreshing to do something so different with our children. I love it!

Speaking of VBS, Mallory attended Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church's VBS again this year. She's attended each year since she was 3 and old enough to go so I guess this makes like 6 years of VBS there! They always do a great job and Mallory has a blast. Mallory will be attending the Creative Arts Camp hosted by AMRBC as well later this summer in August.

I was a little disappointed (and I know there are plenty of years ahead) that Julia Grace couldn't go this year too. They were willing to let her go even though she's not yet 3 because she would be by the time school starts in the fall. However, she's not potty trained so this rules out VBS and lots of other camp options for her. We're working on potty-training though! We watched E-mo's potty time DVD again this afternoon!

Wow that's a whole lot of updating! And to think there are other things I didn't even squeeze in there to tell you! I am off to work on some things before I call it a night - waiting on the laundry to get done for the evening. I am going to scrapbook with my girls tomorrow evening after work and Saturday, I am off work and Tracy and I haven't decided exactly what we're doing yet - I know we're taking Julia Grace 'wimmin' at some point in the day!

Hope everyone is having a blast with their summer! I know I am! Later taters! :)

Where we are...

It's been a long week this past week.

We've all been sick but I think we're finally getting better. Unfortunately, my mom seems to have caught whatever we all had but we did warn her not to kiss all over Julia Grace!

I'm another year older and so is my sister. My birthday was last Saturday and Rhonda's was yesterday.

Rhonda had surgery to have a nodule removed from her thyroid and they took part of the thyroid with it. It turned out to be benign which is a good thing - they were removing it to be sure it wasn't more cancer. That was last Thursday. Yesterday morning, Rhonda called me to tell me her grandmother, Granny, had died (her dad's mom). This was also Rhonda's birthday. I feel so bad for my sister - she's just had it rough lately.

Mom and Dad are coming back to town for Granny's funeral on Wednesday. I'm sad about Granny's passing. Even though she wasn't my "real" grandmother, I grew up around her and I've always called her Granny. She was a loud, funny, crazy (Daddy said she was a good kind of crazy) lady who definitely lived her life to the fullest. Granny was my mom's ex-husband's mom but she still treated my mom just like she was still family. She was such a blessing to Mom over the years. Granny always told Dad he was her third son. I wish that all people could be so accepting and loving despite what comes in their lives. I am glad she's no longer in pain. I know she is basking in God's glory right now and that comforts me. I know Granny will be missed by everyone who had the chance to meet her.

Keep my sister's family in your prayers and our mom as always. Thank you and may God bless you all!

Jack and the Beanstalk

I had forgotten to post about this - how could I do that?

In late April, Tracy and I took the girls to see a black light puppet show presented by Theatre/Converse. They did a presentation of Jack and the Beanstalk. Both girls really enjoyed it and for the most part Julia Grace is good when we go to productions like this. I have been pleasantly surprised! It's a good thing it was a kids show though because Julia Grace got a little interactive with it. When Jack and his cow were fishing, Julia Grace said "MOOOO!". And this is my most proud/embarrassed moment - Right when the beanstalk started growing to the sky, Julia Grace said "What's THAT?"! This is a proud moment because we just had her evaluated and she qualifies for speech therapy. Part of that diagnosis (of sorts) was based on her not asking questions and having many phrases. Embarrassing obviously because she was loud and beat Jack to his next line which was "What's that?".

Both girls really enjoyed the show as did the adults - it was cute and funny. Converse College theater shows are always great - I often forget this and they're affordable too. Although, you need to check because most of them aren't family productions unless they say they are (language and situations within the productions). Julia Grace really enjoyed climbing the steps up to Hazel B. (the theatre). Tracy and I also got to introduce Mallory to Ms. Mary Nicholson who has been instrumental in too many things to even write about with theater in our community. Tracy and I got to work with Ms. Mary at the Spartanburg Youth Theatre and I got to be in her theater class and a production at Converse College as well.

I almost forgot about one other cute thing - Julia Grace was taking the steps DOWN two at a time after the show. She kept putting her finger to her lips saying "SHHH!". Apparently, after she climbed in Tracy's lap from her seat, she tried to be more interactive and he was shushing her. So she thought that was something you did was to "SHHHH!" - so cute!

We followed with dinner at McDonald's and playground afterwards. Needless to say both girls were asleep shortly after arriving home! It was a great night out with the family!

It was in here that Jack would speak to the cow, the cow would "moo", and Julia Grace would "MOOOOO" back to them.

The Giant is eating Pig and won't share with his wife!

The Giant is dead!

This is Theatre/Converse's promotional picture - I can't take credit for it. :)

This is Julia Grace walking on the sidewalk like a big girl - I love these pictures!