Japan arrives in VA!

Auntie Sarah mailed us a nice package from Japan last week and it arrived yesterday!

Mike and I got a "Pineapple Wine Cake" which is delicious! She visited a pineapple plantation there and took a tour! This was one of the popular food items!

Abby had 3 gifts in the box! These cool fish sunglasses, and a matching cup/spoon/fork set that have floating sparkles and dolphins in them that move when you shake them! Such a treat for her! And knowing they came from her Aunt Sarah made them even more special.....now I have to figure out how to explain to her how far away Thanksgiving is (that is when Sarah is scheduled to visit). She keeps saying "Aunt Sarah got me these. Aunt Sarah come to Abby's house and play with me!"

She loves drinking from a big girl cup, and surprisingly does pretty good most times.

Maddy goes bananas!!

Maddy chowing on a chunk of banana through her self-feeder mesh bag! She sucked it all in and loved it!

Smith Playtime

We've had a lot of floor fun time in the evenings lately. Its nice to get on the floor with them and interact! Its been too hot to do much else!

Maddy hiding under the pillow......aka: Abby put a pillow on her!

How does this magnadoodle work mom??

Abby makes this SAME snotty face when she's mad or annoyed!! Hmmm...wonder where she gets it!

Abby wanted to hold BIG.....I mean little sister Maddy.....mini photo session....

Cailin & Sienna Visit The Smiths

So Cailin & Sienna were here for 4 days visiting us!!

We haven't seen each other for 2 years, and in that time she had her first child and I had my second!

It was fun to catch up and spend time together again, even if it was amongst 3 kids schedules!

Here are some shots from our time together.

Sienna loved trying to steal Maddy's pacifier. She has her own, and Maddy's is a different brand shaped differently, so everytime she put it in her mouth she'd make a sour face like "this isn't mine"!!!

Sienna is full on crawling and pulling up to standing.....so that was fun to watch Abby interact with her at this level. She loved Abby's doll house and kitchen set! She was a busy girl.

At the fountains on the Norfolk Waterside

Maddy going in for a little taste of Sienna....

Beach time!

This past week, my best friend Cailin was here visiting with her daughter Sienna (she is 1 week younger than Maddy). We had a fabulous time together just us girls for the week, and the kids had fun playing! Sienna is crawling and pulling up, so it kept me on my toes for what is to come with Maddy.

We ventured to the oceanfront one day. Abby got to dig in the sand a bit, and the little girls loved wathcing the waves crash. Its been HOT and MUGGY here, so the cool water was a relief!

Botanical Gardens

We took a family trip to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens last weekend!

Abby had fun exploring the garden kiddie area, and of course, splashing in the water spouts!

Maddy's first experience there. She loved watching the other kids run around and splash

There was a cute new exhibit at the gardens that had little houses from a variety of fairtales! Of course Abby loved this area, and this was the Little Red Riding Hood one! She volunteered to put her head in the hole!

Time-Out

This is what time-out looks like in our house. And this is her stubborn don't look at me face!!

Hah....too bad. I happened to have the camera in hand taking photos of Maddy.

Tired Doll

This picture proves that sometimes you just need a good nap.....with your baby doll!

Abby tucked herself and the doll in for a fake nap! While she was watching a show during some downtime!

I'm all clean!

Puffs......maybe

I bought Maddy a box of toddler "puffs" to try introducing her to some dissolving finger foods!

It will definitely take some practice, she likes holding them, but is a bit put off when they make it in her mouth! Mostly they were just stuck all over her hands!

Here comes Roxy's favorite part of having a new eater in the house!! Dropped food pieces!!

Writing Practice

Abby LOVES all of my Discovery Toy products, have I mentioned that before??!!!

This is our wipe-clean ABC/123 workbook! Its great! Each of the 2 books comes with a small dry-erase marker which wipes off easily with a tissue. This is one of her favorites! (Especially because it comes with tons of stickers too that you place on the empty shapes throughout the book)

It has truly encouraged her to write/trace! Pretty good too! I'm most proud of her triangles that she outlined. And she drew circles around the flower pictures. She even does dot-to-dot on the letters and numbers VERY well.

Perfect gift for the 2-1/2 to 4 year old in your life!!!

New Car Seat excitement

Last weekend we went and got Abby a new (bigger, to grow with her longer and convert to a seat-only booster) car seat! The biggest reason was we realized Maddy was half a pound away from maxing out her infant carseat! So Abby got her first PINK seat! Mike had it in the house to get it adjusted just right, and Abby thought it was so fun. So she wanted to be strapped in while she watched her show one morning. Hmmmm...I could get used to having a restraint system in my living room. The place would stay a lot cleaner!!

MOVIE TIME!!!

So today was Abby's 1st time at a movie theater. We dropped Maddy off at our friend's house (and she did GREAT!!!), and headed off to the theater with our big almost three year old! We went to see Toy Story 3, as she's really enjoyed watching the 1st version since I bought it last week. Mike had the day off today, so we went to a morning show and avoided any crowds. She did GREAT and had so much fun. She was so excited to order her popcorn and drink!

We didn't go to a normal theater, instead we went to a "Cinema Cafe" which they have out here, you sit in office style chairs at tables/counters and order food/drinks off a menu. Its casual, and you get to eat while you watch, so it actually worked out good as the food kept her occupied during the movie and we ate lunch at the same time!

THEN......Abby wanted to try the camera herself and took all of the following shots on her own. Her first time using the camera. She was so proud and actually did a pretty good job! So you get a courtesy shot of the chairs in the theater and her shoe! She's an artist!!