and more birthday pictures

....still having problems...
this is getting ridiculous :)

more birthday pictures

**I've been having trouble getting my pictures to upload. That is one reason that these birthday posts are just appearing. I couldn't get all the pictures I wanted attached to the last post, so here are some more.

A Day of Firsts

Although August 18th was Libby's first birthday, we had her first birthday party on Saturday the 19th. My grandparents (Meme and Papa) were able to drive from Texas to join us. Their attendance made the day very special. Libby enjoyed her first piece of pizza (cheese) at her party. She actually didn't make a peep the whole time she was eating. Every time I looked at her, she was stuffing another piece in her mouth! After pizza, we sang "Happy Birthday" to her and she tried her first cake (chocolate w/white icing and sprinkles). She liked the pizza better than the cake. Bryan finally "dug" into it for her because she just sort of picked at the icing and sprinkles. She seemed to like the actual cake better than the icing. What she liked most of all was her first ice cream (Blue Bell - Homemade Vanilla, of course!). Blue Bell is not sold in stores here, but we have discovered that Outback restaurants use it for their desserts. So, every couple months or so we have them order another 3 gallon tub for us. We got a fresh one just for Libby's party and Papa shared his bowl of ice cream with her. I'm not sure he got to eat any! It was a fun day of firsts for our sweet Libby Lu and we look forward to many more firsts with her over the next year.

In the past week....

Libby has grown so much. It seems as though she knows her 1st birthday is right around the corner. She is really responding to and interacting with people. She starts clapping if you sing "If You're Happy and You Know It" and kisses the pictures in her books every night. She's very stingy about giving "real" people kisses, but we can hardly get her to stop kissing pictures of people long enough to turn the pages. We also can hardly keep her off the stairs. (I even had a dream last night that she figured out how to walk down them!) However, the most growth in this past week has been her hair (see picture in post below). It is dark and curly and pretty thick. Frankly, I'm having trouble taming it.

Weekend Time

Saturday morning Bryan, the girls, Zoe and I went on a walk. We kind of hung out in the front yard when we returned home...Bryan pulled weeds, Libby played with an umbrella, Addison "walked" Zoe. We were pretty lazy the rest of Saturday. After church on Sunday the girls ate and took their naps. Then Bryan took Addi and Libby out on their swings while I prepared supper. We didn't do much more than spend time together and it was a good weekend. I'm glad we took advantage of not having much to do this weekend as that doesn't seem to happen enough.

A Girl and Her Dog

You can tell from the pictures that Zoe wasn't completely cooperative while Addi "walked" her.

Another Day at the Beach

Bryan is in Indianapolis this week, so I have been keeping the girls busy in hopes of avoiding crying-for-Daddy-fits by my 3 year old :) Monday we met friends at their neighborhood pool, Tuesday Addison went to her friend's house while Libby and I ran errands, and today we went to the beach with Addi's friend Ally, Ally's brother Carter and their mom Suzanne. It was a great time, even though it was possibly the hottest day I have ever experienced while in NC....104 (actual temp. when we were leaving the beach). I don't have pictures. I just couldn't carry the camera with everything else all by myself. Suzanne took pictures so I will be able to share those soon. I was so impressed with my girls. They are both fearless. Addi loved it when a wave would knock her over! And Libby loved crawling around the sand and then sputtering when a wave would wash over her face! Addi was so patient and understanding about me having to hang out with Libby a lot. She really is great about entertaining herself. They made the day enjoyable for me. Those of you with children know the exact opposite could have been true. I feel blessed to have them as my daughters. We will all be ecstatic when Bryan comes home on Friday. Until then we will keep making memories together (at least, my memories as they are too young to remember this week for long).