We've Been Busy!!

We've been so busy lately; it is crazy! We've had lots of company which is great because we can't travel since Laurel won't sleep anywhere but her own crib. We love seeing Laure's cousins and our family this summer.

I have so much to update on here and I'm just going to do an all in one post so I will be caught up.

Laurel is talking all the time now. She's picking up several new words each day. Her vocabulary is up in the hundreds now. My favorites are please and thank you which she says at least 50 times a day. It is so polite and sweet! She has also started blowing kisses whenever any says "I Love You", too cute!

Warning, there are over a months worth of pictures on this post, so unless you REALLY love Laurel you might get a little bored! ;)

Laurel at the Atlanta Zoo. She loved the zoo and I have so many cute pictures but made myself just post one.

Laurel blowing me a kiss! :)

Knocking down the bowling pins Matt bought home (don't ask).

Playing in Grandpa's garden. Digging potatoes is fun cause you get dirty!

Getting ready to go swimming!

Watching the kids during story time instead of listening to the story.

Loves her bath!

Trying to grab the camera strap!

Playing with her cousin Ari.

Cousins in the wagon!

Playing in the sand, her favorite activity.

Checkers! It looks like she is really playing!

Playing in the sand, again.

This was taken on Father's Day. What a sweet way to wish Daddy a Happy Father's Day. ;)

Playing in the toy store.

On the swings trying to touch fingers.

At Monkey Joes, she loves this place!

Cutie pie!!

Ummm...not much to say here.

Playing with a flashlight. It was actually dark in there but you can't tell from the picture. That girl loves flashlights!

June was so much fun, can't wait for July!

Snails, Frogs, and Puppy Dog Tails

I thought that old saying, "snails, frogs, and puppy dog tails" always referred to boys, but boy was I ever wrong! Laurel can be such a girl in some ways (loves shoes, bracelets, sunglasses, "feeding" her baby dolls, etc.) but she loves to get down and dirty as much or more than any boy. Here is one story about Laurel and frogs...

We have a small pond behind our house which had a lot of tadpoles in it. Well a few weeks ago they turned into frogs and there must have been hundreds in there! Matt decided that there were too many and we needed to transport some down to the creek on our property. The beginning of the expedition was a little hairy as Laurel kept trying to jump into the frog pond while Matt was putting the frogs into a jar for transport.

Here is Laurel trying to jump into the pond. I had to throw down the camera and run over and grab her before she jumped in!

She was NOT happy when I moved her to another spot. She could not see and kept trying to climb the rocks!
Ahh...That's better.
Taking a ride down to the creek.
Matt putting the frogs into their new home.
Laurel jumped right into the creek and started splashing.
The saved frogs. Welcome to your new home. Hope you like it!
Walking back to the house after a fun new experience.
I love doing such simple things with my little family. It reminds me that you don't have to go somewhere to have a learning experience (something Matt tells me all the time anyway). What a fun day!

Last Music Class!

Laurel had her last music class at the beginning of May. She has such a great time at her lessons and I hate that they are not offered during the summer! This is something we have been doing since she was seven months old! She started out in the baby class and has since graduated to the big kid class. It has really helped with her sharing and following directions and of course she loves music so it is just a great activity for her. It has been great for me too; I made friends with an awesome mom who has a daughter a few months older that Laurel. We get together at least once a week and let the kids play and we just talk about everything and anything. I'm still trying to decide if we will do this again next fall or I might put Laurel in gymnastics classes instead. She loves to climb and jump and I think that she would really enjoy something like that. We'll see, right now it is swimming all summer, playdates, and story time at the library!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from her last class...

She loves anything with a stick that she can beat with!

She just loves this little boy, but he could care less about girls!

Trying to give a scarf (wow, she's sharing!)

Laurel is not the best during story time (she does not like to sit still) but she really liked the butterfly hands they were making to go along with the story.

They are supposed to sit on our laps during this part of class, but Laurel usually decides to stand in the middle of the circle and be a ham.

We will miss you music class!