Late, late recap of June events

Once again I'm playing catchup for the last month. Of the three weekends so far, two included playdates and one was entirely dedicated to creating the "big girl room."

Stella Dot's birthday was several weeks ago. Frank was at a weekend-long fiddler's convention (they let banjo players hang out also) in the mountains, so I had Maddie solo. It was a lot of work, mostly because my large tummy complicates all manner of movement. But we attended a pizza dinner for the birthday girl and then took a trip with Stella Dot, Amy and Grant to the NC Zoo. Maddie and Stella Dot's first zoo trip!

I don't have very many pics of this, as it is difficult to hold both a camera and a small wiggly child when viewing almost-wildlife. But Amy did get lots of good shots of the kids posted to her blog. On our way out of the zoo, a great African band began playing and we hung out to listen for quite a while. The two girls playing African instruments and dancing was the highlight, I think. Amy has a great movie of this posted to the same site. Here are a few I managed to take...



After the fiddler's convention, Frank made a major detour and visited the new Ikea store. I made a humongous list of items for Maddie's big girl room and for the new baby's room. He did a great job shopping without me -- imagine!!

A notable development is that Maddie now uses various household objects as microphones. I may have had something to do with that... She's very attached to these makeshift microphones and even took one with her to bed for a few nights.....the lint roller wasn't very snuggly though.


Fast forward to the second weekend in June. My parents came up to collect Maddie and take her home with them for a few days while we transformed the guest room to her new room. It took the entire 2.5 days and we didn't stop for anything except eating....but the room turned out great....that will be a separate blog post to follow!

Third weekend was cleaning, planting, Father's Day and an impromptu cookout at Noah, Robin and Waylon's house. Two pools, three preschoolers (that means they are 2 years or older) six adults and lots of food.
Yes, I'm the one to the left not in the pool. I was content with my non-alcoholic beer and watching everyone splash each other.

Noah, do you have a license for that thing? He was spraying everyone and loving it!

If the pool looks like it's leaning, it's because it is. Amy told Maddie the pool was for Mommies and Daddies, but none of the kids were buying it. They abandoned the smaller pool a few seconds later to hang with the Mommies.


The next day was Father's Day, so Frank decided to take Maddie to the nearby kid's museum. I planted in the garden while they were gone.

She is way, way into driving and anything with steering wheels. Thanks, Grandaddy! She gets to "drive" the truck, tractor and golf cart when she visits Grandmama and Grandaddy -- how boring are we??!!

After the "Around Town" exhibit, they moved on to the store and kitchen area. Maddie shopped at the store for food. Since it was Father's Day, what do you think happened? Frank took her to the meat area...she picked out a steak!!

And cooked it....oh, and seasoned it with dishwashing liquid....YUM!

Next blog: big girl room