Whew - What a summer!

Oh wow... I am so behind on my posts. I guess I should start with the end of June. We went to BeBe & JoJo's at the lake to visit. Aunt LaLa, Scott, and Catherine were all there and we had so much fun playing!

For July 4th, we went to Nana & Poppa's house for a BBQ. Baileigh got to play in her baby pool and we had lots of good food. Uncle Matt and Aunt Lauren also came by for a visit and Baileigh had a lot of fun showing off for them.

We went to Sandestin July 9-13 and took Baileigh for her first trip to the beach (thank you Uncle C-Cat). She loved the sand and the ocean and took well to both. She did not like to stand in the sand where the tide would roll in and out. I don't think she liked feeling the sand rushing out from under her feet. But she was perfectly content for us to take her out into the water and let her "ride the waves". She was even knocked down by one wave and was completely unfazed by the whole thing!

This past weekend we had a "normal" weekend (which we haven't had in about 6 weeks). Chip was home all weekend and we just rested and played (and did a little housekeeping, too). We went to Spain Park on Saturday morning and played on the playground. It was SO nice outside. I don't think it has ever been a breezy 80 degrees with zero humidity in the middle of July in Alabama! But it was on Saturday and Sunday and we soaked up every minute of it! Baileigh really enjoyed the park, and of course, just HAD to play on the "big kid" play gym. I am not sure why, but she has an aversion to playing on things designed for children her age.

Her vocabulary is really increasing these days and she will attempt most any word you ask her to say. She is putting a few words together now as well. For instance, the other day she said "Daddy no...top it" (Daddy no, stop it). She is infatuated with Tinkerbell. It is almost borderline obsessive! She requests to watch "bello" (aka, Tinkerbell) every morning and every night. She also has a Tinkerbell "cell phone" on which she carries on full 2-minute conversations. We have no idea what she is saying when she is talking, but she is chatting away nonetheless. She is also big into climbing onto things. We walked into her room the other day to find her sitting on top of her dresser. Apparently, she used the rocker in the nursery as her climbing apparatus and went right on top of her dresser. She has been caught there 5 times now, the last 2 of which she got spanked for (well, more like tapped on the bottom thru her diaper). After I spanked her I explained to her why she was in trouble, telling her that she cannot climb onto the dresser because she could get hurt. She looked at me, pointed to the dresser and said no-no owie. And then she leaned over and kissed me. She also refuses to let anyone feed her these days - she wants to do it all by herself. So, dinners are quite messy around our house, but she is getting the hang of how to use her sppon and fork and now I think that more food actually makes it to her mouth, than onto the floor!

(Click on the collage for a larger view)