"Mom Swim?"

This is the phrase that Savannah used last night as I entered the house from my fourth week of swimming lessons. Let me explain . . .

First of all, yesterday she decided that my new name was "mom"! Not mommy or mama, but just mom. Ouch. For some reason it not only made me feel instantly older (maybe it's God's way of speeding up baby #2), but also really sad. Where in the world did she hear that? It was wild how suddenly it happened too. When I went in to get her from her afternoon nap she said "Hey Mom" and that was the beginning.

Then there's the swimming lessons. Now believe me when I say that if thrown into 10 ft of water I would not drown. I have always known how to doggy paddle and float on my back as well, but I've always just had (have) this horrible fear of putting my head underwater. So, after seeing how much fun Savannah had with her lessons I asked for my own lessons for mother's day. I've struggled for a month with learning how to coordinate the breathing part of swimming with the strokes and underwater part. Well, for the first time ever last night I did a complete lap of the front crawl without stopping!!! Go MOM!! I had already "mastered" the back crawl and elementary back stroke as they don't require your head to be underwater, but last night was the first time I actually got the breathing part of the front crawl!! I'm so excited and can't wait to go back next week to practice so it becomes easier.

Other than that, things are pretty normal around here. Savannah is still working on counting and can finally count up to fourteen. We've been to Charlotte at Play a lot with the hot weather and have several playdates upcoming to keep us busy.

Cow Appreciation Day

Here is a partial group shot with the cows

Here we all are! 16 of us eating FREE chicken!

Today was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick fil A so being the bargain hunter that I am, Savannah and I, along with 7 of my friends and all 8 of our children, dressed for the occasion. We received an e-mail quite some time ago stating that if you dressed like a cow you would get a free entree! It was quite comical seeing us all in our ears and with our spots, but well worth it for a FREE Chick fil A lunch. The big cows did scare poor Savannah and Jack, but after a quick photo with them they made it through lunch okay. We all had to sign release forms for Chick fil A to use our picture, so be on the lookout. HA!

Just a Quick Shower

Yesterday morning Savannah woke up a little earlier than normal. This threw my "schedule" off for the entire morning. I decided to go ahead with the shower and to just lock her in my bedroom with me so I could take a quick one (and I mean quick because who can trust a toddler alone long enough to bathe and wash their hair??). As I was rapidly trying to get clean from my 6am aerobics class, I noticed that I didn't' hear the normal sounds from her . . . no crying, no "mama done", no trying to open the shower door, etc. Very interesting. I knew she was okay because I could hear her trying to sing along to the songs I was belting out from the shower. So after finishing my shower, I got dressed and gave her lots of praise for being a good girl while mommy was taking a bath. Only then did I step into the bedroom and notice that she managed to get the door unlocked. I guess that trick is long gone.

However, it wasn't until late last night as we're getting ready to go to bed that Dave noticed the activity that kept her occupied while I was in the shower . . . wipe unloading! AAAHH!!!! She drives me crazy sometimes! I wanted to go in and tell her how bad that was, but Dave reminded me that we never wake a sleeping baby. I guess she'll hear from me this morning and then wonder what in the world I'm talking about.

A Visit From Granny

This weekend my mom, or Granny to Savannah, came for a visit. She and Savannah had tons of fun and spent lots of time playing outside on Saturday. They "planted" some new purple flowers around Savannah's house, did lots of sweeping, watched TV together, and read tons of books.

Mom was craving ice cream on Saturday afternoon so when Savannah woke up from her nap we headed out to our favorite Coldstone Creamery for a yummy treat. (Sorry diet!) Savannah loves going there because she enjoys watching the water in the fountain. We finally gave in and let her put her feet in too. Even though it's not very clear, can you see the excitement on our little girl's face?!

A Happy 4th For All!

What a great day yesterday turned out to be! It was so wonderful having Dave home the entire day and not having to rush around running a million errands. I kept thinking it was Saturday and Dave would remind me that it was Friday. SUPER. Now we have another two whole days with daddy home! :) Anyway, being that he had worked so hard this week, Dave hadn't had any time to work on our stupid computer. Well, after calling the Geek Squad and making an appointment for Sunday afternoon, my super duper husband managed to find just the right button to click and now our e-mail is working!!! Happy day for me! As a side note, the Geek Squad was only going to charge $120 for driving to our house and fixing this computer monster . . . it would have been well worth that money.

It was also a happy day for Dave as he finally got to catch up on some much needed sleep. Savannah had a great day because she had her friend Jack over to play for a few hours and because I managed to find the last of the strawberries for the season at the local produce stand. After searching two different grocery stores for some decent berries, I had given up finding any more. However, yesterday afternoon on my run I noticed that the Providence Produce stand had a few cartons left so we stopped by later to buy some nice juicy berries.

We had planned to eat at Chick fil A for dinner, but when we arrived at 6:06 pm we found a sign saying that they closed at 6 pm for the holiday. This wasn't going to ruin our happy day so we headed straight over to Ben and Jerry's for some ice cream sundaes for dinner! YUM-O. The Weight Watchers diet will have to wait.

Now that sounds like a great day, right?! Well, here's possibly the best part ~ we got Savannah to eat some CORN!!!!!! I about fell out in the floor, but she kept requesting corn and so we heated up a small ear of corn and she ate it! She wanted to take a "big bite" so I would cut it off the cob and gently place it back on top so she could "bite" it off! Oh, happy day!

HELP!!!!

Right now NOTHING seems to be going my way . . . I have so many unresolved issues that it is making me insane! The biggest problem is this stupid, and I mean stupid, computer. After another 4.5 hours on the phone with HP yesterday, our computer still doesn't work and worse than that is the fact that our Internet keeps jamming up so we have to restart it again and again. In addition the "expert" technician managed to erase ALL of my e-mails, inbox and important ones. So, if I haven't responded to your message it's because it was deleted by these HP morons. Our computer is under warranty for only about 15 more days and this is what we have to deal with ~ people who keep pushing the blame from one person to another and no one who wants to actually fix this machine. AAHH!!! They all say it's a conflict of software that suddenly happened after 11 months due to daily automatic updates. What?? Anyway, anyone who has any suggestions is welcome to comment.

Visit with Weningers

The two cute girls!

On Saturday Dave's sister, Susan, and her family came up to visit us. They weren't able to come to Savannah's party so decided to pick another weekend to come say Happy Birthday to Savannah. We had told Savannah that Alyssa was coming and she was SO excited when they arrived. We had lunch, Savannah napped while we played some games, then we all headed to Sports Connection for some bouncing and arcade games. Savannah was too scared to do the bouncing, but definitely enjoyed her first mini carousel ride! After the fun and games we headed to dinner. We were sad to see Brian, Susan, and Alyssa leave, but are excited that we'll see them again soon in Atlanta for a Clemson football game.

First carousel ride!