2 Year Old Portrait Session

We went to Portrait Innovations on Thursday for a belated two-year old picture session. Michael took some great pictures for us in the summer, but I was itching to have some more pictures taken, so off we went. Sarah did a fabulous job and was able to follow some directions from the photographer, which made the session so much less stressful. Of course, we ended up buying more pictures than we need (because we needed NONE, and we got the "free" CD, so here are some of the pictures :-)

Riding in the Car, Riding in the Car...

...we love riding in the car! Well, not really, but we love going on fun trips! Jeremy, Sarah, and I took a mini vacation to Greenville for Labor Day weekend. We went up Saturday and took Sarah to her very first Furman football game. Jeremy's parents were in Hawaii on vacation so they let us have their game tickets. Sarah looked so cute and grown up in her little cheerleader outfit. She enjoyed sitting up in the stands...for about 30 minutes. At that point, I took her out where she could walk around, but she did not want to walk around. So we bought some food, and basically spent another 30 minutes carrying it around (carrying Sarah too) because otherwise she would scream. It had been my idea to leave the stroller in the car (because you can't take a stroller into a stadium, right?), but apparently that was a bad idea. You can in fact take strollers to the Furman stadium, and once we decided to walk back to the car to get it, Sarah was an angel. She also liked getting to take a detour by the lake to feed the ducks her hot dog bun :-) We hung around Greenville until Monday morning, and we visited the Greenville Zoo on our way out of town. Sarah loved the zoo--she was especially fascinated by the giraffes and all of the birds in their respective cages. Throughout the whole weekend, Sarah was slowly coming down with a cold, and she ran a low temp and got pretty congested, but we kept going and having fun anyway. By Tuesday, when we went back to school/work, she was pretty bad off with the congestion and coughing. I had to take her home from school only an hour after we got there because she kept coughing up junk on the floor--yuck! We went to the doctor and they said she "probably has the flu," although I am convinced that she did not have the flu but rather just the awful cold I had the week before. She was fine by Wednesday, which was good, because Thursday afternoon we headed to Saint Simons for a long beach weekend! Jeremy had to stay home because it turned out he couldn't miss work, but we went ahead with my parents, brother (+ Anna) and sister, aunt, uncle, and cousin (+ Shawn). We pretty much had fabulous weather and a GREAT view from our ocean front balcony. We splurged on the unit in our condo since the rates went way down after labor day. It was weird to take off work to go to the beach, but it was SO nice going in September. The condo place was practically deserted, we had no restaurant waits, and the beach was not at all crowded. We had so much fun just relaxing at the beach and the pool. Sarah LOVED the sand and the ocean but was very hesitant to let go of an adult's hand while standing at the edge of the water. She got better and better each day, though :-) She loved having her own personal baby pool to play in (I don't think we ever saw anyone else in that pool the whole time we were there!). Sarah was a trooper in the car on the way home, and I discovered that using the tray for her booster seat as a toy tray in the car was a FABULOUS idea! She also worked really hard during the trip on her potty training, and she stayed dry for both 6 hour trips! It did mean that we had to make LOTS of potty stops, though :-(

At home, we are continuing to work on the potty training. Sarah wore her "big girl pants" to school on Thursday and Friday. She did have 2 accidents late in the day on Thursday and one on Friday morning, so I'm not sure what we will do for school on Monday. I am trying to leave her in the underwear when we're at home, but I am still too chicken to put her in it when we go out "in public." She's really doing great, though :-) Work is going great and we had a fun field trip to the Fire Station on Friday. One little boy got really scared, I'm not even sure why, but all in all, it was a great field trip.

Leslie and I are counting down the weeks (days?) to our 1/2 marathon that's coming up on October 4th--yikes! Today was supposed to be our last "big" run, 12 miles. We had the grand idea to run from her house in Grayson to my house in Bethlehem, since we clocked it to be 11.7 miles. We started out running this morning, despite the awful weather forcast, and we kept going when it started sprinkling. We even kept going when it started solid raining. We went until our shoes were soaked and the thunder began to roll and the cars driving by were splashing us :-) At that point we decided to call Clint, Leslie's husband, to come bail us out. We ended up running about 5 miles, which was still a good run in the rain, I suppose :-) I'm really scared about the distance of the race, but I think we're both ready and it should be lots of fun!


Sunrise from our balcony


Playing with play dough in the car


Aunt Rebecca/Becca/Becky and Sarah


Fun in the pool


Chariots of Fire run on the beach


Do I have something on my face?


Running on the beach


Mommy and Sarah in the ocean


Cute little feet!


Playing in the sand


Sarah making a picture face


Coolest playground ever


Can I climb this tree, daddy?


Go Furman!


Hot dogs, yum! And what a pout!

It's About Time for an Update!

I guess we've been so busy with school and with life that I've "forgotten" to update the blog (ie. have not put it at the top of my priority list). Sorry! Sarah has been doing a super job lately of reading/reciting her favorite stories. Here are a couple of cute read-alouds plus a video of how entertaining the simplest things can be.

Let's Dance, Little Pookie!


The Very Hungry Caterpillar


Fun with Noises

The Things Kids Say

Here are Sarah's latest conversational skills:

1) Mommy:(putting Sarah in her bed at night) Good night, sweetie.
Sarah: I'm going to the store next weekend. (so random!)

2) Mommy: Do you want to watch Bambi when we get home?
Sarah: (gasps with excitement)
Mommy: You do want to watch it?
Sarah: I think that be a good idea!

3) Mommy: (watching Bambi with Sarah) Who's that? (pointing at Bambi's dad up on a hill)
Sarah: That's a Bambi daddy

My favorite one is the Bambi daddy because it reminds me of baby daddy ;-)

Sarah had her first real day back at school on Monday. She's now in the two year old room and is so grown up. Apparently I will be seeing her daily on the playground because her playground and the pre-k playground are next door and our outdoor times overlap---hmmmm. That may be interesting. Even more interesting is that the other teacher in my room has a daughter in the same class, so we will both be trying to avoid that side of the playground! Also, when Sarah moves to the older twos room her class will be right next to mine with lots of windows in between---eeeck! I think they're going to put up curtains, though- phew! I am loving working with the other pre-k teachers at Five Star, and our classroom is so cute--I can't wait for the kids to arrive on Monday to see what fun that brings!

INK! Museum

Sarah and I went on a girls' adventure today to the INK! Museum in Gainesville. It was SO MUCH FUN! Sarah could have played and played for hours...it was a cool, cool place. We will definitely be going back sometime. One thing that was so neat is that kids of all ages can have fun! Tomorrow, we are going to the pool and to bowling (that will be interesting--Sarah has never been bowling, obviously, and I don't think I've been since college). Friday, we are hoping to have a relaxing day at the house, and Saturday, it's off to Atlanta for the Georgia Aquarium with Mimi and PawPaw! We're doing a combo this week of chilling at home and visiting all the places on our "summer to do list" that we have not done yet. Next week will be a fun back-to-school adventure for both Sarah and me, so we may have a brief hiatus from the blogging world--we'll see!

Jeremy doesn't get the spotlight too much on here (sorry, sweetie), so here's his update: the final exam is tomorrow for the class he taught this summer. I can't believe how fast his first "real" job went by! I think he has to have all of his grades and everything in by Monday, so that's when he will officially be done with that class. He is going to be teaching 4 classes this fall: two at Georgia Gwinnett College and two at UGA, so he will be quite busy! So far he is really enjoying teaching, and we are hopeful that something great will fall into place in the next few months for January and beyond.

P.S. We met the new neighbors today. They do have a 2 year old little girl and a 1 year old boy. Yay for new friends! Sarah also loves their dog :-)

Party Like It's 1999!

What a busy weekend! Thursday night, I hosted a fun Southern Living Party and had tons of fun. Friday night, Jeremy and I dropped Sarah off at Nana's house and went downtown to my 10 year high school reunion--what a strange, fun night! It was really weird to see people you haven't seen or talked to in 10 years. I didn't really know what to say to anyone since I pretty much haven't kept up with anyone from high school, and as much as I tried to be outgoing, I was still fairly shy. Thank goodness Jeremy was there with me! It made me feel like I should have done a better job at keeping in touch with people on facebook! Awkwardness and all, it was a fun grown-up evening. Excuse me while I brag, but here is the list of things Jeremy and I won during the raffle drawings:
-4 tickets to the Georgia Aquarium
-Family Four pack bowling special
-4 discount rock-climbing tickets
-1 free personal training session (I think it may be in-home!)
-2 tickets to the High Museum of Art

We really scored big on the prizes! It definitely covered the cost of our evening and more! Saturday morning, I had to be up bright and early (4 am!) to go to my last class ever for LMU! Now that that's over, I now officially have my Ed.S degree in Educational Administration and Supervision. For now, I plan to stick with a traditional teaching job, though ;-) I'm looking forward to relaxing this week and enjoying every minute with Sarah before work starts back next week. Since Sarah will be at school with me, though, hopefully I won't feel as guilty about leaving her everyday. Pray that she doesn't flip out when she sees me at work and realizes that I am there all day but that I can't play with her! Today, we went up to Athens to swim at the Anderson's condo. Sarah, of course, wanted to hang out on the steps and do everything from "going under" (up to her mouth) and "floating" (attempting to lie on her back on the top step) "all by herself." On a side note, today I saw our new neighbors moving in across the street, and I have been spying a little bit. It looks like they have a little girl around Sarah's age and a little boy who is maybe one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Sarah will have some new playmates her age on our street and that mommy and daddy will have some new neighbor friends, too!

Photo Shoot

My cousin Michael took some pictures last week of our family at The Vines. He is a great photographer, even when the "subject" does not always want to cooperate :-)

Also, I forgot to put this cute story in the previous post: Last night, I was putting Sarah to bed, and as usual, I started helping her say her prayers. Usually she just repeats what I say (if even that). Last night, here's how the conversation went:

Me: Dear God
Sarah: Thank you for daddy.
Me: And...
Sarah: Thank you for Sarah.
Me: Amen
Sarah: Thank you for the presents.

It was really cute, and a bit funny when she thanked God (again) for her birthday presents :-) I guess she's beginning to understand how to pray by herself :-)