Brag on Dad Day!

One of my favorite things about being home right now (other than visiting with my precious family, of course), is getting to enjoy my Dad's beautiful yard! His favorite thing is to work in his yard and get it looking nice. He is constantly building patios, flower beds and also loves putting in fountains! He works his behind off all spring trying to get it ready for the summer. Here are a few pictures of his gorgeous yard!

Several of the patios and the pool area offer lots of shade which is perfect for us in the afternoon. Riley can play till he is pooped and Aubrey and I can watch him while sitting in the shade. I'm so proud of my dad and all of the hard work he puts into his yard! Just wanted to share!

10 Months

Our little angel turned 10 months old on Sunday! I remembered to take the pictures, but totally forgot to do a post! She is just the sweetest thing...but she is learning to throw a good fit when she doesn't get her way. I guess she may be a little fiesty like her mama!

At 10 months old, Aubrey, you....
- have 2 teeth (on the bottom) and are about to get a top one...any day now!
- still wear size 3 diapers and mostly 12 month clothes
- have amazing balance and pull up on anything and everything
- are starting to eat table food and LOVE bananas, dumplings, mandarin oranges, and mac and cheese
- know how to "play" some games with your brother, including hide and seek...it's so cute to watch you crawl to his hiding place and squeal when you see him
- can wave "bye" (although a little delayed) and will often repeat it
- say "mama" and "dada" all the time...not sure if it is meaningful or not, but I'd like to think so!
- are putting EVERYTHING in your mouth! I have to be better about watching you because just this week, I fished out of your mouth a piece of dog food, lint, and a quarter! I know...it could have been very BAD. - are starting to "walk" around with a little push toy that we are borrowing from a friend
- LOVE to play in the dishwasher and with Mimi's tupperware
- also enjoy standing at the dryer and helping me to fold clothes

- and you are STILL our precious little girl! I can't wait for your daddy to get home and cuddle with you. I hope and pray that it doesn't take too long for you to get used to him again. We read your recorded book that he made for you, almost every night so that his voice will always be familiar to you. We are so very thankful for you Aubrey!

Ready or Not!!

Oh my precious first born!! He is coming up with all kids of things these days! He keeps us laughing and sometimes almost brings me to tears with all of the sweet things he says. I want to keep track of all of it so I thought I'd list some of his latest ramblings here.
- My parents' dog is named Buddy and Riley completely adores him. Most of the day he is looking for Buddy, letting him go outside or making sure he has food to eat. Incidentally, "buddy" is also the term of endearment that I (and many others in our family) often use for Riley. We say things like, "Come here buddy" or "I love you buddy" or sometimes we even shorten it to "Can you give that to me, Bud?" I'm sure you can see what's coming. After being here a very short time, Riley's response to that has turned to, "I not Buddy, I Riley!" And he's pretty adament about it too. I've tried explaining it but it does no good!
- When I need for us to quit an activity so that we can do something else, I've found that Riley responds the best when I give him some kind of warning and a countdown. Usually I do the 5 minute and then the 1 minute countdown until we have to stop whatever it is we are doing. So now, anytime I tell Riley we are going to have to stop something or do something else, he responds with, "One more minute, mommy, one more minute." The kicker is that he'll try to say this over and over again and obviously doesn't get how long an actual minute really is!!
- I have been working with him on counting lately. And I've found that he does best when it's in the context of playing a game. He's not one to just sit down and count things with me...he wants to be active! So, we've starting playing lots of hide and seek. He LOVES this game...doesn't really "get" it yet, but loves it nonetheless! Anyway, so the other day he actually counted to 12 or 13 (I've only been working on 1-10) and later that night my mom wanted him to do it for my Dad. So Riley counted to 10 and then stopped. We wanted to see if he could keep going so we said..."what comes after 10?" And without missing a beat, he yelled out "REady or not, here I come!" We just died laughing!! Hopefully by the time he gets in to school, he will know what actually comes after 10!
- And here is the sweetest thing he's said lately. I found out the other day that he knows my name...and Edmond's. I wanted him to say them for my mom one day and after he told her his daddy's name, he said, "I miss my daddy, I love my daddy, He my superhero!" It was really the sweetest thing to hear as a mother! We all looked at each other with tears in our eyes. He sure does love his daddy and his return just cannot come soon enough!
Thank you all for the prayers and words of encouragment during this deployment. It really means alot!