More 4 Day Weekends!

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend. I love the long weekends. (even though most all of my days are the same no matter what day it is-ha!, we love when Scott has 4 days off :)

Friday we took off for Dixon, KY to visit with Scott's family. Both girls are obsessed with the cats at Goggy and Gi-gi's. Olivia would sit and stare at this cat (Fu-fu's mom, for those of you that know that story-haha!) forever. She would yell at it and it would meow back. I almost packed it up to come home with us, since it seemed a good option for a babysitter-ha!......


but, then I saw this picture, and that cat scares the bejesus out of me. YIKES! I do NOT like cats, and this just further supports why. Look at it, peering in the window, staring....watching...sneaky...yuck! haha!

Little Beatuy! :) She's so funny. She does't care what you put on her head. She will crawl around with a burpie on her head, Abby puts Santa hats on her all the time. She just laughs and goes along.

We came home from Dixon Saturday evening and spent Sunday getting the garden planted. We are so excited. They planted tomatoes, squash, zuchinni, peppers, carrots and green beans. I think that's everything. Abby loves checking on the garden everyday. Can't wait for everything to start growing so she can see it. Last year we couldn't keep her away from the tomoatoes, though. She would pick them when they were tiny and I'm not sure if we grew any to the point where we could eat them.

We also have a little orchard. Peach and apple trees for now, and the peach trees are really doing good.

Monday we grilled out and had our friend, Tim, over. I bought these little Cokes and Abby has been going crazy wanting one. Well, she has never had a Coke/soft drink before, so I told her that if she was REALLY good, she could have one at the cook-out. So, here is Abby with her FIRST Coke. (she has had sips of our drinks, I'm not THAT anal about what they eat-ha!, but never her own...she was beyond excited)

Of course, it ended up all over her and the floor so we compromised and she still got the can, but with a straw.

Some fun in the sun.

Tim helped Scott get our goal up and the following are Tim and Scott pretending to be teens, showing their dunking skills...ha!

Well, Scott attempting to show his dunking skills..haha!

And, our little baller. This child is seriously one heck of a little ball player. She usually won't even play with the tee, because she wants us to pitch to her. She has a mean swing and a killer arm.

She is also a dynamite little basketball player. If she stays so little and fast, we might have a little point guard on our hands. We always joke about how all the little boys are not going to like her, because she is going to be better than them at baseball, basketball, football, etc.

Pictures from this weekend...finally!

Mom has only called 10 times asking if I had pictures from this weekend up, yet! ha! So, without further a do, here they are! :)

My littlest angel with Papaw!
She's so sweet, it's unbelievable! She has everyone wrapped around her little finger!

In celebration of the recital, Abby requested another Big Bird cake from Nanny (some of you might remember the first). So, here we all stood, singing 'happy first recital to you!' haha! Yes, I am fully aware that we could all benefit from some therapy!

Loving her make-up and hair! :)

Preparing at intermission for her big tap number!

Go, Abby!...goodness, she was the cutest thing EVER!

With her friends, waiting to go on stage!

Ballet number. This was Abby's favorite and she REALLY turned it on for this one. It was hysterical. She did SO good!

She got a trpohy and certificate from the studio. And, she advances to the Begining Combo 2 class. She also got flowers and a balloon. She was so excited all day. Thanks, so much for coming to see her Nanny, Papaw, Gi-gi, Goggy, Aunt Sara and Uncle Jeff, and for helping make her day so special! :)

She did an amazing job. My little camcorder didn't do worth a crap because of the lights. We did get it on the good camcorder, so if anyone knows how to (easily) transfer it onto the computer, let me know!

Dress Rehearsal!

Last night was dress rehearsal for the BIG recital (that is today!:) I can't believe I was worried about her wanting to go up on stage or not....this child was in HEAVEN! When she got done with her second number, she asked, 'okay...when do I go on again!?' DIVA! haha! They all did SO good. It was hysterical and sweet and I can't wait for everyone to see her today. I fought tears the entire time. It was just so special to see here doing something that I had loved so much, and I can't believe how fast she is growing. You are one amazing 'tiny dancer,' Abigail!


Waiting with her 'butterfly friends from dance class' to take the stage for her first number.

I didn't know if Miss Sarah would stay on stage with them, or how she was going to work it, but she didn't, and they did SO good! Two dances for 3 yr. olds is quite a feat. I was truly so impressed with them. It was beyond darling!

Ready for her ballet number!

I am hoping we can get some of it on video to post on here. We will be 'those' parents with the video camera, the huge camera, the little video recorder, probably taking pics with the phone, etc. etc. hahaha! Oh well, she will only have 1 FIRST recital! :)

Sisters....the real story!

Well, I knew the days of never ending gushy love between Abby and Olivia would be dwindling. Olivia is crawling everywhere, she gets into everything, she takes things from Abby-haha!, she is standing and cruising on anything that stands still for longer than 10 sec. Don't get me wrong, they still adore one another, they still laugh and play all day, but....here is an example of what happens at least 30 times a day....


Olivia sees Abby sitting on the couch playing (or wherever/whatever she might be), and decides that she HAS to be in the middle of it....off she goes.......
Abby thinks it's cute and funny at first, she plays along, shows her some attention.....

the fun wears off, and Abby goes back to her business and no longer has a need for Olivia-ha!....

Olivia says, 'too bad!' and she goes in for the kill....in this case, she grabs one of Abby's burpies....

The end result: screaming, yelling and one (or both) of them crying. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Sisterhood! hahaha! Welcome to my life for the next 18 years!

***The other night I was in the bedroom, Scott was in the kitchen and the girls were in the living room. Abby had out a puzzle and I walk away for 1 sec. and I hear it begin. 'Mom, get her...my puzzle...No, Olivia....aaaaaahhhhhh!' Another second later Olivia starts wailing. We all run, I grab Olivia and we start the, 'Abby, she is a baby, you can not be rough with her...what happened?...you can't push her, blah blah blah.' All the while, Abby is trying to tell us that she didn't touch her, but Abby is mad, too and the scream from hell which Abby has recently picked up starts (seriously, if you aren't prepared for it, you would think someone was trying to remove her arm or something, it's THE most shrill, high pitch scream EVER!) So, we calm everyone down, 3min. later all is well. Well, the next morning Abby is in the recliner, Olivia crawls over, grabs for Abby's blanket, Abby pulls it away from her, Olivia throws herself down on her bottom, sticks out her lip and starts wailing again, just like the night before! She's not as innocent as she looks-ha! Here we had thought Abby had hurt her (of course, not on purpose but by pushing her away or something), but all along Olivia was just mad and had her feelings hurt. :( Little boogers.

Fishing Derby!

Saturday Abby entered her first fishing derby. The local Sportsmens Club was sponsoring one for kids, so we invited a couple of friends and headed out for a day of fishing!

Olivia watching the kiddos fish! :)

Not sure whose fish this was. It was so fun. Anytime one of them would catch one, they would all cheer and run to see the fish.

Checking out her gear.

Yay, Abby! She's so funny. She's not a bit apprehensive about touching them or anything. None of the kids were, actually. They loved it.

Waiting to count and 'weigh in' their fish!

After fishing they had food for everyone. While we were eating, we kept telling the kids, 'there are a lot of kids of here, you might not win but we did it to have fun, blah blah blah.' Well, what do you know, the first thing they call when they start awards is, '3rd place for the 0-3 age group...Abby Utley!' We all just laughed. She was SO excited. She caught 4 fish and an 8in bass! ha!

Hayden won 3rd in his age group, too. All the kids got a ribbon, and then they drew attendance awards and Abby and Carson had their name drawn for those and won some fishing lures.

Scott was so proud. I think it's awesome that Abby now has 2 medals hanging in her room...one for gymnastics and one with a big bass fish on it! :) That's my girl!

Thanks for coming out to meet us everyone, we had a great time!

Mother's Day!

A few years ago Mother's Day took on a whole new meaning. Don't get me wrong, I always enjoyed Mother's Day and wanted to make sure that my Mom, Grandma's, Sister, etc. knew how much I loved them and what wonderful Mother's I thought they were, but once I became a Mom, this Holiday quickly shot it's way into the Top 5 on my Holiday list!-ha!

I was blessed with the World's Best Mother. Hand's down, I know she is! (and many would agree with me:) My Mom has ALWAYS put her kids first, even though we now take a back seat to the Grandkids-ha!, that is the way it will always be with Mom...Family First. Her family is her life. Even as a bratty teenager, I recognized this. I figure that if I can be just half the Mom that my Mom is, then I will do a good job. She taught me that the most important thing in life is to recognize and be grateful for your blessings, take nothing and no time for granted, and to enjoy every minute with the ones you love. I vividly remember sitting in the rocker with Abby when she was just days old thinking, 'My goodness, once upon a time my Mom sat and did this with me, she took care of my every need just like this.' You don't realize how selfLESS Mother's are until you become one. Now that I have the girls, I totally get it. Now I know why my Mom cried at every recital, every awards banquet, every graduation and every thing else I did-ha!. Now I know why Mom would drop everything and come if I needed her (even if I was hours away at college). Now I know why Mom talked endlessly, bragging to anyone that would listen about her family and her kids and her grandkids. Now I know why she makes sure she misses nothing, why she will drive all the way here to keep my girls for the night and then turn around the next morning and drive through 2 states to watch another grandchild at a cheer competition. It all makes sense, because that's what Mom's and Grandma's do...that's what we WANT to do, that's what we LOVE to do. I always made fun of my Mom and my Sister for being so sappy and crying over EVERYTHING, and now I am the same way. It's like you pop out a kid and you know longer have any control over your tear ducts! :)

So, Thank You, Mom for everything. For loving me unconditionally, for teaching me the important things in life. I love you!

And, with that, I give you this ridiculous picture of me and Mom. This was NOT planned, by the way. We got to Mom and Dads, I got out of the car, Mom came running to get Abby and we both just stopped and started dying laughing. Yes! We were wearing the SAME outfit! hahaha!
And, I will keep the following brief (well, breif for me-ha!), because I don't want to bawl like a baby and because I think it's clear to anyone that knows me, that my girls are my LIFE! I didn't know it, but I was born to me a Mom. They are the BEST, most AMAZING things I have ever done, or will ever do. There is nothing better than being their Mom and if I accomplish nothing else in this lifetime, as long as they know they were loved by me, then I will die a happy woman, knowing that I did what I was put on this Earth to do. This is one of my favorite pictures of me and Abby. I remember looking at this picture and thinking, 'Wow, I am a MOM and this is just one of MANY talks we will have!'

Me and Olivia! :) I remember being pregnant with her and thinking, 'how on Earth will I ever love anyone as much as I love Abby?' I was so worried, and everyone told me that I had NOTHING to worry about. All the love, joy, happiness...it all just doubles, and of course, they were right. :) This little beauty brings so much to this family. She is as sweet as they come, funny as can be and laughs and smiles more than any baby I have ever known. She adores her big sister and always wants to be right in the middle of us, taking it all in and having fun. She has helped me to let go and forget about what I can't control. She has assured me that, 'yes, I am actually quite good at this Mommy thing,' ;) Her hugs melt my heart and the fact that she chooses Mommy over anything else makes my every day!

Me and Abigail! :) My Abby! Abby, it will be years before you understand the power of this statement, but 'Thank You for making me a Mommy!' It's the greatest gift in all of the world. Abby has always been the other side of me. She has taught me more about myself in 3 yrs, than I ever figured out on my own in the 25 yrs. before she was here, and that is because she is EXACTLY like me! ha! All of you Moms know what I mean, but it's like the instant they are born, you get it...THIS is what life and love is all about. She is truly my best friend. I could go on and on about both girls all day, but I will stop with telling them again, I Love You and Thank You!

The Greatest Blessings in all of the world! I will never know what I did to deserve them.

Thank You Scott, Abigail and Olivia for a fantastic Mother's Day! I guess I am pretty spoiled, though, because you all make every day amazing, and you show me how much you love me in all that you do. I could never thank God enough, I'm blessed beyond belief!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful Mothers in my life. I am quite certain that I have been blessed with knowing the greatest group of Mothers EVER! I love you all!

MOTHERS
Real Mothers don't eat quiche; They don't have time to make it.

Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils Are probably in the sandbox.

Real Mothers often have sticky floors, Filthy ovens and happy kids.

Real Mothers know that dried play dough Doesn't come out of carpets.

Real Mothers don't want to know what The vacuum just sucked up.

Real Mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?' And get their answer when a little Voice says, 'Because I love you best.'

Real Mothers know that a child's growth Is not measured by height or years or grade.... It is marked by the progression of Mommy to Mom to Mother...

The Images of Mother
4 YEARS OF AGE - My Mommy can do anything!
8 YEARS OF AGE - My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot!
12 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother doesn't really know quite everything.
14 YEARS OF AGE - Naturally, Mother doesn't know that, either.
16 YEARS OF AGE - Mother? She's hopelessly old-fashioned.
18 YEARS OF AGE - That old woman? She's way out of date!
25 YEARS OF AGE - Well, she might know a little bit about it!
35 YEARS OF AGE - Before we decide, let's get Mom's opinion.
45 YEARS OF AGE - Wonder what Mom would have thought about it?
65 YEARS OF AGE - Wish I could talk it over with Mom.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, Because that is the doorway to her heart, The place where love resides. The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, But true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she Shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

Last Day of School!

Last night was Abby's last day of school for this school year. She was SO excited. Her little friends that we hang out with all the time go to the program, too, and she just LOVES anything school related. (since she is 21, she told me the other day that she was going to be 21, NOT 4-ha!) Anyways, here is my big girl...gorgeous as ever!

The girls she is standing there with are her buddies. They call her Little Abby, even though they are all about the same age-ha!.

They will all be in school together. The one holding her hand will be in her class! Such sweet girls! :)

And.....GREATEST SURPRISE OF ALL!...Mrs. Taben arranged for a bus to drive them around and drop them off at the play-ground. Between the tu-tu and the bus ride, I am certain yesterday was the greatest day of Abby's life! :)

Stepping onto a bus...talk about a blast from your past...ha!

Of course, the play-ground is 100 times more fun when a bus takes you there!

And, they snuck away to make gifts for us for Mother's Day! So sweet! She was so proud of her flower. :) She kept telling me, 'I have a surprise for you!' She loved that she was able to keep it a secret, but you could tell it was killing her to not tell...ha!