Fun times at the park!

Chloe Jo and I sure love to walk to the neighborhood park that is down the street. It gives me a little bit of much needed excercise and gives Chloe Jo a chance to play and be around other children.

While we are at the park we....
like to swing on the swingset,
play with this big ball,
slide down the slide,

try to walk up the slide until Momma comes to say no (because we only slide down the slide!),

and generally look adorable! We have been having such a great time this summer!

I call her Mullet-head

My sweet baby has a mullet.

And she wasn't born in the 80's.

She doesn't even know what the 80's are.

We are going to grace our local kids hair cut place with our presence.

Oh my! Oh my!

Randomness

-It has been really nice to be home and know that I'll be home for a while. Travelling really wears me out.

-Chloe Jo gave me lots and lots of kisses this morning without me asking for them. That is the best way to start off the morning!

-We are moving to The Carolina's in July. Does anyone know what the weather is like over there? I hate living in Tornado Alley (well, we are really not in it, but close enough!) and am hoping to get away from them. I think we will have to deal with the weather from hurricanes, but not the actual hurricanes.

-We were able to go swimming last night because there were only two other girls at the pool. I would have thought a Friday night would be packed, but no. One of the girls that was there was named Lisa, too and she is a couponer. We enjoyed getting to know one another.

-Russ and I were woken up this morning at 6:00 because our neighbor whose room is connected to ours didn't turn his alarm off before he left for the weekend. "North to Alaska" was blaring into our room and I think there was some Elvis song also. We went and slept in the living room for the rest of the morning.

-I have been reading Emma by Jane Austen from my book list and I only have around 30 pages left. I am going to miss her and Mr. Knightley when I finish it. I think I will get reacquainted with Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy next.

-I changed up my page a bit and I'm really happy with the results. I also added a "follow me" section. Please come out of the woodwork and follow me if you haven't. I'll try to stop by your blog if you have one and leave a comment.

-Chloe Jo is in the summer reading program at the Library. She is a regular little book worm! The reading program gave us a page that has what all we have to do on it. We mark off circles whenever we finish 1 hour or reading and then 1 activity. It has a list of the different activities we can do on the back. Anyway, she finished the first section and got a Fine Waiver Card and a coupon card for a ton of places here. We went around yesterday collecting freebies from the card. It was so fun and she ended up with a tons of little books, a free kids meal from Chick-fil-a and two cookies from our Library's cafe. I am in the adult summer reading program so maybe I'll win something in the drawings.

-I think that is it for now. Remember to follow me if you haven't! I love to know who is reading!

Back at home...again...for a while anyway...

I had the privilege of watching my adorable niece, Brianna, again this week. I have watched here three times while her Mommy goes back to work. Her Mommy, my sis, turned in her resignation so she will be a stay-at-home mom like me! YAY! Brianna is such a doll!

Seriously, how cute is she!?!?!? I don't know if she could be any sweeter or cuter! And to add to the fun of watching her, she is completely easy to take care of. She doesn't cry for hours like Chloe Jo did...er, does...and she is just so content. Well, she was like that until Chloe Jo gave her a runny nose/cough and then she was a little more high maintenance, but nothing like what I'm used to with my own!

Chloe Jo really loves Brianna now. She didn't know what to think of her at first, but she sure has warmed up to her. She loves to give her kisses and hugs and to pat her back. When Brianna would wake up from her nap she would cry to let us know to come get her. Chloe Jo would get up and look to make sure I was coming and run in Brianna's room and look at her through the slats in her crib. They are too cute together. Chloe Jo also tries to give her the pacifier. Although she really hits her in the head with it (gently) it is so cute to watch her try to take care of her.

Here are the adorable little girls and their little Cabbage Patch Dolls! The one Chloe Jo is holding is the newest member of our Cabbage Patch Kid family. Her name is Jeri Garnet which is a horrible name in my opinion (sorry to any of you who like it!). The funny thing is that I will look for months to find a CPK with a good name....or at least a tolerable name so this is so not the norm for me! She was one of the "Surprise" CPK's. She came wrapped up in a cabbage and I didn't know if she was a boy or a girl and didn't know the name until we got her out of the box. Chloe Jo picked her out so I'm okay with her name being Jeri. Anyway...that was not what this blog post was supposed to be about!

I drove down Saturday and stayed the night and Sunday and then watched Brianna on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Russ drove down Sunday morning to preach at the church my sis and bro-in-law attend and drove home Sunday evening. While he was there my sis decided she wanted to do an inpromptu photo session for us! Again, I'm usually a planner. If you remember back in November when we had family pictures done I stewed over what we would each wear and even did a post asking for opinions. Luckily, my sis and I had gone shopping Sunday and I just happened to buy the outfit I'm wearing and Chloe Jo borrowed the jacket from Brianna so I thought we coordinated pretty well. My sis did an excellent job and even photo shopped them for us. I'm excited to put these new family pictures up in our apartment!

I like this photo much better with the Old Time coloring than natural.

One of my faves.

This one kind of looks like a wedding picture to me. The Tree is apparently our officiant.

Another fave.

This is so Chloe Jo. She can't stand still for a second to have her picture taken and she has already found a big stick to carry around. Oh my.

So sweet.

Since my sis and bro-in-law read my blog, I have to tell a funny story even though the joke is totally on me! Chloe Jo is way to busy now days to have her picture taken much. She wants to play and run around all the time. We sat her down under neath a tree and I tried my hardest to get her to look at me and smile. This consisted of waving my arms around, making funny noises and finally jumping up and down several times. Unfortunately, the jumping up and down had a different affect and I pooted....loudly! There was no covering it up. It was me and it was loud and proud. Yikes! Chelley fell down on the ground because she was laughing so hard. I guess I lived up to the nickname Tootie!

I really love this one! The Old Time color is my favorite!

I'm glad to be home for a while. I think my sis and I are going to take a trip with our girls when she is finished working and before we move east. I'm really going to miss my family, but God is saying "how much do you love me" and I know we must give the correct answer!

Do you think she loves her stroller and babies?

I'm still thinking she needs her very own stroller. I may go see about getting her one tonight.

Fun in the Sun!

Chloe Jo and I like to go swimming in the mornings when there isn't anyone at the pool. She didn't like it at first, but now she loves it! I'm hoping to have a little water baby on my hands. I even dunked her under twice and she did great. She especially loves it when I take her out of her float and let her splash around. It is so fun swimming with her that I can hardly stand it!

Creepy McCreeperson or Just Being Friendly?

Last night I put Chloe Jo to bed and then went out onto my balcony to read for a while. My balcony overlooks a swimming pool and there were two guys sitting in pool chairs talking. When I came out one of them asked me if I wanted to go for a "late night swim" to which I responded that I would rather read. The guy then told me that I could put my book in a ziploc bag and swim while reading. They continued to talk to me and he asked me about myself...if I was married, had children, what I do for a living, etc. While I was talking to them I didn't really think much about it. I had seen this guy at the pool all week and knew that he had moved in with a friend because his wife is wanting a divorce and he has a son who is 19 months old. I was telling Russ about this guy (the friend was not near as Chatty McChatterson as this guy was) and what he was talking to me about and Russ said that he was hitting on me. And then I got to thinking. He hangs out at the pool a lot and talks to the girls that sunbathe. He was out there all day yesterday and went out today before 10:00 a.m. and is still there. One part of me thinks that there is no way he was hitting on me, but I haven't paid attention to that kind of stuff in 6 years so maybe I just don't know when it's happening. Then another part of me thinks he is creepy for skulking around the pool all day and talking to the ladies. But isn't that what guys do during the summer? The another "think the best of everyone" part of me thinks he is just lonely because he and his wife decided to get a divorce this week and he is just being friendly.

So my question is what do you guys think?

Is he Creepy McCreeperson who needs to stay away from the pool and my balcony or is he just lonely and trying to make friends? And did he really hit on me or am I just being crazy?

Exasperation

I am just a little exasperated with our hospital system here. About 4 months ago, I recieved a bill for over $1,000 for the birth of Chloe Jo. I thought I had paid everything and had no idea that I still owed money...not to mention the fact that Chloe Jo was 10 months old when I recieved this bill. Plus, there was a late notice in it that said if I didn't pay within the next 10 days they would send my bill to a bill collector. To say that I was mad would be an understatement. I am very good to pay my bills on time every time. I don't just set bills down and forget about them. With each hospital bill I recieved, I paid it that day so that I wouldn't have to worry about them. I let myself calm down before I called the billing department about that bill. I talked to a girl who explained that the last bill I had paid didn't go towards what the bill said because more things came through insurance between the time they sent the bill and I paid the bill (which was maybe a total of 3 or 4 days) and that was why it had a late notice. It made sense when she explained it even though it may not make sense the way I'm explaining it. I then asked why it had taken 10 months for this bill to be sent and she said that it was pending with the insurance company and they couldn't do anything about that. She also was very nice in insisting that I did owe the money and that the account was not wrong even though I thought it was. Well, low and behold, today I got a refund check in the mail. Don't get me wrong, I am super thankful that they sent me this refund check! But on the other hand...SERIOUSLY!?!?!? I called to make sure that I really owed what they said I owed, and not just with this last bill, but I also had called about the two bills before that to make sure they were correct because there were things on them that didn't look right. The refund wasn't for the whole $1000 and some odd dollars, but it was for over $700. I'm so exasperated with the hospital, but am also thankful that we got that money back. I wish I knew more about insurance so that I would have been able to say exactly why things didn't look right to me. Oh well, it will be nice to have this money to pay on our credit card.

She's a girl after my own heart!

Chloe Jo has decided that she really really really loves her Cabbage Patch Kid, Johanna Sylvia (Johanna has a hard "h" sound like the Duaggar girl). I can't even express in enough words how much this makes my heart smile. I loved my CPK's when I was little and still do. I am so happy to let Chloe Jo play with them and am thrilled that she loves her own so much. I am thinking about getting her a little stroller to push her dolly around in. I think she would like that.