our day, in reverse!

why don't the pictures upload in order?! grrr.
so i guess we are showing you our day, in reverse. deal with it *smile*

SO! here is amelia in her new car seat! she was STOKED. she smiled & giggled & flapped her arms & legs the entire 5 minute car ride.

we laundered money by buying gift cards at giant eagle (a grocery store, for all you idahoans) & being part of their 'card club' gives us money off of gas. last week i filled up the tank for FREE! just for buying gift cards for things we already buy. does that make sense? anyway, we call it the gerbickian money laundering scheme. brilliant. ANYWAY.

amelia seems to have suddenly grown up this past week. it's amazing to see the differences. i think we're just more shocked than sad at this point. she is fully mobile on all fours, but you knew that already. she's pulling up on things & you knew that. but what you didn't know is that today she started to toddle around! you know, by grabbing ahold of something, like an ottoman or the water table (outside plastic sink-ish thing that i highly recommend getting for a preschooler & toddler). then she's putting a spoon in her mouth (with nothing on it, of course...but this is a purposeful move on her part). she's holding her own bottle if given the chance (meaning we flail our hands around & sing "you hold it, amelia, i can't hold it. then she looks at me very closely & puts her wee hands around the bottle). i won't go into any more detail, but the gist is: amelia is ready to grow up. "enough of this baby stuff"

slide! (notice the tongue sticking out; for concentration?)

me looking chipper (btw: i found this dress last night at ann taylor loft for $25! oh yea)

swing!

is this not a cute kid?!

sneeze!

& why is addy sneezing? well, our luck has ended. all 3 girls have come down with a cold. a nose-dripping, sore throat-burning, super-sneezing virus. UGH. amelia has it the worse by far. poor wee one, teething & sick. addy wouldn't give me a goodnight kiss tonight b/c of the kleenex stuffed up my nose (at least my nose isn't dripping all over the place, which was happening just prior to the kleenex nose plugs).

this is a memorial in a park down the street (where we took the 5 minute car ride to). it has a flag for each military person who is/has been from westerville. or at least that's how i understood it! anyway, i think there's around 2,000 flags flappin' around.

it was pretty impressive to see this, esp when you drive by it. so many flags. when we walked through them tonight, i started to get a bit weepy reading the messages on some of the cards attached to eat flag, naming the service man/woman who it represents. more than a dozen or so that i read were about those killed while in combat/deployed (some going back to WW1, but still!).

as some of you may know, i align myself more with the liberal view of things...but one thing i am very adamant about is supporting the military & soldiers. (not that liberals don't, but it seems that is the idea going around by some...*ahem* my brother, lol!). my view of the military just may have something to do with my brother, who was in the army special forces & deployed to iraq for 18 months! but i also think what these soldiers give up--possibly their life--is amazingly brave/heroic/awe-inspiring. sometimes i just stop during the day & think to myself that there is a war going on right now (two wars?) & here i am, doing my daily thing.

when my brother was deployed i was working some crappy call center job (during college, ya know?) & i had been sick on & off that summer so i took most of my sick days & vacation days (b/c i was sick with strep throat nearly constantly! ugh). so when i asked to have a non-paid day off to see my brother off to iraq, the wouldn't give it to me! i had to just call it off, risking getting fired (thankfully my supervisor really liked me & talked the higher-ups out of it). my point is that it seems a good majority of americans don't even think about the losses military folks go through. not just death, but the actual missing of a family member for so long. the anxiety that goes along with being in a war, then waiting for your loved one to call/write, then coming home...there's so much that non-military folks don't think about & if you've never known someone close to you who's been deployed, you may not understand. but we should!

i guess what i'm trying to say is that especially during a war time, shouldn't every day be memorial day? veterans day? do we have to be reminded?

amelia playing in the water table.

today wes & i were trying to put our mulch out & adeline was being very very naughty & spent nearly half of her life this morning in time out. i couldn't take it anymore, so off we went to babies r us to buy a water table. & her AND amelia are smitten with their new toy.

i also purchased them a bubble blower machine-thingy. very snazzy.

the two girlies getting along! playing with each other! amazing.

amelia followed me wherever i went in the yard. under the swing, through the dirt & grass. around dog poo. everywhere.

gazing at the fluttering bubbles. pure childhood joy.

is amelia floating away? :o)

& that is our smarty-pants trying to eat a bubble. her face said "gross" once she caught it.

& this is the first day for bathing suits this year. although, i couldn't find (until just 2 minutes ago) addy's from her first summer--meaning amelia's now-- so we squeezed millie into this 2 piece 0-3 month bathing suit. poor kid, i thought her head was going to pop off.

amelia found our basket of pine cones (from christmas! i know, i know, lazy) & she was ecstatic about this discovery & made a very big mess indeed. at least it forced us to do something about the basket of pine cones, eh?

& this was only one day! we have two more parties/bbq's to attend this weekend...should be fun!

& now wes & i are going to have a home brew under the hop hut (his version of heaven-on-earth, my version of being eaten alive my mosquitoes *smile*)