I'll briefly say...Happy Birthday Katie; SK and Mia, we had a blast hanging out at AL Adventure with you; Little Darlin' you are the cutest thing that's ever lived....blog readers, I'll get caught up soon. Until then, I know the family is anxious to see the dance pictures, so we're breaking in line. :-)

I picked her up from Mom's, and mom dressed her in hopes of no meltdowns (we don't do so well with tight clothes!). It wasn't too bad. This is her "I'm not so sure about this" look.We made it to the studio, and here we are outside, before going in and seeing all the other little ballerinas running around.
Now we've made it inside. The excitement is growing!
Lacing up....
So tired of waiting (it's been all of 10 minutes)
We made it in....
I watched outside on the screens as she danced and twirled. She did pretty well...and no one cried....and it wasn't her who peed in her pants...so it was a GREAT day. I was so excited about dance class Thursday I could barely focus on my work. Here we are all finished up.


I love this kid more than I ever knew was possible. Even though sometimes I think I might strangle her. LOL.

Sisters. That's who we are. After the baby tea we had a little scenario that left us all three rolling in the floor. I'd write it here...but you just wouldn't understand. ;-)

WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!
Daniley can write her name all by herself. You don't even have to tell her the letters. She writes them in order (First the D, then the A....) but they don't always "appear" in order, because if she runs out of room on the chalkboard she just puts the next letter wherever it will fit. LOL.
Might I add (to mom's who may be interested!), MMs are GREAT learning tools. First she used them to learn her colors (when she got the color right, she ate the MM). Then she used them to count. Group. Patterns. And....if you use them as bribes they can even help teach them to use the potty, and even write. I'm not admitting to any bribes, I just sayin'..........

Wow! It's been an eventful weekend. Saturday after yard sales I came home and was going about my business when Dan's cell phone rang. He had been cutting grass and was laying down resting. I saw him stand up and get a sense of urgency about him. I saw his eyes well up and initially my mind went to one of our parents, and perhaps they were calling him to sheild me. Then he hung up and told me, GPaw had a heart attack. We didn't know anything at that point. Was he going to be the same GPaw we used to know? Was there going to be a GPaw at all? Dan went to the hospital while I stayed home with the girls. It wasn't too long until he called me and told me he was ok. I went with that, until he called me back and said GPaw was shocked five times while they were putting a stint or two in. He had 100% blockage in one of his main arteries.
So, what went right? GPaw's decision to go to the hospital at the onset of chest pain and sweating ultimately saved his life. After breakfast he told Honey "I've never felt like this before" so off they rushed. If they had waited any longer, we'd be at the funeral home right now. It's crossed all our minds....Honey and GPaw are new to Alabaster. If they had been in the Grove, would they have made it in time? Would the ambulance they would have called responded fast enough? Could this be an unforcasted blessing of being forced to move? To these questions we may never have answers.
Gpaw's prognosis is good. It's just been reported he has little to no damage to his heart. His arteries are pumping blood like they haven't in years. Every time you lose a loved one you always say "If I could just_________ one more time." Well I'm getting my one more time. We all are. I'm not ready to give up ANY of my parents. Praise God for a happy ending!!!!!!!!

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I'D DO WITHOUT MAWMAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(please note LeLe and Honey are the bomb too...whoop whoop!!!)

Here are some excerpts from an email I got today from Brooke. Enjoy!

...she [Daniley] walked in the door and handed me her switch and said, "Brookie, here's my switch, let's try not to use it." LOL!!! Danson and I both died laughing. Then while I was cooking supper she had to bake a cake. So I let her sit in the floor with a bowl of water and a whisk. She added salt, pepper, flour, and sugar to it. I looked down and she was licking the whisk! I asked her if it tasted good and she said, "It tastes like a cake." We ended the night with a bubble bath...We took her back to Mawmaw's butt naked [because they didn't have any clean clothes] and you should have seen the look on Mawmaw's face when she came barreling through the door with only shoes on. She told Danson on the way there to put her dress on so nobody would see her boobs. He said you're too little to have boobs.... [We'll just stop the email here. Her reply was outragous.]

When we got back to Mawmaw's she asked if she could watch Sleeping Beauty and Mawmaw told her, "Not right now because you have company." Daniley walked over to me and said, Brookie I think it's time for you and Unc to go home.

[LOL]

It seemed I wasn't that far behind blogging, but when I looked through my photos I realized I really was. We've been trying to do a recreational activity every day after work, and of course that just multiplies on the weekends. It's a non-stop fun house around here. You can interpret that however you wish. :-)

On the way to Alabama Adventure with the Morris family. That's Daniley asleep in the back. Would you like to see a close up of that? LOL.
Will add a slide show later. Come back for more!

We went to Mrs. Ruby's to swim and Dan still had the wagon hooked up from taking the lawn mower and cutting the right of way on the driveway. (He is HOT when he cuts grass. I love a man taking care of business!) So anyway, since it was hooked up we just threw Daniley in it and went on our way.
Little Darlin' took her first real swim. She liked it...a lot! She was so relaxed, she just laid there relaxing for the longest time.

Here we are swimming last Sunday afternoon with Jill and her gang. The girls have a lot of fun together. They are so sweet. The gave Daniley two little mermaid dolls that she hasn't put down since. One came named Blueberry. The other one got named Bakery. :-)Little Darlin' was there too. I don't go too many places without her. :-)

We picked up the I and L. We've made it to the E (not shown). When we get the Y, we'll have DANILEY. I'm trying to reach this goal before her third birthday at the end of the month. She's really a smart girl. We're already looking at colleges. Bahahaha. That's a joke, people. But we are looking at private vs. public school. It's just two more years. :-(

Daniley uses this camera ALL THE TIME when I'm not looking. The stories she tells with her camera are pretty funny, because Dan and I usually don't know she's capturing our every move. Can't you just see him here about to snatch that thing up and say "GIMME THAT CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!"

I would wear my panties EXACTLY like this if I didn't have to hear what Dan would say about it. If I was just a tad more gutsy I'd put the one on here where she pulled them up her crack. But I don't believe exposing my kid's buttcheeks on the internet is really all that smart.

Saturday night date night is usually accompanied by, or controlled by, our kids ....here we are at Pizza Hut. Daniley got her a little kiss.
Followed by the Merry Go Round at the Galleria. I saw her lick that pole. Good thing I'm not a germ-a-phobe. Hahaha.

Just found these on my camera card. I see exactly the story that was going through Dan's head when he took these pictures.
See deer.
See cat and dog not bothered by deer.

See dog looking at pretty deer.
See cat chilling by deer.
See why deer eats garden.

What have we been doing lately? SWIMMING. A lot. At Alabama Adventure, at Ruby's, at the Alabaster Rec Club, and points in between. Here is a video where I got a wild hair and decided to see what happened when we took Daniley's "floaty" swimsuit off and threw her in. Yes, I know, we're skinny dipping in Ruby's pool while they were out of town. I didn't do it on purpose, but I wanted to see if she could swim and the floaties are built into her other swimsuit, so when we lost that, we had nothing. The only way you will ever learn to swim, as I've told Crystal R. Burkle Lovelady many times, is to get your feet off the bottom. So, we gave it a shot. I was shocked how well she did, since she's only been ALIVE for two summers. Dan stood on the sloped part of the pool, so one step too many, and it's sink or swim. Do I think she would drown if she fell in the pool? Absolutely. Do I think that could change by summers' end? Absolutely!!

Life....as seen from the backseat.

Daniley LOVES taking pictures with my camera. And she's fairly accurate capturing her target. So the other day, I gave it to her to hush her up a little on the ride home after work and Mawmaw's Daily Adventures. When I got home, the story she told through the lens made me smile, so I wanted to share it with you.

The only thing more fun than being a two year old....is having one!

Wednesday I took Daniley to Alabama Adventure. We had the BEST time!!! First we went to lunch, then stopped by McCallisters for cookies, then got in the water park about 11:30. We played in the water park area until about 4pm. Daniley played in the kids area the whole time (we never even saw the wave pool!). She did a decent sized water slide all by herself. (I went first to wait for her at the bottom.) She REALLY liked it. She didn't know about the rides until we left the water park and headed over the Magic City. First, carousel. Next, motorcycles. Then came Buzzsaw falls. That's equivalent to Splash Waterfalls if you're more familiar with Six Flags. Basically you go up high in a boat, and come crashing straight down and get all wet. I didn't tell Daniley anything about the ride. I didn't warn her. I just said "Crawl in the boat" and up we went. When we got ready to crash down, I didn't really know what to expect from her. To add a little drama I just said "Throw your hands up in the air!!!" and down we flew. She made it about 2/3 of the way with her hands still in the air, but she finally came to her senses and held on (of course I was holding only her the whole time.) When we got to the bottom, I looked at her. She looked at me. Then suddenly the reaction: "Bahahahahahahahahahaha. Mom LET'Z RIDE THAT AGIN!" Shew. LOL. I was soaked already and didn't want to be twice as wet, so we moved on. Next was the roller coaster. The roller coaster is about like the Mine Train. It is a short track (they take you around it 3 times) but it has some decent drops and plenty of jerks (again I held her the whole time). It was beating me up pretty bad but I was cushioning her so apparently she was ok. We had to ride that about TEN times. (Rolling my eyes!) Next was the bumper cars. She didn't too much care for those because she didn't like people driving into her. She didn't ask to ride that again. Next we did the airplanes. We rode those about 5 times. (There were no lines, so she could just stay on every time.) Then we did some little race cars and slow cars. Finally, the kids rides were over. It was only about 5:30 and we wanted to stay til closing. I thought about leaving but I thought we might just creep over to some of the bigger rides and see if she could get on. She was 1 inch tall enough. So......we got on a nameless ride. It was the one that goes around really fast and humps up and down. It plays music in it and I see the ride at most every fair. It is the one that slings you to the outside when you ride. It goes forward...then backwards. The place was jamming so I pressed my luck again and put her on it. Glad I did....it was probably the most fun 5 minutes of my entire life. I laughed absolutely until I cried and could not catch my breath. Daniley, instinctively now, had all hands in the air and was laughing so hard she couldn't speak. Just watching her, I nearly died. The only part I hated is that Dan wasn't there to see it for himself. It was hysterical. I tried to capture it on camera but the thing was moving so fast and I was being so smooshed that I couldn't really get the full detail in my lens. Needless to say, we had to ride that about 3 more times. Then she saw the Scrambler. Yes this is the adult scrambler. On she went. I wasn't so thrilled about having to ride it but I'll do most anything for my precious Sugar Booger. She wanted to ride it plenty more, but it started raining and they closed it down. Finally, we made it out and 30 seconds into the ride home, she was fast asleep (for no nap, she did VERY well). We didn't make it to the Ferris Wheel, but that's on our agenda for next time. There will be a next time very soon!

Yesterday we took Little Darlin' for her first swim. We didn't submerge her because I'm pretty sure the cold water would make her cry. But she kicked around and had a good time. Daniley is swimming like a fish (with floaties!). She was in the pool retreiving the squirt gun before we even had our shoes off.

Good friends make for good times!
And here is The Little Darlin'. She found her hands this day and just kept holding them up staring.

Last weekend we went to Anna's birthday party. She's such a little doll and I love it that she is so close to Daniley's age because I happen to love Anna's Momma to death so when they play, we play! :-)
I love some of these facial expressions on Daniley.

I don't know who is having more fun here. Daniley probably thinks its HER birthday.
And then finally, one of many things I love about Daniley, is that she knows how to have a good time. She can roll with the best of 'em. But when she gets her mind set on something, she doesn't care what the rest of the world is doing. She can play totally by herself. It took me an hour to get these dolls away from her.

Here we are riding down the road. No, this ain't at a stop. It was this way for 3 hours. He didn't even complain. Why? Well I'll just leave that undisclosed. Everything ain't for the blog. BAHAHAHAHA.

Last night I got two phone calls about Daniley's behavior at her first night at Bible School. As I was told, the theme for the crafts was CRAZY CRAFTS. When the children got in there, the teachers told them to act crazy and they demonstrated such behavior by shaking and wiggling. Daniley does not need any demonstration of how to act crazy. When she gets around Mawmaw, Pawpaw, and Unc (most of whom where standing in there) the kid puts on a show people in Vegas would pay to see. I have only seen it once and I wanted to crawl up the chimney I was so embarassed. It's almost like she has an out-of-body experience she gets so excited. So anyway, there they are, being ENCOURAGED to act crazy. Daniley stood there stiff, and informed them, "My mom told me not to be acting crazy!" I am so glad to know the kid is listening and I MIGHT be making an impact on her life. :-)

Last week was ChickFilA Day...dress like a cow, eat free Chicken! I participate in this every year. Now I have two calves. Danslen had a good time, but she's a little snobby about the way you hold her. Sugar Booger didn't have it just right, so the Little Darlin' was telling EVERYBODY about it. She's so cute, even when she's screaming. I have reached that euphoria that I had with Daniley, the one where you just keep sitting there staring at them, thinking how cute and perfect they are. I always knew I wanted kids but I never knew it would be this wonderful. I hope God continues to bless us, because we ARE blessed!

Daniley: "Mom, Do I have diarrhea?"
I was backing out of the garage. She was in her carseat. I thought PLEASE NO. She had it for about a week a few weeks ago.
Mom: "I don't know. Are you pooping in your pants?"
Daniley: "No. If I don't eat boogers, I won't get diarrhea?"
I don't know who might have told her one causes the other. I wanted to laugh, but this opportunity was too golden to miss.
Mom: "YES! If you eat boogers you'll get diarrhea again."
[The End. Nothing else said. No boogers eaten. LOL]

This has been one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. We didn't over plan. Usually I don't like hanging around the house too much, but this weekend we did some going and some resting (resting to me is NOT laying around or watching TV--it's usually playing in my craft room or organizing something) and it was wonderful. We went to see the fireworks in Alabaster and played and hung out and it was a lot of fun. The girls' second cousins from Louisiana (Honey's sisters' granddaughters) were in town and went with us. They are sure sweet girls; I hope mine take after them. ;-) Then Sunday we went to Honey and G-Paws for a little grill out where Daniley, Danslen, James, Eli, and Andi and Raeleigh and Mia all played and laughed all day long. Other than that, I took a bike ride by myself and dropped the bike in the Belk parking lot. SHOOT I screamed. LOL. How did that happen? Let me tell you, it's quite funny. I got off the bike and walked off. I didn't put the kickstand down. Oops. LOL. At least I can pick it up. I was really hoping the clutch didn't fall off because calling Dan was a call I did NOT want to make. :-) Maybe some swimming later and we'll call it a holiday weekend!!!!

Last weekend was Liberty Day and cousins James and Eli finally got to come!! Daniley and James actually opened the parade. They were Car Numero Uno. They were so cute. Mom walked beside them and threw candy. She reported Daniley couldn't drive straight for waving at everyone (it showed we had practiced, LOL), and James couldn't do anything except eat candy out of the bed of the gator. As soon he finished one piece he just turned around and helped himself to another. :-) I let them drive down Main Street and around the corner. Then I pulled them out so they could watch the rest of the parade. It was a FABULOUS day!! Lots of fun, those two kiddos!

This band had at least one fan.

Daniley is a very free spirited child. God gave her just the right mother, because I have the energy, patience, and sense of humor required to keep up with her. I just sit back and grin; I know there isn't another place I'd be rather than watching her in a moment like this.