Well I really don't like posting without the pictures to go along, but I can't seem to get it all together lately! I still have more pictures from our trip to Montgomery 3 weeks ago. Since then, Sarah Katherine came and spent the night with us. Erin needed a sitter and it fell into my schedule beautifully (the only free weekend of the next 6!!!). We also went to Sarah Katherine's birthday party. I have pictures from that too, but you can go ahead and see them on Erin's blog. My brother is getting married in a few weeks and I have several weekends committed to teas, parties, wedding, etc. Daniley is going to be a flower girl and I am so excited. I was going to make her dress from my wedding dress but I chickened out, and since we had a backup, I didn't stress over it too much. We've got to practice throwing flowers (or actually, feathers!). I'm pretty certain she is going to make a huge mess of being a flower girl, but one thing is for sure, she'll be cute doing it. :-) I just hope she'll be quiet during the wedding so I can actually watch my brother get married. PS. Does anyone have any cry-stopping medicine???

My 30th birthday has come and gone. We celebrated with a short trip to Montgomery, the highlight of which was a trip to the zoo. Whoever told me about the Montgomery Zoo, thanks. It was everything you said it was. I liked it multitudes better than the Birmingham Zoo.
About being 30...unlike most of my friends I've had no dread about this new decade. I remember turning 20 like it was yesterday, but let's review how much my life has changed since then. Turning 20, I was in college, just starting at UAB. I didn't even know Dan. I lived at home with my Dad and brother. During the decade, I moved out on my own, graduated college, got married, graduated college again, bought and sold some land, bought some more land, bought a house, graduated college again (for the LAST time), and had a baby (who is now 2). Now that's some serious change! I know my thirties will bring more great things for me, hopefully including another baby and a paid-off mortgage, kids in school, sleepovers, and swim parties (at the pool we hope to install). I have big dreams and plan to continue working hard to reach them...check back in 10 years if you want to know how I did. ;-)
I definitely look forward to the great things in this next decade! :-)

We went to the Dr. today for a checkup. Turns out, Daniley has worms. Ok, just kidding, you ought to be able to look at her and know THAT isn't true. She has hit 3' tall which is 95% on the height chart. I hope she continues to be tall! I don't consider myself all that short but I wouldn't mind having a few inches to spread my fat out across. :-P She weighs 28 lb. 13 oz. which is 75%. And who cares about head circumference? LOL. I know plenty of people with big heads that are lacking on the smarts, Einstein! (But I think she was 60%.) Dr. Jolly said she is speaking like a 4 year old. I don't know if her speech is really THAT advanced, but it is definetely advanced. He was asking me if she could put two words together. I was like, "Doc, she'll tell you a whole paragraph in complete sentences with pronouns and adjectives included!" Before the visit was over, she confirmed it. She told the Dr. that his shoes were black, she couldn't jump up into the trees and clouds, and that she couldn't find Old Macdonald on her iPod. (When I helped her find it, she performed it for him. LOL.) As it sounds, we got a good report and she's as healthy as a horse. Yay Daniley!!! We are so blessed!!!

Fun times at Unc's house (thanks Brooke...I stole the pics from your FB page) :-)

Here are picture from the actual birthday (the day before the party).

The birthday has come and gone. Friday Daniley turned two. We went to the nursing home to visit with Aunt Katie, then went back home for a nap. After that we made cupcakes. Then that night Brooke and LeLe indepently showed up to visit so we ate the top off the cake (what's left over after you level it) and opened a few presents. Daniley LOVES hearing Happy Birthday sang to her. I don't think I've even seen her grin so big so long! Here are the pics.

The party was great. We saw lots of our little (and big) friends. We played outside about 45 minutes then it started pouring rain. The inside was set up for a party too, so we just mosied on in and had pizza and cake. Then we went up to the bar to party harder and open presents. Daniley got lots of fun toys and nearly everything has Dora on it. Everything she got was sooo cute and none of it was something we already had! I appreciate everyone coming out to celebrate with her. We hope you had a great time. I know Daniley did!!!

Tomorrow is the big day...
Daniley will be two years old. Signs of the terrible twos have already presented themselves. I don't think they are all that terrible, of course until those moments arrive and I feel like pulling out my hair or at least her's. Generally Daniley is just a whole lotta fun. She is smart. She can count (not just say numbers but count items) up to 10 (sometimes more) and sometimes in Spanish. She can identify any specific number if you call it out, and she can call it out if you point to it. She can sing her ABC's. She talks fluently. She can really say anything and answer any question you have. She remembers people's names and calls them by them. She frequently sings songs...today it was "Rain rain go away, come again another day" even though it was sunny outside. She knows tomorrow is her birthday and she thinks her party is tomorrow too. We're going to give her her presents from us on her birthday and not wait til the party. If you ask her how old she is going to be, she now says TWO. But we did have to retrain because SOMEBODY has been teaching her that she is going to be 21 and that's exactly what she'd tell us when we'd ask. I don't yet know what tomorrow brings for us. I want to do something fun and special and make the day all about her. I am thinking that there will be some macaroni and cheese involved. Maybe someone will call and invite us to lunch! :-) We'll be baking cupcakes Friday night. Hopefully things will go better than last year in that regard. Happy birthday Daniley...I LOVE YOU A WHOLE BUNCH!

Honey invited us over to play with James two weekends ago, I'm just getting around to posting the cute pics. Daniley is a real sweetheart...but she also likes to play...hard!

After our other dinner plans fell through Saturday night, we headed out for Habenero's where we celebrated Daniley's upcoming birthday! She will be 2 this coming Friday. I'm plenty sure I'll have plenty to say about that later...but for now, here's a cute video from our live musicians at Habenero's. Happy birthday little senorita! Mommy loves you!!!
Note: The poor kid is so used to saying CHEESE that when you point the camera at her, she says it til she sees the flash. If you can't understand her at the beginning, this is your hint. :-) Also, sorry for the quality. I had to compress it from 125MB ot 15MB.

Pictures from the weekend. Saturday was great. Sunday our patience was really tried!! First Daniley pulled a plate of eggs I cooked for breakfast onto the floor. A little later she knocked the trash can over and broke it. She suddenly (again) has her hands on EVERYTHING, can't leave anything alone. I get to the point of breakdown and I have to laugh or cry and usually I do laugh but that doesn't mean I don't really feel like crying! (Click on the pictures for a better view!)
At dinner, Habeneros! (Thanks again Rachel!)

Don't know what this was, don't even remember it happening. Got it on camera by accident but it defenetely made me laugh. So you enjoy it too! :-)

And you thought Wal-mart was busy....


LOVE this picture! I don't think an explanation is needed!

Can she read my mind or what? ;-)

This past weekend was a good one. I was happy to see the rain. We needed it badly. Daniley had a good time playing in it.


We went to Publix and took Daniley's buggy thanks to a good idea from Honey. She zipped and roared all over the place. I'm glad it was late and the store was almost empty. She did stop to talk to one particular customer. She just walked up to them and started carrying in a conversation like she was picking up where they left off in the car or something.



On a different note, most of the Publix pictures are BLURRY which I feel is all this stupid camera takes. It just cannot handle indoor lighting. I'm so sick sick SICK of it, I've been wanting to get rid of it for a year. Now my wish has come true. Honey gave me a spare Nikon she had and I can't wait to finish reading the manual and get it in use. This Sony camera is history. Wooohooo!

Well I'm getting requests to update the blog. My reply: "Would you like to hire me a secretary?" Just kidding Poppa. Anyway....we've been having our usual good times but I've been caught without a camera here recently. Daniley's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks so we are planning her second birthday party. Feel free to ask her what she wants for her birthday. She'll shout "Birthday Cake!!" and "Pizza" so I guess that's what we'll be having. She has also asked for money, birthday presents, green presents, 3 presents (2 from LeLe) and all those are direct quotes.

Right now Daniley's thing is singing, especially the Blackeyed Peas "Im'll Be." She could also sporadically burst into Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or her ABCs at any moment. I've also heard her singing parts of songs on Dora. She matches the words when she can. She plays the ABC song from the magnet on the refrigerator and can actually keep up with the tune, so I'm impressed. She's talking a lot, saying things like "I go doctor my boo-boo and I put a bandaid on it." Well I must say I might be biased but I think that's pretty darn tootin' good! She'll even admit to you, "I so crazy!" There's always something to laugh at!! Now here are some pictures to enjoy.
Watching TV with some of her best buds.

Feeding the ducks.

Just being herself.

Unfortunately I have no pictures, but I wanted to say thanks to Chad for inviting us to his birthday party. My camera died when I tried to take the first picture at the party. Daniley had a BLAST and thank you so much for the wonderful time! I hope you got everything you wanted, and then some! Happy Birthday!

Also, thanks to Austin and Aiden for inviting us to their swim party! Daniley had a great time there. It was very, very unfortunate that I didn't have a camera when Daniley streaked through the YMCA COMPLETELY naked. I was changing a nasty swim diaper when she decided to get up and run. By the time I secured the messy diaper and took out after her, she was already half way across the YMCA and made it completely to the other side before I was able to catch her. It was after hours so there weren't many people in there. Good thing, because the signs said "Use modesty at all times." LOL. Happy Birthday to Austin and Aiden!

So I found an older iPod at a yard sale this weekend. It didn't work, so I offered $2 for some slim chance I could get it working. It had a cool cord that allows you to plug it straight into the wall to charge it, and that will work with my new iPod so I thought it was worth $2 regardless. I had no luck fixing the iPod following the button mashing ceremonies I found online. However, I came across a post and down into it someone had written that he slammed his iPod against the wall and it started working again. I read on and person after person were replying they tried the HARD HIT and it worked for them too. So after thinking it was a joke I slammed my iPod twice into the side of a wooden chair...and....it fell apart. NO! Just kidding! LOL. It started working! And all the music on there is unbelievable. I'm still in disbelief and loving my new $2 20GB iPod. :-)

The past week has been nothing short of horrible. First, my grandfather AJ Austin passed away. This was the second and last of my grandfathers to die. I have been so blessed to make it into my late 20s with all 4 of my grandparents still alive. However, in the past 3 years both of my grandfathers have passed away. I still have both of my grandmothers and I know they will live a long time. :-)

We had a gas leak and all the gas (propane) leaked out of the tank. Not only did about $300 go up into the air, the line had to be replaced which Dan and his wonderful father took care of. But, I haven't had hot water or been able to cook in 9 days...and counting. The line has been repaired and we are supposed to get gas tomorrow. I've been ridiculously stressed out over the past week or two over these things and more. If I had a cigarette I most likely would have smoked it.

We did manage to make it to McWane Center last weekend. Here are some of my favorite pictures. Oh, how she loved all the buttons and knobs!





In this last one, how is it that she is only 1? She looks about 6! I guess that's your sneak preview. :-)

PS. When she borrows your chapstick, this will help you visualize....

www.photoshootusa.com

VOTE NOW!!!!!!!!!!

I have entered Daniley in ChickfilA’s Cutest Cow contest and she needs LOTS of votes! Can you pretty pretty please take just a second of your time and vote for her? If you have friends or co-workers that wouldn’t mind voting for Alabama’s cutest calf, please forward this on and ask them to vote too. If you have multiple email addresses, please use them all. She needs 300 votes to take over the winner!

Here’s how you do it:
Click on the link below. Fill in your name (or a fake name) and your (real) email address. They will confirm your intent to vote with a link back to the email address you supply. (This took several hours to get the email back.) Click the link in your email and your vote is tallied.
This is NOT a spam operation to collect email addresses. The point of the email is to try to make sure everyone just votes once. Please click the link now! 

Thanks for helping make my little cowgirl a star! I love her so much!

http://www.showusthecow.com/vote.php?id=652

I LOVE these pictures! I knew when I snapped them they were going to be perfect!

Hint: If you click "View All Images" above you can see all the pictures full size.

James Dexter stayed over Saturday night and boy did we have a blast. We went to my BFF Jamie's daughter's birthday party and just had the best time ever! You can pretty much see from the pictures what all we did. Daniley and James crashed out in the car for a 10 minute nap and once arriving home just took off all over again. They played chase and other secret games that only Aunt Danica knows about because she's the only one brave enough to take on the sleepover! We have to do this more...and don't worry James and Daniley, your secrets are safe with me!