Birthday Fun

Yesterday was my birthday. I am officially 27 years old. DUN DUN DUUUUNNNN. Birthdays aren't as exciting as they were during my childhood years, but they are still a little more special than other days in the year. They have always been fun and special days in my family, and they will continue to be for Eric, Audrey and I and any other children we may have. I love making things special and adding small touches that create sparks of joy. Yesterday presented a few of those moments for me! Eric cooked me breakfast, which was so nice. Then Audrey and I went with Katie and Brianna to Katie's parents house in Bellefountaine. We spent the afternoon getting our hair done. Katie's mom Beth has been a hair stylist (is that the correct term?) for many years and is simply amazing - they treated me to highlights and a beautiful cut. WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I love it! I adore getting my hair done, and it's been so long since I've been pampered like that. Thanks, Katie and Beth! Afterwards we all went to the opening night of the Logan County Fair (I think it's Logan... I sure hope so..). We walked, talked, and took it all in. Audrey liked the sheep, rabbits, and the pigs until one of them squeeled so loud it scared her. Geesh! The rabbits brought back my 4-H days... I used to show them at the Orange County Fair, which was fun to remember.

When we got home Eric had dinner waiting (he really is amazing). Sometimes on special occasions he writes me a letter (we used to write each other a lot years ago during our long distance dating days, and still do once in long awhile. It's just one of those things that is special to us.) and he had one of those waiting, too. I cried when I read it. I love my husband! All in all, a great day. I've been having a lot of those lately. :) Praise God for His blessings! He has given me so much to be thankful for.

Zoo be doo be doo

Audrey and I went to the zoo again last week - it was great! We went with our friends Abby & Nolan, and Katie & Brianna. We saw some different animals than last time...

The brown bear was peeking out of the trees...

*Shudder* bats...

Fluffy the massive Python...

Beko the baby elephant!
He is the main attraction at the zoo right now. So cute.

Audrey and Brianna checking out the gorilla:

Kinda hard to see him with the reflection,
but he was being quite a ham for the crowd.

This penguin kept swimming right in front of Audrey. She loved it!

Of course I didn't manage to get a picture of her looking like she loved it!

These guys were sleeping:

If you look closely, you will see a tiny orange tail next to the bigger monkey's long, grey one.
The mommy was nursing the new baby monkey!

Fun times at the zoo once again! I love walking around the zoo and I think Audrey does as well.

Exploring

Audrey and I found the Boyer Nature Reserve today on one of our walks. It's basically a trail that loops around a pond. Part of the trail is on a boardwalk which is just cool. I had to share! Please excuse the bad picture quality. I tried to clean them up a little, but there is really no saving pictures taken by my cell phone. (I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait to one day... some day... have a nice (nice) camera to take pictures of absolutely EVERYTHING with. I. just. can't. wait. Seriously.)

The pond isn't one of lovely clear blue water. But hey. It's still a pond.

Audrey had Cindy Loo Hoo hair today:

I really like the boardwalk:

The walk was SO fun, it tired her out. :)

Independence Day

Eric, Audrey and I went with our friends to Food, Fun & Fireworks at our church this past weekend. Every year on July 4th the church invites the community on to the property where there is lots for the kids to do, lots of food, and lots of people. There are usually huge bounce houses and obstacle courses, games, pony rides, a petting zoo, contests, food stands, live music from the church jazz band, etc. It is a great outreach opportunity and fun for all.

As you may remember from Audrey's zoo experience, she is not thrilled about goats and other barnyard animals. I don't know why she doesn't want anything to do with them. Maybe they smell. Maybe most of them aren't black like our dogs so she isn't sure about them. Either way, she has issues with them. I decided to try to get her to warm up to the petting zoo animals at FFF. After about half an hour of Eric, Jim and I holding her and encouraging her, she finally voluntarily reached out to pet one of them!

In case I haven't mentioned it: Audrey is walking! She prefers walking to crawling at this point and toddles along, tumbling frequently but getting right back up to continue on.
Here is Daddy helping her along:

Jill & Zac have the most adorable little Daschund puppy named Peanut, which they brought with them to FFF. Here she is hiding from these cute little girls who wouldn't leave her alone for at least half an hour:

Unfortunately, I didn't take tons of pictures that day.
I did get a few of us watching the fireworks. We don't look tired at all, do we?!

Audrey was such a trooper that night. She managed to stay awake until we got home around 11:30pm. (Now don't go thinking I make a habit of allowing my child to stay awake until all hours of the night... I know what you are thinking! Trust me. Audrey is in bed by 7:00pm or 7:30pm at the LATEST. She sleeps until 8 or 9am as well. We all need our rest, and Eric & I need some "us" time! :) ) All in all it was a great evening. May God continue to bless America, and may Americans lift their eyes and hearts to Him!

The New & Improved Meat Locker

Thanks to some gift cards, every last moment of our free time last week, and 99.9% of our patience, we now have a beautiful new Meat Locker (aka the downstairs family room... it's almost ALWAYS freezing cold down here)! Until last week, we squeezed two huge desks, the two of us, the two dogs and sometimes Audrey, and two computers that give off a lot of heat into an already hot, itty-bitty upstairs room. Not to mention, this room was directly next to Audrey's bed room, so naps and bedtime were always a challenge with trying to keep quiet while Eric was working or we were on the computers late into the night. Praise the Lord those trying times are behind us! The only problem still unsolved is how Audrey and I can stay quiet enough during Eric's work hours that his clients won't hear us hollering over the phone without a door to separate our new office from the rest of the house. Impossible, right? Yeah, my thoughts exactly! Ah well. One day we'll install a door that will separate the upper half of the house from the Meat Locker... until then, Audrey and I will try to stay upstairs as much as possible and resign ourselves to being unnaturally quiet. How can this new office be worth all of this, you ask? Look for yourself! Unfortunately I was so excited to do away with the old school wood paneling that I forgot to take "before" pictures. I do have one from when we first moved in though.

BEFORE:

Ewww, right?

(Drum roll.......)

AFTER:




It hardly looks like the same house, if you ask me. We love how it turned out!!! I keep telling Eric that my room rating has gone way up... for any of you that play The Sims you know what I mean. That little green bar that shows how your sim likes the room he or she is in... mine is completely full and bright green! HAHA. Instead of feeling cranky just because I can't stand the way the room looks, I want to be down here more because I like it. Sad that my mood is sometimes thus affected by my environment, I know. We haven't decided what curtains to put up yet, so we're leaving them off for now. The bushes covering the windows provide decent enough privacy that we can take a few days to decide what do to about curtains. I'm sure this is all incredibly exciting for you, blogger friends, but I'll end this for now. (Try to understand. The excitement can't last forever.) I'll be posting pics of 4th of July soon!

Baby Pool!

Among many other things in her life, Audrey LOVES the baby pool. She is very curious about water and must have her hands in it whenever possible, splashing it absolutely EVERYWHERE. I found this out by trying to water some plants out back. I filled up a pitcher of water in the kitchen sink while holding Audrey in one arm, balancing on my hip. She saw the water and it was all I could do to keep her from jumping straight into the sink so she could splash in the pitcher. In the end I couldn't hold her and the pitcher at the same time because she kept leaning over to splash in it, so I put them both on the floor and let Audrey make a big mess. It's not fun if there isn't a huge puddle on the floor and your clothes aren't soaked, am I right? :) She's shy of large amounts of water right now... i.e. pools, but loves the baby pool, as you can see.