Happy Birthday Aunt Coco!

These are some pictures that Corey took a few months ago of the kids at the fire station.  They're just too cute not to post.  

The weather has been so nice here (unseasonably of course) so we've been trying to take advantage. We've been taking more walks in the evening, and we've really been wanting to do some hiking. Since we've never hiked with Luke before I thought I ought to try it somewhere near home first. So after some other errands this morning we set out for the Yellow River Park, which is a lovely park about 20 minutes away that has paved and non-paved trails for walking, mountain biking and horse back riding. (Lucky for us the equestrian trails are separate...no horse poop for us!)
I put Lukers in the back pack and Laurel and I headed out to find leaves, acorns and Bambi. (No, not just deer, we were looking for Bambi himself) The trip started out interestingly enough because she had to potty right when we got there. (No bathrooms yet, but the cinder block frame of the bathroom-to-be taunted me) So I taught Laurel how to do the lady-potty-squat. I know you female campers out there know this one. I think the exact body position differs slightly from woman to woman, but once you learn how to do it you never forget. Unfortunately, the position wasn't right and Laurel ended up wetting the entire back of her pants. But as prepared as I always am...stop laughing everyone...I somehow had a pair of Nemo PJ pants in the car. This explains the odd outfit my daughter is wearing, she looked much more put together before I set her pants up as a potty-target. But, if her pants were the target, Laurel really hit the bulls-eye. There is something to be said about that, if you're going to pee on yourself you might as well do it right!

Don't stop after looking at these videos...there are more videos and pictures that are newly posted below.  (Sorry it's taken me a little while to post AGAIN)

Here is a personal message from Laurel to Uncle Skip...

This weekend was crazy.  We went to Alexis' wedding in Louisiana, having to drive 10 hours directly towards an oncoming hurricane.  Of course we had no intention of putting ourselves in danger.  The luxury of driving is that we just watched the weather and could have turned back at any time.  Plus the hurricane itself was making landfall about 300miles away, so we only had the outskirts of the storm to contend with.  In the end it didn't mean much for us, a little rain and a lot of wind.

The wedding was beautiful and the reception was fun.  Laurel couldn't wait to dance, that's all she's talked about for days.  She danced with me and Coco and Erik and Hallie and Abby and even by herself.  At one point she even joined a line dance, though I'm not sure she meant to.  I've attached some pictures and video, including a photo-slide show of the many faces of Abigail.  (I swear this is the same face in every picture!) 

  

This year for the very first time we braved the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain. I have seen the line of cars waiting to get into the park and had never wanted to do it. But this year, armed with a plan to go on Sunday to avoid SOME of the crowds, we headed out. We actually had a lot of fun. There was an unbelievable amount of vendors, and some of their crafts were amazing. We didn't buy much, but we could have. There was a kids corner with face painting, and hair sculpting and a Backyard Circus. Laurel enjoyed the show but didn't want to be in it. She also chose not to get her hair done or face painted, maybe next year. But she liked walking around and seeing all the kid-related vendors. She bought a little spider puppet and tried to scare people walking down the path with it.
Between the heat and the walking we were exhausted, so after that we went home and didn't do much. Laurel and Luke played together for a while, she had him cracking up. I caught some cute video and pictures of them playing. Of course, when she knew the camera was on she hammed it up a little too much which annoyed Luke. (As Laurel would say, he was frust-er-rated)
This was Laurel's third day in preschool and seems to be really liking it. I had only hoped that she wouldn't hate it, it never really dawned on me that she'd love to go. I couldn't be happier. Though it's somehow sad to see her happily hop out of the car every morning and walk away with someone who isn't me. But I'm proud of her, and I'm so glad she's having fun. She talks about her friends when she gets home, and tells me what she ate for snack. It was her snack day today and she was very proud and excited to bring in the muffins we made last night.  

(Picture and video coming soon...)

Today was the very first day of preschool.  The whole thing was a little disjointed since we didn't know the ins and outs of how this all worked.  But it seemed to go smoothly enough.  Laurel sensed from the beginning that this was different than orientation, and she was a little testy this morning.  By the time we pulled onto the street that the church is on she already started telling us she didn't want to go to school.  In the parking lot she started crying.  I picked her up at that point and used a big voice and told her to stop.  (This was dangerous on my part because it would either make her stop, or turn crying into bawling and wailing)  We lucked out because she stopped at that point.  I carried her in and down the stairs.  When we got to the classroom I put her down.  We walked in, hung up her bag and showed daddy the play kitchen.  Around that time her teacher asked her to go with her to look at something, and she did.  Then her teacher asked her if she wanted to sit and do a puzzle, again she agreed.  At that point daddy and mommy gave her a quick kiss and made a run for the door.  Apparently she never cried or anything.  There was a small issue with her not being able to climb onto the big potty...I guess that's my fault for not anticipating that.  I assumed a preschool would have the preschool sized potties to use.  Not so.  So we'll need to work on that.