Last Day of School

Well today is Kaylea's last day of school before the summer. I can't believe my little girl is growing up! When I dropped her off today I got all of the things she had worked on through the year it was really neat. Also I got her class picture! Notice Kaylea is posed with the boys and is a good 6 inches taller than the rest of her classmates! That's my girl!


Tonight she is going to sing at the Pre-K graduation and then tomorrow her class has a end of the year picnic. Then the summer begins! Kaylea starts swim lessons next week. She will go three times a week for a half hour each time and this year mommies and daddies don't get in the pool with them! (Biting my nails!)

Then she will have three weeks of camp at her current school this summer (just random weeks we picked). Week 1 will be themed Florida Plants and Animals. Week 2 is Camping week where they will camp out in their class, fish in their water table and go on a flashlight adventure! Week 3 is Dr. Seuss book week, and perhaps her favorite I expect as she loves reading and loves all her Dr. Seuss books.

And so the summer begins!

That's my brain!

Last night I bent down to kiss Kaylea's forehead as I was rocking her to sleep. She said, "Mommy, that's my brain! You just kissed my brain... cause my brain is in there!" Don't you know it my smart little one - Dr. Kay!

Too Slow!

Last night as I was rocking Kaylea to sleep and singing to her, I sang her "You've Got a Friend" by James Taylor. We have sung this many times and she knows the words to it. Well I got to the part that says, "You just call on my name and you know where ever I am... I'll come running (I added: just as fast as I can) to see you again". Well Kaylea quickly responded, "No you won't Mommy cause you are tooooo SLOW! Your not fast really fast fast, your slow and my room isn't big enough for you to run fast!" :-)

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, its Memorial Day and I have to work today... but only till 5pm so not too bad. This weekend was pretty jam packed for us. On Saturday night, Eric and I got to have a date! I surprised him with tickets to the Alicia Keys concert. I got fixed up and looked pretty darn cute I have to say! (See my picture above!) I didn't take my camera because it said no photography on the tickets, but when I got there everyone had their camera. Darn! Anyways, we were right by the stage in lower arena. Our seats were amazing and the concert was great too.... Jordan Sparks and Neo opened for her.

The next day bright and early, Eric's uncle Tommy, wife Samantha and her son Alex, and Eric's mom, dad and little sister Courtney came over. Tommy is building a deck for me in exchange for me building a website for his new Private Investigation Agency. But Tommy did have some help... cause Wes and Eric helped build it all day with him. THANK YOU ALL! Its awesome! We love it! And thanks for helping Wes!

So this is part to of Summer and Eric's Extreme Home Makeover! Rocks have been put in around the plants, the pool is now blue and it tested perfectly balanced, and the hot tub is fixed! Plus we added the deck and a hammock this weekend. (Can't see the hammock in the picture.)

Our next steps will be a barbeque pit/area, getting our grass green, pressure washing the pool area, rescreening some of the screens and thats all I can think of for now. By the end of the summer it will be ready to enjoy! LOL jk.... we are enjoying it now! :-)

Asleep Sitting Up!

This week Kaylea tried out a new all day daycare/preschool since Mimi and Gada were gone and couldn't watch her during the day. Well she isn't used to going to school all day long and playing so hard I guess. Every night I'd pick her up and we'd get dinner and she'd eat it at my work the last hour. Then on our way home from work or after we got home she would konk out asleep. Here I caught her on Thursday night. After we got home she fell asleep sitting up on the couch she was so tired. I couldn't resist taking her picture!

A New School & a New Back Yard

Yesterday and today I have been really nervous. Mom and Dad had to go out of town and so we had to find a daycare option for Kaylea for the week. We are letting her try out a new school and she will be there all day every day this week! Yesterday she cried when we left. Today, she grabbed the teacher's hand and ran off towards the playground not looking back and said, "Bye mom!" I guess I am more nervous than she is! Anywho, keep your prayers going for Kaylea this week and for mom and dad as well. They need it!

Now onto a new garden. In an attempt to keep my activity level I've decided to switch some of my chores with Eric and handle some of the outside duties. I'm rather proud of myself too! We bought a new lawnmower on our Home Depot card (no interest 12 months deal). Well it had sat in the van for two weeks as I was out of town, and Eric was working and hurt his side so he couldn't lift that week. So, this past week I got it out after work put it together, oiled it up and mowed our front and back lawn! (This reminds me of that Annie get your gun skit "I can do anything you can do better, I can do anything better than you!") Well I won't say I can do the lawn better than Eric, HOLY COW it takes a lot of muscle strength to mow Florida lawns. You Kentucky people don't know how easy you have it! In Florida our ground is all sand. ALL SAND. No dirt! So when you go to turn the lawn mower the wheels just spin holes in the sand! It was such a workout to mow the lawn that I actually had a vein pop out of my arm near my elbow whenever I flexed my muscle - after mowing! Crazy! I don't wanna be a body builder! Good news is after mowing I lost all the water weight I gained on the cruise! LOL

So seeing the results from the weight loss I decided to continue and not give up. I vaccuumed the pool and cleaned the filter twice and dug half a trench for a garden on Saturday. I was pooped. Utterly exhausted. So, Sunday, Eric helped me finish the gardening area.... he helped me dig the rest of the trench and we went to Home Depot to use our coupon before it expired and bought 2 Bottle Palm Trees, 2 Hibiscus Plants, 2 White Lilies and 1 elephant ear plant... and some little green plants as fillers to go in between. We also bought 15 bags of dark colored stones to lay on top. It was hard work just loading and unloading all this stuff! Thank God for Eric's help on Sunday! I wanted my father's day present to him to be this nice renovated backyard... but I gave up doing it on my own and had to recruit him to help LOL. It is hard work... (yes I know Eric you told me so!)

So we finally got all the plants planted and called it a day around 4:30pm. Pooped again. Tonight we have to even out the sand and put the stones out. Eric's uncle Tommy is going to help us build a deck, and I still need to get the pool area pressure washed, plant more plants, build a pathway to the deck, and get a hammock and more and more.... I'm totally renovating our backyard... cause this summer I actually want to use it! I will post new pictures to show our progress as we go!

PS - yes I know our grass is brown and dead... thats Florida for you! I called True Green Chemlawn out for a spray and a few waterings it should be back to normal. See in FL water is short so we can only water our lawns I think once a week - we aren't priveleged like Kentuckians with beautiful bluegrass. I'm praying it rains here...we had dark clouds this morning... but now its blue sky and sun. Rain please!

Mother's Day

Sorry I haven't posted in a while... been super busy catching up from vacation. So here is an update on what we did for Mother's Day. First we got up and got ready and headed to my mom's house to take "Mimi" to lunch at El Zarape Mexican restaurant. The mexican restaurant trip was part of my Mother's Day present from Eric and Kaylea and so I brought my mom along for the ride. Mother's Day was a great excuse for cheating on my diet! We had very yummy flan and Kaylea loved her fried ice cream as you can see in the picture!

After lunch we headed to Eric's mom's house to wish her a Happy Mother's Day and from there we al headed to eric's Uncle Tommy's house to plant a garden in honot of Eric's grandmother. Everyone brought a plant and/or seeds and I know Grandma was happy.

After planting the garden we hung out, ate dinner, and the kids swam. Look at this adorable couple pictured below! :-)

Sean-y, Courtney, and Kaylea
all enjoyed time in the swimming pool!

After dinner and after swimming Kaylea and everyone else ate some juicy watermelon (except me of course cause I don't like Watermelon).

It was a very Happy Mother's Day!

Back from the Bahamas

We are back and we have learned two things on this trip! The Bahamas are beautiful .... and never take a free (or close to free) offer for a cruise and not expect to pay something or go through a time share presentation! Luckily we got out of the presentation because our cruise had to board and they didn't have time to give us the presentation... not to mention we didn't know about it until after we had paid for the port fees etc.

Anyways, the cruise itself... well it wasn't Royal Carribean or Carnival, but Eric and I go with the flow so we still had fun. Its all what you make it. Many complained about the accomadations and the little boat and cheesy entertainment and bad food.... as for us... we were away from home for two days and that was good enough for us!

Kaylea had a blast and was so perfectly well behaved even we were in shock I think! I also think she was so excited to have her Daddy back after being in KY with out him, that she was extra sweet! She even had good table manners and was commented on many times by other cruisers as to how good and how cute she was. (Mommy is proud!)

The entertainment while cheesy ... still gave us a good laugh and so we enjoyed it. Kaylea loved the show, she loves music and dancing, and she couldn't keep the smile off her face! After the show they opened the floor for dancing so Kaylea boogied down and even danced with an older couple there. Then of course she had to dance with her daddy.

Each night we listened to the "Music under the stars". The girl who sang had a good voice, but a strong accent.... and she must have only known those certain songs because she definitely couldn't do requests and she sang the same songs the next night. But its ok because it put Kaylea peacefully to sleep each night.

Once we arrived in the Bahamas, we went on a shore excursion to Cable Beach Resort. It was absolutely the best part of the trip and so relaxing. They had a HUGE pool, a live band, and the most soft sandy beach I've ever been to. The water was so clear and blue. It was gorgeous! We both said we'd love to go stay there next time instead of going on a cruise! The other good thing is we got to eat at Cable Beach and their buffet was out of this world... we were so hungry because the food on board had been less than desirable, so when we got to that lunch buffet and it was so good, we filled up our plates! Yummy!

On the beach there were ladies selling purses and braiding hair, so we asked Kaylea if she wanted to get her hair braided and she did. She got to sit and pick out lots of pretty colored beads out of this big bag full of beads. I couldn't believe she sat so still! She won't sit still for 30 seconds for me to do her hair, but she sat still for 5-10 minutes for this Bahamian woman to do her hair! It looks really pretty.... Eric calls her our little Bo Derek LOL.

After cable beach we headed shopping downtown and went to the straw market. Kaylea had talked us into buying three things before we even left the first row of the straw market... so we didn't stay too long. She got a toy turtle handmade from coconuts and wood (that she already broke). She also got a toy flute that she won't stop playing, and a little straw purse handmade with a picture of Hello Kitty sewed in with straw and they sewed her name onto it so it says Kaylea on it!

Overall we had a great time... maybe not as good as other cruise liners.... and we probably won't take another promotional offer again, but we still had fun and had a chance to relaz together as a family. That said... we sure are happy to be home!

To see all of our pictures from the trip go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kayleasmom/Bahamas2008/photo#s5199088120988283218

A slideshow from our trip to KY

Kaylea's First Plane Ride

Kaylea took her first plane ride on Derby Day, May 3, 2008! She was very excited to go on her "adventure". On the plane ride to KY she was wonderful. No fussing except a little at the end she said her ears hurt. She enjoyed the plane and watched Alvin & the Chipmunks the whole way! We flew to Kentucky to visit with family and got a chance to see I think pretty much everyone. Wish we had more time and three generations of females traveling together is not always easy, but we made it through it and overall had a really great time. Here are some pictures from the plane!

Kaylea at take off!

Three generations on the same flight!

Alvin & the Chipmunks on DVD!