Little Travelers

We have been quite the little travelers recently. Not meaning to, we planned two trips just a week and half apart from one another. The first trip was going to Chicago. Ricky went there for a business conference and we turned it into a family vacation. We stayed from a Sunday to a Sunday!! I needed a vacation from my vacation. Chicago is one of those trips that you want to see a lot and do a lot. Go, go go! The first 3 days Amber and I were on our own to explore the city while Ricky was at his conference then the rest of the week we got to spend all day with him. I was looking forward to that because Amber really misses her daddy during the day. Just the other day when she woke up in the morning the first thing out of her mouth was, "is daddy at work?" I replied, yes. She then sighed and said, "again?" Broke my heart. Well I digress back to the windy city. We packed in the trip, the navy pier, the sears tower, the zoo, the aquarium, the children's museum, shopping, and eating out! It was tons of fun but not a very restful vacation. Then we came home stayed a week and half and then we were off to Florida. Tallahassee to be exact. Home to the Florida State Seminoles. We went to see a football game and to bask in the glory of all things FSU. That was a very restful vacation. The only thing we planned was the football game and the rest was just whichever the way wind took us. Which included seeing and walking around the entire FSU campus and LOTS of shopping in FSU stores. We all came away with FSU memorabilia. We weren't sure how Amber would do at a football game but she did awesome!! It happened to be a noon game and boy was it hot. So the second quarter she and I took a break and went walking around where the concessions were, which happened to be under the stadium seating so it was much cooler. But the rest of the time she was a trooper and every time the warchant was played she did the tomahawk chop!

Now that we are back from our trips our fall activities have started. Amber has started ballet and is loving it (mainly b/c of candy she gets at the end of each class) :) And I have started MOMS again and Amber is liking her class she goes to as well. Tomorrow I have planned to start doing some little "schooling" during the week on days that we don't have anything else planned. I've been wanting to do this and pinterest has great sites out there with plenty of resources. But we will be going through the alphabet learning bible verses. So tomorrow and the rest of the week its all about the letter A. So i have some crafts and different ways to learn the letter A to do during the week.

Well in a nutshell that's what's been going on lately!

Born to Camp

Every time I go camping I am never ready to come back to the real world. I just love camping! And I'm proud to say that my daughter loves it too! In fact this past weekend we went camping and driving back home she was crying saying she still wanted to camp. Girl after my own heart!

We went to Heber Springs for the weekend with family and had a great time! We went swimming in the lake, watched cardboard boat races, played games, rode bikes and we enjoyed taking little walks down to the river next to our campsite. Amber loved every minute and I think she could stay all day at the river throwing, building, and searching for rocks. There were only two downfalls. There was a burn ban so no campfires which meant no s'mores. :( The other downfall was it was really hot!! We are used to the Smoky Mountains and it be cool however it was nice to have his parents RV because it has AC :)

 Some of the cardboard boats that were made to race. This is some serious cardboard!!

Goodbye Freestyle

My 2005 Ford Freestyle is no longer in the family. It was starting to show so major signs of repairs that we felt wouldn't be worth fixing and it would be better to get a "new to us" car. Did lots of looking and comparing and finally settled on a 2008 Honda Civic. I have had a civic in the past and loved it. So hopefully this car will be with us for a while. The rumor is Honda's never die :)

Let me just say I'm loving the tinted windows!!!

Learning Patience during PTT

What is PTT you ask? Potting Training Time!!

The last 4 weeks have been consumed with a lot of me asking the same question over and over. "Do you need to go tinkle?"

Amber is 2 and half almost 3. She will be 3 beginning of August. So it was time. I am glad I waited this long though because I think if we had started sooner I would have been very frustrated. The first week was sort of rough. Not gonna lie. On the third day of trying she begged to wear diapers again and honestly I wanted to just say, "Ok, it will be easier on all of us!" However, we all put our big girl panties on :) and persevered. And of course I'm glad we did. She has come a long way since that first week. Now we have had accidents here and there but I'm proud of my little girl and wowie are we saving money with out having to buy diapers all the time!!!