Guess Who's Walking?!?!

Just a week and a half shy of his first birthday, Baby Daniel is walking! Last night just before bed, we were all in Georgia's room playing and reading, when Daniel just took off. It was the funniest and cutest thing I think I've ever seen. He was holding on to her play kitchen, and just walked over to Georgia and gave her the biggest hug and laugh! Of course, we all went nuts, which just encouraged him even more. I have pictures of his first steps, but I will spare you, since I was in my nightgown! We took these tonight before bath time (which explains all the semi-naked children). He is so proud of himself...you can just tell! My life is about to get even crazier than it already is!

I love silhouettes. I have searched this area to try and find someone who does traditional, hand-cut silhouettes with no luck. I played around in Photoshop with a picture I took of Daniel. Here's the result. I thought I'd try and incorporate something like this for his first birthday party (maybe for stickers for favors, or thank you notes). Just thought I'd share and see what you thought??

Funny little children!!

Saturday mornings are the only mornings we get to sleep in (and I say "sleep in" very loosely). That is the only day Michael doesn't have to be at the radio station at the crack of dawn. This past Saturday morning, we heard a lot of giggling coming from Daniel's baby bed. This is what we found when we went to see what was going on.

Snow!

Big Train Table

Jack is OBSESSED with trains! He loves trains, train books, and toy trains. He lines things up that are not trains (like food, books, blocks) to be trains. He will ride his toy car, and say, "All aboard" before he rides off. He has a Big Book of Trains that he has worn the pages out already. He knows the difference between steam and diseal locomotives. Like I said, he is obsessed! That is why it is so sweet of my Dad to make Jack (and Daniel) a big train table, as Jack calls it. When I tell you my dad can do anything, he really can. He started making this train table in hopes that he could give it to them for Christmas, but as you can see from the pictures it is going to be quite elaborate. I think it will be done by his birthday in July. He had kept it a secret from Jack until about a month ago. Jack was so excited to see it. Every morning when we drop Georgia off at school, he asks, "We go to Papa's house to see my big train table?" My dad has made this thing from scratch! It is going to have about three levels of tracks, with tunnels and mountains. He has completed the framework and now is adding the tracks and molding the terrain from plaster and hand painting it all. I thought I'd share a few pictures of the work in progress. I promise to post pictures as soon as he has it complete. It will be a site to see!

On the Go!

Daniel has got crawling down to what could be an Olympic sport! He sure is fast and loves to explore. He is holding on to things and "walking" along furniture, but quickly drops to his knees when he has to let go to get somewhere. When you have three kids, you don't really encourage the walking like you did with your first. Once they are walking, they can get into A LOT more trouble!

He even picks up things along the way, like leaves, that go straight in his mouth!

Future Wal-Mart cashiers???

These two little guys like to play "store" with their cash registers (actually they are Georgie's, but Jack will tell you different...."mine!") It is so funny! Jack will set them up side by side on the coffee table. I have to buy things from Jack. Daniel just likes to push the buttons.

Tori and I would have KILLED for these when we were little! "Store" was one our favorite things to play. To let you in on how much we got into it, we would put cardboard boxes and stretch them from the kitchen island to the counter to make a counter. We drew an "x" on them to make the old school style scanners. We got a big calculator with printer ribbon from Granny one year for Christmas that served as our cash register, and then one of us would stand at the microwave and push buttons to make the "beeping" sound of the scanner. We would not always let items scan, so we could manually ring them up on the "cash register." We even ironed a Parisian bag one time so it would look new.....little did we know it would melt. Mom was happy about that one. I had to share these pics because it made me laugh thinking about us playing store!

Sweet Little D!

And finally, he said, "Enough, already!"

A Romp in a Field

So here is the kind of thing I do. We are driving, killing time while Georgia is in her 45 minute gymnastics class. Daniel has fallen asleep, so I drive around so he can get a nap. We are riding down a country road, actually a dirt road, in Tallassee. Jack spots a tractor in an open air barn across a field. He wants to go see the tractor. He begs, he pleads, so we go. Michael gets so mad when I do this kind of thing. We walk over to see the tractor, and of course I use it as an opportunity to take some photographs of Jack. Later on down the dirt road we saw horses. So, of course we got out to see them as well. A little colt was in the field and came right up to us at the fence. He was very curious of us. I didn't take pictures with the horses. I am a little leery of horses, so I didn't want to be distracted with a camera. (These are pre-haircut photographs. He needed one REALLY bad, and got one a few days after these pics were taken.)

Georgia Anne Butler

As I mentioned in my earlier two posts, Georgia Anne turned six this month. She is such a joy and I am so blessed to be her Mommy! Looking back over the past six years, I get very emotional. It is funny as your child gets older, as you look back on them when they were a baby or small toddler, and see how much of their personality was already evident, you just might not have noticed it at the time. Georgie is really one of the most sweet hearted people I know. She never says anything mean about anyone. She sees the good in people and for that I am so grateful. Often times she will remind me when I am being negative about something or someone, that we need to be nice to everyone. I wish I were more like her. She always has a smile on her face, and one of my favorite things is seeing her come to the car everyday when I pick her up from school. She is so happy and smiling ear to ear and bounces down the sidewalk to the car. Everyday when I ask how he day was, she always says she had a good day, and often will say she had the best day ever. She loves her brothers, her family, loves to learn and most importantly loves God. She can say the sweetest prayers and I can not wait to see what the Lord has planned for her life! She can be a little spit-fire at times. She still is VERY sensitive and cries if you look at her wrong. She is also a very big ham, and LOVES to be the center of attention. She doesn't have a shy bone in her body and can carry on a conversation with just about anyone. She can also be somewhat bossy at times, especially to Jack. She is very much her own person and I LOVE her more than words can describe!

I thought it would be fun to share her birthday pictures. (You'll have to excuse the first ones....before the digital camera).

Her very first birthday (don't look at me....I hate this pic of me....I was drugged out of my mind). She came out without crying and as the delivery nurse said, "Girl, you're going to have your hands full with this one. She's looking around at everything!" Boy did she nail it!


Her first birthday! Wasn't she the cutest???

Second birthday: a puppet show party that had a farm animal theme.


Third birthday: a "pretend" slumber party (that explains the pajamas in the photo)

Fourth birthday: A tea party

Fifth Birthday: at Pump it Up!

Sixth Birthday!!!

Georgie's Birthday Party

You know your little girl is growing up when she wants to invite just a few close friends to do something rather than have the big birthday party. This year instead of having the usual big party, Georgie wanted to take a few friends to the movie (movie-ator as she calls it) and to dinner at the hibachi grille. We took four of her friends to see The Princess and the Frog, and then for dinner afterwards at Kabuki in Montgomery. The kids were soooo good and well behaved and I think they all really had a good time. It was fun to take them to Kabuki....the fire and knives are always fun, huh?

On a side note, I wasn't too impressed with the movie. I was so excited that Disney had gone back to hand drawn animation. The movie is set in New Orleans and has a voodoo theme that runs throughout the movie. At times, the "bad guy" character talks to the dead and what seems to be the devil. I would advise caution if you are planning on seeing this movie with children. It's a shame, because the rest of the movie emphasizes a lot of positive messages, like hard-work, friendship, loyalty and marriage. I felt really bad that I took the kids to this movie without researching the story-line. There were some scaring scenes. Anyway, thought I'd give you my take on the movie!

Brady, Taylor, Caleb, Georgia Anne and Kiley

They turned off the lights and turned on the disco ball and sang "Happy Birthday" to Georgia and brought her ice cream. She wasn't expecting it, so it was cute to see her when they did it.