favorite things

my dear shannon is on summer vacation and to all of us best friends, this means one thing...lots and lots of surveys via email. shannon loves surveys, quizzes, and just about anything that asks you questions about yourself - your likes, dislikes, places you have lived, how many countries you have traveled, hugs or kisses, chocolate or french fries, blonde boys you have kissed...you get the picture. well, in honor of shan and her summer of fun (and some of it better be had here my dear), i thought i would do a little tingle survey. so here it is...the tingles families favorite things...

addison

• swimming. by far her favorite activity of the summer. we swam three times on saturday. three. and each time was like the first. we went to wal-mart to buy a little three-ring pool just so we didn't have to go to our pool every time she was awake...we now can just go in the back yard. best $8 i have spent all year.


• red wagon. shug and pop got addison her very own wagon for her birthday. if we aren't in the pool, we are in the wagon. if we aren't in the wagon, we are in the pool.

whitney

• the south. i know it has its moments, but i love it. i love the southern drawl. i love that every southern woman has a deviled egg plate. i love that it is ok for there to be wine glasses and chicken wings all served outside on a plastic table. which takes me to point #2...


• i love a good meal with good friends and family. the fellowship and the conversations that flow over dinner are always so comforting and relaxing. i love it when you sit around the table with people you love just talking. it warms my soul.

terry

• sports. this week particularly fast-pitch softball. it has been on tv non-stop. if i have seen one game i have seen a million. is it ok that i am praying softball does not become one of addison's favorite future things?


• mountain dew. the man can drink a 2 liter in a day. sometimes more than a two liter in a day. it is insane.

in a nutshell

friday:

we shopped. we dropped. we ate. we played. we bathed. we prayed. we read. we slept.

saturday:

we giggled. we laid. we climbed. we cleaned. we ate. we smiled. we visited. we played. we napped. we woke. we watched. we planned. we painted. we watered. we showered. we dressed. we went. we ate (again). we crashed.

sunday:

we worshipped. we ate. we napped. and napped. and napped. we treated. we dreamed. we were. we realxed.

monday:

we celebrated. we hugged. we ran. we swam. we napped. we played.

and we loved...every minute of it.

saturday cartoons with daddy

little luke...in a basket

addi and her daddy

hangin' in the pack 'n play at the park

sweet brynn...i seriously love this girlie

ava jane and addi-bug...can't you just see 'em when their 75....

ava jane lookin' cute

splish splash...as usual

is it over yet???

tubes please!

do you see it? no not the smile. if you look closely, you can see one little tear taking its sweet time down addison's cheek. it is a tear that comes from a restless nap, too many to count these days, and a tired little girl (the smile is just a cover up to say "thank you mommy for coming to rescue me from my not-so-good-can't-sleep-ear-hurts nap"). naps are few and far between thanks to some fluid in her ears that just won't clear up. so, we went to the ent...and come june 2nd addison's ears will be made perfect (we pray) and naps will be restored (again, we pray)...all with the help a little thing called tubes.

sips 'n strokes

there is a new phenomenon sweeping through sweet home alabama called sips 'n strokes. basically it is this: a group of 30 or so people gather together with their beverage of choice (hence the sips) and a teacher instructs you on your way to painting the picture of the night. i have been dying to go so we piled up a group of girls, grabbed the wine and headed out for some fun.

kristin and chelsey getting ready to paint some yellow sky...

carrie was a little rebel of the night...she went for green hills (or butt cheeks as we liked to call them)

gabe, chelsey and kristen...my work girls

gabe concentrating on her roots

and voila...us girls and our funky trees!

and i just have to give a little shout out to my hubby for letting me have my THIRD girls night out this month...i needed them all...and they were fabulous!

big family

i talk so often about my own family, i sometimes forget to talk about terry's. i never forget to love them, i just forget to share their stories. i have never met anyone like the tingles before. they do not hide anything. the moment they meet you they open up their loves to you. you become family. instantly.

let me just tell you who belongs to this family: we have a preacher, a teacher, a pilot, a wedding planner, a sailor, a pharmacist, a physical therapist, a truck driver, an accountant, a nurse, a sales rep, an interior designer, a coach, a fire fighter, an artist, a few students...an alabama fan, an auburn fan, a georgia fan, a tennessee fan...not to mention a couple of girl scouts, an eagle scout, a dancer, a kindergartner, and what feels like a couple hundred toddlers running around.

so it's big. really big. but no matter how big, it is small enough to feel completely loved and completely cared for. even this weekend, terry's dad, uncle and aunt were willing (and did) drive an hour to come and help us with an electrical problem that bridges fixed with the push of a button right when they were pulling up in the driveway. they could have gotten discouraged, or even a little mad, but they didn't. like good southerners, they just came on inside, sat down, smiled and had a few laughs while catching up each others lives. just like family.

timid...or not

back in the lovely days of pregnancy (which i do not miss at all) i remember posing a question to terry: what is one particular trait you have that you wish addison would not? hmmmm. i am afraid i do not know terry's answer but i do know mine - timidness. i have prayed from day one that she would not be timid. looking back from elementary school, to high school and even in to college, certain people and certain things would bring about this strong unwavering doom of timidness that i could not shake. most of the time it was people. to this day there are people i wish i knew but i don't due to being too timid and afraid of what they might think of me. now i know there are other people laughing right now because they think i do not have one single, itty bitty, timid bone in my body. but i do. a big bone. maybe it is in my butt? ha. couldn't resist.

addison does not (at least right now) seem to have inherited my flaw. she is no where near timid...and she is 100% fearless. she splashes and dives head first into water any chance she gets. she is ok with banging her head on any wall as long as it gets her to her goal. she climbs wood slippery stairs in clean white slippery socks even though she has a 99% chance of sliding down only to hit her head...again. when henry has a toy and nibbles on her finger she laughs. when she gets her finger pricked and blood drawn for 5 minutes, she just sits and stares down the nurse. no, she did not inherit my sense of timidness. she got terry's fearlessness.

so now i pose the question to myself - if i could take it back and pray for another trait i wish she would not develop, would i? sometimes i want to say YES because this whole "non-timid" thing is quite tiresome...but the real answer is no. no i wouldn't. i love her tiny little sense of adventure. it reminds me everyday that she is her own person. she will have her own experiences, her own joys, her own cries, and probably her own fears. and in the meantime, i might as well get used to holding on tight. this is going to be a bumpy ride.

footies

last night after stuffing addison into her pj's, i realized it was time for new ones. i had put it off long enough and the thought of her toes curling in the bottom of the footies because there was no room for them just made my heart hurt. so after we put her down i headed up to the carter's store. i walk in and head straight for the rack with all the precious footed pajamas i had to gone to a million times before. only this time doom settled in. it couldn't be true, but it was. these precious, footed, oh-so-sweet pajamas only come in sizes up to 9 months. i look up and around and see the back wall - full of pajamas and i could almost hear it - du du duuuuun. i slowly begin to walk to the back with "the wall" coming into focus even more and more. there were no long sleeves. there were no one peice pj's. there were no zippers. and to my horror, there were no footies. but what was there were two peice, sleeveless, and dare i say footless pajamas for big girls. no footies, people, no footies!!! i know it sounds silly, but my eyes began to water and my heart was now heavy. it is something about those toes being kept warm and cuddly that made my baby still a baby. yes, she is still very much young, but we have opened the door to new milestones.

there hasn't been a day yet when i haven't loved the idea of her growing up and watching her come into her own. yesterday was different...yesterday was a first. yesterday i wanted time to stop...to stand still...to come to a halt. i have been more than ready for the baby food and solid food milestones, for the crawling and pulling up adventures...but this silly thing call footed pajamas just made me sad.

so addison, yesterday you turned 11 months old and it was on that day that i realized you are growing up so fast. you don't need sleeves to keep your arms warm like you used to and you don't need footies to make your feet cozy and comfy (even though i beg to differ). but you still need me. i will be your footies. i will keep you warm and secure, and comfy and cozy. and i will pray that you will soon believe in a big and good god that will keep you warm and secure, and comfy and cozy, way more than i ever could.