four month Annabelle

Cuddling with Mama at the exact moment I turned 4 months old.

Vital statistics: Last week I weighed 11lbs. 10 oz. I don't know my length but Mom says I'm "long", whatever that means.

What's up with my wardrobe: Thanks to the excessive heat I spent much of this month wearing nothing but my birthday suit and a diaper. When I am dressed I look like three million bucks.

Ain't nobody got time for a bow when it's 182* outside.

I enjoy/am mildly amused by: bath time, swimming in my pool, and having my belly kissed. I love to look at the pretty baby in the mirror. Mealtimes continue to be the delight of my life.

Milestones of my young life this month:
* I  met my great grandmother, two cousins and Aunt Stephanie.
* I can grab toys. I'm an expert rattle shaker.
* My hair is getting longer and thicker.

* I will always hold Mr. Lion near and dear to my heart, but there's a new man in my life. His name is Honeypot and I like eating his ears.

* Sometimes I can pull myself in a sitting position when laying on someones lap.
* I've upgraded from swimming in a pan to swimming in a pool and I love it.
* I'm starting to teeth.
* I saw my first fireworks. I was neither fazed nor overly impressed.
* I was told 4,792 times that under no circumstances whatsoever am I allowed to get any bigger.

from one royal to another

Dear Prince George,
   Thank you so much for the lovely card you sent inviting me to your first birthday party. I wish I could be there to celebrate with you. Unfortunately my private airplane (which I refuse to believe is really a swing) is at the mechanics. I'm having a new sound system installed and it won't be complete until next Thursday. I can't travel without my plane swing. I hope you understand. 
   Do you ever feel like always being the center of attention is almost more than one small person can bear? Sometimes all you can do is wear oversized bloomers, clutch your pearls and gaze off into the distance as you dream of a life where you can fuss just because you feel like it and no one comes running to sniff your bottom. 

I saw a picture of you talking a walk with your nanny, Maria Teresa. I too have a nanny/royal baby carrier/maid/chef/court jester/housekeeper. Her name is Mother Dearest Whom I Love with All My Heart. She's responsible for polishing my tiara every day. 

I'd like to invite you and your mother over for an afternoon snack. We'll pull out the best china for the moms and you can use one of my bottles. I don't often drink from a bottle, but I'll do anything for you, George dear,

Of all the princes in my life right now, you're my favorite. I'll set my crown for you any day.

Love,

Her Royal Highness Princess Annabelle of the Rock n Play, Duchess of all Lions and Elephants

bullet points are where it's at

• We had a rollicking weekend. I didn't get out of my pajamas until 12 on Saturday and even then I only upgraded to sweatpant-material capris. Annabelle didn't make it out of her pajamas until 2 o'clock and that was only because we were going out. We went to our favorite yogurt place and discovered they now have happy hour every day between 2 and 5. Guess where I'll be every afternoon from now on. We had pizza for supper and I didn't even bother getting a healthy vegetable for a side because:
  
   also:
  
  
• Annabelle decided to stay awake for 10 hours straight on Saturday. That's what I get for boasting about what a good sleeper she is. I'm not a violent person, but if anyone had so much as dared to make a noise by moving their little toe after I finally got her asleep at 11:22pm, things would have gotten mean.
• I'm sewing Annabelle a dress. You can expect it to be done sometime around September of 2016.
• I have been getting a number of unexplained bruises on my legs. I haven't talked to a doctor about them, just come up with 14 possible reasons for said bruises and given myself 30 days to live. 
  
• Sometimes when we put our hand put in front of her face Annabelle will high five it with her hand. I am so proud because I feel like that means I'm doing a great job. Then I think about the fact that she frequently has her middle finger sticking straight up and my pride gets knocked down about twelve notches.
• Over the course of our wild weekend we played 'Would You Rather Be?" Generally it takes Christopher .3 seconds to answer and he seldom second guesses himself. I gave myself gray hairs trying to decide if I'm rather be a closet or a bureau, a pumpkin or a squash, a barber or a locksmith, a tropical vacation or a mountain vacation. WHAT IF I ANSWER WRONG? What if I say I'd rather be a blanket than a pillow when I should have said the opposite? No need to tell me I'm off my rocker. I'm fully aware. (For the record, I'd rather be a rocking chair than a couch.) 

it's a miracle we made it back to Tennessee without turning around

Over the weekend Annabelle and I traveled to Georgia with Mom and Elizabeth for the wedding of Elizabeth's boyfriend's sister. 

The wedding was on top of a mountain and the temperature was no less than 140* with humidity at around 3,000%. I melted so much while helping decorate for the wedding that I'm only 1/3 the size I was when I got there. I'd be three times bigger if I had been offered the entire a piece of the groom's cake. 

Back at the hotel, Annabelle couldn't believe her good fortune when I let her lay on the king sized bed.

We visited a Civil War battlefield and Annabelle wanted to pose by the Ulysses S. Grant sign. Long live the north.

It's one of my main goals as a mother for Sesame to think of me as the Cool Mom. That's why I showed her 14 different ways one can have fun in a hotel room. Mom says this picture makes me look like Dolly Parton. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not.

"Train up your child in the way she should jump on a bed and when she is old she will call you the Cool Mom."
Proverbs 47:12 

Annabelle did her best to jump be like Dolly Parton Jr. but the carseat really cramped her style.

Aunt Squiddz got in on the action too. The following photo has been censored to keep this a family friendly website.

We look all smiley and happy here, but for about half the trip we were totally lost as we drove the back roads of Tennessee and Georgia and some people may have cried. 

I can't stress enough how IT WAS NOT MY FAULT WE WERE LOST. Mom has the worlds most subpar map app on her phone that she thinks is great. It is not. I pointed that out even before we left my driveway but Mom was insistent that it would be fine. She was insistent about when we were lost for 58 minutes bringing Elizabeth to the rehearsal and when we turned around 6 times trying to get to the wedding. The reasons I'm discussing this are purely to promote myself. I told her the app wouldn't work and it didn't. For once in my life I was not to blame for people wandering around lost on random roads. I do so enjoy being right. The weekend was good for my self-esteem. 

summertime and the living is hot,hot,hot

It has come to my attention (meaning I have decided) lately that most of my posts lately center around Annabelle and it's probably getting boring/redundant/annoying. However, unless I suddenly become First Lady and can write about spending my days with head honchos from around the world, I don't see much change on the horizon. My goal was to not turn into a mom blog yet here I am, discussing who's on Annabelle's diapers (Cookie Monster), how many hours she sleeps during the night (7-8), and the number of new bows she's gotten this month (zero) because that's what's going on. I don't know why I feel the need to apologize for this on my own blog but I do. 

MOVING ON.

Sesame and I have been living it up since the grandparents are here. Yesterday we went to the pool on post.I was much more excited about it than she was. She spent most of the time looking like this. Her life is so tough.

This rodent of unusual size was also enjoy the sunny day by the pool. A dad called his kids over to look at it but told them not to touch because it might have rabies. He then proceeded to pull a branch off the tree to feed the creature. So that was really safe.

Annabelle did not like her life jacket. It only lasted 1.12 minutes. I felt like there was a huge arrow pointing at me that said OVERPROTECTIVE PARENT OVER HERE so I took it off. It wasn't not like her toes were going to drown and they're the only part of her that made it into the water before the crying started. (I'm really not over protective. I'd just never forgive myself if she didn't wear it and something happened.) 

 

Fun bathing suit story. I had been boasting talking to Michelle about how I'm eating 3 times as much food lately but somehow I'm below my pre-pregnancy weight. Two hours later I put on the bathing suit I wore last year but it didn't fit right in the stomach area so I had to wear the maternity bathing suit I didn't even wear when I was pregnant. It was a humbling moment. I don't know why it even crossed my mind that I might have the slightest chance of looking as good as AB in a bathing suit.

a few photos from the fourth

Subtitled: One of these times I'll get around to posting close to the holiday

Sub subtitled: They're mostly pictures of Sesame

Miss America by day, Captain America Jr. by night.

Grampy, Grammy, and Auntie Elizabeth are visiting for the week.
Sesame's enjoying six extra arms to cart her around and do her bidding. 

I took her swimming in a cake pan.
She wanted to go in the deep end so I told her next week we'll break out the spaghetti pan.

Yesterday we went to see how the building of my new mansion is coming along.
Or maybe we went to the gardens at the Opryland Hotel. Hard to say.

Before the picture
Me: Don't forget to smile!
Him: I won't.
After the picture
Me: Did you smile? It doesn't look like you smiled!
Him: I did.
Me: Are you sure?
Him: Yep.

I'm so glad we had this conversation.

Me: ANNABELLE!!! Can you smile for mama?
Annabelle: best smile ever.

there is no title that would accurately describe the randomness contained here

The other day Annabelle and I went to pick up a few things at Publix. The following conversation took place between me and the boy bagging the groceries:
Him: Do you want me to push the carriage* out to the car for you?
Me:  No thank you, I'm fine. (I'm all for boys being gentlemen but I didn't have any spare cash for a tip.)
Him: Are you sure? I don't mind.
Me: Oh, we're good.
Him: It's not a problem.
Me: I can do it but thank you anyway.

I then proceeded to crash the carriage straight into the neighboring cash register and almost run over people entering through the exit door. Just call me Grace. 

* Carriage/cart/buggy. Toemayto, toemato.

To add to the awkward experiences I've lived through lately, when the pastor at church said to me "I'll tell Chris too", I stared at him for 48 minutes trying to figure out who this Chris person was. Don't mind me. I'm just the person who doesn't recognize her husband's name when she hears it.

So that's been life around here. In other words, it's business as usual.

*

I am so excited about Annabelle's first 4th of July. Fourth of July is right up there with Christmas when it comes to my favorite holidays. We made an American flag with her footprint. Feel free to send us a Pinterest Parents of the Year Award.  

To round out this hodge podge post, and because I'm procrastinating about cleaning the bathroom, I present the following photo. This is the face of someone who slept from 9:30pm-6:30am, partied for an hour then went back to sleep until 10:30.

This is how I felt about Sesame's sleep accomplishments:

HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE!