Gettin' a trim

Daddy has been trying to get Reese in for a haircut for weeks now.
We're finally here!

A Musical Piece

New iPhone app + Reese's Voice = Great idea for the blog.

...still kinks to work out, but click here to listen to some audio of the Nugget recorded live from her crib on Monday evening.

Swingset...done!

This year, father's day was celebrated by having Daddy build the 1
million piece swingset in the newly landscaped backyard.

Poppy (a.k.a Daddy's Daddy) and Memaw (a.k.a Daddy's Mommy) came into
town and were integral pieces of the swingset-building team!

Twelve hours of manual labor spread out over two of the HOTTEST days
ever makes this feat that much more impressive...building a swingset,
big deal...building a swingset on the surface of the sun, EPIC
achievement!

So the "Daddy-built, Nugget-approved" swingset is done and we're
looking forward to it providing years of enjoyment for us.

You Know When...

...it gets real quiet...too quiet...
Well it dawned on me that Reese hadn't made a sound in the past few
minutes so I went to investigate.

Reese had wanted to feed the dog, but the new bag of dog food wasn't
open yet. Here is the Nugget taking it upon herself to rip open the
bag of dog food...piece by piece.

Bowling with Reese

Reese's first experience with the bowling alley was a success! Sure, the actual bowling part of the trip was secondary to:

1) Running all over the place
2) exploring the arcade
3) eating popcorn
4) running some more
5) drinking Sprite
6) running again
7) riding the mechanical gator by the front door
8) being chased by Mommy
9) being chased by Daddy
10) being chased by Grandma
11) being chased by Brit

...but Reese really had a great time and we had a great time watching her enjoy herself so much!

On a side note: Mommy is a good bowler but Daddy has the best form.

The Retired Horse Farm

This past weekend, while Grandma and Reese's cousin were visiting from South FLA, we took another trip over to the retired horse farm to feed carrots to...you guessed it, the retired horses.

We managed to get there just as the thermometer was topping out at 10,000 degrees. These poor horses thought that they were going to live out their remaining years on a beautiful pasture while being fed copious amounts of carrots. The beautiful pasture and carrot parts are true...but I'm sure nobody told the horses about the Hell-like temperatures in Alachua during the summer.

We hosed Reese down with some sunscreen and attempted to have her wear a hat (which didn't last long). The heat was soon overshadowed by the giddiness in Reese's body language as the horses made their way to the fence. The family-size bag of carrots that we picked up at Publix before arriving was soon nibbled away to nothing and we headed over to Conestogas in quaint downtown Alachua for some AC and lunch.

Here are a few photos from our day feeding the horses (and donkeys)...

Settin' up

We went to Toys 'R' Us yesterday to look into a new swing set for the
Nugget. While Mommy & Daddy were comparing, contrasting, and
conversing, Reese was unstacking "Reese-sized" chairs and setting them
up in rows behind us.

Fun with Markers

Reese gets into her art...good thing these are washable markets.

My only fear is when Reese gets ahold of a permanent Sharpie and
doesn't recognize the difference between it and the washable ones.

The expanding vocabulary...

We purchased volumes 3 and 4 of the "Baby Signing Time" videos for
Reese. She has watched Vol. 3 about 76 times already and has learned a
plethora of new words in sign language.

Reese can now sign; tree, grass, flower, new, day, night, sunny,
cloudy, again, leaf, stop, go, wait, bug, outside, stars, moon, wind,
rain, snow etc. etc. etc...

This is a photo of Reese signing "tree".

Supervisin'

The excavation portion of our backyard landscaping/hardscaping remodel
has begun this morning and Reese has been fascinated with the tractor
in our backyard.

We put a stool by the window so she can oversee the work being done.

Daddy (yelling from the other room): "Reese, what's going on now?"

Reese: "that boy is digging the dirt in our backyard"

Waiting

At the pediatricians office waiting to be seen. Reese had a temp of
103 last night and really kicked things up a notch by throwing up on
Daddy this morning.

Swim

Here's some footage of Reese's swim lesson today. The whole concept of ISR is to:

•To hold their breath underwater
•Swim with their head down
•Roll onto their back to float, rest, and breathe
•Roll back over to resume swimming until they reach the side of the pool, crawl out or be rescued by an adult.
•To perform these self-rescue skills first in a swim diaper, then while fully clothed.

Piece of Cake

Reese aced her ISR (Infant Swim Resource) test today!

Finals

Today was Reese's final exam for her ISR refresher course. She is so
amazingly calm in the water.

This portion of her test called for her to be fully dressed in winter
clothing. Even with pants, shoes and a jacket on, Reese swims, floats
and swims some more...she is sooo strong and we are sooo proud of our
Nugget.

In this photo, Kelly (Reese's ISR instructor) is placing Reese's
soaking wet hoodie over her face as she floats on her back. Reese
calmly pulls it off, drops it (so she doesn't get tangled in it),
rolls over and swims to the side.

Sorry if this sounds bragadocious, but she did so well and we are so
proud!

We'll have to post some videos from today's lesson.

Stay tuned...

Reese Sleeping

This was taken this morning before the Nugget started her day.