Angels & Bullies

So today Danny's grandma and mom came down from Wyoming and we made and canned applesauce. Yummy! We are going to love it during the next couple of years. Our applesauce looks even better than this picture. My mother-in-law is the best. She did most of the work, let me take a nap, AND did most of the clean up (dishes, sweeping, mopping!). It was a fun although intense project and there's no way I could have done it myself- ever pretty much.

Later today, I took Shayne to the park just to get her out and about. As we are playing on the playground set, a group of 9-10 year old looking kids come over and start hanging around the playground set. I hear one of the girls loudly whisper to her other friend the following:

"I see London, I see France,

I see a baby hanging out your underpants."

I slowly realized that she was laughing and pointing at my very pregnant self! OK- so her mocking song is not the most original or the most bright, but she hit a sensitive mark. Then this little twerp decided to again loudly whisper the same thing to each of her other friends and continue to laugh in delight at how clever she felt she was.

If I would have been my 10 year old self, I might have said something creative like "Shut up you bratface," but I am the adult here so I decided to say "I can hear you" hoping that might scare her enough to be quiet. Oh no, not a chance. So then I took the high, mature road and ignored them. This seemed to work and we continued on our way across the playground. I can't believe I was bullied by a 10 year old!

Chatterbox

The other day we had a conversation that went like this:

Me: Shayne, where's your other baba?

Shayne: Baba side A'i hum-hum.

Translation:

Me: Shayne, where's your other binkie?

Shayne: The binkie's outside where Ally (our dog) is eating it.

Funny girl!

18 Months Old

I love, love, love this girl. I've been having a hard day with her today, but then this picture came on my laptop wallpaper and I just thought how much I love her. This is one of my favorite pictures of her. I know the name of this blog is "The Gouldings" and not "Ode to Shayne" but I can't help myself. She is such a spunky, busy girl right now. And I love that she is this way even though it makes it tough to take her places. She is so interested in animals, babies, grasshoppers, bees (every bug is a bee right now), taking her shoes and socks off to find out what miniscule grain of sand is on her foot, trying different foods usually if I let her feed it to mom first, my pregnant belly, telling Ally to 'sit,' playing in the car, and riding on anything that goes (horses, motorcycles, 4 wheelers, bikes, in a wagon). She's a lot of work to keep track of, but she is sure fun!

Randomness

This is Shayne's "say cheese" face. You've got to love it!

This is her "show me your teeth" face.
For the 4th of July, we started the day by going to our neighborhood parade. It was actually really fun and Shayne loved the cops on their motorcycles. I thought she wouldn't like the noise but she wanted more of it. She also ruined her 4th of July shirt after about 20 minutes of wearing it due to all the candy she was eating at the parade! That afternoon we met my Henderson cousins and grandparents at Tucano's for lunch and then headed down to Stadium of Fire to see Carrie Underwood. She was awesome in concert and the show was super fun. Shayne was not into the fireworks in the least and so we watched them as we walked to our car from the stadium. So fun!
Shhhhhh. Don't tell anyone that Shayne may take a naked ride on her ladybug rocker every now and then.
Here's a 5 month very unpregnant-looking pregnant photo. 20 weeks to go and probably 20-25 pounds more to gain!! AHHH! Besides being tired (I seriously take a nap almost everyday, it's awesome), I feel pretty good. And I don't think I mentioned it, but we are having another GIRL. We are excited to have two little girlies in the house!

James Reunion

We went for a week up to some cabins in the Uintas for my mom's family reunion. It was really fun. I hadn't seen Avery since she was 2 weeks old. She is the cutest little combo of Brett & Sarah. I just loved holding her and kissing her and I kept telling Sarah to enjoy it while she can't tell you 'no' or get away from you or hit you in the face while you snuggle her.

Sarah and the little munchkin:
On a walk, we found something interesting to walk through. Although I have to say everything is interesting to a 18 month old. Shayne loves to looks at ants, clouds, birds, trees, flowers, cars, dirt clods, grass. . . anything.
Cousins in the tub together:
We decided to go on a hike one day. We just didn't realize that we would have to first hike over snowbanks to get to the road. Seriously, this was in June and there were still huge snowbanks. In fact, one night there was a storm while we were there and there was snow on the ground in the morning. It's June people, June!!
Dad & Shaynie:
You may notice that there are no pictures of Shayne with my parents. She was so clinging to me the whole week that I don't think I even had a chance to take a picture with either one of them. Luckily once we got home, she mellowed out to her usual self. Whew!

Wyoming

My sister-in-law Katie came to town and we headed up to Wyoming with our kids. Shayne taking a ride on the lawn mower:

Shayne got sick one night and I was having a horrible time calming her down. She was just having the longest meltdown she's ever had. So I did what every other desperate mom would do. I turned on "Finding Nemo" and she watched it while she took a bath, got her pjs on, and ate dinner. This was the aftermath-- zombie face-- before she want to bed. She loves to watch movies, animal videos, and animal cartoons and always goes into super zombie mode. I have to keep it to a minimum, but it is nice to pull out if I ever need it.
We went to a farm and checked out the chickens, ducks, dogs, sheep, and cows.
Cousin Clark fell in the mud and was not happy about it. I can't blame him, it was cold and the mud was in the sheep pasture--ew.
Great Granny & Shayne:

Before we went to Wyoming, Katie and I took the kiddies to the zoo.

Swing of Summer

I love, love, love summer! Maybe it is my Arizona roots, but I would rather have the heat right now than the cold. I love not ever needing a jacket, I love not having to wear socks, I love the fruit and cold treats, I love being able to be outside with Shayne, I love the vacations, the reunions, how beautiful the mountains are in summer, how good a cold drink tastes, I love it. When else do you get to do this: