Girls' Trip

The second week in August we went on a
girls' shopping trip up north. I pulled out the travel highchair to take. I had it all folded up ready to go with the rest of our stuff by the baby gate. When HK woke up from her nap she instantly went to the seat, opened it up, and crawled in. Maybe she was trying to tell me something? She continued to play with it for another 15 minutes. She carried it all over the place.

We went up north to take Granny to visit her two sisters. They all stayed together. Then the shopping crowd stayed together and spent all day at an outlet mall in Michigan City, IN. HK was quite a trooper. We borrowed a stroller from someone up north. It was very nice and HK took about a two hour nap. She was passed around between all of us all day. I was very proud of her for lasting as long as she did and behaving as well as she did. The highlight of my day was the Children's Place Outlet. They had several racks of clothing for 1.99. Needless to say I bought her several things for next summer. She also picked out a pair of jeans with sparkles on them. We got back that evening at 9:30. HK never fell asleep on the 1 1/2 hr ride back. She talked, laughed, and had a good time with the big girls.
When we got back she was wired. When the pizza arrived at 10 that was it. I didn't want her eating it that late and I knew she would want it.
Needless to say she was not happy about having to leave the other girls and go to bed. When we had her in the bedroom getting ready for bed mom was in there with us and don't ask me how but we both let her fall off the bed. She hit with a thud and I'm not sure who was more upset...me or her. She finally went to sleep and was exhausted! Needless to say she did sleep some on the way home the next day. It took us a few days to recover from 3 days off schedule. I guess she'll get to go again next year.













Well I have finally caught up on the last 8 months of pictures. I would share the rest of August except that I left the camera at Mom and Dad's the last time we were there. We'll be seeing them this weekend at Kent's place in Indianapolis.

Uncle Nick & soon-to-be-Aunt Terrah

Nick moved to Louisville, KY on Sunday, August 5th. He is starting his audiology doctorate. Nick and Terrah are recently engaged and getting married in June '08. When Uncle Nick went to NY this summer he brought HK back a t-shirt that says I love NY. They are posing in their matching shirts for me. That weekend HK and her Aunt Terrah had a blast. They played peek-a-boo with the blanket, read stories, and other fun stuff.

Studying Pictures

I have put pictures of family and friends in those magnetic picture holders. We stuck them on the frig. Hallie Kate loves studying them, taking them off, carrying them around, and putting them back. I'm trying to teach her to put names with the faces. Some she can do, but we're working on it.

Ali & Allie Visit

The middle of July Ali and Allie came for a visit. These are two girls I had in class at Calvary Academy. They are in 8th grade this year. We met Ali's mom to get them on Sunday afternoon and they stayed until Wednesday afternoon. We had a good time. We ate, swam, talked, watched movies. We tried to get Hallie Kate to say their name. I'm looking forward to my senior girls coming to see me!

Shoes & Hats

A girl after my own heart. She loves her accessories! She enjoys going into my closet to get out my beach hat from vacation. She finally figured out how to get it on her head even though it's a bit big. She'll grab it and run. Now she loves her own hats. She will take you to the coat tree so you can get it down for her. She also gets her swim hat out of the drawer, put it on, and just wear it around the house. Yes, I also have a shoe obsession (especially flip-flops). I finally found a good purpose for them. I can teach HK her colors, matching, and sorting using my tub of flip-flops that I keep under the bed. She now knows where those are and will go pull them out. She also can get cranky when she wants your sunglasses. I don't usually like her to have those because I don't want them broken. She also likes to wear her own sunglasses. Of course, she always has a hairbow in her hair each day.

HK Sleeping in the Highchair

Hallie Kate is just taking one long nap in the afternoon. However, she can't quite make it to lunch and nap time in a good humor! She could take a short morning nap, but then it's just enough for to be ready for a nap that would go through dinner time.

One day she was eating quietly. I was doing something in the kitchen and I turned to check on her. She was asleep at the highchair. So I snapped a picture before taking her out. I wiped her off, changed her diaper, pulled out her ponytail, and put her in the bed without her ever opening her eyes. She then slept for almost 4 hours. It was one for the books!

I'm thankful that she is a very good sleeper most of the time!!! Thank you Lord!

Fourth of July

Nate had the 4th off. So we went to Eldorado on Tuesday evening. Grandpa had bought a pool for the yard. So HK, G'pa, and Uncle Nick went swimming. Grammy, Mommy, and Daddy watched and laughed. On Wednesday night we walked over to the football complex for the festivities. HK got her face painted, a necklace, and bubbles. She had lots of fun playing. Then she watched the fireworks. The loud noise did not scare her, but she was so tired by this point that she didn't really enjoy them too much after the first couple minutes. I'll have to say they are the best fireworks I've ever seen in Eldorado. It was fun. We put her in her pajamas and drove home that night because Nate had to go to work Thursday morning. We can do that now that we only live an hour and 15 minutes away.

Father's Day

Father's Day was spent in Eldorado before we went back over to Evansville to finish unpacking. Nate and his brothers helped his Dad do some yard work and power wash the house. HK got to play with Uncle Noah and Aunt Heather one more time before they moved to FL.

Then we went back to finish unpacking, but we left HK in Eldorado until we basically had things organized. Mom and Dad brought her to her new home for the first time on Tuesday evening.

Our New Home

In Evansville we decided to rent an apartment home for several reasons. You can see the view off our balcony. One direction you see the other buildings and to the right is one of the hospitals Nate will be spending lots of time. So he is really close to one hospital and about 8 miles from the other one. Our place is 3 bedroom/2bath about 1300 sq ft. It is plenty of room for us right now. We love the lack of stress and responsibility that come with being a homeowner. When Nate is off we are free to do whatever we want as a family! Plus it's a lot less space to clean (our place in Springfield was about 2x the size). So it's an adjustment, but so far we really like it. Hallie Kate and I go swimming a lot. She and her Daddy go swing often.

Time to Get Packing

When we got back to Springfield, the lady that was
going to buy our house basically backed out on us.
So instead of packing and leaving things in decent shape, we were having to leave things in tip top shape because we'd have people still coming to look at the house. Needless to say that my stress level went through the roof. I had two of my girls from school, Ali and Allie, that came and helped me pack and clean one day. Then Mom came up mid-week. Hallie Kate was a good help. After her nap one day she played in her crib for a couple of hours while we packed. Mom would take her things down off of the shelf and as you can see would want them in the crib with her. She just about blends in with all the stuff in her crib. My friend Elizabeth came and helped clean. She was a lifesaver. On moving day we had several friends that came and helped. We were so thankful for all of them. Unfortunately, we left a house on the market instead of one that was sold. Friday, June 15th we left our home in Springfield to make a new one in Evansville. We left a lot behind but we know that things in life are always for a season. God gives and He takes away, but still we will say Blessed Be Your Name. That's my motto each time we have to move onto something new and I don't want to leave the old behind. So here we come Evansville. Thank you God for these 3 fantastic years we've had in Springfield!

Hallie Kate's 1st Birthday Party

We had Hallie Kate's first birthday party the day after we got back from vacation. That was Sunday afternoon. We reserved the upstairs of the Bank of Marion (former Burnetts Bank) downtown. It was just the perfect place. We just had some finger foods and cake. Both sides of her family gathered together for a nice afternoon. She knew what to do with the cake this time.













This picture was the picture that we sent out on her birthday party invitation. That was the tutu on sale that I couldn't resist!

Our First Family Vacation

We began planning this trip last summer. We had to do that in order to coordinate
everyone's schedules! Did get everyone together for a week it literally came down to 1 week out of the entire summer, June 2-9.









That meant we'd be gone on HK's first birthday. At first I wasn't crazy about the idea, but she'll never remember that. It just meant that she got to have two parties.









We-- Mom, Dad, Kent, Ang, Gran, Nate, me, and Hallie Kate all went to Hilton Head, SC for a week. We took Mom and Dad's van and our Freestyle. We left at 5 am from Eldorado on Saturday, June 2nd. We rented a villa with 3 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths for the week. Mom and Dad had one bedroom. Nate, HK, and myself had one. Then the 3rd bedroom had a queen and full size bed in it. So Gran and Ang shared the queen and Kent took the full. Each bedroom had their own bath with a 1/2 bath, kitchen/dining room and family area downstairs. There was a screened in back porch with the pool outback. There was also a 1 ft baby pool which was great for HK.


We bought a screened in tent which we took to the beach and set up two of the days. One day we went exploring to other parts of the island. One day the guys went golfing and the girls found the outlet mall! We went kayaking one day and bike riding everyday. We played miniature golf and took a sunset boat ride. Ice cream was an every evening occurrence. We were trying to figure out the best on the island! We cooked in some evenings and went out some evenings. Everyone really liked it there.






It was a very family oriented place with many mulit-generational vacationing families. I would go back in a heartbeat.


HK loved the beach. It took her a couple days to warm up to it, but by the end of the week she was walking out to the ocean and sitting down in the water. She loved to run around on the sand. We discovered going down to the beach after dinner was the ideal time. There weren't as many people and the sun wasn't as hot.



On HK's birthday we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. We went swimming in the pool, had cake and ice cream, opened a few presents, and then everyone went down to the beach. It was our last night there.


One evening the three of us dressed in khaki and white. Kent took pictures of us on the beach. They are some of my favorite pictures!