Summer fun

We decided to go to Omaha for the 4th to see some friends. Georgia was very excited to ride their "bike-cycle" even though she couldn't push the pedals yet. We watched the fireworks that were going off all over the surrounding area and Ben and his friend set some off also. Georgia kept yelling, "Daddy, be careful! Be careful, daddy!" Even tonight when I picked her up from daycare she was talking about the fireworks and daddy being careful.

Hanging by the pool with cousin Riley.

...And at the other grandparents' pool with cousins Derby and Kiefer. We put Georgia in a swimvest and innertube and she was able to swim around on her own, but yes, we were an arm's length at all times. She figured out how to move her legs around to make herself spin in circles and she learned to kick her legs and swim from one end of the pool to the other. (The pool in the picture is not the pool that I'm referring to) She found a rubber duck that she could throw in front of her and swim to it and had so much fun. I'm so glad she's not afraid of swimming like I used to be.

There's a theme of pigtails in this picture. Any time Georgia will let me put her hair up, I always have to snap a few pictures because I know that within a few minutes she will pull them out.

Our garden has been so fun to watch grow. We pick a cucumber about every day and we don't pick them unless they're a foot long. We're anxious for the tomatoes to turn red.

We've given a few away but every time we do, Georgia gets possessive and says, "no, it's mommy's" and grabs for the cucumber to give back to me.

I like to take pictures in front of the house every once in a while so Georgia will see where she grew up. She's been going through a daddy phase lately. She can't get enough of him. The other morning she woke up and I went in to get her. Ben gets up around 4:30 a.m. to study every day before school so I'm the one who gets Georgia when she wakes up. On this morning when I went in she said, "No Mommy! I'm Daddy's baby!" and she wouldn't let me pick her up.

Another pigtail picture. See the new white shoes? I've looked all spring and summer for a pair of plain white sandals for Georgia to wear with dresses. It doesn't seem like a hard thing but everywhere I looked the shoes had pink flowers or something or they didn't have her size. I had finally given up when I found these at Walmart this weekend. When we got home I noticed that the bottom of them were felt soles. I thought it was strange but guessed it would be okay or they wouldn't have made them that way. I was wrong. Everytime Georgia stepped on the hardwood floors she did an impression of Bambi on ice. After falling a dozen times, Ben took her shoes off and covered the bottoms with caulk. No more falling.

Wherrrrrrrrrrrre's Georgia?

The Parents as Teachers lady was at our house last week and she brought a puzzle with her. It was the wooden kind with various animal shapes. She said we should do this kind of puzzle where the picture is NOT on the puzzle board, just on the puzzle piece. That way Georgia will learn to figure out the shape of the piece and which shape it matches. Her puzzle had 21 pieces and one by one she gave them to Georgia and showed her where to put them. After she was done, Georgia dumped all 21 of them on the floor and immediately started putting them exactly where they had been. She wasn't looking at the shapes of the pieces, she had memorized where they had been on the board. Ben bought her a similar puzzle and when she got it she dumped the pieces out and put them right back in without getting a single one wrong. She had immediately memorized the order of them. We were shocked. I tested her by turning the board around so it was backwards and then asked her where each piece went. She pointed to the location of where they should have been if the board were facing the right direction. Tonight I pointed to the shapes on the board and asked her what animal it was for and she got them all right. Then I turned the shapes upside down and asked her what they were and again, she got them all right without any hesitation. We're pretty sure she has Ben's photographic memory. I TRIED to memorize them and still only get 1/2 right.