Proud of My Dad

Taylor thought it was hilarious to dump buckets of water on her head





Beautiful Taylor
Taylor and Nana
Holding My Sissy's Hand


My Amazing Father
The band "The Water Drops" played at the party in Dad's honor - Note the Water Treatment Plant name on the sign - named after Dad
Granddad dancing with Kaylie
Tina and Kaylie (Tina is soon going to be a grandma to twins too!)
My family and friends at Dad's Reception right before we left

The Water System had a beautiful reception in my father's honor for his retirement (he retires at the end of the year). They named the "L.B. Stovall Water Treatment Plant" after him and announced it at the reception. There is a nice sign when you enter the plant with his name on it but I wasn't able to get a photo of it because it was raining. Yes, even the water decided to show up for the party....it poured! At the reception they presented dad with numerous plaques/awards and he also received the SC Order of the Palmetto which is the highest civilian honor in the State of South Carolina (http://www.sciway.net/hist/sc-order-of-the-palmetto.html) One of the guys that got up to speak about dad called him a "walking encyclopedia" which is a pretty accurate description. The reception was lovely and there were lots of people there that had great things to say about Dad. We are very proud of him!

The girls are so talkative! We are having so much fun. I love this age. The girls are so sweet and loving.

Kaylie puts herself in time out on a regular basis. If I tell her she better stop or she will have to go to time out - off she goes! I must be doing something wrong here because she likes time out.

Kaylie hates dresses. She pitches a fit and tries to take off her clothes every time I put her in one. I pretty much had to hold her the whole time at my dad's retirement party because she would not stand up in her dress. Taylor on the other hand loves when you tell her she is beautiful. She throws her head back and moves it from side to side and opens her mouth as wide as she can. It cracks me up. So she will wear a dress and even sometimes a hairbow if you tell her she is beautiful or pretty with it on. She smiles when you tell her too. She loves to brush her hair and try on shoes.

I think Taylor might have inherited Neale's wacky sleep disorder. Some of you have probably heard me tell stories about how Neale will sit up and talk in his sleep . Well we were driving home fom Greenville this weekend and Taylor was talking in her sleep. What was she talking about? SHOES!!! The girl loves shoes.

I bought a sign language DVD for the car. I have seen the girls do "More" and "Please" in sign language. So I bought a DVD to help them learn some more sign language. They really like it. They repeat all the words they say on the DVD too. Hopefully they will pick up the sign language. Aunt Jannie will be so proud!

The photos above are the girls playing in their pool. Taylor thought she was hilarious dumping buckets of water on her head. She did it over and over and giggled every time.

Daycare said that Kaylie and Taylor would wake up from their naps and hold hands. They finally had to separate them because they would giggle and make a bunch of noise playing with each other when they woke up. That is pretty much what they do at home too. They wake up and talk to each other and giggle and sometimes jump around their beds.

Taylor loves her Nana! Every time the phone rings Taylor says "Nana" and when I get on the computer Taylor comes over and says "Nana" because she is used to us video talking to Nana and Granddad on Skype. And sometimes she just says "Nana" because she wants me to call her.

Nana, Granddad, Neale, and I took the girls to Chuck E. Cheese in Greenville. They really enjoyed playing on the slide and Neale and I played each other in basketball. Neale won two out of three in basketball. I am blaming it on the carpel tunnel and the fact that it was a game because I beat him every time in real basketball. He does beat me in air hockey most of the time though so I will give him that.

Everything is going great. The girls are all over the place and I love it. We are having a blast.

TT and Kiki

Holding Sissy's Hand
Putting on Shoes in the Sand

Sweet Taylor

Doing her modeling pose

Kaylie and Bunny

My Sweet Taylor Loves To Hug

I know you said not to but I really wanna eat it!

I am on a mission

My hair is out of control when I take out my hairbow

Daddy and Kaylie

Mom has no idea what to do with my hair

And mom cut mine ...but it really isn't as crooked as it looks in this photo! Don't try this at home.

It's Potty Time!

And this is what happens when you brush Taylor's hair....

I once took Kaylie to get her bangs cut but I didn’t like the way it was done. The woman cut too many bangs. Well her bangs needed to be cut again. I knew it was a bad idea but I decided to do it myself. I once cut Neale’s hair about 8 years ago and it didn’t turn out too well. As Neale will tell you – I took a chunk of his hair out. So against my better judgment I decided that Kaylie’s hair was a mess and it needed to be cut right then. After all, I was about to take her to the beach to take some pictures. Let’s just say that cutting hair is not my thing.

I ask the girls to repeat words I say. It is a little game we play. Some responses come out perfectly. Taylor can say “Taylor” exactly. Kaylie calls Taylor “TT” which is what they used to call her at daycare. Kaylie calls herself "Kiki".

Kaylie has started singing her “ABC’s”. She has the first 3 letters pretty well and the rest she makes up. I sing it to her all the time and do sign language to the letters. Yesterday I was driving home singing it to them and Kaylie had her hand in the air and was making up her own sign language. She is so smart. You can ask her to do something with words you are sure she has never even heard of before and she does exactly what you want most of the time. It amazes me. The girls are very talkative. Taylor likes to say “Momma Dada”. Kaylie does things you ask her, answers questions with a yes or no, and follows the rules with time out. Taylor is just the opposite. You put her in time out and she just smiles at you and gets up. After every time out I tell the girls they need to come tell me they are sorry. They come over and give me a hug and lay their heads down on me. It is precious.

I bought the girls a toilet because potty training will be right around the corner. We tested it out for the first time last night. At first they just fought to see who could sit on it in their clothes. I took off their clothes and put them on the potty one at a time. Kaylie liked sitting there. Taylor sat there and actually went to the bathroom! I am sure it was probably by accident but I was impressed.

Happy Late Birthday to Grandma Fran! We love you very much. Thank you Aunt Cathy for the book you sent. We read it every night before bed.

My Talkative Hairstylists

Kaylie
Taylor

Sweet Kaylie

Taylor sleeps with her behind in the air

Kaylie

Curious Kaylie

Taylor still tries to close the mailbox. Neale says she must have OCD.

Kaylie kissing Daddy

Kaylie styling Daddy's hair

Kaylie styling Taylor's hair

We like to brush hair

Taylor giving Kaylie a new hairdo

The girls are talking and repeating everything I say. Today I asked the girls "Can you say..." and said a bunch of words. When I first asked them I really thought they wouldn't even know what that meant. To my surprise they both repeated every word I said. Taylor said "Taylor" for the first time. They also said "Roxy", "Sydney", "Kaylie" "Nana", "Apple", "Banana" and a bunch of other words I threw out. They get excited when you tell them they do a good job. Their eyes light up and the get a huge smile on their faces. They also clap for themselves.

The girls have been getting lots of "time outs" lately. Kaylie takes it very seriously. She cries and gets so upset when she has a time out. And when you sit her down she will stay there until you tell her she can get up. She tries hard to obey the rules and to do the right thing. Taylor doesn't and it really bothers Kaylie. Kaylie will be sure to tell her when she is not doing the right thing. Kaylie will point her finger at her and babble at her. The new thing is "Not nice". If Sydney snaps at the girls they will shake their finger at her and say "Not nice". If one of the girls is misbehaving then her sister will shake her finger at her and say "Not Nice". I was fussing at Taylor the other day and she listened to me and apparently didn't think much of it because she then walked off and mumbled "Not nice." Kaylie likes to get right in Taylor's face when she is telling her what to do and point her finger at her. She tries to tell her what she is supposed to do. It is funny because Kaylie is usually right and trying to get Taylor to do something that I want her to. The new daycare says Kaylie is the "bossy one". Kaylie likes to please you. She helps me clean up and goes and gets things I ask her to. She is very helpful. The other day I said "Why don't you take those clothes and go put them back in the dirty clothes basket." I never thought she would understand that but down the hall she went with the clothes and in the basket they went. Taylor likes to do her own thing. She is into brushing her hair and if you take the brush away from her it is like the world has ended. Taylor doesn't think much of time out. She will get up and not follow the rules. But she has the CUTEST thing that she does when she is sorry for something. She will come up to me and hug me and lay her head sideways on my shoulder or my lap and wrap her arms around me. It is her way of saying she is sorry and it melts my heart.

It was sad leaving the old daycare but I love the new one so far. It is so nice taking them and picking them up every day. I feel like I know more about what is going on with them. The daycare teachers say the girls are "Daycare pros" and they haven't skipped a beat. They said they act like they have known the other kids in the room forever. She said the first day they took a nap on their cots which were side by side. She said they woke up and held hands.

I am loving every minute of being a mother.