Happy Monday!

Who needs toys??

She managed to scoot herself completely off of her play mat...

Happy 26th, babe!

sorry this is a little late...

His birthday PIE! This is what he wanted, so I made it for him. It's an awesome and easy recipe I got from a lady in our church. She made one a while back for us. Mix 8 oz. cool whip, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1 1/2 cans of sweetened condensed milk, and fruit cocktail (drained). Put in a deep graham cracker crust and refrigerate!

The whole pie is on fire!!

mmmmmm!

Aubrey-Girl!

I just love the look on her face!

Too cute...Aubrey held her own bottle in her carseat the other night while we (Mandy Whitmer, Amy Morris, Adam and I) were out to eat. When she was almost out, I put the blanket under her hands so she wouldn't get air...

Daddy feeding Aubrey for his first time. They were having a great time!

Teeth!

Fun times with Mommy!

Adam's birthday week!

Each day of Adam's birthday week I wanted to do something special for him. It worked out great until Thursday...what a BUSY day! Oh well...

On Monday, I decided to surprise him with a picnic supper at the beach around sunset. It was a surprise until I asked him to grab the wet wipes from our bedroom so I could change Aubrey's diaper. All of a sudden I heard, "Oh Val, I'm not supposed to go in there." I was sooo happy he remembered because the picnic basket was on our bed. I told him that he for sure would have known if he wouldn't have remembered he wasn't supposed to be in there. His reply, "Is it a picnic?" Grrr... He'd gone in just far enough and when he saw the basket it reminded him he wasn't supposed to be in there! Even though it wasn't a surprise it was still a nice evening. Ron and Becky kept Aubrey for me, so that was nice. It's amazing what 30 minutes away can do for ya. Really. We left, went down to West Bay Beach, ate chicken wraps and some other stuff, went for a short walk and headed back home. 30 minutes was all it took! What a fun, relaxing time.

With the amazing Caribbean Sea in the background.

What a FUN time!

our baby

Our baby is growing up SO quickly. I can't believe how big she's getting! So many things have been happening to her lately. She's rolling over quite a bit more now (seems to do it more when she's on her activity mat in the mornings when she's home with her daddy.) and loves to lay on her belly and look in her mirror on the end of her crib. Her latest news is that she is now the proud new owner of 2 TEETH. She has successfully cut her first 2 bottom teeth. The first one came through on the 11th and the second one for sure today. She's been such a trooper through it all...it just kinda happened!

Over the weekend she decided it was cool to grab her feet.

Eating cool whip

Spitting at Grandma today...must feel good to her gums. She also learned to do that this weekend.

You didn't know we live on a farm, did ya?! Well, we don't. This hen and her 10 chicks have decided that their home is our front yard. They have been hanging out quite a bit, so yesterday Adam decided to give them bread crumbs. They loved it and ate it all up! Today, we were on our way home from an AWESOME birthday lunch at mom and dad's (thanks!) and this hen and all her little chicks started heading right towards us. It was like they just knew that we were the ones giving out the food! So, Adam went in and got the bread and I grabbed the camera. Aubrey did watch them a little, but I don't think they made much of an impression on her. =)

a very special day!

I hope that you all had a very Happy Valentines Day. I did. It was special also in that it was my birthday. It was an incredible day! To start the day, Adam got up with Aubrey which allowed me to sleep in a bit. After getting up around 10, we got ready to go out for lunch. We went to "Treats" ~ a place that has limited hours that we've been wanting to try. After we left there we went to Caymana Bay ~ a new shopping community not to far from our house. It's quite a pricey shopping community, but we had been wanting to go there and walk around. We also knew that Aubrey would love to ride around in her stroller...she loves the outdoors! There's a really nice book store there which we looked in for a while and at the back of the book store is Cafe del Sol. We decided to stop in there for a caramel frappe. It was very good! For their customers they provided a separate area which had very comfy couches where you could just relax if you wanted to instead of sitting out in the cafe area. We enjoyed the quiet for a little while then headed back home. Adam had a surprise for me that afternoon...so, after a little while we hit the road again...without Aubrey. He had made arrangements for her to stay with her grandpa and grandma while he took me to my surprise. We finally stopped at Body Works. He had made a 3:00 appointment for an hour massage!!! I was a bit nervous at first because I've never had a professional massage...but it was WONDERFUL! I'd go back any day of the week! So relaxing. It was so quiet and calm in there...the workers even whispered to each other in the lobby area where you sign in. Guess that atmosphere is pretty important! With teaching 4 year olds and having a 4 month old at home I don't get that "quiet" that I had there for that time period. It was very nice. On our way back home we stopped by "Picture This" and ordered Aubrey's pictures and then went to the grocery store. Later that evening we went up to the road to another restaurant we'd been wanting to try ~ Alfresco's. We had eaten their food on Friday night at our Youth Banquet, but wanted to go back and try various things on their menu. We were going to eat outside by the ocean, but the sun was down and there were too many mosquitos. We sat out there for a little bit but then decided to go inside for dinner. I had a chicken quesadilla and Adam had Grouper. For dessert, we shared a piece of key lime pie. It was amazing! Aubrey even got to enjoy a little bit of the cool whip! Thanks, Adam for making this the best and most relaxing birthday of my life!!! Love you so much!

Here we are by the ocean...the sun had just set.
A dozen roses were on my kitchen table when I got up Saturday morning!

My parents (through Adam) got me gift certificates to "Perk Up" ~ a coffee shop. YUM!

Here we are at Caymana Bay just before we left.

Aubrey had enough excitement for the day!

change...

I inherited several traits from my father. One of these traits was the desire to collect change. I am unable to walk past a fallen coin. It doesn't matter if it's a penny, I will stoop down and pick it up. I love change. I recently began selling candy out of my classroom, as the school quit selling it from the cafeteria, and I've been putting the change from sales in a jar. Anyways, the jar was filling up, probably about 80% full, so I decided to see if Dad would want to buy the change from me to put in his 5-gallon collection jug. He did, and he also volunteered to help count the change. When he got over to our apartment, he verbally regretted his volunteering. But it was fun, and his 5-gallon jug has benefited.

Said jar.

The spread.
Quarters... $224 of them, I believe.

An aerial view.

Today for lunch we had Jarrett over. Val made some chicken/rice/vegetables/lemon juice/asiago cheese/something or other dish (REALLY good!) and then we had corn and rolls and an awesome dessert!!!! It's sorta like busterbars from DQ but in a 9x13 dish... phenomenal! Jarrett is one of Aubrey's good friends. He's in highschool, comes to youth, helps out in youth services in church, sings in our ensemble Sunday mornings, etc. He's also a good friend of mine.