High School Musical

Earlier this week I had checked out High School Musical 3 from the library (yes, I will admit I am a closet fan.... I love musicals). We had watched most of it earlier in the week, but this morning I finished watching the last 20 minutes after breakfast. Ainsley was sitting or rather standing on the couch next to me. I noticed that as soon as a song came on she would go crazy and start jumping and dancing all over the place so I grabbed my camera and sat on the couch next to her. I would try to be sneaky and not let her know that I was recording her because she gets shy in front of a camera...but what I captured was still pretty funny. I think we have a future dancer on our hands.

Aunt Cami, we dedicate this post to you because we know how much you'll love it...Ainsley reminds me of you as a little girl-one who will break out in song and dance at the most random times! We love you!

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P.S. Ainsley still insists on feeding herself whenever it involves a spoon otherwise she throws a tantrum and I figure..she's got to learn right? But as you can tell, it is still a work in progress. I think a few spoonfuls may have made it into her mouth...

Question....

What do these three things have in common?
Cheerleading Pom Poms

Pom Pom/Squishy Balls

Grass

Answer: They totally freak Ainsley out...don't know why, but she is afraid of all three. The only connection I can think of is that they all are "spikey"...who knows why she doesn't like them. It makes us laugh though. We love her! Everyday is an adventure.

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To view the old video of Ainsley afraid of the green ball on our Tennessee trip, click here. In the new video, you can tell she has gotten a little more used to it, but still doesn't like it. Silly, silly girl!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Tom! Thank you for being such a wonderful father! Thank you so much for all you do for Ainsley, she is so lucky to have a dad like you. We love you so much and appreciate all your hard work in school that you do for our family. Happy Father's Day!
Happy Father's Day to some of our other Favorite Dads!!!! We miss you and wish we could spend Father's Day with you! We will be thinking of you. Thank you for all that you do for us. We appreciate all the love and support you have given us over the years!!! We love you!

Grandpa Butler

Grandpa Reese

Great Grandpa Reese

Great Grandpa Winder
Great Grandpa Gallier

Look at the difference of just one year....

This is Ainsley in the sleeping bag case in June 08And this is Ainsley in the same sleeping bag case in June '09. She's doubled in size!!! My baby is getting so big! (And yet she still has the same amount of hair-poor girl)

Brown County State Park

Last weekend we decided to go on a little mini camping trip to enjoy some of the beautiful areas surrounding Bloomington. Tom left work early on Friday and we drove to Brown County State Park which is about 20 minutes from where we live. We had been there once before for the Kelley Kids picnic where Ainsley got to ride a pony. It is a beautiful park with rolling hills, tons of trees, and tiny lakes. We set up camp and then drove around to explore the park. We visited the Nature Center where they had a room where you could watch birds. They placed tons of bird feeders outside the window and you could sit and watch them feed. There were tons of them and Ainsley had blast looking at them. They would come right up to the window. There was a cardinal that kept running into the window like it was trying to get inside. Then we went on a tiny nature walk around a small pristine lake. Then we took Ainsley to the playground at the campground. She loves to go to playgrounds to swing, and go down the slides. She also enjoyed playing in a tiny playhouse and going on the see saw for the first time. Afterwards we headed back to camp to have dinner.

The first lake we walked around

Hanging out with dad
I love Tom's face in this picture

Riding the see saw with Daddy

Always loves the swings
Ainsley kept squatting down to peer through the cracks of the little playhouse at us. It was pretty funny.

After the playground we headed back to camp to cook dinner. It was a nice campground but didn't give us much privacy. We could hear and see all of our neighbors. We ate dinner then sat around the campfire. Ainsley's favorite part about camp was picking up all of the gravel and stacking it on the chairs and picnic table for us. Her little fingernails were caked with dust. We put her to bed early and were so excited when she fell asleep easily. We were a bit nervous about taking a one year old camping but she slept through night. At about 5:45, the sun rose and she thought it was morning and started crawling all over us. We just laid her back on her bed and in a few minutes she fell back asleep. We all woke up around 8:00.

Ainsley hanging out at camp....don't know why the silly face?
Cooking breakfast the next morning. Notice Ainsley is "helping" stack gravel for us...she's such a good helper:)

This little guy kept trying to creep up into camp after dinner

Hanging out in the tent

After breakfast then headed out for another hike. We hiked down to Ogle Lake and walked around it. It was absolutely beautiful. After the hike, we packed up camp and drove to another lookout for a picnic before heading home. It was a short trip, but beautiful and lots of fun.

Hike to Ogle Lake

During the hike I kept seeing these "bugs" jump out of the way while we were walking, I stopped to look down at them and realized they were tiny tree frogs. They were so little!

Ogle Lake

Look What I Learned this Week...

On Wednesday, June 10 Ainsley learned to take her first steps on her own. The thing we've learned about Ainsley is that she is very cautious. She won't take risks or try things unless she knows she can do it. She learned to crawl up the stairs last week, but she took a tiny tumble (I was behind her to catch her) but it scared her and she hasn't dared to climb the stairs since. Since we know she is so cautious, we figured she would mostly likely not pull away from the furniture on her own to try to take her first steps. So we try to get her to try it on her own by holding her a few feet away from something and see if she will walk towards it. Usually she will just drop on her bum and crawl to it instead. But on Wednesday, I was trying to get her to practice during the day and she took about three steps on her own. When Tom came home from work I told him about it so we decided to try to see if she would walk in between us. She was a little reluctant at first but then started to enjoy it. She was so excited each time she made it across the room. She would even laugh every time she took a spill. It was so much fun to watch her excitement. Hopefully in the next few days we'll have a confidant walker!

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Ainsley hasn't wanted to eat while Tom and I have dinner. She will just play with her food. So the last few days she is always starving and wants to eat right before bed. She loves yogurt but lately she won't let me feed her. She wants to do everything on her own. So last night, I gave her the spoon to see what would happen. She loved feeding herself. It got really messy but I figured she was going to bed and could be washed off. It was funny to watch her and I really started to laugh when she gave up on the spoon because it was too much work and just decided to use her hands. Sometimes you just have to ignore the mess and enjoy watching them try new things.

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Online survey

Tom's work has published a survey on household cleaning habits and products and if anybody can take a few minutes to take the survey we would be grateful. The link for the survey is here. Thanks!!

Baby Signing Time!

Over the past few months I have been trying to use sign language with Ainsley in the hopes to eliminate tantrums in the future. Our public library has a wonderful selection of signing movies so we check one out every couple of weeks or so. She gets so excited to watch it and they are beginning to pay off. She is really beginning to use sign language on her own and it is so fun to watch her communicate since she has only mastered about five words (Mom, Dad, Yeah, Uh-Oh, and Okay). The other night we were testing Ainsley to see which signs she knew. It was so cute that we pulled out the camera to try to capture them. Unfortunately, she didn't perform quite as well once we started recording, but here it is:

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These are all of the signs that Ainsley knows:
milk
more
all done
bye-bye
bath
sleep
please
thank you
banana
cracker
wash hands
soap
bird
blow "kisses"

She also can answer, "How old are you?" and point to some of her body parts (eyes, nose, toes, mouth) She hasn't quite mastered walking on her own yet but she can walk while holding one of our hands. She is getting so big and it is so fun to watch her learn and grow each day!

Nashville, Tennessee

Ainsley and I just got back from a fun filled weekend in Nashville. Ainsley did amazing for the four hour drive. We went down to meet up with my mom and Aunt Linda. They work for a scrapbooking company called Imaginisce who was invited to teach classes at a CKU convention held at the Opryland Hotel. It is a convention put on by the Creating Keepsakes Magazine. Presenters from multiple companies teach participants how to do layouts, make albums, demonstrate new products, etc. The ladies who attend these conventions are die hard scrapbookers and they get really into it. The first night they had a pep rally and skits. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of Girls Camp:)

Linda and my mom Shauna-teachers at CKU

Mom teaching women how to do a two page layout

Mom demonstrating how to use her company's newest tool the I-top. It is used to make your own paper or fabric covered brads.

Mom showing women how to use the new tool

Since my mom and Linda had to teach classes for about 8 hours, 3 days straight-Ainsley and I had lots of time on our own to explore the elaborate hotel. We never even went outside because the Opryland Hotel is so big! It was like it's own little city or resort in there. We had plenty to do while they were teaching classes. The Opryland hotel has four different atriums. The Cascades which has a giant waterfall and several restaurants, The Garden Conservatory (where our room was) which is like a botanical garden with waterfalls, ponds, and tons of flowers, the Delta Atrium has three big plantation houses built inside it that have restaurants and tons of shopping, and the Magnolia has more shopping and the Convention Center. There were three pools, tons of walkways, shops, and things to explore. In between naptimes, Ainsley and I explored the hotel and went swimming in the outdoor pool. It was fun because it had a kiddie pool that was shallow enough for Ainsley to walk around in. She loved it!
The Delta Atrium
The Cascades waterfall on the way to the pool

Ainsley and I entertaining ourselves in the room-Here Ainsley is sporting her skirt on her head.

Our room was in the Garden Conservatory...this was the view from our balcony

One evening, we walked next door to the Grand Ole Opry. It is the oldest continuous radio program in the United States-running since October 5, 1925. On Friday and Saturday nights they have a live broadcast featuring different artists. We wanted to go on Saturday night but were unable to make it because we didn't get out of dinner in time, but Steve Martin was performing that night. We did walk over and take pictures of the building though. Then we went shopping at the huge mall next door. We also drove downtown to see more of Nashville.

Mom and I in front of the Grand Ole OpryMe, Mom, Linda, and Ainsley at the awards ceremony on the last night of the convention. The participants won tons of prizes worth hundreds of dollars in scrapbooking supplies.

On the last night at the hotel, we went to a seafood restaurant with all of the other CKU teachers. The small yellow canopy in the background is the restaurant where we ate.
Ainsley favortite part of the weekend was hanging out with Grandma again.

On Sunday before Mom and Linda had to fly home to Utah, we drove around Nashville. First we went to the Hermitage Plantation. This was the home of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States. He had a huge cotton plantation with about 150 slaves. His family is the only people to live in the mansion and it became a museum shortly after his death and so it has all of the original furtniture, bedding, wallpaper, etc. It was so interesting to see how people lived back them. We toured his home and surrounding farm.

The Hermitage
One of the many slave cottages

The tomb of Andrew Jackson

Next we drove to Franklin which is a nearby town. On Nov. 30, 1864, Franklin was home to one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War. First we visited the Carter House where more than 1500 bullet holes remain from the battle. Next we drove up to the Carton Plantation, a huge home that was turned into a Confederate field hospital after the battle. Five Confederate generals died on the porch and the wood is still stained with blood from the hundreds of soldiers who died there. The McGavock family who owned the plantation donated two acres of their own land to help bury 1,481 Southern soldiers killed in the battle.

Carton Plantation
The Confederate Cemetary built on the Carton Plantation. Each stone had a number and initials of the dead soldier. But there was also a large tomb honoring the 255 unknown soldiers who died there.

After our day in Franklin, I had to drive Mom and Linda to the airport. It was a great weekend and it was hard to say goodbye. Ainsley loved hanging out with her Grandma Butler again. It was so fun to spend the weekend with them. Thanks for everything Mom! We love you and can't wait to see you again in a few months!!!