Ivy at 15 months

Figured I should do a post on my baby girl that is growing up. She is going to be 15 months tomorrow. Where did the last 2 months go?? Anyways, I feel like every week brings something new in her development. I will just go through what she has been up to these past couple months.. 

For a while, She was really good about waving bye-bye with her fingers, except she would wave backwards to herself haha. it was cute. She's kinda gotten shy about waving when we tell her to, but she knows what it means because she will do it on her own a sometimes.. 

Ivy LOVES to say "Hiii" to everyone. Especially when I come into her room to get her out of bed. I always get a sweet little hi. She is no longer shy when we are out in public and is always saying hi or waving to people that pass. 

Ivy is always on the go. She loves to play with her toys, puzzles, balls, books, stuffed animals, climbing onto the couch, pushing her bumble bee scooter, climbing on mommy.. the only time she ever sits still is if she is deep in study mode of one of her toys/books or if Baby Einstein is on. I usually just turn it on before naps or bedtime or when she is crazy cranky and needs some down time. Other than that, it's go go go! Even if some show or cartoon is on, she kinda just ignores it.. I think it's funny when mom's say they don't let there kids watch too much tv, I'm always so excited when she watches something for longer than a minute. hahaha!

She loooves water and being outside. She loves running through the grass, or walking around on our driveway, picking up and trying to eat the many rocks, lol.. She also loves bubbles or swimming on our back porch and occasionally will color with sidewalk chalk, if she's not trying to eat it, ha.

This has been the month of teething. I guess all of her teeth decided to come at once. She now has about 12 teeth or so- 4 molars, 4 front bottom and 4 top front ones. And a few others are poking through pretty soon. They seem to grow in verrrry slowly. Most of them are just halfway in, lol. She has her good days and her bad days. For about a week or 2, it was definitely more bad than good. :( No fun. We love baby Orajel! Oh and ice cube filled wash clothes, hehe:

Ivy loves to dance to music that has funky tunes or strong beats.. and also sings on command. A lot of times, I'll catch her ahh-ing along with a song but if she isn't singing, I can usually get her to by just saying "Ivy, can you sing? are you going to sing?" then she opens her mouth and ahh's along. I love it! She is so cute when she does it. She also likes to do rhymes and songs with mommy and even says some of the words on her own, like hokey-pokey, she loves to say "-bout" at the end of every phrase, hehe.. 

The girl is a cheeseball. She is starting to realize when mom holds up her phone, it usually means she's getting her picture taken. Not afraid of the camera at all, haha.. 

Ivy was pretty good about a few words and would jibber jabber quite a bit before this week. Now I feel like she is imitating words that we say like crazy! Especially when my parents were in town just recently, she was copying every word my mom would say- go, baby, cow, cookie, doggie, cute.. she wouldn't say them exactly every time but it's crazy how fast she just started picking them up. It's like something in her mind just clicked. 

When it comes to food, I wouldn't say she is a picky eater but more a finicky eater. On any given day, she could love or hate something when just the day before she loved or hated it. haha. So it's hard to know what she likes. No matter what though, I can always count on her to eat any type of fruit, veggie crunchies or chips, peanut butter on crackers, or yogurt. Other than that, it's a guessing game of what she will actually eat. And whether she will eat baby food (the jar meal ones) or finger food, because that changes a lot too. 

Where's Ivy? Oh and the right picture is her first time in real jeans. She kept tripping in them because there is no stretch in the fabric haha! It was hilarious (yes I laugh at my child). She looks so grown up in the pic:

Ivy bug has also gotten pretty good at animal noises. Her favorites are dogs and monkeys. She does a growl type of bark for dogs and will say "ah ah ah" for a monkey. There are some cows right near our house that we can hear so we've been practicing that one. For a while it sounded like "moh" though lol. 

Curls! Her hair was starting to get curly in phoenix but it has really started growing lately and it just keeps getting curlier:

She is a feisty girl with certainly a mind of her own. Very independent, and always knows what she wants. She has a strong willed side (especially when mommy says no to something) but is usually very sweet. I find most of what she does during the day absolutely hilarious. She's so spunky and makes us laugh all the time. So even though she can be kind of a punk sometimes, we just love her big personality! 

Here are a few other fun facts about Ivy that don't really need much explaining:
-Loves cats and dogs, not afraid of them
-Likes taking things out and putting things into drawers, baskets
-Doesn't mind getting her hair done, I think she likes it actually.
-Very girly girl, always puts on necklaces and loves when I pretend to put makeup on her
-Sleeps from about 7:30pm til 7 or 7:30am.. occasionally sleeps in til 8
-still takes 2 naps a day but has started resisting her morning nap. I'm holding out a little longer though because most days she still will take that nap.
-very social, looves little kids and babies

Hello Tennessee

I ended up with quite a few pictures from our travels to the east, mainly because it was such a long trip. Instead of going straight to Tennessee, we decided to split up our drive time and stop in Houston first. So about 18 hours for the first trip, stay a couple days in Houston, then about 15 hours to Harrogate. Everything went pretty well. We decided to invest in a DVD player for Ivy and it was a life-saver. I didn't have it playing the whole time but whenever she got sick of her seat, or super tired, we'd turn it on and she would calm down almost immediately. Yay for modern technology!

All bundled up but refusing to take a nap, she was exhausted, haha. stubborn girl:

Found the kleenex's in the hotel room we stayed in on the way to Houston. It puzzled her how another one would keep appearing, lol:

Bat mobile! Some promo for the movie we guessed:

Finally in Houston... Spending time at Aunt Kelli's while Sam plays disc golf with his bro:

Lauren and Maddie stopped by Kel's for a visit! Pregnant with her second girl! Doesn't she look amazing?? Lot's of love to you, girl! And good luck with that new baby:

Gotta squeeze in some Gringo's with Jeff and company:

So glad we were in town for Alexa's 7th birthday. Happy Birthday Alexa! We had a yummy dinner at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate. There was a balloon artist there that evening. She made Ivy a lady bug and Ivy thought it was the greatest thing in the world. She wouldn't let it go:

Back on the road! Into unknown territory.. We've traveled all over the west so many times so traveling east was very new to us. Going through Utah? I mean Eutaw, Alabama. ha:

Finally through Knoxville and almost to Harrogate. What's all that green stuff? lol:

So after an hour's drive north of Knoxville, we finally come around a bend on the hwy and the first thing we spotted was Sam's school on a hill in the distance. It was the coolest thing! The perfect welcoming to our new little town we are living in. It is simply gorgeous! It has been taking some adjusting to our new area.. There isn't much around but at least we have a Walmart and some fast food places in the next town over. The people here are very different than the west. Not much diversity, and everyone talks very differently than we are used to. Go figure, hehe. We've noticed the Tennessee accent is a little different than in Mississippi or Alabama, not as twangy but still has very distinct vowels. I probably couldn't even mimic it if I tried. Give me a few months and maybe that will change. The people are soo nice though. So far we have really enjoyed being in a small town. It's so beautiful and very quiet. 

Finally to our new home! The man next door to us owns it and is renting it out to us. It couldn't be more perfect! I'll have to do a post just on the house sometime..

Sam talking with Pat(owner) and Eileen(Pat's friend) in our backyard with the rolling hills in the distance:

We have the best view of the whole town from up on our hill... From our front yard, we can see Sam's school in the distance. It's awesome:

Sam had just 1 free day with us before he started school so we did a couple fun things.. Here we drove up a road to the Pinnacle Overlook. SOO cool.. it is on the Virginia side of the mountains and you can see the hill country on one side and the mountain ranges on the other. plus you can pinpoint where the 3 states meet. We do our grocery shopping in Kentucky but are also right next to Virginia as well. It's cool:

Our best attempt at a group shot, haha:

Sam's school in the distance:

Here we are on Lincoln Memorial University campus... Sam is actually apart of DCOM-Debusk College of Osteopathic Medicine for their post-bac program. He will hopefully start in their med program next year. The right picture is their brand new Math and Science building. Sam didn't even know they were building it until he got here, but most of his classes are here. It is a neat building, pretty high tech:

View from from one of the study rooms.. 

And last but not least, here is Ivy already enjoying our backyard. We were outside for a couple minutes and she just bolted. I think we moved to the right place because she just looves to be outside and explore:

Goodbye Phoenix!

I know we were only there for 3 months but the place really grew on me! I loved the heat, I loved the temperature of the water, I loved the big city feel, I loved that there were no mosquitos if you wanted to be outside, and I especially love all the people I was able to spend time with!! Goodness it was so good to be able to just play with my friends all summer long! Sam seemed to have a fun summer too. Even though he was working hard, he was with friends. And he always tried to make some time for playing as well to keep a good balance... 

2 girls that I was soooo happy to be able to reconnect with are these two beautiful ladies:

Allison and Samantha! I've only been able to see Allison a handful of times since we graduated high school and for all 3 of us to be together? It has been years! I didn't really realize how much I've missed them in the past until we were able to hang out a couple times this summer! And I miss them again already! It was so fun to hear about their lives and what they've been up to. I'm so glad I had someone snap this picture at the last minute when we met up for the last time before we left. Good luck in Columbia Sam! and Allison, that baby of yours on its way is gonna be so darn cute. ;) You are going to be an awesome mama! Love you girls!!

Another person that I am REALLY going to miss is my amazing friend Christa. We first met when she started dating Andy, who was Sam's really good friend from their mission. Well, after her and Andy got married a couple years ago, us 4 became best friends. But I'm pretty sure that if Christa and I had met before we were married to Sam and Andy, we would've become best friends anyways! Anyhow, this summer was awesome because somehow we were able to live in apartments right next door to each other (Sam and Andy were managing together and that way it would be easier for them to do a lot of work together).. I was a little hesitant at first wondering if there was any chance we would get sick of each other but it was quite the opposite! It was so nice to be right next door so we could cook meals together, craft together, and hang out with our babies whenever we wanted without having to walk anywhere haha! And Christa is so darn good at sewing and helped me a ton with my projects. I don't know what I'm going to do without my mentor! ;) But even if we weren't doing a thing at all, it was still awesome just to be able hang out together. Ok ok I'll stop.. I just wanted to write this all out because I really did have so much fun with this girl. Love you Christa dear!

Our last day in Phoenix, boys playing their sand volleyball:

 Look at their chunk-o-love baby David!! He is such a cutie! Ivy still says what we figured out is her word for baby. Sounds like bah-bee. She would say it a lot when we were around him.

We went to our favorite vietnamese restaurant nearby for our goodbye dinner with the other couples (plus Nate, haha). We had so much fun spending time with our good friends Rob and Cerani and Scott and Michelle as well this summer! It really was a great group we were down there with. One of our best summers ever, I'd say!

Crazy to think how we are all moving on to our next stages in life after the summer. Gonna miss all of yall!! Later on we had sort of a make-shift party to say goodbye to all the salesmen who weren't at dinner.. didn't get any pics but know that yall are missed too!

And here is Ivy in our empty (and dirty, lol) apartment just after the movers left. On to our next phase in life!! It will be so so different, but in good ways, I'm sure. :)