Girls Weekend

A couple of weekends ago 2 of my oldest friends came to Birmingham for a nice girls weekend. It was so great to catch up and to introduce them to 2 of my best friends in Birmingham. We had a great time at dinner Friday night and then shopping and grilling out on Saturday night. I feel so fortunate to have such wonderful friends and I can't believe that Monique, Raynah, and I have know each other for over 10 years. I love you girls and look forward to a big girls weekend with everyone!

Jack's School Report......

For those of you that check on Jack's progress at school everyday, I am happy to blog some great news. He did not cry today at all, kept a dry pull up, and even danced and sang during music. I was so excited I wanted to cry when his teacher brought him to the car this afternoon. After the good news, she tells me that he will get new teachers on Tuesday. I am pretty sure my jaw dropped or something because she quickly explained that he had met his new teachers and seemed okay with them. Everyone say a prayer for Jack next week that he does good with his new teachers. I am praying myself that we don't revert to not liking school since it will be new people. I hope everyone has had a great week and has a great weekend!!

Oh, I hope you like my music addition to the blog. It has only taken me 2 years to figure this out:)

Love,
Ashley

Jack's First Award

This week I decided to put him in Pull ups to make it easier for both of us when he goes to the potty. I was unsure about my decision until he came home with "The Potty Award" from school today. If this is the one thing other than artwork that he likes about school, I am not complaining. For 2 days he has come home with the original pull up that I sent him in and it is dry. I asked the teacher how they do it because he is not that cooperative at home and she said the do the "potty dance". I need to find out what that is and we need to start doing it in the The Sellers household. He is so close, but just not there. When we got home he was so proud of his award that we did a photo shoot with it. He will love this pic when he gets older:)

I hope everyone is having a great week!

The Terrible Twos

This week has been very interesting in our house. Jack's normal mood, tantrums, and sleeping habits have been way worse than normal. Let's just say AWFUL! He has always been a great sleeper at night and had gotten much better during the day. Lately we have had to fight him to go down at night, so he has had some pretty late nights. During the day he has only been taking about 20 minute naps, so he has stayed pretty cranky. I have just assumed that his attitude is because he has been tired or maybe getting teeth.

On Monday we had friends over to play. He did fairly well, except for the occasional "mine" break down because another child picked up a toy that Jack didn't even know he had and started to play with it. Yes, we are also going through a phase where everything is "mine". After lunch we decided to sit inside and watch cartoons because it was so hot outside. The kids were glued to the tv so the girls sat and chatted for a while. I looked over at one point and this is how I found Jack. Too cute, right? For about 2 seconds. I picked him up to move him upstairs and he had a complete meltdown, which resulted in him crying through his entire naptime.
He fought us to go down last night, so needless to say he wanted to sleep in today when he needed to be at school by 9:30. I let him sleep until about 9:10 and then got him up and dressed and we headed off to school. I was nervous about him getting out of the car but he did great. I went on to the dentist and was on my way to do errands around 11:30 when I got a phone call from school. When I answered I could hear him screaming "Mama, night night". The teacher said he had been screaming since he got there this morning. He stopped long enough to do art (because that is his favorite subject) and then started up again once art was over. She also said that he had been pulling on his ear, so she was worried he had an ear infection or something.

Well, I did what most Moms would do and rushed to school to pick him up. When I got there he said "Hey Mama" and then turned to his teacher and said "Bye Bye School". He then looked at me and pointed at his backpack on the wall and said "mon Mama"(come on Mama) and started to walk out of the door. I knew at that second that he had pulled one on me and was completely fine.

I went on to lunch where he had 3 meltdowns, one resulting in him throwing a fork at people in the booth in front of us and another where he screamed "pizza" the entire way out of the restaurant(and we weren't in the front). I decided at this point that I was going to go ahead and take him to the doctor just to rule out an ear infection, teething, or the hand, foot, mouth virus since he was acting so unruly and out of character.

We headed home to hang out for a while until the doctors appointment. After about another 20 minute meltdown at home, I convinced him to sit on the couch and watch tv while I went to fold some clothes. I wasn't out of the room 10 minutes and I walked back through to find this.

Now, at first I freaked out and thought he had passed out or something, but after I ran over and saw that he was breathing I couldn't help but grab the camera and just laugh. I'm assuming he just fell asleep as he was getting off of the sofa.

Well, we went to the doctor and I explained what had been going on. The doctor checked him out and his diagnosis was "welcome to the terrible twos". I felt like an idiot but he reassured me that he sees this all of the time, especially from first time parents.

He did pull one on me today, but he will definitely be in school tomorrow. I think that my fun is just beginning!!!!!

Jack's Second First Day of School

Jack started a summer mother's day out program 2 weeks ago. They went for one week and then had last week off because the church was having VBS, so yesterday was almost like a first day again. He did great and could not wait to get out of the car to go to "cool" and see his teachers and friends and do his most favorite activity.....ART!!!

This is a picture from my phone of him saying cheese while we were waiting in the carpool line.

It's About Time......

Ya'll have been asking for these for a few weeks now I know. This is the best that I can come up with as of now. My camera has been broken and we were trying to figure out if it was worth paying the arm and a leg they want to fix it or if we should just get a new one. Hopefully I will have one in the next few weeks.

These are pictures from Jack's Parrain's wedding on May 30. He was the ring bearer and did a great job. The bride has some great pictures from her photographer, so hopefully I can get my hands on those soon.

This is Jack with 2 of the flower girls, Rose and Ava. He had such a great time with them the whole weekend and they all did really well, considering the full weekend they had with not many naps.

I'll post more as soon as I get them!

Fun in the Sun

I wanted to post these adorable pictures of the kiddos. Monday Mindy, Mary Molloy, Shea, Ann Rogers, and Sena came over for a fun day in the pool and with Jack's new sprinkler ball. It was a blast. We have not seen the girls in forever it feels like. We are so glad that Shea is out for the summer so that we can spend lots of time with her and Ann Rogers. I am looking forward to our summer playdates!

Jack's First Day of School

Jack had his second first day of school this Tuesday. Look how precious he is all ready to walk out the door and go to school. He was so excited! I was a little nervouse because the school he is in for summer does a carpool line, which means he is taken out of the car by a teacher and put back into the car by a teacher and I never have to get out. Great for me, but I was worried that Jack would freak out if a stranger took him out of the car, especially on his first day. Well, I was wrong. He couldn't wait to get out of the car and go to "cool". When the teacher took him out of the car he looked back at me and said "bye, love you". I was a little upset that he didn't care anymore than that, but very happy at the same time because I didn't want a replay of school last fall. He had a great report card at the end of the day and was very worn out. All he could talk about last night was "cool".

Day two, I was not so lucky. I kept thinking yesterday that there was no way this would be this easy, but I kept convincing myself that maybe it was. Well today proved me right. I took him this morning and he seemed excited, but not as excited and vocal about it as yesterday. When she came to get him out of the car he went nuts. He grabbed onto the buckle so that the teacher couldn't get it undone and started saying "hold you mommy, hold you". I felt so bad. The teacher reassured me that this was normal and that he had such a great day yesterday he would be fine today. He then grabbed onto the sides of the carseat and screamed as loud as he could. I let her take him because I thought it was for his own good and once she walked away from the car he was fine and had a great day.

On another exciting note, he is starting to use the potty. This is probably too good to be true also, because I don't think it can be this easy, but right now I am just going along with it. We haven't reached the point of him telling me when he needs to go but he is very persisitent in telling me when he has gone. He doesn't have school next week so I have bought him some choo choo underwear that we have had to put on for a little while each day and we are going to experiment with potty training next week. Wish me luck! This will be interesting.

Memorial Day

Jack and I had a fun filled Memorial Day week in Louisiana and Brandon was able to join us for the weekend. We stayed very busy as usual when we visit and had so much fun catching up with friends and family. We went to Baton Rouge for 2 days and were able to go swimming at my cousin's house one day and had dinner with my Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins one night.

Jack loved the pool, especially with his Cousin Gordie. It was his first time in the pool for the summer and with floaties so I was worried about the way he would handle it, but he did great. He stayed on the steps the whole time and had so much fun. He is a little fish!!

We picked Brandon up from the airport on Thursday night and I got to go to dinner with all of my girl friends. I feel so fortunate to have such wonderful friends. We have all known each other for so long and I think it is so great that we still keep in touch.

We headed down to Papa Doug's camp on Friday and Saturday for some sun and fishing. It was a great time. We had shrimp, crabs, and crawfish for dinner Friday night. I was in heaven. Saturday Mom, Jack, and I got sun on the deck while the boys fished. Jack loved digging through the ice chest and playing with the fish and the 1 crab that they caught.
The camp is a boys wonderland. There is so much to do or should I say "play with". Jack was obsessed with Papa's tractor and had to take at least 2 rides each day.

Sunday we went out on the Tchefuncte River with Cookie, Kim, and Raynah(a longtime friend of mine). This has kind of become our tradition over the past 3 years and we have so much fun. Jack loved it this year because he could walk around and not be uncomfortable in the life jacket.

He was so worn out from watching all of the action on the River that he took a LONG nap on the boat, in this life jacket. Look how sweet. I don't know how one bit of this was comfortable.

All in all it was a great week and weekend and we look forward to next year!