Today has been a little harder on the "no bottle" thing. She won't even take any milk at all from her sippy cup today. I think she might be testing me, but even though it worries me about her not getting any milk, I am staying strong!! The past two nights have been horrible with screaming and crying throughout the night. I don't know if this has anything to do with not getting as much milk or what. And today she has been very fussy, so we had to get out of the house. I took her to MDO's playground for a little while. She had the best time but it was so hot! And she wouldn't drink any liquid so I was afraid she would get dehydrated so we couldn't stay too long. But it was nice to get out for a little while.

"Wheeeeee"
Okay, if you know Lily Grace, you know she is CRAZY for animals of all kinds. She loves them dearly and gets so excited if she sees one. Here she had spotted an animal.....
.....the bird! If you look very closely in the center of the picture, you will see the bird on the wire.
HA! It was so little but she was so ecstatic over it!
I have always said Lily Grace is my little human vacuum cleaner. She picks up everything she sees and hands it to Mommy. It will be the smallest little thing, I would not normally see. Well, we spent the majority of our time at the playground, picking up the bark and handing it to Mommy. It was never ending!!
She is so big! A few months ago, she couldn't even walk around the playground, now she is climbing to the top!
"I think I will go down that slide."
Playing some tunes
Home for lunch. I will have to say, she ate a ton for lunch!! And she finally drank a few ounces of milk, too. Maybe we will get through this before Mommy has a nervous break down! HA!

Okay, yes we are 3 months behind on getting Lily Grace on a sippy cup. Next week is her 15 month check up and I know her Doctor will be mad at me if she is still on the bottle. Well, today I decided not to give her a bottle. It was a lot better day than I imagined! She was a little fussy throughout the day but it was not that bad. The only thing is, she was getting four 9 oz. bottles a day plus 3 oz. in her cereal in the mornings which is a total of 39 oz. of milk a day. Way too much milk!!! No wonder she is so big! So today, I fixed her a 9 oz. sippy cup of milk and she sipped on that off and on all day. She never finished it completely. Then Marty gave her a "night time" bottle. He said she sucked it dry quick! We have never given her bottles before bedtime because we had always heard this was hard to get away from, so this one was given to her before bath time. I thought this might be good for her until she gets a little more used to the sippy cup. Anyway, she probably got approximately 18 oz. of milk today. Is that normal?? This has been the hardest thing for us with Lily Grace because she loves the bottle so much and hates the sippy cup so much. I will take any advice anyone will give us!

I have been trying to find all the girls I graduated with from Bama for about a week now. We had all pretty much lost touch which is so disappointing! We all spent so much time together in school and grew very close and I really hate to lose that friendship. So anyway... I found all of them but because it was so late notice, only six of us were able to meet up. I was so excited to see these 5 girls though! Three of us rode together to meet the others at Superior Grill. Yum! It was great to catch up for a little while and I can't wait to see them all much more in the near future. All 20 girls from my section will always hold a very special place in my heart! I must do better at keeping in touch! We missed all of you that were not able to attend! And good luck to all of you starting back to teaching next week. I hope you all have a wonderful school year!

Whitney, Brooke, Taylor, Peyton, Lindsay, Suzy Taylor and Peyton
Brooke and Peyton
Whitney and Peyton
One more Picture of us all! Love you girls!!!

Friday, some of the girls in the family went out to eat at Cypress Inn for lunch. Lily Grace loved the rolls and eating with the girls. Then we headed to the movies to see Mama Mia! It was such a good movie. All girls need to go watch it! My dear friend Becky met us for the movie as well. Lily Grace slept through half of it but did very good. We had a great time with everyone and can't wait to do it again soon! We missed Maw Maw so much! She is sick, so please keep her in your prayers.
After the movie, Lily Grace headed to Berry with Grandmommy. I had scrapbooking night at my church so she spent the night again with Grandmommy, again!!!! It was a little easier this time but I still cried a lot as they drove away. I got to see her first thing the next morning so that made it a little easier, too.

Saturday night we all went out for Marty's birthday. And guess what???? We didn't go to Tokyo for once!! I know you are all so surprised! We went to Mugshots and had yummy, yummy hamburgers with lots of fried appetizers. We had an awesome meal and so much fun with everyone. Then after dinner we went to Cold Stone and a ride around campus. It was a great night! We did miss Grandmama because she was in Seattle and Pop and Aunt Kirsten because they had to work. We hope you enjoyed your night Daddy! We all love you very much!!

Tonight is a very, very sad night for me. You all know how attached Lily Grace is to me, right? Did you know how attached I am to her?? Well, I am VERY attached as well! My mother has been begging me since Lily Grace was born to let her stay the night with her. I never would and I finally gave in tonight. It is killing me! I have cried and cried! She actually didn't leave with her until almost 8 o'clock tonight and then we are going up there in the morning so we won't be apart for very long but it is just the thought of spending the night away from each her. Marty and I are just resting and catching up on some movies we have been wanting to watch but never have the time to do so. It has been nice but I am still missing my little baby so much. I know she is in the next best hands after mine but it's just hard! Hopefully this will make it easier for the next time I agree to let her spend the night away from me!! I am not sure when that will be though!

This past weekend we stayed with Grandmommy and Pop for the Fourth. On Saturday we got to make two special visits. First we went to see Aunt Marc and Uncle JW. It was so great to see them and they were excited to see Lily Grace. She put on a big show for them! After the visit with them, we went to Aunt Shelia and Uncle Kenneth's house. There was lots of cousins there and we had a wonderful time!! Saturdays are so much fun!

...but it wasn't working!!

When we got to Uncle Bubba's and Aunt Shelia's, we were excited to see Levi's new puppy! How cute is he?? Lily Grace really liked him!

We were also excited to see Baby Beth. She is so sweet and I loved holding her. I was afraid Lily Grace wouldn't like me holding her but she actually did okay!! Towards the end she wasn't liking it too much but for a long time she was just excited to play with her!

I think Lily Grace is saying, "Look at those legs!! They look like mine!" We don't make little babies in this family! HA! TOO CUTE!!!

Lily Grace was sharing her passy with Beth.
She was really excited that there is a girl cousin in the family now!
Taking care of her baby cousin
"I love you Beth!"
Lily Grace wasn't too happy about her Grandparents holding Beth though, a little jealousy was shining through!
Lily Grace and Ben enjoyed playing with each other
Levi and his new puppy. We wish Houston would have been awake so we could have played with him, too!
This picture was so funny to us. I was showing Maw Maw how to work her camera on her phone and all four of us are looking at the phone. We all look so interested!
Lily Grace is thinking, "I already know how to use a phone!!"