Rock Stars Don't Sleep in Cribs

As many of you know, Neal loves the XBox game, Rock Band. This has started a love of the game for Miss Meredith too. Typically, while he plays, she calls out "Mama - dance!" and she and I stand off to the side of the TV and turn in circles, throw our legs in the air and just generally look like dancin' fools. The other night though, Neal turned the mic over to Meredith - holding her up to it and prompting her to call out the names of her favorite people. She loved hearing herself say "Gigi! Papa! Bubbie!" come over the TV speakers. She even seemed to change up her normal inflection just for effect. Neal put her down after doing a thorough roll-call, but she would have none of it! So, he bent the stand so that it was about the right height and let her take the stage like any true rock star!

Finding her inner Janis Joplin

Shortly after her first big living room concert, Meredith decided she was much too cool for her crib - much to our dismay! She had been hiking her leg like she was thinking about it for awhile now, but truthfully I did not give her enough credit. I really thought she would be too chicken to go all the way - this is the same girl that is terrified of dirt! But Monday during her nap with Gigi, all my mom heard was Meredith talking to herself and then "THUD!" She went back to find her in tears on the floor. I was a little concerned about what we would do because I was really not prepared for her to sleep anywhere but her crib. Luckily, I was able to cheat and take off the outer side of her crib and then bought a rail to keep this busy little girl from falling out in the middle of the night. The first night was pretty tough - I ended up laying on the floor until she fell asleep, but last night and tonight were a bit easier. Naps are still more of an issue (we have only had 1 nap this week - but who is counting?)

Meredith's first night in what Neal calls her "medium-sized girl crib" - probably just to keep me from crying that she is growing up so fast!

"Sandcastles in the Sand...

...thought I could fly when you held my hand." -Robin Sparkles

Ahhh - there is nothing I love more than the beach! The Geurin family spent many, many summer vacations at some beach in Mexico or Texas, making me long for the sound of waves and the smell of salt water - even the cackle of seagulls makes my heart jump. This year for my mom's birthday, my dad rented a beach house in Galveston for us all to have a big family vacation. My last trip to Galveston was a spring break trip my senior year in high school, which is where Neal and I first really got to know each other , so it was fun to take our little girl back there 10 years later.

Before going, we were not really sure what to expect. Meredith is proving to be quite the princess despite Neal's best efforts to convince her to use her height to pursue sport-star dreams. She cries any time she even imagines a speck of "diwt" on her - and even insists we clean her shoes if they get dirty.

This pose is affectionately known as "The Meredith" to many close to us - varying reasons can bring out our little drama queen - this of course, was all because of some "diwt"

I was determined to teach her my love for the beach, so I thought I would give it a shot! We progressed slowly - starting with her clinging to us for dear life even just as we walked along the shore but ending the trip playing in the waves with mama and daddy and even helping to make sand castles.

Showing Daddy a favorite shell.

Thanks to some encouragement from her beloved Pinkie, and some demonstration from Mom and Gigi, sandcastles were pretty fun to make.

After seeing Uncle Neil play in the water, we almost couldn't get Meredith out! Of course she had to sit on my leg so she wouldn't feel the sand - and if you look closely, Pinkie is tucked behind me because he needed to join us too - this was the best I could do to keep him with us and not soaked!

We took a break from the beach at Moody Gardens in the Rainforest Pyramid - Meredith was so excited to get to see "amals" with 3 of her favorite people - Uncle Neil, Aunt Katie, and Baby Landon. She just perfected Aunt Katie's name this weekend (sounds more like Tatie) but she loved calling it out every time she saw her - don't think Katie minded either!


Landon and Meredith as frogs - Landon is a little model - posing anytime a camera is around - and for these pictures it was even more pornounced - especially when there was an audience who all thought he was the cutest thing!

Meredith's favorite part of the trip (and a highlight for us too!) was performing for her fans on the porch each night - she loved dancing, singing, and making everyone laugh before bedtime - I think she was sad to come home to where she just has Neal and I to watch her every night - of course that doesn't keep her from dancing for us or making us laugh at all her silliness!

After bath-time fun with Daddy tonight - Daddy is sure this will be one of her favorites when she is older!

Softball Princess

So tonight we headed out to watch FBCA Red, the team that Neal has played on for about 5 years now - I used to go to all the games, but now I have to limit myself to the games that don't push too far into Meredith's bedtime. I took my new camera just to play and luckily in addition to getting to take some pictures of the guys, Meredith's friend, Hannah was there and we got lots of great ones of the girls! They especially loved playing with their mom's sunglasses - Meredith would put hers on and say "cool!" then Hannah would do the same and shout "Hollywood!" too cute!

Neal in the batter's box.

"Yeah Dada!" FBCA Red won!

The princesses kissing goodbye! I need to get quicker with the button to catch them in action...

Happy 6 month birthday Landon!

We love you little guy! So glad you have been in our lives for 6 months now.

A Fun Fourth with more to come!

We had a great family day yesterday starting out with upfront seats at the Arlington 4th of July parade - thanks to Becca for getting there way before I even thought of waking up to save our place! Meredith did great and loved all the flags, the bands, and of course the horses (otherwise known as "bahs!")

Meredith showing her love for one of the many Arlington marching bands.

We headed out from the parade a little early to go to Gigi's - we had a party with several of our friends from Church. It was a blast! Everyone brought lunch and we also had a dessert competition. I had grand plans of making "Red, White, and Blue Velvet Cake" but by the time I got around to baking on Thursday night, it seemed too ambitions, so I went with my favorite thing to eat - brownies. I threw a few sprinkles on top to disguise it as patriotic. Luckily my other friends were ambitious, so we had some really great looking cakes and other desserts that were over the top patriotic and were fantastic to eat too!

Yummy desserts! This flag cake in front was actually a really big sugar cookie - ummmm!

Meredith had so much fun at the party - she really enjoys the pool but still prefers to be latched onto me or someone else she trusts. She ventured out yesterday and spent a lot of time hanging out in the hot tub and also the kiddie pool- they were the perfect size for her to feel comfortable without us - of course she was never too far from someone just in case!

Meredith and two of her friends in the baby pool - she used to refer to the twins as Sarah and Sarah, but we had a breakthrough yesterday and they were Rachel and Rachel - guess we will keep working on that.

We are all resting up now and are headed to Southlake pretty soon - time for a Geurin/Sook/Hanks 4th of July Bash - Meredith is excited because she hasn't seen Aunt Sandy (who keeps her when I work during the school year) since my mom started keeping her this May. Hopefully I will have more pictures and stories to share then! Happy Fourth of July everyone!

A crazy week - and it is only Tuesday!

So Miss Meredith gave us a bit of a scare - she was crying like crazy on Sunday and would just randomly fall down then she would crawl instead of walk - this kept happening so I finally called the on-call nurses who assured me that it sounded like an ear infection and thought it could wait until Monday morning. I made an appointment as soon as I got to work and then took Meredith in around lunch time. The doctor said her ears looked great but were concerned, especially about the crawling. She had Meredith walk to me in the hallway to check out her legs. The doctor looks at me and says "She is limping - don't you see it?" Making sure I didn't sound like a bad mom, I say "Yeah, I guess she is walking a little funny." But what I was really thinking is - Meredith always has a funny little walk! I love that funny little walk! She watched her a bit longer and decided there might be a fracture in her leg. So we were sent off to a radiologists office for X-rays!

The radiologists were a bit perplexed that I could not tell them the source of her "pain" - not only could I not narrow down the point on her leg that might have this "fracture", I had no clue which leg would even be the culprit. So they had to do like 100 x-rays! Meredith was a trooper - she was obviously scared and cried, but she was really very patient for what we were asking her to do - I tried to sing to her and hold her hand, but I also had to hold her leg in funny positions, which I felt terrible about because I was thinking if something was broken, I could really be hurting her!

I had to wait until this morning - I tried to be patient, but finally called around 9:30, to which I was told by the nurse "You will probably hear today" - what probably today? I think then I lost a bit of my patience and she promised to have someone call me. The did just a bit later and great news - her legs are "perfect"! Probably a minor sprain or just an ache. So I am just supposed to watch her and she should be getting better. I would say that the little girl that I watched prance around the zoo today is feeling much much better, so I am not too worried. If we see anything stick around, we will go back on Monday for blood work to just check her out some more.

I felt so bad after that not fun day that we went ahead on a pre-planned trip to the zoo (I figured if I didn't go, I would just worry the whole time we were gone and that if we heard something while we were there, I could easily leave to go back to the doctor if we needed to). She goes to the zoo quite a bit with Gigi and our friends Jannea and Katie (Katie is 3 1/2) so she loves it! As soon as we turn onto the bridge from University, she yells "Animals" until we park. She was very excited to get to take her wagon with her so that she and Katie could tour the zoo in style. As an extra treat Aunt Katie and Landon came along for his first trip to the zoo. We had tons of fun! Meredith's favorite part is the carousel and the train ride and she was sad to leave at the end of the day, but we got some really good pictures thanks to Aunt Katie's new camera! Here are a few of my favorites...


Sharing a kiss with the Komodo Dragon


Can you tell that a fear of birds flying at your face runs in the Hanks family??

Does this look like a girl that might have had a broken leg?

Landon enjoying his first trip to the zoo and his first ride on the carousel

Meredith, the carousel pro, shows Landon how it is done!