May has been another busy feeling month. I had an excellent Mother's Day. I wasn't sure how enjoyable the day would be. Rylee had a stuffy nose and didn't sleep well the night before, I woke up with a sore throat. Luckily enough after a few hours of being up both of the problems seemed to go away. Josh of course knew how to save the day, we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham. It is one of my very favorite spots in Birmingham. Josh and I use to go there a few time every week after I got home from work. We haven't been there in a really long time, I believe since Rylee was born. That part of it was kinda exciting, I have so many memories of us going there having so much fun and having such great conversations while we walked and now here we are almost two years down the road getting to share it with our little girl. Besides getting to go there, I also got a beautiful hand made card from Ry that is still hanging up on our fridge. She is so proud of her pictures. And I got flowers, but not just flowers in a vase, flowers to finally plant in my garden! Some of them are beginning to bloom now and they are soooo pretty, orange, purple, and bright pink.
Earlier this month my friend Beth and her son Andrew (he is a few months older than Ry) came over for a few hours and they had so much fun playing in the sand and water table. They were so fun to watch and it was so wonderful just being able to have some girl talk during that time. The day after that we met some more friends at the park. Rylee had so much fun going down the slide, we did it again, and again, and again. Then we went on a short walk by the lake with all the kids. Some riding bikes, one scooting on a scooter and some relaxing in their strollers. And once again, for me, it was great having the opportunity to talk with others.
What else, what else, what else... the farmers market is now open and we've been going up there every weekend so far. Sometimes Andrew is even there which makes Rylee very happy. We've been buying lots of yummy strawberries, radishes, lettuce, and even some goat cheese. This weekend was the Strawberry Festival so Rylee and me checked it out (daddy didn't get in town till that night) for a little bit but we quickly decided it was too hot, humid, and crowded. On our way back to the car we decided to buy some new shoes. Rylee wears a 6 1/2 wide. She has such a big foot and has outgrown so many shoes, so much quicker than I thought she would.
So these days Rylee is getting more and more talkative. It really never stops unless she is sitting looking at her books and gets in her zone. A typical conversation is:
"Mama, look, look" me "What is it Ry" ry "quack quack quack" me "oh, a duck, look a brown duck" ry "yeah duck". She also is constantly talking about all the people in her life. Out of nowhere she just starts going over every one's names. It's funny to see how she groups things. She was talking about Gocca, then Robbie, then baby Taytay, then Pop, and from Pop she said lawnmower. Pop brought over a riding lawnmower last week. Then dada, b/c dada is the one who rides the lawnmower and then started making lawnmowerish noises. Ry is also a big fan of singing and will start singing parts of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star which is one of the cutest things in the world, and some of Going On A Bear Hunt. We are also working on her learning the names of shapes. She can identify a square, circle, rectangle, triangle, diamond, heart, and star. Though there names are a little hard to pronounce. Especially rectangle. It's so funny how much changes, when they are little you just wait for them to be able to master new physical things; reaching, rolling over, clapping, sitting, crawling, walking, running. Now it seems like everything has switched. Now milestones really don't have too much to do with physical things anymore.
And last but not least we get to go to Illinois. I am sooooooooo very excited to get to see my parents and friends. It is LONG overdue. Hopefully, we will have good weather. May can still be iffy there unlike here. I can't wait to see how my friend's kids have grown and now that Rylee is old enough she can actually play with them. It's going to be so wonderful and I will be taking lots of pictures so stay tuned.
We finally made our way to Illinois to visit family and friends. We had perfect weather and an amazing time. My mom spent as much time as she could in a 24 hour period loving on Rylee, and Rylee loved every minute of it! We took Ry to the park, the same park I grew up playing at. How cool is it that! I know have pictures of the both of us around the same age playing at that park, though the equipment has been upgraded some. 
Grandma also made sure Rylee had lots of fun stuff to keep her busy. So she got to vacuum, blow bubbles, color with chalk, push her lawnmower & wheelbarrow, and ride a new bike. Did I miss something, was it all of a sudden December 25th??? Nope, it was in the 70's, that could never happen in Illinois in December. One of Rylee's favorite things was the baby birds. There was a bird's nest in my mom's fence that had 3 baby birds in it. Rylee was completly fascinated with them. Everytime we were outside or looking out the kitchen window she would say "baby boo baby boo" and we'd have to go check on them. The little ones flew away by the time we left. Just another reminder how babies grow so quickly! Besides missing family and friends I miss certain food from back home. One thing I miss is the smiley face cookies from Riverside Bakery. My mom suprised me with them and Rylee got to have her first smiley face cookie. She LOVED it of course! Another fun thing we got to do was hang out with Kelly and Zoey. We had the cutest little play/lunch date. They are so adorable, the pictures of them just make me smile! The girls were a little shy at first but then started having fun. We also went over to Kristen & Nick's and got to play in the sprinkler and she got to go down a slide so woohoo! Then my 3 friends with our 4 kids decided we would get some pictures taken of all the kids and us. It was quite an experience trying to keep the little one's content during all that. Luckily Shari's son Kai is amazing and kept all the little one's pretty happy. I was a little nervous about the pictures considering it was kinda crazy but they turned out amazing. I am currently in the process of trying to pick and will post them probably a month or so after getting them knowing how I am. So we were real real busy. It was just so great spending time with my parents and having them be able to spend some quality time with Rylee. And of course it was so great to see my girls again and their kids, I need to talk them into coming down here to visit soon! 
