staycation part two

As part of our stay-cation fun I planned to take Audrie putt-putt golfing. It just so happened that Jacob and Emma were staying the night with us, so Jamie stayed home with Annie (who was battling a cold) and I took the kiddos to a new mini-golf place next to Fastlanes.

Audrie thought it was pretty great!

Jacob and Emma were really good at the game, too!

After about three holes, Audrie figured out that if she moved "a little closer" she would do better...! So every hole after that, she just walked right up to the hole, set her ball down, and hit it in! I can't argue with that strategy.

She was so proud of her "hole in one" on every round!

The kids were fascinated with the water works.

Audrie couldn't figure out why it was SO blue.

They all had to retrieve a few stray hits every now and then.

At first it was accidentally hit in, but then it became fun to scoop their golf balls out.

Jacob took over the camera for a few minutes and snapped some shots of my professional golf playing.

And my weird face making...

At one point Audrie decided to take over the score keeping. Great...

I was glad to have Jacob and Emma along to make things more fun! Audrie adores them (and so do I!).

Golf fist pump!

So, day two of our stay-cation was a success. This is another activity we will be adding to our list of "fun things to do with a toddler"!

staycation part 1

Since we didn't go anywhere for Spring Break this year, I decided to plan a couple activities for a little 'stay-cation'.

The first activity of the week was taking Audrie bowling for the first time.

 I loved that they had little toddler bowling shoes for her!

 We met our friends, Trent and Candace, there with their sweet little girl Camryn.

 Not sure why Trent has an evil look while holding Annie!

 Audrie picked out a bowling ball and as you can imagine... she chose pink!

 No bowling shoes for Annie, but she still looked cute.

 The girls had alligator ramps to help them bowl. They loved it!

 I think the thing they loved the most was giving high fives after every try.

 I had my lowest score ever in bowling, but I have to blame it on the fact that I was bowling with Annie in my sling!

 The girls had a great time running around, too.

 It was a little past Annie's bedtime but she hung in there.

 Camryn is always so well behaved! She's a good influence on Audrie. :)

 I'm not sure if it was the dizzy-ing carpet or if she had too many bottles, but we had to cut Annie off after awhile... :)

Anyways, I give bowling with toddlers TWO thumbs up. We'll definitely do it again. Audrie LOVED it and we all had a good time!

peek-a-boo with Annie

I've really enjoyed my Spring Break so far this week (even though it was shortened to three days due to school snow days... and I was in car accident... and I acquired a few more grotesque baby poop stories to add to my list of reasons to stay on birth control). I HAVE spent some quality bonding time with my precious girls! Here is a little video clip of Annie playing peek-a-boo with me this afternoon...


Untitled from Rachel Cornett on Vimeo.

yap text

So I got a new app on my phone that I really like called Yap Text. When someone leaves me a voicemail this app instantly converts it into words and texts it to me. Sometimes if I'm teaching or in the middle of a boring meeting, etc, I don't have time to listen to voicemails but I can easily skim through the texts.

Here is a lovely sample of one from my dentist office...

And my sweet husband...

However... when my dad leaves me a voicemail... this app totally freaks out and can NOT translate my dad's southern drawl. I think it is so hilarious. Yesterday my dad called to check on me after my little car accident and he left me a sweet voicemail saying "Hey, Rachel, this is just your dad checking in. Heard you had a bad day... etc".

But THIS is what the yap text app thought my dad said....

I died laughing. My poor dad is never going to be able to reach me on the phone again because I'm always going to make him leave a voicemail just so I can read messages like these!

squeaky shoes

I put a pair of squeaky shoes on Annie for the first time today and she loved them! They are hand me downs from Audrie, but Annie didn't seem to care. I took a little video of her squeaking away, but first you have to click HERE to watch a video of Audrie wearing these shoes at the same age.

And then here is Annie's video:

Untitled from Rachel Cornett on Vimeo.

that girl

 Jamie's cousin (well I guess technically his second cousin), Kameron, came over this weekend to spend a couple days with us. Audrie had a blast with her and I think poor Kameron was wore out by the time she left this afternoon! She did a million things to entertain the girls all day and she also taught Audrie how to play hopscotch (which Audrie calls "hotjump").

 Kameron is such a sweet young lady and is a natural with babies. This morning I was up really early before work trying to balance Annie on one hip, make a bottle, finish getting ready, etc... and sweet little Kameron stuck her head out of the bedroom to ask if there was anything she could do to help me.

For some reason Audrie wouldn't call Kameron by her name and kept calling her "that girl". (I think Audrie was confused because she has a 2 year old friend named Camryn.)

Thank you, Kameron, for spending some time with us and our crazy girls. Come back anytime!

afternoon in the park

I took the girls to the park Saturday morning to let them run around for awhile before lunch. (It always seems that from 10am to noon is the most challenging time of day for me with the girls because by 10am we've usually played every game, done art projects, and sang a billion songs...I start to run out of ideas about that time and nap time seems so far away!) So I put them in the car and drove to the closest park I could find.

I also wanted to practice with a camera that my friend Melanie let me borrow. I needed a second camera for a wedding I was shooting Saturday evening and Mel let me borrow her Canon Rebel XSi.  

 So these are all photos I took with her camera (thanks, Mel!).

 It was really windy that morning and Annie had a little trouble walking against the wind. :)

Audrie's hair was blowing everywhere.

 I do love her curls!

 Annie's hair has some curl when it's wet from a bath but so far it's not really long enough to make any predictions. I'm betting on curls, though! :)

Audrie climbed all over that playground (she's always been a climber).

Annie seems to possess the same trait... she climbed up these steps in a flash!

 And then (just like her sister) she turned around to make sure someone saw what she just did! :)

 This next photo was a little over exposed but I tried to save it anyways because I love Audrie's smile here.

 Oh Audrie. I think my life must have been really boring before she came along.

 We had a great time at the park! Although she did hurt my heart when she said "mommy, put down the camera and come PLAY with me!".

So I did!