June 30...Day 155

I can't believe my baby girl is already 8 months old!!

June 29...Day 154

Look who was home tonight! Daniel's been running sound out at the Muni and has been getting home around midnight every night. He had the night off tonight, and I celebrated by going to a movie with a friend and leaving him at home with Audrey! So we didn't really spend any time together this evening...but I got a night out and he got to spend some time with Audrey, so it all worked out!

June 28...Day 153

The basement is almost finished! I've been having a lot of fun using Stampin' Up's Decor Elements to decorate the walls in Audrey's play area. They are so easy to use, and the end result is super fun.

June 27...Day 152

Audrey's friend Wesley had his first birthday party today! It was a pool party, and Wesley's mom and dad (our friends Adam and Katie) thought it would be fun for Wesley to wear a Speedo! And there's my baby girl in the background. She's going to be having her own first birthday party in about four months!

June 26...Day 151

Tonight we went to see The Producers at the Muni (without kids, that was exciting!). The show was really good, but by intermission it was getting kind of chilly. Who would have thought that it would be cool enough for a blanket with all the hot weather we've been having lately?

June 25...Day 150

I'm working tonight. Stamping and getting ready for a class next week while watching Confessions of a Shopaholic. I love my job!

June 24...Day 149

I am feeling better, at least better than yesterday...so I'm back posting pictures. No more slacking off!

Now that summer is here (and it is really, really hot!), I like to put Audrey in dresses. She has a lot of cute dresses, and they seem comfy to wear on hot days. Plus, for Audrey, wearing a dress is like having a toy constantly attached to her body. She enjoys pulling the dress up and entertaining herself by chewing on it. Wow, she is a chubby little girl (17 pounds now according to the Wii Fit)!!

June 23...Day 148

I'm a failure and do not have a picture to post tonight. It seems Audrey has passed on her sickness to me (and my mom and sister and dad and uncle, and pretty much everyone who came into contact with her the past few days!). Daniel came to Keokuk today to pick up me and Audrey and bring us home. The good news is that Audrey seems to be better today. She was very happy this afternoon and very excited to see her daddy.

Back to the picture...I don't have the energy to get up and find my camera. And I tried taking a picture with the web camera on my computer, but I already turned the lights off and the picture is too dark. So those are my excuses...my first day with no picture. And I feel too bad to really care.

June 22...Day 147

I took this picture of Audrey making this silly face during the short period of time she was happy today. She spent most of the day sleeping, fussing, crying, eating, or pooping (I would have liked to take a picture of her nasty diapers, but didn't want to gross you out!). Last night, she seemed like she was feeling better, but she has not been herself at all today. Fortunately, she took long naps and slept a lot. Hopefully she will be better very, very soon!

June 21...Day 146

Audrey seems to be feeling better today. She hasn't thrown up anymore and was laughing and more cheerful today. Hopefully she's better. We went on a quick trip to my dad's house this afternoon, and Audrey got to try swimming again. I think she liked it. She was very serious the whole time, but she seemed to enjoy kicking her legs and splashing in the water.

June 20...Day 145

Audrey got to spend time with lots of family today. She also went on her first boat ride, but the pictures of that weren't as cute as this one of her playing with Aunt Elisabeth. She has been fussy all day, and tonight I found out why...she is sick! She threw up on me 3 times tonight (conveniently after Daniel left to go back to Springfield). She's never thrown up like that before, so this has been a new experience for us all. I really, really, really hope that she will sleep tonight and feel better in the morning. I don't deal well with vomit.

June 19...Day 144

Daniel, Audrey and I are in Keokuk for a visit with my family. We have a little family reunion going on this weekend, then Audrey and I are going to stay with my mom for a while longer. Tonight, we got together with a bunch of old friends at the Schultes' newly rebuilt house. The Schultes' house (especially the Schultes' kitchen table, shown in this picture) was one of our favorite places to hang out in high school. It was just like old times tonight, except it used to be the younger Schulte kids that were running around and entertaining us all. Now, everyone is grown up and we have kids of our own that are running around and keeping everyone entertained.

June 18...Day 143

Daniel asked me today if the basement was worth all the money we spent to have it fixed. I would definitely say YES! Today I was so excited to be able to sort and fold the laundry on the nice, clean, carpeted floor while Audrey could sit there with me and play with her toys. The only thing better would be to have the washer and dryer up on the 2nd floor by our bedroom, because now all the clean, folded clothes in the basement have to be carried up 2 flights of stairs to be put away. Maybe for our next project...

June 17...Day 142

My dad came to Garage-a-Palooza tonight to do magic tricks. I think he was a hit with the kids!

June 16...Day 141

Our new carpet for the basement was installed this morning! Audrey is very excited about being able to play in her new playroom very soon!!

June 15...Day 140

This is hot water flowing out of our faucet, which means the gas leak is fixed and our gas has been turned back on, which means we can now take hot showers and give Audrey baths and wash our dishes and cook on our stove!

June 14...Day 139

Wow, life has been crazy for us lately. I was debating taking a picture of 2 things today, and ended up taking a picture of both of them together.First, yesterday I managed to lose both my keys and my cell phone (at different times). It was easy to find my keys. I had left them at Kellie's house after we got back from Wicked on Friday night. My cell phone was a little harder to track down. We got home from Indianapolis last night and I couldn't find my phone. I had used the phone in the car on our way back, so we figured it had to be somewhere in the car, right? We cleaned out all of our bags and searched the car again and again. Finally we decided it wasn't there. My only guess was that it had fallen out of my pocket when we pulled over at an exit outside Decatur. Audrey was screaming, so I got into the backseat to try to calm her down, and I thought maybe it fell out of my pocket then. It was our last guess on where the phone could be. Fortunately, our friends Steve and Amy were driving home from Indianapolis today. They pulled off on the exit we stopped at yesterday, looked around at the spot where we pulled over, and guess what they found...my phone sitting there unharmed!! I am very excited to have both my keys and my phone back in my possession!

The second part of this picture is all the papers and labels that my phone and keys are sitting on top of. Tonight was the first night of our church's week long activity camp called Garage-a-Palooza. I am in charge of registration. Tonight we had 105 kids, which is a great turn out for the first night of this event. But, it's a nightmare when it comes to the paperwork!

June 13...Day 138

Today was the Shelton Family Backyard Bash at Daniel's parents' house. Everyone had a good time...especially the kids!!

June 12...Day 137

Tonight my fellow photo a day bloggers, Amy and Kellie, and I got to go out for a fun girls night in Indianapolis. We went out to dinner at a super fancy restaurant and had a great time. Here is Amy with her fancy hamburger and frites (fries).

Then we went to the Murat Theatre to see Wicked! It was my 4th time seeing the show, and I liked it just as much the 4th time as I did the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd times! What a fun night!!

June 11...Day 136

So in the middle of the most hectic week ever and hours before we are supposed to leave for Indianapolis,we find a gas leak in our house. I don't have time to write more now; I'll have to fill you in later...

June 10...Day 135

Whew, camp is over! Audrey had another first at camp today...her first camp boyfriend! This little boy is Solomon, the missionaries' son. Audrey just loved him. Every time he came up to her, she just laughed and giggled and try to grab his hair, face, shirt...whatever she could get her hands on! But really, who could blame her? He's pretty much the cutest little 4 year old you have ever seen. We all wanted to snatch him up and take him home with us! I've got some more pictures of the 2 of them interacting that I'm going to post on Facebook soon.

June 9...Day 134

Audrey got to go swimming for the first time today out at camp. As you can see from this picture, she didn't like it too much. The water was FREEZING! I didn't get in past my legs, so I can't blame her for being upset by the cold water. She did enjoy sitting by the pool and patting the cement and watching all the big kids play (though she didn't like their splashing). And I enjoyed getting to see her in her cute swimsuit. I think if the water was warmer she would have really enjoyed the pool. We're planning to go swimming again at Grandpa's in a couple of weeks. The weather should be hotter and hopefully Audrey will have more fun then!

June 8...Day 133

Tonight we had a talent show at camp. There was a lot of interesting talent! My favorite was Cael showing off all of his tricks (and his mohawk), especially when he showed us where his "belly butt" is!

June 7...Day 132

Daniel, Audrey and I are spending the week (except for the nights, we're coming home to sleep in our own beds!) at church camp with a bunch of 3rd and 4th graders. I'm teaching some classes in the mornings, and Daniel is leading worship. Tonight was Daniel's debut performance on guitar. It was really loud and I couldn't hear him, but I'm sure he did a great job!

June 6...Day 131

Audrey wore her first pair of sandals today! Aren't they cute? She wore them to her friend Simon's 2nd birthday party. Happy birthday Simon!!

June 5...Day 130

Tonight we decided to introduce Audrey to one of our favorite summer tradtions--going to the Muni! The Muni is an outdoor community theater in town. Daniel has been a part of the Muni for the past few years both performing in shows and running sound for shows. He's now on the board and in charge of all the audio stuff. He will be out there this summer running sound for 2 of the shows. So me and Audrey may be going out to visit quite a bit!

It was the first night of the season tonight with Oliver opening. We were nervous about how Audrey would cooperate. She is almost always in bed and asleep for the night by 8:00; the show tonight didn't begin until 8:30. I think we need to start giving Audrey more credit, because she cooperated perfectly! She was awake for the first 20-30 minutes or so, watching what was going on on stage. Then, I pulled a blanket over us (it was chilly!) and made a little tent for her to sleep under. And she slept the rest of the night in my arms! I felt like my arm was going to fall off by the end of the night, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make if it kept Audrey from crying during the performance.

The worst part about the night was that I forgot my camera. I really wanted a picture of Audrey at her first Muni show. But I had to settle for a picture of her with the program when we got home afterwards.

June 4...Day 129

Audrey pushed herself all the way up on her arms today for the first time. If she can get the hang of pushing up on her arms, crawling should be right around the corner I would guess. People have told me not to get too excited about crawling, because then I will be chasing her all over the house and will wish she was back to being still. That may be true...but right now I am sitting and watching her moan and groan and fuss as she tries to scoot herself around with her legs only. It is so frustrating to both of us. If she can figure out how to push with her arms and start moving, I think she will be happier and that will make her mommy happier as well!

June 3...Day 128

Daniel is finishing up the second coat of paint tonight...one step closer to having our basement finished!

June 2...Day 127

My Stampin' Up! business had been doing really well until the last 2 months. Things are pretty slow right now, which is not good because I was counting on the extra income to help with our basement remodel. So I've been working on some different ideas to drum up some business. Tonight's project: mail out letters to past hostesses. I really am not a salesperson, and I hate asking people to host parties or buy things from me. But at the same time, I LOVE Stampin' Up! and being a demonstrator. If I want to keep doing what I love to do, then I've got to find myself some more paying customers!! (Here's a shameless plug: if you are interested in any kind of scrapbooking, cardmaking or paper crafting...check out my website and see what Stampin' Up! has to offer: http://www.emilyshelton.stampinup.com!)

June 1...Day 126

I had a hard time picking out a picture for today because I had a lot of really cute ones. It was over 90 degrees today. Audrey finally got to wear one of her little summer outfits (which is good, because I'm afraid she is going to outgrow it soon!). We sat outside tonight and played on a blanket for a while. Well, Audrey played while I took pictures!