Little Girl Growing Up, A Summer Recap

This is bound to be a long post! The last was in the middle of May and there is so much that has happened in our little family! I cannot believe how much Faith has changed in these short months, you will notice on the pictures.
So, at the end of May, Mommy left her job at Baylor and ventured out to practice speech-language pathology. Daddy has been making great strides in leadership in his job, though he works some early and loooong hours.
Our summer start with a visit from Nana and Papaw Sartor. She was spoiled rotten when they left! She loves her papaw! (nothing against Nana, it's just that she likes the men better, she does the same thing with Grandma Nina)
Faith has once again moved up a classroom at her school and is she really enjoying all the fun activities at school. Here she is ready for school at the end of May...

With summer comes swimming, and this is something Faith has become somewhat proficient in. Notice the contraption she is wearing below. It is designed to keep the kid afloat, but does not keep your head above water automatically. It requires balance. Faith found out the hard way, and now can balance herself and move about independently around the pool (she wouldn't have it any other way). We've been blessed to have friends with the perfect size and type of pool for
Faith to learn her way about the water in. Here she is taking a break from the pool and sitting up like a big girl in the lawn chair.


Something else that she has explored for the first time this summer is the indoor playgrounds at different neighborhood eating joints. And, of course, she knows that the slide is the most fun when walked up backwards...

I've known for some time that Faith needed to be getting off the bottle all together. For several months she had been only having a night time bottle. She weaned herself in July. She got to where she would just chew on the bottle at night, and not really drink it. I just quit offering it, and she didn't ask. This is one of her last bottles :( Sniff, Sniff

July 4th was a neat experience for us. We had a family wide G and G camp together at a retreat/ranch outside of Fort Worth. It was the perfect little get away for us, and Faith really started warming up to her cousins. I don't have any pics from this...need to get them emailed to me. It was here that Faith led her Grandpa Sullivan all over the property several times a day. He would let her explore and just follow her. They were so cute!

Pigtails have been a staple for Faith this summer. She is hot natured and needs all the help she can get. I try to dress her in as little clothing as possible, while keeping her hair up off her neck. The pigtails also happen to be pretty darn cute! I snapped this in the hallway one morning as she was walking to her classroom.
Mom and dad brought Faith my old rocking chair earlier this Spring. That thing is over 25 years old! Faith enjoys it now, and likes to try my patience inventing different ways to sit or stand in the chair. It's cool to see her using this though!

A nighttime ritual at our household is a family prayer before bed. Yes, this is sunshine you see...it was daylight at 8pm for quiet some time, but it was still bedtime! Faith gets in her daddy's lap and puts her hands together and we all recite the prayer together. Her favorite part is the "Amen," which she says with quiet some fervor.


The beginning of August rolled around and Grandpa Sullivan's birthday. Faith decided to go and surprise her Grandpa for his birthday. He knew not a word about it and the whole trip was super quick but super special. Here she is with her cousin Hayley and cousin Emily riding around the family farm in Briggsville.


Below is a pic of Faith watching Grandma Nina fix a good ole breakfast. I remember many mornings in this very kitchen watching Grandma Anna and Aunt Anna Jewel prepare breakfast. It's cool to see her continuing the experience.

And here is why that trip was worth it. Faith adores her Grandpa.

We had visitors the next weekend. It is rare that we see each other this often, but Uncle Wes, Hayley and Caitlin came and stayed with us for several days. Faith loved the attention and the excuse to stay up "late" with her cousins.

Faith and Uncle Wes

This summer also marked Faith's first real hair cut. She was none too excited about this, but with some help from You Tube and daddy's Iphone, she survived. We only trimmed it, and didn't really have the usual curls that you keep in a baby book. Maybe next time. It's too cute to cut much right now!

Faith was introduced to the deer woods this month too. We had a family day trip to the deer woods, were we checked daddy's game camera and filled up his feeder. Faith favorite part was getting to "drive" through the pasture and of course, not having to sit in the car seat for a while.

And the very next afternoon she took her first boat ride in daddy's boat. She was enamored at the sights around her and liked the experience....as long as we weren't going over 10 mph. That got old quickly and this turned out to be a brief ride, though a successful one none the less.

So there you have it. You are caught up with the events of our summer. No big destination trips or anything. Just everyday life. We cherish our time with Faith each evening and every weekend. She is such a joy in our life :)