Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sunday Visit

Here's a picture from the other day that we just came across. What a cutie!
Jess & Kyle, some friends of ours, were in Lovell, WY helping their Grandpa Chauncy dock lambs on Sunday, so Lauren & Blake decided to make the short trip to go visit. The drive to Lovell is only about an hour, so that's about a third of the time that it usually takes to go see them otherwise. We had a very nice visit even though it was a quick trip. Here's Blake & Beckett hangin' out away from the action.

The girls, Natalie & Madison, were very excited to see the lambs. We caught a good picture of Jess and Natalie (mom & daughter) and cousin Madison in the background.Blake was surprisingly interested in being close to all the action. She kept flapping her arms and kicking her legs. She really seemed excited to listen and watch the sheep. She even talked back to them a little bit...it was cute. Here's a rare pic of Lauren and our little cutie...thanks Jess! It's not often that Mom gets in the pictures.And, finally, here's Blake visiting with a lamb for the very first time. Karrie was nice enough to hold one up close for Blake to look at. She really didn't seem to be overly impressed. She's used to the dogs, so it didn't seem to be a big deal to her.Lauren forgot Blake's stocking cap, so she was stuck with the only one we had in the pickup. It was a little big but worked well enough, though. Hope all is well with everyone, and we can't wait to get to meet up with Kyle, Jess, and the kiddos again. It was fun!

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Two Teeth

Blake finally has two teeth! Lauren & Blake spent yesterday visiting one of Lauren's friends from college. Suzi & Randy have two little girls, Claire and Gracie. We had a great time hanging out and will surely have to do it again soon. It is so fun to watch the girls play together. Even though, it was a little more like musical cribs. It seemed like as soon as one would wake up another one would be ready to go down...pretty funny. When Lauren & Suzi were talking Lauren mentioned that Blake's caretaker had said that Blake was much fussier than normal the two previous days, so she should probably check to see if another tooth had finally popped through. Lauren took a look and didn't see anything up top where we've been expecting the next one. Later on, Suzi was looking at Blake's little mouth and pointed out that she was pretty sure there was a second tooth there. Sure enough, the other bottom tooth had come in. Lauren wasn't even looking at her bottom teeth...thanks Suz! I guess you should never assume :o) Here is a picture from last weekend when we went out to Cooney Resevoir with some friends. It was really windy, so the little ones had to stay in the camper most of the time, but the boys (both young and old) got to fish all day. You can see the ski hill in Red Lodge from the resevoir.We did get to spend a little bit of time outside. Here's about the only picture we got while we were outside.We got some pictures while we were hanging out with Suzi and the girls, but we didn't get a picture of Claire at all :( Here's Blake & Gracie playing with some toys. Blake had to borrow some of Claire's pants because she decided to pee on hers when we were changing a diaper...the joys!And, here's a really cute picture of Suzi and Blake.Blake has recently almost skipped 12 month clothing. She can still wear some of the 12 mo. stuff, but she's really starting to move into the 18 month clothes...AMAZING! So, of course, we have recently bought her some new clothes. Here's our little cutie showing off a new pair of shoes and a new onsie.
Rene, the jeans you sent are AWESOME! Thank you so much. They have really come in handy (along with the jammies), and they seem much more comfortable for Blake since they've been washed several times. The couple pair of new jeans that we've bought just look too stiff and uncomfortable. Here's our little goober showing off a big smile...and you can see teeth!Hope this finds everyone doing well and enjoying some spring weather. We actually got snow yesterday and are down in the 40's, but we were all the way up in the 80's last week. Hopefully, we have some more of that warmer weather moving our way!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

New Video

The laptop is finally up and running! Lauren spent most of this evening getting all of the software put back on it so she could update the blog. Don't you feel special :o) Here's the video we promised earlier. You get to see everything from Blake flapping her arms in excitement to what Lauren thinks is Blake's version of "Copa". Blake's new thing is flapping her arms when she gets really excited. It looks like she's about ready to take off. Blake also thinks the dogs are hilarious when she is eating...they tend to run around the kitchen at her meal time. We didn't quite catch the hysterical laughter, but we caught a few little laughs. You'll also notice that sometimes it can be quite the chore to get the next bite of food to Blake's mouth when she wants it...it feels like you're just shovelling it in at some meals. Blake has also started to bite the spoon, so you can't get it out of her mouth...and of course she laughs. She also mimics this little head tilt thing that Garrett, Blake's caretaker's youngest son, does. And, last of all, we caught Blake's version of the word Copa...that's what Lauren thinks anyway. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Friday, April 17, 2009

New Life Jacket

Blake got her very first life jacket this week. It is just too cute, and she doesn't seem to mind wearing it too much. We'll see how she does when we get her out on the boat :o) There's not too much going on around here...Blake and Lauren hung out today, and Blake even tried on her bathing suit and life jacket. It was pretty warm in the house, so Blake ended up spending the morning playing in her swimming suit.And here she is checking out her new life jacket. There are lots of buckles and straps to play with!It seems to fit pretty well when she's standing up......and of course, it's not officially broken in until it goes in the mouth.The little ruffles on the bathing suit bottoms are just hilarious. As you can see, the swim suit isn't going to fit her much longer. We picked out another one, so the next size is on the way. She's already wearing 12 month clothes and even some 18 months...it's amazing how quickly she grows! After playing dress up in the morning, Blake and Lauren played and ran some errands. Here are some pictures of our little cutie laughing and grabbing her feet. She laughs hysterically at the dogs when they run by her high chair...it's too cute.
We do have some video footage of Blake laughing at the dogs, but the laptop isn't working right at the moment. So, once we get it up and running, we'll post some video. Our desktop just can't handle all the video editing...and, surely, most of you don't want to see the full 6+ minutes of video. Well, hope everyone is having some nice spring weather. It looks like we're going to be up in the 60's, so that's much better than the snow we had earlier in the week!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

HAPPY EASTER!

We are having another beautiful day here...great Easter weather! Surely most of you have heard, but we would like to congratulate Chris & Katie on the birth of their baby girl, Collier, yesterday evening. Collier weighed in at 5 lbs. 14 oz. and joined the family at 11:05 p.m. on April 11th. We can't wait to meet her. And, Blake is so pumped to have a new cousin! Speaking of Blake being pumped, we FINALLY caught some good smiles on camera. The Easter Bunny brought our little sweetie quite the stash.She got a toy fishing pole that has a magnetic hook to catch the squirting fish (also magnetic) that sink when filled with water. It also makes noise when you reel in your catch...it's a bath toy. It'll probaby be a while before she can actually use it, but it's cute. She also got a stuffed animal, hand puppet, more bath toys, and one of those old school wobbly ring holder toys...just look at the picture and you'll know what I mean.Here's our happy little girl when she saw all the cool toys.Blake also got an Easter dress, so of course, we made her pose for some pictures.She's definitely a morning person, so we should probably try to get more pictures earlier in the day...look at all the smiles!Such a pretty little girl.Here she is looking for her toys. We fixed up a play area for her behind the couch, so she's figured out where her toys usually are.And, finally, a smile so big you can actually see her tooth if you look closely. She still only has her bottom left tooth, but she's working on more.Blake usually goes to bed pretty early, so we are going to have a nice ribeye Easter dinner...sort of a stay-at-home-date. Other than that, we're just enjoying the weather and each other, and it's too bad we won't be able to make it back to Oklahoma to see baby Collier right away. And, hopefully, Grandma & Gramps made it to the city safely...the were in Kentucky visiting Lauren's grandparents when they got the call that Katie was in labor. Hope everyone is having a WONDERFUL Easter Sunday!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Spring Fever

It was an absolutely gorgeous day here today. We were all the way up into the 70's! We couldn't stand to be inside, so we decided to take Blake, Copa & Maddie down to the pond. There's a little pond about 4 or 5 blocks away from us, so we loaded Blake up in the stroller and headed out for some fun in the sun.

Blake is just such a serious little girl sometimes.

A rare picture of Lauren & Blake. It seems like Lauren is usually the one behind the camera. You'll have to excuse Copa's tail in the background.

Blake & her daddy...Daddy is sure hoping that Blake will like hanging out at the lake!

Copa & Maddie had tons of fun playing in the water. Copa LOVES to swim and play fetch, but Maddie doesn't quite appreciate the workout. So, Copa swims out to get whatever we have thrown for her to fetch, and Maddie pounces on her as soon as she gets to the shallower water. Here's Copa swimming back with the stick.And here's her little sister chasing after her once she's gotten within range.We ALMOST caught Blake smiling. She really did have a good time...promise!We played some more when we got home. This is just the cutest little outfit. The t-shirt is the best. If you can't read it, it says, "my daddy's the big kahuna"...too cute!She's just precious!Hangin' with Dad on the couch...what are Dad's good for, huh?! I guess it is almost Easter.On that note, HAPPY EASTER to all! We sure hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

New Play Area

Well, we've been meaning to get a little play area all set up for Blake, but we've just been really busy lately. Lauren finally took the time on Friday to at least get it started. She got the area all cleaned out, vacuumed, and put a rug down. Here's a little video of our cutie pie playing on her new rug. We've still got some work to do, but Blake doesn't really seem to care.


Sorry the video quality isn't that great...we're not sure what's going on. We tried posting it two different times using two different formats and this is about the best we get. O WELL...we have more pictures to post later anyway.