The Lake- take two

This past weekend we spent our second Saturday in a row out at the lake, only this time we were at Lake Bridgeport. My aunt Milly graciously shared the lake house and boat that she rented so my family could all come out and enjoy a little R and R. We made the 1 hr trip on Saturday morning in time to take the girls out on the boat and do a little swimming before it got too hot or before anybody got too tired. My Dad took us to a spot that he and my aunt had found while they were fishing that morning where you could see tons of alligator gar skimming the top of the water to catch minnows. After seeing one up close Avery asked, "Do the fish have teeth? Do they bite your feet in the water?" After assuring her that there would be no fish biting her feet she happily jumped in for a little swim. After I commented that we should've brought a raft, my Dad took one of the seat cushions from the boat and threw it in the water. It actually worked pretty good! After we had lunch and put the girls down for naps, Scott and I went back out on the boat with my sister and brother-in-law to do a little exploring and relaxing. Ah, the beauty of a "Mimi" who is willing to stay with your kids while you go and have fun! After going out on the boat late that afternoon because we had promised Avery we would, my brother-in-law Chris grilled some delicious steaks for everyone on the deck while it rained. We sure were glad to have that grill when the power went out! After dinner we made s'mores on the grill, visited a little more, and started off back home. It was such a fun day--thank you Milly and family! Here are a few more pics from our day at the lake.

Aunt Milly and KendallAvery was a little upset about getting water in her eyes

Our makeshift raft

Avery was cracking Kendall up with her funny maraca dance

We forgot Kendall's booster seat, so we just tied her to a chair!

August Weekend Adventures

Weekend before last we took advantage of the uncharacteristically cooler weather and headed down to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, TX with my parents. It was a great little day trip and we had a lot of fun seeing the animals up close and feeding many of them as well. For my Okie readers, it was similar to the Arbuckle Wilderness where you drive through the park to see and feed the animals, but Fossil Rim was more scenic and larger. We saw buffalo, deer, elk, goats and rams, ostriches and emu, zebras, giraffes, cheetahs, and more! We decided some of the animals were running a toll booth of sorts because they would stand on the road and refuse to move unless you fed them! The park had a small children's area as well with different kinds of goats that kids could brush, some tortoises, and maybe a few other things I can't remember. Avery and Kendall both really enjoyed riding through the park in Mommy and Daddy's laps rather than buckled up in car seats! Every time we would go down a hill Scott would make Avery put her arms up like she was on a roller coaster. Then she just started spontaneously putting her arms out and saying "Whee" as we drove around the park. Silly girl!

checking out a scenic overlook near the children's area

"Whee! No car seat!"

giraffe family

zebras (baby on the left)

muddy rhino

brushing a goattortoise that really wanted out- he was pushing and biting on the fence!

Then last Saturday we headed to Cedar Creek Lake for our annual college friends weekend. We weren't able to go out there until late Saturday afternoon due to a church project (School Supply Store) that Scott was in charge of, but we had a good time nonetheless. It was nice to spend a little time with friends, although if Kendall had been a little more cooperative it would've been even nicer! She went down fine on Sat. night, but then woke up around 10:45 and was up until 12:45, which was really frustrating since I was missing out on prime time talking with my friends and playing Wii bowling and golf! At some point I just quit trying to get her to go back to sleep and brought her downstairs so I could hang out with everyone else. I felt crazy sitting with an awake, smiling baby in my lap at midnight! Then Kendall woke up at 5:30 AM and did not go back to sleep! Since our whole family was sleeping in one room, Avery woke up around 6:00/6:30 as well. Ugh- we were sooo tired Sunday. But we did have fun going out on the boat, riding the sea doo, water skiing and swimming. Unfortunately, I did not take a single picture. I guess 2 small children was enough for me to handle on a boat-- imagine that! Despite the lack of sleep, we did have a good time and made some memories that we will look back and laugh at later!

Next up--Lake Bridgeport with my family for Labor Day weekend. Maybe my camera will see a little more action. Stay tuned . . .

Milestones

This past week my little "Ken" turned 6 months (half a yr!) old-- is that possible? I can't believe that it has already been that long since she was born. At her check-up she weighed 14 lbs 12 oz (25%ile) and was 25 1/2 in (25-50%ile). She has chubby little thighs, but I definitely wouldn't describe her as a "squishy" baby like my friend Jeny once described Avery. She does like to eat though and has tried just about all the #1 baby foods now. I think she just has little bones and wiggles most of her calories right off. Kendall is sitting up well now and doesn't fall over much at all anymore. She is finally at that stage that I was wishing for a month ago where I can just plop her down on the floor instead of having to find some sort of seat to strap her in or other safe place to lie her down. So nice for when you are meeting the never-ending "urgent" needs of a 2 yr. old! Her most recent skill however is babbling, mostly "da-da-da". She just started that yesterday and it is so cute! Church tomorrow morning will probably be a nightmare if she practices it as much as she did today. But she is such a joy and her little smile just lights up my life!

Miss Avery had a milestone of her own yesterday-- her first haircut. She had received a gift certificate for her birthday to this neat salon for little girls called "Sweet and Sassy", and I finally got around to taking her. My Mom had taken the day off work, so we headed over to Southlake Town Center for Avery's haircut, lunch at Corner Bakery, and some shopping at Gymboree. Thanks for the fun day Mom! Avery did great with her haircut-- she sat very still and didn't seem scared or upset at all. She even let the girl blow-dry and curl her hair, neither of which she had ever had done before. At the end she got "sparkles" sprayed in her hair, her picture taken, and got to choose a lollipop for doing such a great job. When she was all done, she just kept looking in the mirror and smiling. It was really cute and I'm glad that she had a good first experience at the salon. She's definitely a girly-girl!

Avery's 2 yr. portraits (and some of Kendall too!)

Last month we had Avery's 2 yr. portraits taken at the Ft. Worth Botanic gardens. It was the same price to have some of Kendall taken too as well as both the girls together, so we took full advantage of the opportunity. I think we got some really good ones. It's going to be hard to decide which ones I want larger prints of. Luckily, we got a CD w/ all the pictures she took, so we can take our time deciding and have more prints made later if we want. Love that! Here are a "few" of my favorites!












And we're done folks!

Feast or Famine

I don't know if any of you have experienced this phenomenon, but at our house it seems like we are either really busy, or we just don't have much going on. The past week or so has been "feast" rather than "famine" for us. Besides the usual errands and taking Avery to and from school, this is a little run-down of our week:

Last weekend: Scott and I went to Austin for the Southwest Society of Periodontists meeting. We took Kendall along since I am still nursing, but Avery got to stay with Mimi and Poppi for the weekend. We didn't do a whole lot while in Austin since we had Kendall in tow, but it was good just to get away and stay at a nice hotel and relax a little bit.

waiting to watch the bats fly out from under the Congress Ave. bridge behind our hotel in Austin

Monday: Scott and I got to go to a Texas Rangers game, which entailed taking the girls over to his brother's house in Coppell so we could enjoy the game alone. His accountant's son had some extra tickets that were box seats, so we thought the opportunity was too good to miss.

Wednesday night: We picked up my brother-in-law, who had just returned from Iraq a week ago, at the airport. Scott's sister (Mike's wife) was taking the bar exam and couldn't be there, so we stepped in as his surrogate family and picked him up and took him out to eat.

Friday night: We took the girls swimming at our neighborhood pool. I am so sad that I didn't take my camera because Kendall looked so cute in her little baby bikini and sun hat. Scott's parents, who were in town for the weekend, joined us at the pool and then came back to the house w/ us to spend some time w/ the girls.

Saturday: We had lunch with some friends from our church in Edmond. They were passing through on their way to San Antonio for a family vacation and decided to drop by. Then, after the girls napped we went over to Scott's brother's house in Coppell for an anniversary party for my in-laws. We had a nice dinner, cake and ice cream, and watched a video that my brother-in-law had made w/ pictures of Scott's parents and his family. Happy 45th Anniversay Tom and Jan!Avery and cousin Braden at the anniversary partyTom and Jan watching their surprise video

Despite the somewhat chaotic nature of a "feast" week, I think I actually prefer to be busy like that most of the time. I'll close by posing this question: Which do you like better , "feast" or "famine"?

Kendall is sitting up! . . .

. . . for short periods of time anyways. Right now she stays vertical for a minute or less, but I think if she just weren't so wiggly and busy reaching for things she could actually stay up longer. I honestly think that she's going to skip right over the sitting up and playing in one spot stage and just go straight to crawling. The girl is BUSY! Since she is sitting up some now, we decided to let her try out the highchair and join us for dinner the other night. She had a great time watching Avery and playing w/ her toys while we ate, and then she gobbled up some rice cereal and carrots. She likes to suck her thumb (horror of horrors for her speech pathologist and periodontist parents!) between bites, so sometimes it's a messy affair. But so far she has loved everything she's tried-- sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, carrots, pears. She has finally dropped the 5 AM feeding, which I am loving! It is so nice to crawl in my bed at night and stay there until morning-- except on the occasional night that she wakes up crying or sometimes just to talk and play. But I guess nobody (or no baby) is perfect, right?

my carrot-nose thumb sucker

"Look at me! I get to sit at the table!"

"Thank you God for God"

Over the past couple of months, Avery has gotten really good at saying the prayer at dinner time. She always reminds us to do it and always volunteers to say it. Sometimes she switches it up and throws in a few new lines like thanking God for each family member specifically, but most of the time, her prayer goes like this:

"Thank you God for Jesus,
and our friends,
and thank you God for our family,
and thank you God for God.
In His name we pray, Amen."

Too bad you can't hear Scott's imitation of Avery saying this prayer at bedtime with her paci in! But in all seriousness, we are very proud of her and lucky to have such a sweet-spirited little girl.

Kendall- 5 months old

Well, another month has flown by and Kendall is 5 months old now. She is becoming so curious about the world around her and tries to get ahold of anything in her reach. Tonight as I was starting dinner I was toting her around, and every time I walked past the fridge she would try to grab something off of it. Then she watched very intently as the microwave door swung open when I put some meat in to defrost and she started trying to play with the door. I have a feeling that she is going to be a mess when she becomes mobile! As you can see from the pics she is enjoying playing in the exersaucer now and sits in the Bumbo seat quite a bit. I am so looking forward to the day when she can sit up by herself and I can plop her down on the floor when I need to run do something instead of having to grab the Bumbo, strapping her in the bouncy seat, etc. That will be especially handy when running to the potty with Avery (by the way, she is doing great with pottying lately!). Kendall was on a really good schedule, but now that she has started cereal, she has switched to nursing 5 times a day instead of 6. Plus, she has been going to bed earlier and ,therefore, waking up a little earlier, which is throwing her previous 10:00, 1:00 and 5:00 naptimes off a bit. Hopefully we'll have it all worked out in a few weeks. Reflux wise, she is better, but it still rares its ugly head at least once or twice a week. Every once in a while she still pulls off and cries when nursing or cries and refuses to eat her cereal. Even when she is having reflux, it doesn't seem to bother her near as much as it used to though. The biggest problem she is having right now is constipation from the rice cereal. Luckily, a little apple-prune juice usually does the trick:) She'll probably kill me one day for talking about her poop on the blog for everyone in the world to read! This past Sunday she went to Bible class for the first time and her teachers said she did great. I really wanted to stay and watch her, but of course I just let her teachers do their thing in peace. Here's one more picture of her adorable smile (I'm not biased or anything) that she shares so freely with anyone who pays attention.

Forf of Juwy (according to Avery)

Hope everyone had a Happy "Forf of Juwy" yesterday. We just hung out around the house most of the day and then headed over to my parents' house for barbecue and homemade ice cream last night. Avery enjoyed playing with all the "different" toys at my parents house. As usual she was the center of attention as she and my Dad played in the little kiddie pool and sprinkler toy in the backyard while it rained. Kendall enjoyed being passed around and playing with a fish bowl toy and toy phone. It's funny how just all of a sudden she is actively reaching for toys and really playing with them. It is truly amazing how quickly they grow and learn and change in the first year! Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend!

Playing doctor, dress-up, and Kendall eats from a spoon!

I'm sure everybody else is as tired of the picture-less post as I am, so here's a hodge-podge post with some random pictures to entertain you until something better comes along. One of Avery's favorite things to play is doctor, which of course Scott loves. She crawls up on the ottoman (aka operating table) and Scott proceeds to examine her, start an IV, and perform surgery. He even pretends to come in and out the door as both the nurse and the doctor. It's pretty humorous to watch really. The nurse's voice is my favorite part personally. Sometimes Avery wants Kendall to lay by her, which was the case in this picture.


And here we have Mommy playing dress-up with Avery last Monday morning. Don't look too closely or I might frighten you with my lack of make-up. Avery is getting quite good at pretending lately. Her latest concoctions are pretending that her name is "Wora" (Laura), that Miss Kelly is her mommy, and that she is going to the pretend lake, the beach, or her work. And we always get there by driving the bus, which is made up of two dining room chairs that she pulls together.

And last but not least, we have Kendall eating cereal from a spoon! No more cereal bottles for this girl. I tried the spoon again Tues night and she was grabbing my hand to put the spoon in her mouth on every bite. This girl is ready to do everything by herself. Watch out world!