August

Beautiful Jo! This is our desktop background. She had a blast in the sprinklers at Lisa's house. This was Wyatt's 2nd birthday. It was HOT that day - Jo and her daddy spent most of the day near the water. Her mommy spent most of the day inside with the itty bitty babies! This is a picture that the lady who owns Dandy Doodlez took... actually, she took all the pictures on this blog...

Here she is... deciding she likes the sprinkler.

Another pic of Jo in the sprinkler.

This is the first pic of us at the sprinkler...I didn't klnow I was being photographed!!! Jo always looks cute!

This weekend is the first STATE ballgame. We're really looking forward to going out and tailgating. I'll try to remember and charge/bring my camera.

Silly Jo!

We have been having a great time lounging around the house lately... doing NOTHING. I think it's our only time this year to have a real break. (Even in our real break, we've been busy up at school... ugh.) We've been catching up on TV shows with our new subscription to Netflix (instant streaming). It is so cool - I think they invented this for college students and teachers during the summer - to give us something to do! :)

This past Saturday we took Jo out for a walk in the neighborhood. She really enjoyed it. Every time we thought she was getting tired, we'd pick her up and she'd protest loudly. She probably could have stayed outside ALL day. It wasn't too hot yesterday and we got a great afternoon rain after our walk.

I put Jo's shorts on her head to be silly with her. Yesterday afternoon, she put them on top of her own head. Now she thinks this is where they should go. HAHA! (Side note about her shoes, these are hand-me-downs and we put them on her yesterday b/c she's outgrown her other sandals... she wouldn't take them OFF! She wore them until BEDTIME! She LOVES shoes.)

Here she is with my headband on her head. She likes to put it on herself... and this is how she chooses to wear it.

Isn't this such a cute picture?Showing us her NOSE.

Showing us her EARS.

And, her favorite... showing us her BABY BELLY. (She calls it beby bebee!)

Here she is playing with coasters. She likes to "count" them... even though every coaster is "two"... we're constantly hearing her (off by herself)... "two.... two... two... two...."

Reading a book with Daddy - one of her favorite things in the world is to read a book. This book she received at her well-baby checkup. She thinks it's great and she always gives the baby a kiss at the end. THEN we read it AGAIN.

Jo eating one of my chocolate truffle bites... she just ate the chocolate out of the center. It was so satisfying for her!

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...

So - if you can't already tell - we went to St. Louis on our way to Kansas. My uncle, David, lives there and Chip and I have never been. He took us to the arch and on a nice scenic driving tour of the city. Who knew the city was that pretty?? We also ate dinner at an awesome restaurant called the Smoked Duck. VERY tasty. Their smoked THEN fried chicken wings were awesome.
Chip, Jo, and Uncle David at the base of the arch. I walked down some of the stairs to take a photo of the plaque which shows the 1993 flood line. It was a beautiful day that day!

Jo and I at the base of the arch... Yes, we're both representin' MSU! Go Bulldogs!

At the base of the arch they have a museum about the west and the exploration of the land, first settlements, and the general history associated with St. Louis/the gateway to the west. Jo (below) is showing you what she knows about Indians... doing an indian call I guess. We try to teach her to be sensitive to other cultures. :)

We did NOT get in the capsule to go to the top. This is one they've set up at the bottom (I guess so people don't freak out when they get in there). Chip's not a big fan of heights and I'm not a big fan of confined spaces. We did get in JUST for the photo op.

I love this picture of Jo. It's at Matt and Aimee's rehearsal. She found Chip's tie box and that kept her quite entertained until we went to dinner. This is her cousin Mary's dress that she's wearing. We are quite thankful for all the hand-me-downs!

Matt and Chip at Matt's wedding reception.

Jo spent a good time before the wedding walking around the church. On the left is Aimee's daughter, Mikaya. She's 4 1/2 and she LOVES baby Jo. She wanted so badly for Jo to play with her, but Jo's not quite that advanced yet. Maybe one day... Mikaya is a really smart and sweet little girl. We really enjoyed spending time with her!

Here we are on the campus of Kansas University. It's a lot more hilly than you would think Kansas would be. We drove around a little bit on campus, this is one of the taller hills on campus and you're overlooking the stadium. Anyway, it's beautiful there. I just had to take a picture to prove it. I don't think that people think "beautiful" when someone says "Kansas."

I LOVE this photo. I think I'm going to send it in to the newspaper for their summer photos page. We're also going to blow it up and put it in the house. The tower behind Jo is KU's memorial tower to KU students who died during WWII. It sits on the top of that very large hill overlooking the stadium and plays music every hour - with REAL bells. It's beautiful.

This is the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau, MO. It's in flood stage right now. You can kind of see from this photo. Just a few hundred yards down, the levee doors are closed because the water is too high for them to be open. VERY cool!

Here we are in the B&B. Jo was watching Curious George. She was SO good on vacation. I think she really enjoyed all the stuff we did, but... who knows. We enjoyed it. We had a wonderful time!

Beginning of Summer

Busy Busy Busy.

We've been out of school for about two weeks, and we've already gone back to work! Chip and I are working a summer camp for the school district during the month of June. It's pretty interesting. That's about all we can say. We're having a good time though. The people we're working with are pretty cool.

Last weekend we went to Baton Rouge to visit Elizabeth, Joe, and Mary. I forgot my camera, but Elizabeth got some good pictures on her camera. I'll have to get her to send them to me. We went to the zoo and to the mall. We had a great time!

We're planning on going to the pool this afternoon and taking the baby. So exciting! Chip's going to meet up with some of his friends and play golf. I'm going to lay out and take Jo in the pool.

In about two weeks, we're going to be off to Kansas. KANSAS! We're going for one of Chip's best friend's wedding. Not looking forward to all the driving, but I am looking forward to the wedding. It will be our "vacation" this year. We're stopping off in Missouri to stay a few days and check out what they have there.

I'll try to remember my camera!

Spring Days and Lounging Around the House

I've published several updates today. If you're looking at the time stamp, you'll realize that they've all been published during the Sunday session of the Masters. I really have no desire/care in the world to watch the Masters, but Chip's enjoying it. I thought I'd take this time to update the blog.

Jo loves the beads that her Aunt E brought to her from Mardi Gras. She will play with these for hours. She started stacking them on and just didn't stop.
I had to stop her to get this picture, but she was pretty tangled up in them when she was finished. She started to crawl away with all the beads on, it really didn't work very well though.Below is Jo's first taste of Hot Tamales. She liked them. She loves anything with cinnamon. I thought these would be too hot, but she didn't seem to mind.

Here she is trying to get some out for herself. Her chubby hands could grab the Hot Tamales in the box, but she couldn't pull her hand out without losing the candy. It was altogether frustrating for the baby.

Here she is trying to "get" the camera.

One of her new faces is the one below. She must have learned it at daycare, because we didn't get her to start doing it. When she does the face below we just LAUGH because it is SO funny. She laughs and then she'll do it again. She's such a ham! She loves to entertain us. (The shirt she's wearing is from daycare. She made a mess on the shirt we sent her in and all her extra clothes were long sleeved - the shirt she's wearing is a 4T and way too big on her, but she was so cute in that extra large shirt!)

Here's Jo sitting in the chair Papa and Winnie got for her. She's trying to be an Indian - I guess...

She loves her chair. She reclines and rocks in it. Chip and I will put her in the chair early in the mornings before she goes to school so she can drink her milk and watch Curious George. She LOVES to see what trouble George gets in to!

That's our chunky monkey!!

Jo's FIRST BIRTHDAY!

We had her birthday party on April 3rd. Chip and I spent a lot of time preparing for the party. You know you really only do it for the adults, but it's just so fun for us and one day she'll look back and enjoy it. Here she is checking out her happy birthday sign - she really liked the butterflies we cut out of scrapbooking paper.
Jo with Mommy!

Jo with Daddy!

Those are the only pictures we have from her birthday party! I was so busy trying to make sure stuff was in order and everyone was happy, I guess I didn't really think about taking any more pictures. I did get a lot of video tape of us singing her "Happy Birthday" and her eating her first birthday cupcake, I also got the whole gift unwrapping escapade on tape. I still haven't played with my video camera enough to see how to upload and edit video, so that'll just be something you'll have to come to our house if you want to see it!!

Pre-Birthday Fun

I wanted to make a cake for Jo's birthday with a silicone cake mold I got for Christmas. It didn't turn out as I expected, but I thought the cake would be good practice for Jo for her first birthday. She made much more of a mess with this cake than she did with her real birthday cupcakes!
She was trying to share some with me! How generous.

I had to get a good shot of her hands. She was FILTHY. She did NOT want me to clean her off either - that was her icing and she worked hard to get it all over herself! :)

A cute shot of the aftermath.