Casey

Poor Baby. Casey has been a naughty boy since early in my pregnancy with Lauren. He started to have pee problems about a year ago. I have lived with this dog for 11 years now, and he was well house-broken, except for recent times. I love him a ton- he is my 1st baby. Well, the little shit started to really try our patience this week, and it turns out that he has a huge ( size of 50 cent piece) stone in his bladder. This is why he pees in the house- it is painful and he cannot have full control. They estimate it has bothered him for up to 2 years. I cannot beileve I almost gave him away... Casey is awesome!!! He will have surgery on wednesday, and they hope that will fix him right up!

6 month photos

Here are some of Lauren's 6 month photos. What we learned? It really matters who is taking the shots! The last 2 times we went to Kiddie Kandids, her pics were great. This time- we got a photographer who was quiet and timid and DID NOT SMILE!!. Lauren is super easy to make smile- you just smile or laugh at her. But we tried and tried and could not get the photographer to smile. So, we have some very serious looking pics this time. we did not order very many ( dont worry gmas and gpas- we got you some!!!!) because we were not pleased, but now that I look at them- I kinda like her serious look. It was a serious day for us all (Casey... I will post more....) so maybe we contributed. None-the-less, do we live with the prettiest girl alive or what????

Michael Jackson is gone...

An end of an era. Love him, hate him... we are all intrigued by the man. Michael Jackson was truely an icon of my generation. With great music in the 80's and ensuing controversy in the 90's and beyond. The new king of pop died today- not sure of the cause yet. It makes me sad, I want to break out my "beat it" cassette tape (but I dont have a cassette player anymore...). Bye Bye Michael- thank you for all of the great music, god bless!

I LOVE the concierge

At Children's we have a free concierge service for employees, patients and families. They will do anything for you, at no added cost. Actually, they receive discounts at many local businesses. It is great. I regularly use them for oil changes, car washes, filling with gasoline and mailing packages. This week they took both of our cars in for tire rotations (for FREE- no charge at all!!) and they picked up some gift cards from starbucks for me and got a watch battery for Jeff. They are the best!! I Can barely remember life before the concierge-what a great perk!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to our dads and grandpas! My post is one day late, because we were in the mountains for the weekend enjoying the great outdoors (and our wireless wasn't working...).

Enjoy a couple of shots of Lauren and her daddy. Jeff is by far the best dad Lauren could hope for. He is so good with her, happy to jump in and help out with anything. He spent most of his time fishing with her on his lap, letting her hold the pole or run the reel. We didn't catch any fish, but it might have been the cute distraction we had along. I got Lauren a little shade tent to keep her out of the sun when we are up in the mountains, but it was so windy it wanted to blow away so daddy sat in there with her- too cute!

I heard a cute story this morning when I came into work. All of the people at Children's think that Jeff is very quiet. Danielle commented that she mostly has one-sided conversations with Jeff since he is quiet and reserved, but last Thursday she asked him about Lauren and she said his face just lit up and he gushed on about her- how she likes to swim and can sit up on her own. Such a proud daddy.

Kitchen Help

Here is my little helper- she had a blast playing with kitchen stuff while I was cooking and cleaning up in the kitchen. I LOVE this age- she is so much fun, and doesn't need as much supervision and can keep herself happy. And she talks and sings all the time while she is playing. Dont you love the retro terry cloth outfit?

Feed me!

Lauren is always grabbing at the spoon and jars when I am feeding her, so this morning I decided to let her have at it. What could it hurt, I thought?

Well, no one did get hurt, but what a mess! Maybe I should have let her play with something lighter colored than prunes!

TROUBLE!

Look ma! No hands! Notice who is standing up while holding the toy? She cannot quite pull herself up there yet, but she can stand alone if you set her up to it. Its only a matter of time before she is cruisin around on her own. Scary!

ps - this is the toy that she talked me into buying at the thrift store the other day. She stood up at it like a big girl, and I had to get it for her.

Rockies Game!

Lauren's first professional baseball game! Tonight we went to the Rockies game with a bunch of my friends from work. Poor Lauren- I tried to get her to take a late nap, but she was so in to playing... So she didn't have the best time at the game. It was a challenge for all three of us, but we made it to the top of the 7th inning before we left. I am proud of us anyway, we continue to carry on life as usual, we just cannot stay out as late as we once did. I just feel bad that some of my friends from work probably got the wrong impression of Lauren- she is truely an angel and rarely crabby, she just has an early bedtime. Sometimes she is fine being hauled out late- not tonight. But, the Rockies won and it was a nice night and great to hang out with everyone!

6 month stats

Lauren had her 6 month doctor's visit today. As usual, she is the picture of health. We talked about feeding and diet, but her pediatrician pointed out that I am one of the lucky ones that does not need to worry- Lauren is a big healthy girl and seems able to self-regulate her intake and grow well, so let her dictate the plan. She got some more shots, but cried for a moment and then returned to her smiley happy self.

She is 17 lb 3 oz (70%) 27.5 inches (95%). No wonder my back gets sore from carrying her in the sling for a long ways.

One problem that I am having- she is almost too tall for 9 month size jammies, but they dont seem to make footie jammies in 12 month size - i assume because many kids are walking at that age. I really want to find 12 month and bigger footie pajamas for her- let me know if you see any out there. She is also too big for the Gerber sleepsacks that she likes- they only make one size, and she is way too big. Surely I am not the only one out there with a tall 6 month old...

Yard sale finds

Today Lauren, Casey and I were bumming around and stumbled across an excellent yard sale. It was all baby stuff- LOTS of it. The lady had run a daycare out of her home for 30 years and is now retiring, so she had massive amounts of baby stuff for cheap. I got all of this for $8. The umbrella stroller was only 50 cents! And there is a big bag of wooden blocks, some books and a bunch of tried-and-true little tykes toys. Of course, I regret I didn't buy more- but I was overwhelmed.

Relay for Life

This weekend is the Relay for Life in my home town. My mom and her sisters and some friends take this very seriously, and their team last year raised the most money for their relay- over $21,000 to benefit the American Cancer Society. This year they have raised somewhere around $23,000- isn't that incredible? Congratulations- you guys rock!

North Dakota Trip

Last weekend we traveled to North Dakota to visit Jeff's family. We flew into Fargo and then drove the rest of the way to his parents house. It was a good trip (all four of us went, including Casey) except for being delayed a few hours in the airport in Fargo due to the tornadoes in Denver. Lauren was able to spend time with her gma and gpa and meet her many relatives including two great grandmas and two great grandpas. She really enjoyed her cousins Jacob and Alex- she had fun watching the boys and Jacob who is only 3 yrs old was very sweet and gentle with her.

Baby blue...

To answer the question we hear a lot- Yes, Lauren's eyes are blue. And No, we dont think they are going to change. Here is a great photo of her gorgeous blue eyes and a glimpse of her pretty blonde hair. She is 6 months old, and I think her eyes are going to stay this color. So pretty...

72 year-old lady tasered by a cop in Texas!

Check this out- the dash-cam video has been released of a Texas cop using a taser gun on a little old lady in Texas. She is a 72 year old great-grandmother who is tiny compared to the cop. He was stopping her to give her a speeding ticket, and when she got sassy he shot her with the taser gun and she fell to the ground screaming. What a jerk! I find it hard to believe this grown man needed to use a taser to subdue this "dangerous" old lady. She was then brought to jail. I wonder how this bully would have felt if the taser set off a heart problem in the old woman! Check out the video on youtube.

Weekend of BBQs

This past weekend we went to a couple of cook-outs. "Tis the season for the summer BBQs- although the weather was a bit cool saturday night. On Sunday the party we went to was a crawfish boil- always a hit for Jeff. Our group of friends has certainly changed- Lauren was one of 5 babies under 1 yr old at the party. It was like a daycare in their living room at one time. Here is a photo of Lauren enjoying the festivities.

Out to dinner

Lauren is starting to take solid foods- she isn't good at it, but she has a good time. We have packed up her food and taken it out to dinner with us a few times- messy but it tends to work out.