Lauren's sign

Mommy has been crafting while daddy is gone. I'm working on a ladybug theme for Lauren's room when we move. This is the name sign I made with wood letters that I painted red and then black dots with wood ladybugs attached. I think it turned out pretty cute. I just hope the rest of my vision looks as good!

Cracker Monster

Here's Lauren with some crackers, lunch meat and cheese. She was a mess. How I could tell she was done was that she started feeding them to Biscuit. At least I don't have to clean up after her!

Her upper front tooth broke through last week, so she's finally getting her appetite back.


This is Biscuit's view of her leaning over the side with a handful of leftovers!


I always think its so funny to watch her meticulously pick up her food and place it in her mouth. Occasionally she misses, but Biscuit doesn't mind because eventually it winds up on the floor!

Arky and the balloons

Arky is a 240,000 cubic foot Hot Air Balloon, flown by HIS SKY Ministries out of Grants Pass, OR. Arky doesn't make it to many events so Albany was lucky to have it at their Northwest Art and Air Festival. It is enormous; 110' long, 85' tall and 55' wide. He was pretty cool to watch and I think Lauren was trying to figure out how that cow got up so high! However, there wasn't much wind this morning which made it difficult. I don't think Arky made it that far!














Here's one that disappeared into the fog.






There were a lot of balloons. On the way home we saw many of them touching down in fields with their teams putting them away. Typically they head north because of the wind but with such a calm day, they ended up south instead. One didn't make it far from the take-off point; just the Coastal Farm parking lot! Two others made it all the way past Hwy 34 and landed right next to it.

Peek-a-boo

Ths morning, Lauren was up early....so mommy met her friend Kerry in Albany to watch the Northwest Art and Air Festival hot air balloon lift off at 6:45 a.m. The weather wasn't extremely nice; overcast and low fog. Lauren and mommy both were still in their pjs, but it didn't matter. It was a last minute thing!

Lauren is learning peek-a-boo and actually took it upon herself to initiate playing it with Kerry. She's a good hider!

What we've been up to.....

Tonight Lauren and I went down to the Pre-Launch Festivities of the Willamette Country Music Festival. It was good people watching! We saw some people I knew. Scott, our friend and City Administrator, let mommy borrow his chair since she forgot hers! The BBQ pork was good and so was the potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans and all the other yummy stuff! Lauren even tried the pork....once she finally woke up! The music made her so calm she actually fell asleep!

Last week we spent the morning at Grandma and Grandpa's while realtors toured our home. Lauren received a present from one of grandma's friends. She was all about the bow! But then she realized there was some ripping and tearing to do! She was so cautious! It will be fun to see what she does in about a month for her birthday.


Yes, that's a Nordstrom's box! She received a super cute pink jacket. It's a 2T which is great! Thanks Peg!




This is the bunny "Peter" (real original Grandpa!) that lives out at Grandma and Grandpa's. He wasn't really into having mommy get too close and have his picture taken....definitely on alert. Thank goodness Biscuit didn't find him first!

Chicken strips! Yes, I made these for Lauren Tuesday night. She didn't think to much of them. Until she realized she could eat the breading and spit out the chicken....which ended up on the floor for Biscuit!

Walking....with help

Daddy's taking the camera that allows us to record videos and post them to the blog hunting with him. So these little video snip its will have to do for the time being. It won't be long now!

10 months old and some change

I realized I never did a 10 month update...so we'll do a 10.5 month update! So here's what Lauren's been up to. She is eating just about everything in sight....even occasionally things she shouldn't have like a little ice cream (only vanilla!). She wants whatever I have...last night she ate a lot of my mac and cheese.

We have an upper big incisor coming in and its causing a lot of pain and restless nights. Tylenol is a favorite thing of Lauren's, she actually opens wide for it now! She would rather have bottles than food and yogurt melts than puffs, which I'm sure has to do with the pain of that darn tooth breaking through. We can see a little white today.

She is crawling like crazy and bear crawls if the surface doesn't feel good to her knees! She hasn't gotten the hint that no means no when it comes to turning on/off the sound system or turning up/down. Today, "Uncle" Kevin stopped by (she has a lot of "uncles" and "aunts") to talk to daddy about their upcoming hunting trip. He witnessed Miss Lauren walking with her walker. So its only a matter a time. She walked all over the living room with it but needed helping turning around and heading the other way. She even stood without it and no hands for about a minute. She's quite the daredevil.

Here's Lauren watching and playing with the TV...a big no no. The bow is very cute, but Lauren doesn't leave them in her hair.


A possible Halloween costume?? Mommy's friend Erin is letting us borrow this costume. It's quite big on Lauren, but we have about 2 months until the big trick or treat event! She tolerated it very well which surprised mommy!

Play date with Allison

Ok, so the other kids were there too. However I realized once we got home that I only took pictures of Lauren and Allison. So anyway, last Wednesday mommy's childhood friend Carley invited us to the Library for a dog show (only in Lebanon!) and then to her house for lunch. Since Lauren is mobile, sitting still for the Library probably wasn't in the cards...so we just showed up for the food!

Lauren's morning nap ran a little late, so we were running a tad behind. However we made it just in time for Allison to wake up from her nap and play ball outside. Lauren kept taking it from poor Allison....meany! She's not one to share right now.

Check out her shirt! I couldn't resist!

After lunch Lauren really didn't want to put her pants back on after a diaper change. Go figure. But we got some cute pics of the girls with help from a good old fashioned tickle monster attack from Carley!

Weekend fun!

This weekend, Uncle Kyle, Aunt Franki & Noni and Uncle Mike & Aunt Mindy made the trek to Browntucky and hung out for the weekend. Saturday morning the girls went to Junction City for the Scandinavian Festival, while the boys (joined by Andrew Saturday morning) who were supposed to go boating went to shoot guns and bows instead.

We had some very good food at the festival. We had a Krab Kokor (I think). It was this pastry filled with a sour cream, dill and crab creamy goodness! Yum! Even Lauren had a little pastry minus the creamy goodness!


Pit stop for the babies; potty and feeding break!


Mindy and Lauren sniffy the pretty flowers. Lauren really wanted to eat them!

Near our resting spot there were Scandinavian cutouts!


Even Lauren got in on the cutout action!

We found funny hats to take each others pictures! We had our dorky moments! Just wait girls until you are old enough to be embarrassed by us!

After the festival, we headed home for a BBQ where we were joined by Steve and his girls; Taylor, Addison and McKenzie. McKenzie was a big help in the kitchen! And they were all wonderful baby entertainers!

Mindy and Lauren having a cuddle moment. Now that Lauren is mobile, those are few and far between...so Auntie Mindy was lucky!


Noni joined the party in bouncer! She even gave me a little smile even though there was some other business going on! It still counts!

Uncle Mike's doggie Lacey and Aunt Mindy's doggie Pickle came too. Lauren loved the madness! Lacey let Lauren grabbed her tongue! It was silly! And a tad disgusting! But Lacey would do anything for the ball Lauren was holding!

After dinner, we managed to break out the fire pit for smores....what a sticky mess! But everyone enjoys a good smore!

Once the sun went down the boys headed in for a friendly game of poker. Here's a pic of them sporting their sunglass poker facers!

It was a great weekend and hopefully everyone can hook up for a camping trip next year! We'll get started on planning that at the beginning of the year!