charlie p & life at the lee's

11.11.2009

growing

her little fingers and toes aren't as little as they used to be

smile

this stage is so much fun when they start to react - to giggle and to smile.

here is rowe 'plowing' chapin's arm. andy taught him how to do this on the airplane ride back to denver. you will do anything you can possibly think of to keep mr. loud quiet on a three hour plane ride. mom - the new tractor was a life-saver. you're the best.

2

happy 2 month birthday, little one - a little bit late:-)

11.08.2009

chapin

my grandmother, nanny, whose maiden name 'chapin' is our litte one's namesake, was telling us sweet stories about her dad and how he loved loved loved his wife's auburn hair and how he would just give anything for a red-haired grandbaby. my grandmother had all blond babies, my mom had blond babies, so here is your red haired grandbaby, papa chapin, four generations later.

family

it is so nice to be with family. one of my relatives, this amazing believer, passed away on sunday night and we were able to come to knoxville to celebrate his life. the service was amazing, like him, and it made you hungry to be a more full-hearted servant, which he was.

one of the pastors at the service said that he has yet to learn how to balance the celebration and the grief , so we've been attempting to put in our week as much celebration as we can fit. that meant going two places for ole rowe - the zoo & my brother's tractor dealership. rowe found another great love at my brother's farm - chickens. i'm sure we'll have to 'you-tube' chickens when we get back to the ranch:-) here are some pics of the k-town zoo. i forgot my camera, so dad - thanks for letting us borrow yours so we could have some pics to commemorate the first lion viewing.

10.31.2009

carving

we had a family day today and andy loves 'activities' on our family days, so his activity was carving the pumpkin. he went a little overboard:-) this is the most amazing pumpkin i have ever seen. it's a shame we don't have any trick or treaters, other than rowe & chapin. as you can see, rowe was a big help:-) he was mainly 'hugging' his other lion pumpkin.

by the way, rowe is moving on to north american mammals after his long love affair with africa. his new loves - the bobcat & the mountain lion. still sticking to his guns:-) so, here is the king of our colorado jungle in vegetable form, the mountain lion pumpkin.

billy

billy, you are a billy. this is gorgeous.

one of andy's old fishing guides/best friends from the ranch painted this watercolor for him - andy keeps saying, 'this is the best gift, this is the best gift, this is the best gift,' - over and over. it really is beautiful. anyway, we just had it framed and we wanted to show it to billy - so here it is - looks so good, billy.

smile

i've never been a fan of posed pictures, but we were working on rowe smiling on cue this morning and this was the result.

10.30.2009

fast

wow, this year has flown by.

glasses

mr. joe cool

ridin'

i only got the cowboy, not the horse, aka andy, in this pic.

peanut

the ranch's chef, wray, is a family favorite. he is just awesome. he is forever calling the littles one - peanut. so this shirt makes us think of you, wray.

10.28.2009

wrestlin'

rowe and birdie fight like cats and dogs, or two year olds and puppies in this case. she just gets under his skin, but they have fun together every now and then. here is a 'having fun' moment - wrestling over mr. big dog. hopefully, there will be more 'fun together' in the future...but as for now, rowe wins some, and birdie wins some.

10.27.2009

dunes

the sand dunes, now a national park, are about an hour from our house. they are the craziest things - massive dunes right underneath massive 14'ers. i was trying to find a pic of rowe and stumbled on this old photo - andy was trying to get the light right before he set up the tripod - which is why i am randomly staring out, holding the tripod. this pic makes me really love where we live.

ps - this is for you, too, lins - i know you are a huge sand dunes fan:-)

quilt

rowe loves playing the 'quilt' game with andy.

football

the newest broncos fan - at least a fan of wearing their helmet.

he looks like a middle linebacker to me. what do you think?

peace

this is for my friend lins in the peace corp. she has been the christensen kiddo's nanny for the majority of all of their lives - so she wanted to check on them & see how much they had grown. the boys sent you their best mean face & the girls their best happy face - luke's isn't really a mean face - he was sending you a kiss:-)

you can check on lins on her blog - peace.

cute

lots of cute

pink

lots of pink

bottle

andy gave chapin her 1st bottle tonight & she did great.

warm

this is chapin's 'going for a walk' attire. andy calls it the 'cocoon.' she loves it - totally puts her right to sleep. this is after the walk - and for the next three hours after that. she doesn't move a muscle. we are thinking about letting her sleep in it at night:-)