thanks

my sweet friend lindsay walker, who was my roommate my 1st year at the ranch, brought the most beautiful bag of home-grown lettuce & 2 perfect squash over tonight. it was the most beautiful dinner i have had all summer. thanks lins.

rocker

andy found this cute lab rocker at a garage sale for $1. momma lee should be proud. rowe has just discovered it & loves it.

concentrating

yogurt

since rowe has been on antibiotics his stomach has been a bit upset. so... the nurse recommended some yogurt. i think rowe is a fan.

tagged

olivia, one of my best friends from home, just had her second little one. so she's got two boys - wyatt & boone. i love this pic of boone - i stole it from her blog. anyway, she sent this thing, which i think is like the old chain letter idea - which entails writing some info on your site. she calls is being 'tagged.' her request was 6 things that not many people know, random or whatever.
so...here is #1. if i had every flavor of ice cream in the world available, i would still choose vanilla. #2. i've seen almost every james bond in history, thanks dad. #3. i'm not too keen on bees, bugs, anything with more than 4 legs, horses as well. #4. i love love love peace like a river, it is just the most gorgeous book. #5. i still feel like i'm in high school, hopefully that will keep me youthful at heart. #6. last, but not least, i'm a cheap date. maybe 2 beers. thanks liv, for wanting to know my heart.

more

more smiles

bums

hopefully this won't come back to haunt rowe - making an appearance at his first date, or graduation, or worse

blurry

i'm such a sucker for blurry shots. i just love 'em.

muddy

this is my mom's grandmother's rocking chair. it has been a faithful friend during nighttime feedings. thanks for passing it on, mom.

also one of our friends thinks this outfit looks like something hugh hephner would wear, i'm not sure how to spell his name.

carrots

rowe has been a bit under the weather for the past couple of days, first ear infection. he hasn't been eating well & so andy thought a little 'messy' eating might help. well, what do you know. worked wonders. we even had some smiles which haven't been around either.

smiling

watching

rowe has been totally fascinated with andy from the get-go. here he is watching andy shave this morning. total concentration. he loves sitting in the sink by the way.

trek

one of our best 'baby' investments has been rowe's stroller. robin & aaron have one just like it and when i was the nanny i totally loved it. it was a bit expensive, but we found a used one on craig's list that was in great shape. i bet i have used it almost every day, especially during the season. the mosquitos have been horrible this summer so the cover has saved baby rowe's little skin. anyway...rowe is getting a lot more mobile so i'm not sure how much longer we have in this thing because there aren't any "restraining devices" :-) so here is rowe attempting to break through the mosquito net.

patches

there is an awesome kiddo thrift shop in alamosa & i have become a frequent shopper. bets has totally hooked up with all of her boys' stuff so there isn't much we need, but it is fun just to look. i found these little jeans with soccer patches on them a couple trips ago. they are so darn cute.

readin'

here is rowe reading some c.s. lewis and then hanging out in his dad's shoes. big day for rowe.

sharing

aaron & robin, the ranch mangers and our next door neighbors, have 4 kiddos. i was the nanny before there was a fourth. this little one is laci lane. she is five months older than rowe. they are a hoot together. laci loves stealing rowe's binkie & rowe loves just going after lac. this was their first bath together.

lip

this is one of andy's favorites. this is all rowe...just messing around.

practicing

andy's mom is a killer garage sale shopper. she found this costume at a sale right after rowe was born. i just wanted to make sure it still fit. thought you all might like a halloween preview. i know you can't really see him, but you can see his 'paci' coming out of the fish's mouth.

workin'

rowe has the funniest toys, as the above shows. he loves his spatula, his calculator, his whisk. here he is doing some business calculations.

outside

just hangin' out by the door.

better

seven months in, we are finally sleeping through the night. the last couple months i have been waking up with him to nurse, and waking up a lot. since he is pretty big i just assumed that he was legitimately hungry. we had one night last week that was rough, not enough sleeping for me or for rowe. i had been trying soft, kind methods for encouraging sleep and they just had not been fruitful. so, the next night i turned my monitor down a bit again to see if he could be "encouraged" to self-soothe. what do you know, he slept from 9 until 7. next night, same thing. i feel like it was so vital for my heart to realize that rowe might need to learn some things the hard way. here i am taking the credit when it could have been his sweet giraffe cribmate:-)

apples

another aunt bets toy. it is sort of like a baby popsicle. you put little pieces of whatver, apple for today, and they can get the tasty juice without having to work on the chewing.

smiley

rowe & i had such a fun night tonight. he had the funniest faces, some cute ones in there , too.

movin'

another busy day for rowe. poor charlie hasn't got a chance. where ever she is, rowe is a-comin'. she is amazingly patient for a dog that is not too big on being messed with. other than char, rowe's 2nd favorite activity is checking out what is going on outside our front door.