Our house

Everyone is very curious where we live. Uncle Barney in particular seems concerned about it. I've been putting it off, but finally I have a picture of the house.... we liked the pink one.

Christmas 2008

Christmas Eve with the Hoke family, I caught Taylor with Grandpa Lyle.

The kids hung out with Grandpa Ron on Christmas morning.

Ryley must have been pretty good this year. Santa brought him his heart's desire.

Taylor wasn't really sure what to think. She liked the pretty paper and ribbons and got some really great toys. Ryley had to help her open a few presents.

Buddies

Rotary Dinner

Every year the local Rotary club has a Christmas dinner with local entertainment and they bring Santa Claus in for the kids. Lyle is a member of Rotary so we always get to go. This year was fun as is every year. Santa Claus is typically played by our good friend Harry.

Shauna and Carl brought the kids down this year too and we got some pictures of all the kids with grandpa.














He always looks so innocent doesn't he?


































This is an okay picture of me, so I guess I'll share.





















This may be the last year we fooled Ryley with Santa. Several days afterward he was still pondering how much Santa sounded like Harry.


















We got lucky. She didn't make a fuss about sitting on Santa's lap at all. Of course we didn't get it, but she smiled after this shot.

The Car

I managed to skip getting pictures of the new car up. After some long nights and lots of hard work, Todd managed to get the rod done. Here's the end product.

Friends

I had the chance to meet up with Keedran and Ellie at Thanksgiving for some lunch. Keedran and I have been friends since childhood and I hope that someday Taylor and Ellie can say the same!

Thanksgiving

Somehow I only managed to get one photo at Thanksgiving. I'm sure the rest of the family has more to contribute. Here's Taylor showing off her new Harley shirt that Grandma bought her. She's 7 months old here.

Halloween

In a sea of baby pumpkins, Taylor decided she needed to be a spider for her first Halloween. She slept through the entire event but she looked cute doing it!

















Ryley was a rockstar vampire this year. We had to cover Taylor up so she wouldn't get terribly frightened.

Hero worship

It starts early.

Please don't hurt me.

PS - this only makes sense if you click on the picture and enlarge it.

Educating Americans

1. Please hope that your child doesn't require a special diet.
2. If he does require a special diet, please have a sense of humor.
3. If you fail the sense of humor requirement, have patience.

It's not that Ryley has serious diet limitations, he's just lactose intolerant. In general he can have a splash of 1% on his cereal but downing a carton of milk at lunch is pretty much a no no.

The way the school system works these days, if he wants to have pig in a blanket at school along with his classmates instead of PB&J from home, the lunch ladies are required to put a carton of milk on his tray. I've paid for it, fair enough. The problem is really the chocolate milk. It's like heroin for a 6 year old with lactose issues. He can't say no and they offer it as an option. Because I know he has a problem, I have a couple of options.

1. I can send him with PB&J every day and listen to him whine.
2. I can have him come up with a solution to the "milk problem".

Ryley's rather fantastic solution is that on the days he wants to eat at school, he takes a juice box from home. Awesome.

We tried to execute this plan in the last week but it's more difficult than it would appear.

The lunch ladies get pretty irritated if you rock the boat. They have to put that carton on his tray. The only way they won't is if you send a doctor's note to school indicating his "special diet". I don't know about anyone else but I'm not about to take my kid to the doctor just so I can tell the doctor that milk gives my kid the runs and the doctor can write a note. Kids, that's $100. No thanks. Try explaining that one to the school system. They must think we all run off to the doctor the moment our kids sneeze. Not in my house.

I talked to his teacher at length about this yesterday since she called me about it. She talked to the head lunch lady and emailed me to let me know that he could take his own juice but that they would have to put the milk on his tray until such time I provide a note about his special diet.

Fine. I told Ryley he had to take the milk but he didn't have to drink it and I don't want him to drink it. He got it.

Today the school nurse calls me because his teacher asked her to. Guess why. She had to ask me for the note from the doctor about his special diet.

And Ryley's teacher thinks he's the one with ADHD.

Didn't we just clear this up yesterday?!?!? Why is this so difficult and why are we wasting so much time over a carton of milk? I think the nurse got it but I'll probably get a call from the principal tomorrow.

Jennifer as a baby

Uncle Barney was nice enough to send me some pictures he had of me as a baby and some other assorted family shots. I'll post those here and there for comic relief. Today's pictures are of me as a baby.

I can't tell if Taylor looks like me or not here.

6 months

It's scary to me that my baby is 6 months old today.

Every day I'm amazed at the things she does or reacts to and yet I want to keep her my tiny baby.

Yes Mom, it is quite a different view from the other side. It's hard to let your heart go wandering about on the outside of your body.

Anyway... my doctor wasn't terribly upset about the solid foods. He seemed pretty okay with it really. He's this funny South African man with a great accent and a decent sense of humor. Half the time I think he's not sure what to make of me.

She weighed in at 17lbs 2oz and was 26.5" long this morning at her 6 month check. That puts her in the 75th percentile. I thought she weighed more the other day but maybe I don't know how to add. I mean I'm sure getting on the scale with her is scientific and accurate. If it's true that she's 2 pounds lighter... maybe I'm 2 pounds lighter. That would be awesome. That would mean I weigh two pounds less than I did on my wedding day.

I digress.

Happy 6 months Taylor.

No, I'm not pulling a Britney here. We were sitting in the truck watching the marching band parade.

This lovely picture is just to show off the two new chompers she has.

PS - Thanks for the great hat Keedran. No, it doesn't really fit her anymore but we love it so she wears it.

Ol' Blue Eyes

I may have to beat them off with a stick in like... 10 years.

Just a dose of...

Carrots

My doctor told me to wait until 6 months to give Taylor solid foods
other than cereal.

Since I'm such a follower of rules, I totally listened to him.

I can't decide if this is a look of happiness or just "I'm totally
full". Either way, she likes food and has since the first moment (at
exactly 5 months). I keep waiting for her to make some sort of face. Any face. She won't do it. I've given up even trying to get a picture.

Mullet Hunter

I actually took this picture for a hairdresser I know. I couldn't help
but share it here.

Business in the front, party in the back. Yes, that's a woman. If this
is you... I apologize, but seriously...

Rubber Duck Dash

The United Way of Western Nebraska does this thing every year called the Rubber Duck Dash. Basically, you purchase a rubber duck for $5 and they put numbers on it. On the day of the race they dump all these ducks that have been purchased into the river and the first duck across the line wins a car. The duck tally this year was 18,000.

This was my first year attending the event. I wasn't really sure what to expect but they had stuff for the kids and Ryley seemed keen on going. I only included a few pictures of the ducks here but it's an amazing site to see all these ducks come around the bend in the river. I'm pretty sure my 5 ducks were in the back getting caught up in the river bank.

We drug Grandma Linda along to make a morning of it as well. Here she is helping Ryley decorate his gift duck.

They have a theme every year. I'm guessing this year's theme had something to do with motorcycle ducks.

Ryley tends to get food all over his face. I guess with the size of the cinnamon rolls it wouldn't be so hard to do.

Taylor wasn't that into it. The race was cutting into her morning nap schedule.

Here they come around the bend...

Duck wranglers at the finish line.

Success?

I have no idea if my first attempt at pickling things worked. I guess
we'll see in a few days when I can open my first jar.

The Gerber Baby

Mom thinks Taylor looks like the Gerber baby. I had someone else make the very same comment last week. There must be something to it.

Taylor is officially 4 months old and I felt like she was interested in eating some cereal. Luckily for my doctor, he agreed so I didn't have to argue with him. Her appointment was last week. She weighed in at 15 pounds and she's 25 1/4 inches long. I neglect her obviously.

She has been sitting in her high chair with us at dinner for a while now. I just kind of felt like she didn't like looking up at us from the bouncy seat on the floor. She stares while we're eating and the girls at daycare had mentioned that she seemed pretty curious about it as well.

Here she is. Happy, hungry, and unsuspecting.

Hhhhmmm. What is this spoon thing all about? Well, I guess I can suck stuff off of it.

Wait, maybe if I use my hand it will go in my mouth faster.

For the love lady... keep the food constantly in my mouth like I'm used to and no one gets hurt.

Well, she doesn't cry now at least. She's figured out that I will in fact put more in her mouth.

The County Fair

Taylor and I both had a first this last weekend. We went to the county fair. By that I mean... we went to the carnival. Todd and Ryley went to the mud bog tractor pull and ATV races earlier in the week but Taylor and I stayed home.

What they say about county fairs is true. There is some seriously great people watching to be done. I was in voyeur paradise. I could have taken so many pictures but I restrained myself.

Here's Taylor with daddy. I would post the picture of her with me but it's not that great.

I won't post the picture I have of Ryley on the blender ride since I'm not sure how Mrs. E feels about having her picture plastered on the web, or her child's for that matter. However, I'm terribly proud of Ryley for getting on the scary big kid rides. He did great. He wasn't sure about the Spider in the first 30 seconds but after I put my arm around him and he figured out he wasn't going to fall out... he had a blast!

By the way, if you ever puke on a ride at a carnival, they hose you down with a fire hose looking jobby.

We love the crazy hair

Well, the daycare girl and I do anyway. She has this little section that sticks up in the back. No matter what. I'm threatening to dress her up as Pebbles for Halloween. Please don't tell me you don't know who Pebbles is. I will feel old and have to hurt you.

Anyway, I was trying to get pictures of said crazy hair one day and she decided she didn't like that at the time. Despite what quite a few people seem to think. She does cry.

Then I finally sort of got a cute picture of the craziness...

Spongebob... the girl kitty

Ryley brought home two kitties from his last trip to Wyoming. They apparently had 9 kitties running around and we needed some mousers.

Ryley wanted to name this one Spongebob but since they are girl kitties, we convinced him that Sandy was perhaps a better name. Still revolving around the Spongebob theme, but more gender appropriate.

When we got them out of the box, I was rubbing Sandy's head on the bottom of Taylor's foot just to see what she would do. I think she liked the sensation but I'm not sure she realizes that her foot is in fact attached to her body yet. Sometimes she still seems really confused by things touching her feet.

The other kitty is all black. It became my unfortunate job to name the critter but I'm really bad at animal names. I'm still undecided almost a month later but mom suggested "Coal". When I mentioned it to Ryley, he really liked it. Secretly I will probably call it something else. No pictures of Coal yet. She's sort of shy.