Happy Birthday Ceara! (the Katie edition)

Yes, I know Jeff already posted pictures, but he forgot to include the ones I took and since people have already commented on it, I thought I'd make my own post!  ;)  His pictures were all taken with his Blackberry, and I didn't take my camera to the restaurant, so all of mine were taken when we arrived home. 

She wore a tiara for her birthday, of course!

I love getting un-posed pictures - there was an app on Jon's iPad where a dinosaur would repeat anything you said in a strange, deep voice, and it cracked them up!

And I took a little video - I couldn't get it turned on quick enough to get the singing, but you can hear the part that the boys added to the end. 

She said she had a great birthday weekend, and I'm glad we could give that to her. 

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!  We love you!  :)

Happy Birthday Ceara

Ceara's 17th Birthday Cookie

Ceara doesn't care for cake... or chocolate.  Maybe it's just a defense mechanism because her dad used to steal all of her chocolate, so she told herself she didn't like it.  Who knows?  So, in light of those two dislikes, I made Ceara a birthday cookie - 1/2 peanut butter cookie, 1/2 sugar cookie.  Jeff is unaware of this at this time, but I'm sure he will object to the lack of chocolate anywhere in the party dessert!

Ceara's actual birthday is on October 7th, but because she had to work, we are celebrating it on October 8th.  Today.  Or tomorrow, depending on how you look at it.  As I have not been to bed yet, I still feel it is Friday. 

Jeff has always liked for parties to be themed, and since Ceara loves El Rancho Grande, we are taking her there for dinner to celebrate her birthday.  So, he decided that her cookie should be a Mexican theme.  I did my best to comply. 

I could go take a picture of her as she sleeps, however I will wait until tomorrow and just make a new post.  I just wanted to post the pictures now, because I kinda like how it turned out.  Despite the fact that my cactus plants look like green warped ghosts.  It's hard enough drawing with a pencil... icing is not as forgiving!

Sleep?  Who needs that?  Oh, wait... I think I might need a couple of hours!  :)

Lily Rolling Over!

Allie and Lily came to visit last night and I got to see Lily roll over!  I know the video is dark, but it will just have to do for now.  I will get a better one next time!  :)

Mimi bought her this nice little hat and it looks so cute on her! 

Time just flies, doesn't it?  She's going to be 6 months old next month!  It's hard for me to believe she's been with us for that long. 

She was jabbering a LOT and chewing on her fingers.

All of the below pictures were taken with my iPod:

Up until last night, every time Jeff talked to her she would pucker up and cry.  Last night, however, she was even laughing at him! 

I made cookies last night, too, so I thought I'd share a picture of them as well!  They were pretty good, new recipe.  Someday Lily will be able to help me cook, and I look forward to that, but I'm not ready for her to be that old yet!  I'm enjoying her as a baby!  :)

Why yes, I do have other things I should be sharing, I just thought I'd share these new pictures of Lily for now. 

Weekend Activities

I guess I'm going to have to start with Sunday because blogger won't let me move the pictures and videos around.  Or I am just a noob and can't figure it out.  Sunday, I exchanged Conor for Lily - Allie and Jon took Conor to Kings Island and Lily spent the day with us.  Time flew by while I had her, it didn't seem like they were gone very long.

That first video is actually from last weekend when they were here visiting on Labor Day.  It's so fun to watch her laugh.  And she can go from cracking up to somber in just one second.  She absolutely adores her daddy - he was the one making her laugh and coo.

In the second video, she was watching the dogs wrestle around, and it absolutely cracked her up.  It was such a nice day, we put her swing on the deck for a little while so she could spend some time outside. 

Saturday was full of activities as well.  First thing in the morning (9am) Conor had a soccer game, so we were up and at the park early to cheer him on.  Ceara had spent the night with us and she went with us as well.  She was supposed to be off work, but once we got home and made plans to make home made pizza, they called her in.  She wanted more hours so we put the plans on hold until she came back after work. 

Gage came over to play with Conor and I left the boys home and went to a Euchre party.  When I got home, Ceara and Grant were already here and ready to make pizza.  I had made the crust earlier in the day, and made the sauce last week, so they set out to make them.  I should have taken step by step pictures, but I forgot.

Ceara took the pictures of the "works in progress" and we forgot to take a finished picture.  Ceara made the one with the peperoni, while Grant made one with just cheese. 

We'll try other toppings at another time, but for our first time making it all from scratch, it turned out pretty good. 

I used this recipe for the pizza dough and this recipe for the sauce.  Made with our own tomatoes we grew in our garden!  :) 

Friday night we just stayed home and relaxed - had to prepare for the weekend after all.

Gimme Kisses!

Barb sent me this video of Conor today, and it brought back such memories!  Oh, how little he used to be!  How did he get to be so big?  I miss when he was little!

Thanks for the stroll down memory lane, Barb!

Heatwave!!

I can't believe it has been so hot!!

Anyone remember this song?

Sunflowers

Mathematical model of floret arrangement

Illustration of Vogel's model for n=1 ... 500
A model for the pattern of florets in the head of a sunflower was proposed by H. Vogel in 1979. This is expressed in polar coordinates where θ is the angle, r is the radius or distance from the center, and n is the index number of the floret and c is a constant scaling factor. It is a form of Fermat's spiral. The angle 137.5° is related to the golden ratio (55/144 of a circular angle, where 55 and 144 are Fibonacci numbers) and gives a close packing of florets. This model has been used to produce computer graphics representations of sunflowers.

Lily Mae

I know I should try to go in order, but since I have these pictures that I adore that I just took Saturday, I thought I'd share now.  Allie and Lily came over for a cookout on Saturday and were here for an entire 10 hours.  I took just 56 pictures... and thought I would share a few of those here.  Along with a couple of videos.  :)

She is giggleing and cooing and flailing her arms and legs a lot.  She wants to get up and go! 

She is also blowing spit bubbles, and slobbering, and it's just so cute!  Generally speaking, I don't promote these activities in those people over 1 year old or so, but babies can get away with almost anything and look cute!

This picture is currently my desktop background: 

She thinks it is hilarious when you put her blanket over her head and pull it off.  Peek-a-boo!  :)  It also makes it look like all her hair is combed forward, so I make it a point to fix it after we're done. 

And there's that adorable dimple!  She can have the most serious look on her face, and then instantly she breaks into a grin and her whole face lights up. 

She was making the funniest faces at me - I wish I would have taken video of it, but I had put my camera down and didn't want to leave her to go get it. 

Here are a couple of videos for your viewing pleasure: 

Family Sundays

Today we went to my aunt and uncle's farm to celebrate my cousin's 16th birthday.  It's amazing how peaceful it is there, how you can forget all about any problems or concerns you are having.  They have a new ATV - I forget the name of it, starts with a K, but it's like a golf cart on steroids.  I think it is this one.  My aunt Maggie took me for a ride back in the fields, and we had so much fun.  She is fearless!  We made our own paths in some spots, going over bumps so fast we both were bounced off the seat.  We also ran into a lot of tree branches that were smacking us in the face a bit.  It was so much fun. 

When we returned to the house, I took Jeff on a ride to show him the pumpkin field they had going.  Jeff was having major garden envy over there since they have a HUGE garden in addition to their 250 acres of crops.  Their tomato plants were about as tall as we are.  Sadly, they didn't plant any corn this year.  All soybeans.  :( 

It was a beautiful August day, a little cool for swimming in the lake, but when did that ever stop little boys?  Conor, Shane, and Grant all got in.  They didn't stay in too long and ended up playing in the sand because they got cold. 

Sundays with my family are always great, and this one was no exception.  :)  Of course I didn't take my camera, but I will next time. 

Catching Up: The Baby Shower

Debbie (Jon's mom, my co-grandma) and I decided to throw one big baby shower for Allie and Jon.  Cheryl (Jon's aunt) secured the location for us - her church party room.  I made this punch but used strawberry drink mix to have pink for the whole "it's a girl" theme.  :)  It was really good! 

It was a great way to meet each other's families.  We had help from our family members as well:  contributing food, drinks, help with set-up, help with clean-up. 

We shopped together for all of the supplies and food. 

We had a great turn out, too.  It was co-ed, but only 3 adult males came.  Jon's dad, Jon, and Jeff.  Conor was there too, of course.

Everything went very smoothly - we had way too much food (after not thinking we'd have enough!), we played a few games, and Lily got a lot of cute stuff.  The collective "awwww" after each gift was opened became a source of amusement for some.  There are some very talented people in our families as well, she received several hand made items - which I absolutely love.  Blankets, afghans... even some clothes!  Which, of course, I don't have pictures of yet.  Waiting months to do posts leaves you with the "where did I put those pictures?!" syndrome.  Also, don't want to overload the posts with too many pictures.  I'll have to upload them to my flickr account for your viewing pleasure at some point.  I will surely let you know when I do!