More walking and1st birthday portraits

Oh what a fun weekend!!! Courtney's birthday (real one) was yesterday, so I made her a little shirt that says "It's My 1st Birthday" and we went to get here portraits taken for the first time. She did great! She was quite a ham and of course we got more pictures than we know what to do with! This first one is her 'showing her guns' - it's a trick her Daddy taught her.

After her portraits we came home to tornado warnings for the evening and she practiced walking some more. The bottom of this post has some better video of her walking. I am once again a bad mommy and didn't have the video camera charged so I missed quite a bit of it. She was taking 5 or 6 steps to get her baby and walked around the entire kitchen. As she was walking around I was looking at her so proudly but then I thought "do i really want her to be walking already....no, I don't...STOP!" but it's too late. Either way, we're super excited and very proud of our little baby girl.

For family - if you want any of these pictures to make your walls look better, or to decorate a table, stand or even a room; let me know and I'll get you what you want. :-)

We hope you all had a wonderful mothers day (Sunday if you aren't a mother); we missed a lot of you in connection group. Paul invited everyone out to the 'sticks' to our house some time in the summer. Plan now though, we live far far far away. :-)

Have a GREAT week! We are looking forward to getting back to the gym, baseball games and shots for Courtney. Ok, maybe not so much looking forward to the shots, but the rest for sure.

She CAN walk!!!

Ok, so yesterday I pretty much spent the whole day on the floor with Courtney. I played with her and laughed with her and we had a blast. At the end of the day she was taking 2 or 3 steps towards me in a game she made up so I stopped until Daddy got home. We both got on the floor when he got home and were trying to get her to walk between us, AND SHE DID! she walked from me to Daddy. No, I didn't have the camera set up that time and I was totally bummed. Then I set the camera up and she did the typical 'time to go limp because the camera is on' trick. I did manage to capture her walking a little and some will say whatever as you can't see her feet, but I swear, she did it! Crazy crazy crazy!

What a weekend!

Wow, we had a crazy busy weekend! Thursday Ethan had a baseball game; he did great but they lost their first game. Here are some pictures of that...







Friday Ethan was in a musical at school - 101 dalmatians. That was adorable. He did a great job and enjoyed it all 5 times they did the musical. We had some extra spots after the costumes were done so I made his two baby sisters some outfits to match. I will post those when Stefani (the evil ex :-)) sends them to me as I set the camera out and left it right where I left it out. Ok, here they are...she is no longer evil. :-)




Then, Saturday we had my two Arki sisters up for a birthday party for Courtney. She turns 1 next Saturday which is just CRAZY to think about. We had a wonderful time with my family over. We just hung out had a really big pizza from Hawg Town and did the birthday thing. Courtney was a good sport and seemed to enjoy herself. She is a great present opener and even dug into her cake a little bit. Paul has a friend that does amazing cakes, so we had her make Courtney's 1st cake; she did Ethan's first cake 7 years ago, so that was kind of neat. She really did a great job! Check out these pictures of my darling daughter, son, nephew and niece.














And then....Sunday afternoon, after the Arki's left we went to the church bbq and fun day. We had a blast! Ethan got to go down the huge slide that he wanted to take Courtney on and I said NO! Courtney got to ride a pony and she didn't freak out. (picture below) then we all went and played softball; even Ethan. We had a blast. It was duck soup softball which was great fun. The first inning is normal, the second inning you have to run backwards or you are out, the 3rd inning you run the bases backwards (3rd, 2nd, 1st) which was awkward (Ethan and I both got a hit that inning), the 4th inning was kick ball, 5th was T-ball, and 6th was back to normal. We had so much fun and Courtney just hung out in the dug out for the first 4 innings in her stroller eating cheetos and drinking water. She did great.



Oh, and I almost forgot! We went on a safari at a friend's house. Ok, so not so much a safari but it felt like it! He has a BUNCH of cows so we drove out in the field to show the kids. Paul and Ethan got out to try to touch the baby and the whole herd came towards them; I start freaking out, they get back in the truck. Then all the cows and the bull (that is almost as big as my truck mind you) are surrounding us! Paul rolls all the windows down and the bull of all things comes towards my window. Again, I start freaking out (I think I scared Courtney) but the darn thing was going to stick his head in my window and eat us! So i rolled the window up, and Paul make me roll it back down. Not cool! To make a short story not long, they cows didn't get us and the kids loved seeing them. I don't know why I am afraid of cows but boy are they scary. Big ol' long tongues and the fact that they are taller than my truck...ewe!

What oh what to post today...I have started taking pictures of Courtney every time she falls asleep in the car as she is usually adorable. I have more than I thought as I really didn't think we go out THAT much. I guess so though. Speaking of going places, we are coming up on some busy times. We have family from central Arkansas coming up this weekend to celebrate Courtney's 1st birthday - I can't believe she is going to be a year old soon! Boy does time fly by. Next weekend my Mom is coming out from Oregon for Courtney's real birthday; she will be here for a few days and we are going to have Courtney's first photographs taken on her birthday. I'm pretty excited about that, but I'm a picture-aholic. After my mom leaves, Paul's mom and friend Janice are coming out for a few days. I'm blessed with a wonderful mother in law, so I am excited to have her. The day after they leave, my dad and other mom are coming out to their house on Greers Ferry lake. We will be making the drive out there to see them. Oh, and Blaine will be coming home for a 4 day weekend during that time too. I'm so excited to see him as he has been gone for 5 months - probably the longest I've ever gone without seeing him. Soooooooooo, we won't know what to do once everyone is gone; probably get to know our kids again as I'm sure we won't get to look at them with everyone around. :-) We're looking forward to all the company though; Courtney is getting old enough she will start remembering these strange family members too. Well, I'm off to do cool stuff to post on the blog now...you know, like do laundry and make lunch.