One of my favorite things

One of my favorite things is Haven laughing.  We love to get her going.  Unfortunately it is hard to catch her in a full laugh when a camera is around.  She gets a bit distracted.  Here are a few pics that catch a glimpse of that wonderful smile and laugh.

"Writing"

Haven loves to "write".  She pulls all of the pens and highlighters out of the caddie and gets a piece of paper and "writes" on it.  She actually holds it correctly sometimes.

Fire Truck @ VBS

We had the fire department bring out one of their engines for the first day of VBS.  We had a good day, but I am exhausted.  I am doing the music for the first time and it takes a lot of high energy to get the kids involved.  Jonathan is doing the opening and if needed lead kids around to their stations.  Haven hangs out with Jonathan.

Christian Family Day @ Busch Stadium

Yesterday was Christian Family Day at Busch Stadium.  We had 15 plus Haven go from our church.  We had a great time sweating!  It looked like we all peed our pants.  The game was a great one.  At first the San Diego Padres were up 5 to nothing, but then the Cards came back to win.  The record for Christian Family Day is 16-2!  

Haven was having a quesadilla while playing with sun glasses.  She is a multi-tasker!

The second time this year the family has got to attend a game.  This one was a lot hotter than the last, but we had a lot of fun.  We were up in the nose bleed section down the third base line.  They were actually pretty good seats.

This was before she got too hot.

Haven loved the frozen lemonade.  Mo, Mo, she would say.

She was just so cute.  She did really well in the heat.  I hated to keep her hat on, but I didn't want her head to burn.

Shoving more quesadilla down her throat.  She would shove a bunch and then take it out and offer it to Jonathan when it was wet and soggy.

Jonathan's child.

My child.

Love those expensive dry pretzels.

A week at Grandma and Grandpa's

Haven and I spent the week at mom and dad's while Jonathan was off spending quality time with some pre-teens at church camp.  Going to mom and dad's help me not get as lonely and kept me sane when it came to caring for Haven.  I was glad mom and dad got to see Haven for the week.  I was a total bum.  Since we do not have dish or cable, I spent the week watching HGTV and TLC.  It was wonderful!  So many wonderful re-runs that I have never seen.  I also got to see some friends and family.  Angie has been my friend since elementary school and it had been a few years since I had seen her and her kids.  It was wonderful to see them all (but one).  I also got to see my cousins who's daughter is only three weeks older than Haven.

Haven loved rocking in the big rocking chair.  She could make it rock herself!

She prefers to drink out of a big cup.  She was blowing bubbles in it also.  Poor mom, this was her cup.  All that slobber just waiting to be drank :o)

The cup was as big as her!

Mom and dad's plum tree has a ton of plums on it and some of them are starting to ripen.  Grandpa and Haven went to find a few plums.

Yeah!  She found one!  Little did she know at this time she wouldn't be able to keep it.  They have pits.

Haven and Grandma reading a book.  Grandma and her friend Peggy have collected toys for when Haven comes over.  There are also some cool toys from when Jimmy and I were younger.

If a banana a day kept the doctor away, then Haven would not get sick!  She ate and ate this week.  Here grandma was feeding her a pre-bedtime banana snack.

This is Lidia.  She and Haven are three weeks apart.  She is such a cutie and had the cutest pig tails in her hair.  She can already say 70 words!  I don't think Haven is near that yet, but it made me want to write her words down and see how she is doing. They were still not at the age to play together.  Just around each other.

This is Angie's eight month old Calie.  This was the first time I had met her and Angie had not met Haven yet.  Calie weighs more than Haven!  She was crawling all over and standing on everything.  Trying to get them both in a picture was hard.

Reading time!

Haven loves books.  There is many a time she will bring one to us, or sit down with a book and look through it herself.  If she brings it to us, it is rare we actually get through more than a page or two without forcing her to listen to the book.  Or we have to read two words a page.  The other day she actually let Jonathan read her a whole book and I realized I had never really heard the full story.  It was different than what I thought the story was! 

Pea in a straw

Haven has started putting a pea in her straw.  It just cracks me up.  Tonight she flipped the pea out of the straw and launched it.

4th of July

We celebrated the fourth at church.  Each year we have a BBQ picnic.  This year we built a bon fire so that we could burn some branches.  We cooked hot dogs and created smores.  Mom and Dad where able to come down to celebrate with us.  It was great to have them!  Last year they were both to sick to come.

Haven is not afraid of dogs, she loves them.  Here she is bending over to kiss Jasper.

I just love this picture! Grandma bought this outfit for her.

Here grandma and Haven were "bowling".  We have a bowling game on the PS3 and you use the motion sensors on the controller to bowl.  Since Mom and dad can't physically bowl in an alley, they love to PS3 bowl when they come.

We had a wonderful weekend.  

Baby Dolls

Well, it has happened!  Haven discovered a baby doll this past week and she takes her everywhere.  When I pulled it out of a toy bin that was under her crib, she immediately grabbed for it and said babyyyyy.  She does lots of things with her baby.  Below you can see she puts it in her rocker and rocks the chair back and forth.

We are trying to teach her to feed the baby, pat the baby and hug the baby.  She will imitate all that we do.

Here she put her baby in the train.  As I type this she put the baby in another part of the train and was pushing her.

She kisses the baby.  We didn't have to teach her this since she has been kissing stuffed animals for weeks.

Happy Birthday to Jonathan

I am posting this a bit late but.... Happy Birthday to Jonathan, Happy Birthday to Jonathan, Happy Birthday dear Jonathannnnnn, Happy Birrrrthdaaaaay tooooooo Youuuuuuu.

Jonathan's birthday was on July 2nd.  As you can see his choice of a birthday meal was Pizza Inn.  He has been saving up for his PS3, so no real presents to mention.  Well, I guess the PS3 is, but that is a present from last birthday, last Christmas, this birthday etc.  They are expensive and Jonathan has been diligent to save.  Go Jonathan!  He did get a nice big bag of Reese's pieces (he got those the day before his birthday because his selfish wife, me, thought they sounded really good to eat!).  He also got a dessert that he loves.

He turned 33 and for four months he is only one year younger then me.  When his hair gets "long", you can sure see some gray!  Men always look distinguished though.