{eight and a half months}

more like 80 and a half years...he looks like a little old man with a walker!

i was going to do a big nine month check-up post in october, but just couldn't wait. cole has changed too much! he went from a semi-newborn to an almost-toddler overnight! two weeks ago he started crawling. that quickly turned into pulling himself up to kneeling, then standing. and now he is climbing and cruising.

trying to give his knees a break





and now that he has six teeth, he is eating like a big boy too. we went on a walk on wednesday night and told mclayne she could only come if she ate a chicken nugget she hadn't eaten at dinner. cole kept trying to reach over and grab it with his mouth wide open. it's nice to have one good eater!

they came

i think this says it all...but in case it doesn't she jumped for joy


more pictures trying on boots . on the way to costco . and smiling{?} in the back yard

one hundred and one things...part one

i accepted amy's 101 things challenge. i gave up after 22...her dedication, some might call it addiction, to blogging is unparalleled. here is my best attempt. nothing too insightful, just random trivia.

1. I hold face cards upside down when I play games.
2. I am blind in one eye.
3. I dated six guys named Ryan before I found my husband…named Ryan.
4. I am a grazer.
5. On the average day I eat more than Ryan…he is 6’4” and weighs 200++++
6. I don’t know what I would do without paper plates. I must go through a Costco 250 pack every month.
7. I never read the manuals to anything I own or buy.
8. I wear a bra to bed. I was recently told that this causes breast cancer{?}…so I might stop.
9. I brush my teeth in the shower.
10. I have been told I make really good oatmeal.
11. I believe that a single guy and a single girl can be just friends.
12. I have watched this old house every Saturday since I was about 12…long before the flipping and trading-spaces trend hit. Norm Abram is my hero.
13. In the past three years, ryan + I have seen about three movies per year in the theater…or nine for those of you who are bad at math.
14. I have my master’s degree in accounting/tax.
15. I never wear my wedding ring because it gives me a rash. Hopefully this will change when I get a platinum upgrade in 2010…
16. I hate public speaking and I dread teaching in R.S. every month.
17. For me, doing laundry w/o fabric softener just doesn’t cut it.
18. I often get tongue-tied, forget, or jumble words. Mclayne truthfully speaks better than I do.
19. I am a perfectionist…at one time I even used a folding board like they have in stores. I have retired in until my kids can do it or they move out.
20. I usually clean our shower while I take a shower.
21. I have really light eyelashes and eyebrows and every so often, usually for special occasions, I have them dyed. Ryan calls me groucho for the next three days.
22. At least once a week i walk to the park, library, and sonic with mclayne. {cole comes too}

going {green}

reusable grocery totes.i love these totes. they are the same size as a regular paper bag, very sturdy, and washable. i'm thinking about adding a simple iron-on graphic. maybe then i'll like grocery shopping a little more. sounds like a good bear lake craft...what do you stewarts think?




{if you're wondering, i picked this picture because i get broccoli, gourmet bread, and fresh flowers every time i go to the store...right;)}






baby food grinder. great for babies i'd say 4 to 12 months. i buy so much less baby food from the store and cole pounds everything that comes from it.






croc boots. don't know if these really qualify as {green}, except for the fact that every tree-huggin' hippie in colorado, and everywhere else, wears them. mclayne's favorite {early} christmas present last year were her pink fur boots. last week i had to retire them because {a} it was over 90 degrees and {b} they were way too small. then i happened upon these gems...croc boots with fur?! when these come in the mail next week mclayne may have a seizure.

the pregnancy bug is going around...

i caught it a few weeks ago. it started with no energy. i chalked up to ryan being out of town for work, but my neighbors were suspicious. next was the nausea after eating...but what do you expect with my cooking, really?! then nesting. we cleaned out and organized the garage and basement, bought window casing and crown molding, and got out paint chips...the list keeps growing. and finally the cravings. i usually try to avoid tuna because of the mercury, but i can't stop eating tuna with {lots of}mayo and celery seeds on potato chips. mclayne calls it chips with tuna butter...mmmm! however i don't have a developing fetus in my stomach so i'm pretty sure it's not the real thing. from what i hear that is an important symptom.

unfortunately mclayne came down with it today...














{she calls it baby avery}

when in rome...i mean colorado

i don't think we realized it at the time we bought our house what a great location it is for us. we like getting out to the "outdoors," but only if it is easy and convenient. so lucky for us, we have state parks , fishing streams, duck ponds, and a boating reservoir within literally 5 minutes of our house. this morning we revisited roxborough state park. it was surprisingly beautiful the first time we went and it offers 6 trails at varying levels of difficulty. nothing makes you feel more like a true coloradoan than strapping on a couple packs and hitting the trails.

so the no diaper, no underwear potty-training has turned mclayne into a stripper. her outfits of nothing but a hat, a snake around her neck, mardi gras beads, or a pair of fur-trimmed boots have me worrying about her future employment.






snowman in august?! but at least she's wearing clothes



cole learned how to get on all fours and rock. i hope it's a while until he learns to crawl, because this is just too cute.

someone decided to grow a mustache...

no, thankfully not ryan


it looks like cole has been watching the olympics with the rest of the world and is a big fan of the croatian water polo team (how can you not be?!)....



either that, or he is trying to tell us he's ready to play the wii!

forgive me...and please bless all the starving pygmies in new guinea

i really shouldn't be blogging about this on a sunday, so if any of you are trying to have a very uplifting spiritual sabbath you may want to wait until tomorrow {or forever} to read this post.
recently i started singing the "boom-chicka-boom" song with mclayne.
i only knew the first two lines and got curious about the rest of the lyrics so i looked them up and found:
i said a boom chicka boom (echo)
i said a boom chicka boom (echo)
i said a boom chicka boom rocka chicka rocka chicka boom(echo)
Uh huh! (echo)
Oh yeah! (echo)
One more time...style.
then you make up your own style (rock n roll, underwater, slow, animal, etc)
as i'm singing it with mclayne one day we decided on animals. first we did cow...
"...i said a moo chicka rocka chicka milka chicka moo (mclayne repeats)
uh huh (mclayne repeats)on yeah (mclayne repeats)one more time..." i now innocently come up with a simple animal that mclayne is familiar with and say "doggie style!" (and of coarse MCLAYNE REPEATS!)
me:"oh, that's not a good animal for this song. let's pick another animal."
mclayne:"DOGGIE STYLE!"
let me paint the picture for you...we are outside, no longer singing the song, and mclayne is randomly shouting "D...S...!" the more i try to ignore or distract her the more she knows it is bad and the more she wanted to say it. how do you possibly explain to strangers why your 2 1/2 year old knows about that?! luckily nobody but ryan and i heard her.phew. she now only says dog style and only when we sing the song, so if we retire it for a while i think we'll be okay! i'm a little sad because it is a great song. so when we bring it back we're staying away from doggies, missionaries, cowgirls, and cowboys!

thanksgiving point

dinosaur museum

mclayne wasn't crazy about the texture of the sand at the water play area, but she eventually got into it

kylee, braiden, mclayne, + maya at the dinosaur imax movie. we thought mclayne would be fine {even after the warning that it was unsuitable for young children} afterall, she does just fine with the disney dinosaurs...well it turns out that huge 3D dinosaurs on an enormous screen with loud, scary sound effects is just a little scarier than at home....oops! it was pretty entertaining to watch her reach out to touch things and flinch when dinosaurs would "fly" into her. and luckily no phobias of dinosaurs yet...baboons yes, but that's a whole different story!

we couldn't have done it without kylee...what a lifesaver! i am sure her arms + back were feeling it the next day
and last but not least, the highlight of the day for mclayne...riding bullseye. she liked it so much she did it twice, complete with "giddy-ups" and "yee-haws"

{if anyone out there is wondering if there are still actually people that use old-school film cameras, here is proof. my mom will be the last person on earth to go digital. not that you can tell by these scans, but amazingly she gets pretty good shots with her old point-and-shoot!}