Dinner with Friends...

Ivy and I went to a friend's house for pizza and play time tonight.  We had 5 Mommies and 8, yes 8, kids!!  Below is a picture of all the kids...  Us moms agreed that we didn't want any pictures taken of us!  :)  Sorry it is blurry, but this is the best one out of the three that I snapped.  Ashlei took some too, so once she sends them to me, I'll post a less fuzzy one...

From left to right:

Jackson 2 1/2 years, Trevor 2 3/4 years, (in his lap) Natalie 5 mos., Riley 3 years, 

(in his lap) Caleb (5 weeks), Henry (Jackson's bro) 11 mos., 

Ivy 13.5 mos., Colton 12.5 mos.

Enjoying the warm weather...

Sorry it has been so long since the last post... We've just had a lot going on around here.

Here are some pictures of Ivy around the house over the past few days...

Why am I never this happy about vacuuming?
Ivy's friend, Addie, has this same little swing set - Addie loved it so much that Ivy's Grandparents had to buy her one too!!


Here is Ivy in the pasture - we were walking over to her Grandparent's house - she had to stop to see this pine cone and stick.



With the really warm weather we decided to pull out the sprinkler for Ivy to play in. She loves any kind of water play so she really enjoyed this...

An Easter visit from Paw Paw

Jamie's dad (Paw Paw) and his wife, Deb, came up from Louisiana for a short visit during their Spring Break - they are both teachers. Ivy really warmed up to them - and a lot quicker than I expected. We had fun going out to eat and just playing around the house. A BIG THANKS to Richard and Paw Paw for helping put up a new ceiling fan in our living room!!

Ivy has several little purses that she LOVES to carry around. That has lead to her trying to carry anything with a handle or strap on her arm/shoulder. She kept trying to carry around her Easter Basket but at first it was too heavy. Once it was emptied of her Easter "treats" she carried it around on and off all day...

Real pictures...

Ivy turned 13 months old this week. I thought it was time to have a few professional pictures taken of her. I've been waiting to do this until I knew she was old enough that she could show a little personality in her pictures. I think she did a great job. She is going through a shy phase right now so she isn't thrilled about being near anyone unless they are me, Richard, or one of her grandparents. So it is great that we got some pictures of her smiling. Also, she didn't try to walk away from the camera all that much. But I must commend the photographer. He must be exhausted by the time he goes home at the end of the day. Being a children's photographer takes someone special!

Enjoy the pictures - the first one is my favorite. It wasn't posed, it was just Ivy being herself.

Helping Daddy mow the grass...

Here are a couple of pictures of Ivy "helping" mow the grass... She really loves to "drive" anything with a steering wheel. She is her Daddy's daugher..that's for sure!!

Ivy is walking...

So I guess we can say that Ivy is officially walking. She has been taking steps since her first birthday, but it seems like just in the past few days she's gotten a lot better at walking. She now walks from room to room rather than crawls. She is getting much better at climbing too. She can climb on every chair we have which makes us a little nervous. We just have to keep an eye on her all the time. Here are some pictures of her walking...

A little post about Tucker...

We have a really great dog named Tucker. He's a chocolate lab and he'll be 7 years old next month. In the past month, he as been to an eye specialist for his eye lids to be lifted and to the emergency vet for a 4 day stay because of an infection that caused severe swelling in his face and neck. Here are some pictures of his exciting month!

Tucker before surgery...

Tucker the day he come home from surgery...

Tucker a few days after eye lid surgery...

And below is a picture from his stay at the emergency vet. We had gone to see him during visiting hours - but he got to come home later this same day. You can see that his neck is still really swollen (it is shaved because they were looking for puncture wounds like from a snake bite) - it was bigger than that and on both sides at one point during his stay. Also, the day he went to the emergency vet, both sides of his face were swollen too. We have no idea what caused this.

Here's one last picture of Tucker after he'd been home for almost a week... His neck is still swollen, but not as much.

I know, I know...This blog isn't really about our dogs... but I wanted to post about something. The more I do this, the better I'll get at it. The next post will be about Ivy, I promise!