beautiful nancy and some of the people who love her

A visit from an old friend

My college friend Alaena is visiting from Minnesota! The last time I saw her, 2 1/2 years ago, I had just got back in the country and I had no husband, no kids, and no idea how close I was to getting both of those things. Alaena just met my entire family for the first time. On Thursday we hung out with the Nancy and the boys, then, that night, Alaena got to experience the joy of Buffy night. We made a mexican tomato bake, with guacamole on the side, and watched two episodes of Firefly, a short lived show by Joss Wheden. Today, the kids went to their moms house, so Alaena and I spent the morning lounging around the house, chatting, and since it was Alaena's first time in Wichita, we spent the afternoon at Cowtown! We loved walking around, looking at all the old stuff, and learning some Wichita history, but only one of the workers actually stayed in character, which was a bit disappointing. The blacksmith may have actually been trying to hit on us. There were also quite a few square dancers there, in town for the huge square dancing convention tonight. One lady tried to convince us that we should take up square dancing, and that her only regret in life is that she didn't start doing it sooner. Well, here are a few photos of our day:

Me and Nancy in front of a fur trader. Notice the big skull next to Nancy.

Here is Alaena swinging

Alaena, Nancy, and I lounging around in an 19th century house

Alaena trying out some farm eqipment

And here is Nancy, enjoying a version of "She'll be coming 'round the mountain" sung by some girl scouts, that included a line about chopping off a chicken's head. Hack, hack.

I keep getting bigger

Check me out...I'm three months old!

Here's me watching mommy make my three month onesie!

I'm so happy to be three months old!

More cute kids and puppies

Nancy Lu can roll from her back to her stomach almost the entire way (she just can't figure out what to do with her arm that gets in the way) and she can hold her own weight on her chubby little legs. She is so strong! Every stranger that sees her is surprised to find out her age, and tells me she is very alert and strong for her age. I have no idea, as i have no experience with newborns, but it sounds good to me. Leah came back from Colorado for the weekend and she brought Nancy one of those Bumbo chairs- it is perfect for Nancy especially because she loves to sit up and look around.

Here she is passed out in her pretty little dress, in her pretty little bed (with sheets from Cousin Susan and family), and her pretty purple blanket. She's so precious!

Here's some puppy pictures. The babies still have pretty uneventful lives. They are getting fatter but don't open their eyes or move around yet. They are just cute lumps of puppy right now.

Brendan with a puppy

Seth with a puppy

Mama Belle and babies get some love from the family

Brendan and Seth hang out with the puppies in the dog house

puppies!

The puppies are doing well, and Belle is much more into motherhood than she was with her first two litters. Altogether she has had twelve babies. The first ten all belong to Ghanaians across the world, but hopefully these two will be able to stay in the family, because I feel pretty attached to them. We haven't named them yet. We need to get to know them a little better first. They haven't opened their eyes yet, or started walking. They are very cute and cuddly though.

Beautiful girl

Nancy laughed a little bit for the first time last Wednesday during small group, but she was cracking up for her Grandma Nancy the other day. It is the best thing to listen to her laugh! And she has started figuring out how to grab things and stick them in her mouth. It's so cool that she learns how to do new things everyday and we get to witness it when she does it for the first time. I love having a baby! Look how beautiful and happy she is:

You can kind of see her mohawk in this one.

So happy!

Uncle Ty with his Jubilee

There's no way to be sad when surrounded by babies and puppies

I don't have any real updating to do, but you just have to see more photos of my beautiful happy daughter, my adorable boys, and the amazingly cute puppies.

Does it get any more adorable than this?

OK, maybe it does.

As if we didnt have enough cute in the house...

About a week ago Jared and I started noticing that Belle's belly was getting unusually big. While we were living in Ghana she had two litters of puppies and then I had her fixed, but apparently it didn't take. Because yesterday she gave birth to two beautiful half-West-African-half-some-kind-of-American muts. One male and one female. They are adorable!


And of course, here are some beautiful pictures of the other baby in the house.

Here's us taking the dogs for a walk. Nancy got a new hat from Grandma.

Mohawk day

This morning I talked to Harry on the phone. He told me he was going to bring Brendan for a hair cut. I asked him if I could shave Seth and Jacob's heads for the summer because it's easier and cheaper. He said that was fine. So as I was shaving Seth and Jacob, I decided to give them mohawks. I figured their parents wouldn't like it, but I thought we could just let them have it for a day or two, then shave it all off. So, around 10:00 this morning, Harry and Angel drop Brendan off....and guess what? He had a mohawk too! Harry thought he was going to get in trouble with me, and I thought I was going to get in trouble with them. We had a good laugh about it. They all look adorable. As soon as Seth saw Brendan he yelled "It's mohawk day!"




And of course, I can't post a blog without a picture of my daughter: