Monday, May 31, 2010

Birthday Pictures {Work in Progress}

Parker turns ONE in a week from tomorrow- and since she's the cutest baby to ever exist- I knew that I wanted to pass out some ONE year pictures with her birthday invites. Instead of spending the money to get them professionally done- I decided to try and take some at home.
I'm not crazy about the way they've turned out thus far- but...it's still a work in progress. I'm not sure I like the background, and I'm not sure I like the chair- I think it's a little too big. I also had to bribe her with a strawberry in order to get her to stay in the chair- which is why she's stained red from head to toe. Oh well. I guess that's the fun part about only being a year old.

Just a little update

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Hello blog readers( like four of you...). It's been a long time.
This time my excuse is not because I'm lazy, its because we haven't had any blog worthy events going on . We're just living.
So Parker is now 11 and a half months old. Crazy. We'll be celebrating her birthday, an "Owl" themed party on June 19th, which is about a week and half after her actual birthday- but June is a busy month for us. We figure this is the only time we can celebrate her birthday whenever, and she won't really care.
At 11 and half months, she's a talking, walking, joke-cracking little toots. This age is SO much fun. She also has 5 teeth, with three more coming in. She's got a head full of sometimes curly, sometimes frizzy hair- and she's still the best thing to ever happen to us.

For those who are interested- she can now say...

• Mama
• Dada
• Dog
• Kitty
• Yeah
• No
• Bye-Bye
• Thank you (tot-too)
• Goat

We think in this picture, she was trading stocks or something. She was "talking" on two "phones" (remote controls), and was walking around barking orders. She kept saying, " YAH! yah! "


Also, the weekend of mother's day- we found out we would be adding a new addition to our family.
NO, I'm not preggers, are you crazy!?

We actually adopted a fully blind cat. Her name is Babe, and she's a beautiful, sweet cat- and we're more than happy to have her.

( I couldn't get the picture to turn, so just cock your head to the left, and you can see Babe in all of her glory.)

Easter

Monday, April 5, 2010

This year Easter was so much fun with the little one around. It was fun for a number of reasons. One being that Bevan and I have never been very religious. (I never really grew up with a strong religious background- and Bevan was actually baptized and raised LDS- but later on decided it wasn't for him.)
But now that Parker is here- we both feel like it's important to teach her about our Heavenly Father- and maybe give her what I never really had. She's still very young- but one of the things we got her was a book on prayers. When she started tearing out her Easter basket goodies- the book was one of the first things she grabbed. Bevan started reading it to her- and she actually sat to listen to it for 5 minutes- which is unusual for her :) She still obviously has a lot to learn- but...atleast it's a start. And Two being that we got to spend the day with our family-which is always nice.

She also got jammies in her basket ( lame, I know. But this is like the only year I can give her jammies, and have her be excited about it. She likes to rub soft clothes on her face. :) But she's growing like a weed, and was on the verge of sleeping naked- so the Easter Bunny stepped in.

After Parker opened her basket- she got dressed in her best duds- and we headed over to Bevan's moms house so Parker and the other 3 little girls could par take in some old fashion fun of banging empty eggs together, and chasing around dogs.

These are what the Easter Bunny brought my mother & sister in law- reversible Spring and Easter blocks. What can I say, the bunny must have been bored one day, and had a lot of blocks on hand.

Twins' First Birthday Party

Sunday, March 21, 2010

On Saturday we celebrated McKenna and Kaya's first birthday!

The family gathered in Blackfoot at the Clark's house to celebrate with food and gifts.
It was a lot of fun, and a rare occasion to have all four of the cousins together playing. Usually when they are together, one is napping, while the other is crying- and the other two are playing.

It's so great to see them together, and watch them interact- but it's heartbreaking to see how big they are all getting.

This is Parker, very happy with herself, after she had stolen the walker from one of the twins. Luckily, they are all still at that stage where if one toy gets taken away, they move onto the next. Parker is very...secure, borderline aggressive. It's something we're still working on...

She did laps around the livingroom with this walker, and smiled and giggled at each person she passed.

This was my responsibility for the party. Mara asked if I would bring some cupcakes, and she didn't care what they tasted like, or looked like. So I thought, GREAT!! I took creative license to try out one of the many cupcake recipes I had been hoarding, and dying to try. So, I made Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes. I will be posting the recipe on my foodie blog soon.


After 3 hours of non-stop crawling, stealing toys, and pure unadulterated 10 month old fun, Parker was exhausted. (I hope to one day keep this picture and later use it as bribery.)
Overall, it was an awesome day- and I am so looking forward to planning and celebrating our little monkey's first birthday. ♥

New Family Photo

Saturday, March 6, 2010

The Burnell/Anderson/Clark families...basically all of Bevan's family- got together for family photos back in January. We just got the pictures back. This is our FIRST official family photo- and I love it. Except for my fat thigh. I don't love that.

More February pics

Saturday, February 20, 2010

8 Months

Boy time sure does fly when you're lazy.
But I can't believe it, my little babe is all grown up at the ripe old age of EIGHT months.
This month was a special one for Parker. She got to meet my older brother's kids, all FIVE of them. She also went sledding for the first time and loved it.


Pure joy.




All of the Cates grandkids. Addison, Braden, Landon, Gracie, Paeton, Olivia, and Parker.

This month Parker officially got her first two teeth. They aren't fully up yet...but you can see the tops of them. I'm sure in another week or so they will be up.

My new love

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

This website has so many cool DIY projects. I can't wait to get started on some of this stuff.

Seven Months

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

*sigh*
Our little parker mae mae is seven and a half months old now. I can't believe how big she is, but at the same time- I love this stage. I love that we can take her out to eat, and she sits in a highchair and joins in our conversation. I love that she has a regular schedule, and follows it almost to a tee. I love her ever growing personality and silly sense of humor ( she thinks its hilarious when I pretend to do karate.) I love that she's mobile now, and wears herself out, thus sleeping REALLY good. :)

Yes, she is a full blown crawler now...and stander. She crawls to anything or anyone that enables her to stand. She also crawls to anything on the floor she's not supposed to have, and her favorite thing to do is chase the cat.


She is also a BIG time mama's girl right now. It really hurts Bevan's feelings, which just kills me- but anytime she see's me- she only wants to be held by me. If Bevan is holding her, she cries when she see's me, and immediately wants me to come get her. I hope this phase ends soon, and as I told Bevan- here soon she'll be daddy's girl, and want nothing to do with me.

A FIRST for this month- is her first set of pigtails. She has so much hair that it's really starting to look like a helmet, so we tried out the pigtails- and let me tell you- these pictures don't do it justice. She's just so freaking cute.



A funny story from this month...
While giving her a bath the other night, she pulled herself over to the side of the tub, stood up, and proceeded to empty her bladder. That's right folks, she stood up and peed like a boy right into her fresh bath water.
I'm not going to lie- I didn't know what to do besides laugh.

We love her so much, and she makes our day brighter.

Cutest little feet...

Sunday, January 24, 2010

I took these pictures of Parkers feet for a scrapbook project I was doing- and I just had to post them. I'll post the project I was doing as soon as it's done, and the person's birthday is over who I'm making it for!
These pictures crack me up...