the storm and the hair

we had an impressive storm yesterday and i got a few pictures while we were driving home from red lobster with the vernon's and after we got home under the carport. we sat under the carport for a good 20 minutes watching it rain buckets. then i noticed while we were doing this charly's hair...yes that is right charly has hair. although it is difficult to see with the human eye, when it rains it makes it much easier to view... so i snapped a shot of these luscious locks! boy i can't wait till there is more! :)

when you can't get anything done...

a peanut buster parfait is the answer! tonight i was trying to get stuff together for the garage sale saturday, and everything i was pulling out she was getting into...including her baby tub! so... i wasn't getting much accomplished... so we decided after dinner to head out to share a peanut buster parfait between the 3 of us. what a great idea!

diving rings...

not just for the pool! charly has become creative with the diving rings for our pool...

my happy little bubble blower

lazy sunday afternoon...

what a great sunday it was for the koppens. we: woke up early and made it to church (early), stopped by the store for some odds and ends on our way home, came home to make lunch, took a much needed nap (!!), then decided that since it wasn't 100 degrees and only 85 we would skip the pool today and head over to the lake for a walk to feed the geese (those mean things!). the weekend went fast, but we had a great time spending it together!

the house went silent...

and this is where i found her...watching dora!

TGIF

almost 100 degrees outside today so we came home and got ready for an afternoon by the pool, sunglasses and all!

buds

charly -n- daddy

rough day...

we both shed a tear or two this afternoon. today was just a rough day for both of us. it all seemed to melt away after i got her ready for bed, held her in my arms and put my nose in her neck and breathed her in. she is my heart and soul. she makes the sun shine on a cloudy day, she gives me hope and understanding, and she brightens any sort of darkness there is. she brings laughter and smiles and happiness to me and i am thankful, eternally thankful we found eachother. she gives me peace.

bear needs to eat too...

this morning before we left for the babysitters house, charly was kind enough to share her fruit loops with her hungry bear. i've never seen a bear so well taken care of! she loves him.

~also the reveal of papa bears battle scar. today was the day he took off his bandage to reveal this..... WOW, or i should say ouch! can you see the discoloration/bruising on his chest? this is what 12 screws, a plate and a rod look like! (from the outside)

today she is off the bottle!

today is the second day in a row that she won't take a night time bottle... just simply refuses and goes straight to bed. don't get me wrong...i'm not complaining (well maybe a little...ya see that means my baby is growing up)! she is now loving her new found independence with juice boxes!


the pros to this: no more bottles (which means there is no chance of her now putting a nasty day old bottle in her mouth), no more formula (powdered gold~ dang that stuff is expensive), no more stinky burps

the cons: my baby is growing up (boo hoo), no more good snuggle time while i rock her to bed (double boo hoo)


~i'm thinking this is about the time when i start to want another baby?

yesterday's laziness..

the pictures from yesterday...titled"please mom, can we go swimming???" I spend the first hour I get home from work swimming in the pool everyday and on the weekends most of the afternoon...we definitely get some use out of our pool. Charly is far from learning how to swim, but what she has learned is to cock her head, put a huge smile on her face and open her bright eyes wide when we say "outside?" and her reply is "me, me"! Love it.

I am in love with this little girl!

~pictures posted where not taken on this date.

To my trusty follower...

i promised i would post saturday and we are back in business...(for now anyway)! so while andrew spent the day miserable (by the way this is pre surgery... post surgery has been spent 99% of the time in a coma in bed or sitting in a chair like this) we spent the day with grandma koppen shopping and came home on this very steamy hot day to swim! how fun. bless our neighbor for making us dinner!

gonna have to wait a little bit...

approximately 30 minutes after the last post (Monday 7/12) I got a call that Andrew was headed to the ER. Long story short... softball is out of his future for awhile and Friday at 9:15 he will be accumulating a titanium plate and a few screws in his right shoulder. So... no photos or posts till after Friday I am thinking... if I'm good I'll post something Saturday but that is only if I can find the time to charge the battery on the camera... and that could be highly doubtful with all the "extra" work I will now have around the house! :)

12

Did I mention that is how many teeth she now has... that is right... during our family vacation we had all four molars show up! how exciting! :)

ummmm...

just being silly.

happy...

to be home and back to her rocking chair!

how we spent our last full day in seattle

sorry for the late post... our last full day in seattle was spent doing the following: waking up and heading to the zoo where we saw cool animals, but mainly cool empty cages (the birds were particularly cool to charly), we drove up to the mountains to snoqualmie falls and had a wonderful time seeing the waterfall and the beautiful mountains, we drove back to the city for one last trip down town to the market (no pictures... it was a fast trip) where we bought a smoothy and sat and did a little people watching.. or bum watching is more like it, when andrew got tired of that we decided to head back to the hotel for a relaxing dip in the FREEZING ass pool- only charly and daddy participated in this, we then got dressed and headed down to the waterfront for a nice sea food dinner (yep, we all had fish for dinner) at IVARS on the water (very cool) and then walked the waterfront. that was it... our relaxing last day in seattle...busy, huh!? just for the record... pictures are not in any particular order! :)