A busy week!

We're a week behind in posting these pictures, but it was a very busy week nonetheless!

Uncle Brian, Aunt Chris, Keeley and Taylor came to visit. Brian made Shae cry. (Not really -- he was just empathizing with her emotions.)
Shae and Keeley are the best of pals.

Taylor, meanwhile, was being Dax's best pal.

Proof that Shae really could crawl if she wanted to -- she's just electing not to at this juncture.

Boating at Carter Lake on Uncle Craig's boat. Sun protection? Check. Water protection? Check. This kid ain't going nowhere.

Chillaxin' with dad.

Chillaxin' with mom.

Chillaxin' with a bag of puffs. (Shhhh -- don't tell the Coast Guard that we took her life vest off while she was still in the boat! We were beached on shore...)

Jaime got suckered into riding the double banana towable with Emmy and Nicole.

At the train museum for our friend Chase's fourth birthday party. Toot toot!

Partying is hard work!

Birthday Party Madness

Our friend, Chase, had his 4th birthday party at the train museum on Sunday! It was a scorcher of a day, but Shae had fun playing with all the big kids and looking at all the trains!

Boating Beauty

A week's worth of growing & playing

Shae is a standing champion at her activity table! (Note: she needs assistance to get to the standing position -- still not there on her own.)
Do I have something on my face? I feel like I have something on my face.

You would tell me if I had something on my face, right?

The hidden dangers of the activity table: if you scoot into it backwards, you are much like a Hermit crab and stuck until someone comes to pull you out. And you are likely not at all happy about the situation.

Who knew computers were so much fun?!

Mandarin oranges are delicious!

Mandarin oranges are delicious, but we still have some work to do in learning how to eat them.

Vroom vroom vroom!

Our little love bug.

Always happy in the morning. Looks like top teeth poking through there, but those are still just the bottoms -- those top teeth are moving like dinosaur molasses!

Let's hear it for Thursday! Yeah!!

Make that five (er, six?)...Update: Tooth Watch 2009

I reported last week that Shae decided to take the Teething Efficiency route and sprout all four of her top front teeth all at once. We're still awaiting the emergence of any/all of those four teeth... but in the meantime, upon investigation in her little mouth just this morning (which is hard to do -- think of a greased trout on a slip-n-slide and you get the general idea) I discovered that there is a brand new little tooth on the bottom, just to left of the middle! This kid will be chowing down corn on the cob before we know it!

Dillon BBQ Fest

Our friends have a hot sauce company (Danny Cash) and were taking part in the BBQ festival in Dillon today -- what a beautiful day it was! While Kyle and Jody worked, Amy, Shae and I wandered, ate and enjoyed ourselves.

Signs, signs, everywhere is signs

First, let's talk about milestones!

• Upon peeking into our recently oft cranklepuss' baby's mouth yesterday morning, I discovered not one, not two, not three but FOUR top teeth about to bust on through her little gums. Poor turkey! An efficient teether, for sure (recall that her bottom two sprouted way back in March!), but I'd be a grumpy goose, too, if I had four little razor blades sawing through my gums all at once. Everyone throw some fast-moving-teeth vibes out this way!
  
• As of last night (Thursday, August 6), Shae gives kisses. It's the most gloriously disgusting fabulous thing ever -- warms my heart, even whilst my face is covered in slobber!

On to this week's photos. Our friend Tabitha (mother of Chloe) made Shae a sign for her room!

"Wait, what is this...?"

"Oh! I see! It says my name!"

Nom nom nom!

Hideous first-thing-in-the-morning self-photo, but it's still cute for some reason. (Full disclosure: upon trying a second, more flatting self-photo, I dropped the camera and it landed squarely on Shae's face. She was NOT happy about the series of events. She also had a small bruise on her cheek for about a day. Oops.)

New toy! While we don't entirely want to encourage Shae to walk (hey, an immoble baby makes for very complacent parents!), it's kinda fun to watch her try.

Dude! It's a scooter, too! Rad!

What a big girl! Fortunately she can't get to this upright position on her own yet (nor can she figure out how to sit down once she's there), but oh how she loves to stand up on her own like a big girl!

Practicing her stadium point for when she's on stage, and/or accepting the presidential nomination.

Chow time has suddenly become much, much easier on mom and dad:

Swingin'