Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday. Here are a few things that I love about my Dad.

1. If you need someone to rope a calf for you, he is your guy...lasso and everything.
2. He has two nicknames for my Mom, beautiful and bug (I wonder which one she likes best)
3. He taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow. I even had my own little red bow. And he brought home cardboard boxes for us to shoot and took the tips off of the arrows so we didn't hurt each other. I only almost accidentally shot my sister once.
4. When we were little, on Sundays before we would get in the car to go to church he had to "hug all the pretty girls". It made me feel special.
   
5. He taught us the importance of earning money and created jobs for us to earn it. Shining his shoes was $0.05, sewing a button $1.00, car wash $5.00, mowing the lawn $20.00 (of course these prices haven't been adjusted for inflation).
   
6. When I broke my arm in 6th grade he bought me a new sleeping bag to make me feel better, and it worked.
7. He always has a German Chocolate cake mix on hand in case I ever come home to visit.
   
8. He loves genealogy and loves to find the best place to transfer all of his information - like when we are trapped in the car or making dinner.
9. He coined the phrase "pretty doesn't matter in the wilderness" while taking me shopping for hiking boots before my first backpacking trip. I wanted something with a little more pizazz than the typical brown boy boots. I still use the phrase frequently even though I still disagree a little.
   
10. He always makes sure we have enough pies at Thanksgiving.
    

He's a lover not a fighter

We spent the first three months or so telling the dogs "no, no, no, leave it, leave it, leave it". But now we are starting to let them explore the baby a little more under close supervision. I'm not sure which one likes to cuddle more.

The Heat is Out

We woke up Sunday morning to find our downstairs heater on the fritz. Luckily the upstairs one works just fine so our bedrooms stay nice and toasty. Luckily it's been sunny and 60+ degrees so we haven't frozen our bums off. But luckiest of all, we have fun hats too keep us warm.

As a side note, I totally love this highchair. It's Evenflow but I don't know what model because I bought it super cheap at a consignment sale. The seat raises and lowers and even reclines. It's really easy to wheel around too so even though little Squeak isn't eating solid food yet we can put him in his highchair and let him hang out with us wherever we are...eating dinner, cooking, working on the computer, etc.

Baby Love

My friend and college roommate, Sue, lives in Columbia. She happened to be in town today so she and her family came to church with us and then over to our house for lunch and to visit for a little bit. She has a seven week old baby girl who weighs about 9 lbs. I can't believe I ever had a baby that small but I did - even if it was just for a couple of weeks.

Our little guy is turning out to be quite the flirt already. Within minutes he held her hand, put his arm around her, and almost kissed her (but I didn't get that on film).