wisdom and grace

i think this picture is beautiful of my great-grandma. i'm really proud to have a great-grandma and to teach Huntleigh that she has a great-great-grandma. you can just see the wisdom in her eyes. it's magnificent. we love you, great-grandma.

special moment

see those heart earrings on my grandma? that is one of my memories of her...i remember those even from when i was a little girl.

Huntleigh and her great-grandmother

FIVE generations

How often does a picture opportunity like this happen in our lifetimes? The woman in the middle of this picture is Huntleigh's great-great grandma, Florence Decker. The woman in blue is her great-grandma, Pat Baker. And then there's Yia-Yia and Grandpoppa and me and Josh and Hunts. Huntleigh was the first great-grandchild and great-great grandchild that my grandma and great-grandma were able to meet in the Baker family. I am really proud of that.

pensive

huntleigh bunches of oats

a tree for grandpa

for those of you out there who know Chris Baker, you know he is a tree-lover. in fact, my first word was "pinus strobus" which is the genus-species name for white pine. it's not so much that i'm an over-achiever as it is that he was in graduate school memorizing all these terms, and i suppose i just picked up on a few....anyways, we went to Florida recently for my grandmother's 75th birthday party (my dad's mom) and we happened upon this tree. it's over 500 years old and it was right next to the Perkins Restaurant parking lot. i thought this picture was fun and reminiscent of those pinus strobus days...

the brothers.in.law

yep. this picture pretty much sums it all up.

j, s, h & z.

I'll drink to that. I'll drink to anything!

This is Bill and Edna Hager. We celebrated Bill's 82nd birthday with an amazing dinner (thanks to Rob and Sarah) and toasting. This commemorates the best of the toasts given--in true fashion--by Edna to her husband:

"Well, the grandkids are great,
the kids are questionable,
and you're a pain in the ass."

laughing with yia yia

Festival of Nations

We took some time to check out the Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park this afternoon. Scott and Abby live just north of the park, but we all had never been. So we walked over and browsed the tents and displays and ended up with some excellent Korean food and some amazing freshly-squeezed lemonade. Yum. Oh yeah...and the cutest hoodie sweater for hunts for the fall.

the duck and the whale

sink bath

mmm....mmm....paper clip.

paper clip intrigue

exersaucer irony

this is huntleigh's ring of fun, which B gave to her. i have posted this picture especially for B because i found it funny that in spite of all the fun toys surrounding her, huntleigh was more interested in the clip i gave her. yes, that is what huntleigh has in her mouth. i think it entertained her for a good 20 minutes while i was on the computer. irony, indeed. thank you, B, for the exersaucer. we did get some good mileage out of it!

my big pink playball

huntleigh loves this ball. this is the one thing that will evoke her sweet, gutteral laugh that josh and i love so much. in fact, gigi helped us discover that when she started bouncing the ball for huntleigh. it was such a fun discovery!

two teeth

if you look really closely, you can see huntleigh's first two teeth on the bottom. i am glad she's getting teeth, but i must admit that i kind of miss the toothless smile.

sweet girls

silly girls

genevieve and the hunts

this is our good friend gigi going. she is really sweet with huntleigh, which is really cute, since she is almost 2 1/2 years older than her. but she really loves huntleigh and these pictures are just irresistable to me.

standing

huntleigh has become quite adept at pulling up and standing with only one hand attached to the table, the couch....the bookshelves, however, are her greatest temptation because it's just so fun to pull books off and watch them fall on the floor.

watering the lawn

this was a special time for daddy and hunts because josh had just gotten back from a week in Haiti and so he needed a lot of snuggle time with the babe. and...we're learning how to have green thumbs, so that our plants won't die. so it takes quite a bit of tlc.

"i love the Q!"

this is the Q.

huntleigh has these fun letter blocks that have objects inside of them: like "c" has a car, "j" has jacks, "t" has a train, etc. well, it doesn't matter how we arrange the blocks or if they are in her basket, she will always find the Q. and guess what the Q has inside? that's right: a queen. so i guess we don't just have a princess on our hands, we have the queen.

chubby cheeks.

two-handed thief

"but yours is more interesting"

playing with manna

this was our first official play date with manna and jennylark. i think "play" dates at this age are really more for the mothers, for the reason that you can see in the picture. it didn't matter what toy manna had in her hand...huntleigh had to have it, as you'll see in the progression....

hiding teeth

this is huntleigh's newest face. i think it's because her two little lower teeth are hurting her, but it certainly is a funny little face. this is also a pretty good picture of her beautiful highchair that was painted for her. thank you alma!