One In the Oven: June Part Deux

Because I'm so behind, I figured I'd just do one giant post for the month of June, so buckle up! Here we go!

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Brandon celebrated his first Father’s Day in June. Kate decided she wanted to paint him a picture, so we mixed up some cornstarch finger paints and she went to work. Although most of the paint ended up on her body and in her mouth, she managed to get some on the canvas, and we were able to present Brandon with a homemade gift on his big day.

-- It's a good thing mom made edible finger paint --

-- Giving it another little taste --

-- There was as much paint on me as there was on the canvas! --

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Kate graduated from pulling herself up to standing without support and taking a very cautious step—which looked more like falling in a forward direction, but I’m sure it was intentional (since I'm sure she's the smartest baby ever). Here’s an action shot of the ‘zombie pose’.

-- Practicing my zombie walk --

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Towards the end of the month, we realized that we hadn’t had the chance to get together with all of our friends for a while, so we invited everyone over. Our little group has now grown to include four kids, so we took some time to get the yard ready for the little ones to play in by filling the water table, stocking up on bubbles and setting out some little chairs. But then, wouldn’t you know, it rained. And rained. And rained. So instead, we all hung out in the house and the kids had a blast. It was the first time we’d gotten together with three mobile babies—and the house looked like Toys R Us exploded. But it was lots of fun to watch the kids interact and to catch up with our friends.

-- Playing with Julianna and Copper --

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June marked Kate’s 8 month birthday, and I’ll admit, the monthly birthday pictures are getting increasingly difficult to take, mostly because the subject of these photos does NOT want to sit still. So we’ve had to come up with new and creative ways to position her near the magnets. She wasn’t a very willing participant in this month’s photos—about 45% of the shots had a crying Kate in them, 45% of the shots were of the back of Kate, and only about 10% contained a non-crying, forward-facing kiddo. You win some and you lose some, right?

-- Too busy checking out these letters to look at the camera --

-- Why won't Mommy just let me do what I want to do?!? --

-- Birthday photo or mug shot? You decide. --

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The last weekend of the month we had some visitors when Uncle Jason, Maggie, and Maggie’s kids Keegan and Landon came to stay for the weekend to enjoy some of the activities that St. Louis has to offer. On Friday, Kate went to school and I went to work, and the rest of the gang headed to Six Flags for a day riding coasters and staying cool in the water park. Saturday they headed downtown to go to the City Museum. Kate took an extra-long nap that morning (yes, she’s napping!! More to follow in July’s entry), so we met them once she woke up. Brandon and I had never been to the City Museum before but we’d heard how cool it was and it did not disappoint! It’s basically, a huge, indoor playground. There were kids running everywhere, and I was secretly relieved that Kate was small enough that we could still strap her in the Baby Bjorn and keep tabs on her at all times. We followed up our trip to the museum with a stop at Cutter’s then crashed at home for the evening. On Sunday we went to the zoo were we took our only pictures of the weekend. It was nice and cool outside so the zoo was packed, but we stayed long enough to visit the primates, the snakes and bugs, and take a quick walk through the big cat exhibits. Kate enjoyed all of the sights and sounds and I can’t wait to take her back again when she’s a bit older.