World's Worst Blogger

In the past, I have given some of my blogging friends a hard time about not keeping up-to-date with their blogs. I can throw stones no more. Quite frankly, not even sure how many of you even check this any more since I've been so delinquent. A thousand apologies and here's the last two months of pics and happenings in the Walton house.

If you're in a hurry, peruse these first few pictures of Harper to get the gist of things. She is growing so fast and you can see the change from sitting in the Bumbo to almost crawling.

Shortly after my last post, we celebrated Aaron's birthday. It was a really rainy spring and early morning on the 30th, we awoke to find our neighbor's huge tree crashed in our yard. Thankfully, it did no damage to the house, deck, or even fence. It took a few weeks to get it removed but provided lots of entertainment for Caleb and the dogs in the meantime.


Here's Aaron's birthday spread. It was fun to have Caleb old enough to really "help" with the shopping. He picked out special presents (Cars figures that Dad could conveniently "share" with him) and did a fairly good job about keeping secrets.


Here's sweet girl wishing her Dada a happy 31st!

I got adventurous one night and tried to give them a bath together. Not quite ready for that as I spent the whole time trying to keep Caleb from splashing Harper in the face in his excitement.


It's old news now, but we introduced Harper to the Exersaucer and it was love at first sight. Caleb took a little time to warm up to it when he was little, but Harper just dove right in.


When it was still a decent temperature outside, we continued to enjoy fun on the back porch.


Here's a shot of Caleb after playing in the backyard hose. Thankfully, my cell phone was a little dark so you can't tell that Caleb is buck naked talking to Aaron on the cordless phone, which is sitting on the picnic table bench.


Caleb and I also enjoyed the rest of the soccer "season". He has now graduated from Thumper to a Cottontail.


My sister graduated from OCU. Yeah, Mo! She is now working full time at American Cancer Society and loving married life. The 4 of us crashed at her house last weekend during a wedding in OKC. She and Uncle Brian were great babysitters, puke (Caleb's) and screaming (Harper's) didn't deter her. She says we can come back :)


One May weekend, many guys from our community (what Asbury calls Sunday School classes) left to play golf in Arkansas. Many of us moms (and the dads that didn't go) took our kids to Blue Star Mothers to volunteer to create care packages for soldiers stationed overseas. The boys were a big help in putting together bags of candy for the servicemen and women. Of course, whoever gets Caleb's bags is going to wonder why they only got green candy!


13 people from our community traveled to Ecuador on a mission trip. We were given bracelets to help remember to pray for the team. Caleb really enjoyed wearing them. The trip was a big success!


Harper began eating cereal mid-April. She loves the eating process (shocking, with thighs like hers, I know!). Here's a shot from her first adventure with cereal. She would get very indignant if you tried to take the spoon away from her. So, what did we do? Let her have that one and get another one to actually feed her with. See, we're learning the second time around. Wrenching the spoon out of your infant's hand is not the hill to die on :)

Here's a short video of Harper eating it up!

Caleb loves hanging out at Grandma and G-Dad's house. They recently inherited a new toy for him from some friends. This model certainly has been upgraded from the ones we played with as kids.

Caleb's trusty Cars rain boots bit the dust this spring after much use at school during the rainy weather. I ordered him some new ones (which, of course, didn't come in until after school was over) but he has loved wearing them...most times with very creative outfits!


The boots appear again. This time with some Elmo underwear (still working on that process, by the way) and an old hunting hat of Aaron's.


As you've probably noted in these pictures, Caleb's hair was in desperate need of a cut toward the end of the school year. It was really cute when it had the right product in it but not very practical for summer days. Here it is at the worst (notice it almost covering his ears):


And here's the "after" at a friend's birthday party. Much better!

Pageant week came and went and we survived!! Aaron was really torn (not!) but did not attend the Miss pageant prelims in the evenings, which meant the kids had quality time with dad. For his first real time watching both kids, and doing it Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and all day Friday and Saturday, he was a trooper!

Around pageant week, both kids celebrated their 1/2 birthdays. Here's Miss H (or Harper Gracie or Sister G, as Caleb affectionately calls her) on June 9th.

And here's Mr. Grown Up a few days after his 1/2 birthday. The nice thing about having their birthdays so close is that checkups can be done at the same time.

Asbury has paired our young community with an older adult community as a way to bridge the gap between generations. We've had several activities with them, including an indoor picnic. These grandparent-aged folks really enjoyed watching our children run around, and we were appreciative for the extra hands helping wrangle them in the church's Community Life Center. It was the weekend of Flag Day so we had a little parade around the room while singing patriotic songs.


I never thought I'd be the mom that put their baby girl in a bikini, but it does make a lot more sense as far as diaper changes go. Harper hasn't actually gotten in a pool yet (we bought a cheap one at Walmart but Aaron won't let us put it up because of the new grass he's trying to cultivate in the backyard...BOOOOOO!!!) but she looks adorable in her suit!

Last Friday, our friends' daughter, Ellison Kate was born. She is too precious! And even though we missed her birth because we were in OKC for a wedding, Rob and Heather are still going to let us be her godparents. Thank you, Rob and Heather, for entrusting us with this wonderful responsibility. We can't wait to watch our kids grow up together!


As I mentioned at the top of the blog, Harper is soooo close to crawling! She can get up on all fours and rock back and forth or scoot herself along on her belly.


Not to be outdone by Harper's video airtime, here's Caleb giving the camera his best "cheese".


This last pic pretty accurately sums up the last few days at our house. Starting with Caleb's fever late Sunday and a trip to the after-hours clinic that could find nothing wrong and cleared him for school, followed by sleepless nights with a cough and continued fevers, a re-check with our pediatrician that confirmed ear infections for both (no wonder Harper had been fussy!), four prescriptions, lots of vomit as Caleb refused his meds and a 104+ fever controlled finally by suppositories, and ending (hopefully) with two shots for Caleb so we have one less prescription to give him. Gotta love motherhood, right?!?


Other things: Harper's bottom teeth came in almost two weeks ago. She was several weeks later than Caleb, but his were really early. Her nose had been running and she'd been really slobbery for almost a month, but they finally popped in on June 14th. She's been very difficult to get a picture of with her teeth.

Caleb is very proud of his Grandma, who is in Africa on a mission trip. He will gladly tell you that his Grandma is in Tanzania giving people medicine to help them feel better. What a sweetie! Of course, he also told me yesterday that he was talking to Jesus on the phone and that Jesus had green cupcakes for him.

OK, think that's it, though I'm sure I've missed great stories in this attempt two wrap two months' of activities into a blog post.

Have a great weekend. We are off to explore the brand-new, huge Reasor's that opened just down the road from us. Yeah!