Over 3,000 hits on YouTube

I was looking at all of the videos I have uploaded to YouTube when I noticed that this one clip has generated over 3,200 Hits! It is the best. It was taken when Chloe was about 4 1/2 months old. She was still pretty tiny, with a big head, and this is one of the first times she got the giggles. I love this clip. I enjoyed the flashback, and thought you would too.



Click Here to see the clip.

The best thing about that clip is that her laugh sounds almost exactly the same now, at almost 1 a year and a half old!


Here is a recent picture of her, in the morning. She has just finished her morning routine of throwing all her toys all over the living room. I am hoping Santa brings me some storage totes and a shelf for her toys. Fun.

Oh What Fun We Have!

We love the Omaha Children's Museum!! We went here for a fun day out Tuesday. First, we went to the tots sing along time and learned about the letter "I." Next, we ventured into the museum to find our friends Kate and her mommy Krista!! It was good to see them, though the mommies didn't get to talk much because we had to chase our little explorers around. It was an especially memorable trip because Chloe and Kate actually interacted a good deal for the first time! Chloe was filling Kate's basket with fake food, and Kate was holding out her basket for more. They waved at each other too. Krista and I have been buddies since the girls were not even 2 months old. It was really fun to see them actually playing together!

After playing with Kate and Krista, we ate "dino dogs" in the cafeteria area. Chloe ate tiny bites that I broke off (choking hazard) of hot dog. She ate a lot of it! She loved the cookies and carrots too (I had to really watch her with the raw carrots, but they were sliced really thin and diagonal, like chips!). Most of all, she went crazy for the juice!! It was florescent yellow, and tasted of sugar and fake lemon flavor. It came from a jug. Chloe was wired after she drank that stuff!

When we got home, we played with stretch Elmo. Chloe just loves Elmo!!

Thanksgiving in Minden

When this time of year rolls around, I get a little mopey about living so far from my side of the family. This year, our Thanksgiving feast was held at a nice little bed and breakfast. It was a really nice place, but it was disappointing for a few reasons. There was not an abundance of food (I didn't even feel full!), the turkey was cold, but these things weren't that big of a deal. The most annoying thing about this Thanksgiving was that we didn't say a prayer over the meal. No thanks were given, and no prayer was offered. It was just turkey dinner at a restaurant. I think everyone felt weird about praying because we were in a restaurant, but if this happens again, I think I will be the weirdo. I will stand up, take charge, and announce that I will offer a prayer. Hindsight=20/20. Oh well.

Looking over the pictures I realize that we did have a lot of fun on our trip though.

Here is Chloe's Great (step) Grandfather Richard Beck! He is one of those really great people. Salt of the earth, hard working, honest, and sweet. His wife is also a great lady. We really like them. Grandpa Richard was so sweet showing Chloe what's outside!

Chloe got to spend some fun time in a car ride with Grandma Kathy




This is where we went after the dinner, for pie. The nice home of Richard and Betty Beck.

The pie.

Hey! I found my bear bear in mommy's purse!!

Sitting around talking, from left to right:

Zachary, Grandma Kathy, Melanie Beck, John Beck, Erica Beck, Chloe Funk, Grandpa Gary, and Betty Beck.

Gary's brother Bob (whom I had never met) was there. He didn't say much. Chloe is in the background. She was running from me to that chair and hugging bear bear on the chair when she got there. Zach was just trying to be inconspicuous and sat in that chair for a loooong time.

Happy family in front of the courthouse. They light up the whole "square" every Thanksgiving night, and play Christmas music over the speakers. They have the worst pageant I have ever seen (with a female angel Gabriel)! I won't sit through the pageant again if they pay me, but I do think the lights and music are nice. There are a couple of towns in Nebraska that have given themselves a theme. Seward, NE (for example) calls themselves the "4th of July" city. I love going there for the 4th of July because it is SO FUNNY! Parades, turkey legs, ... the works. Minden is proud to proclaim that they are the "Christmas" city.

Zach with Grandma, Grandpa, and Chloe

Bed time reading of hungry caterpillar makes me hungry too.

It was nice to visit the farm and our family in Minden.

Cousins!!

I babysat my nieces tonight, and we had a blast.

Check out my niece Eden rocking out on the guitar!!

We're going to miss them when they move.

Such a cutie! Getting so big!

Rockin' out to the noisiest present from a very thoughtful friend. Of course, it's her FAVORITE!! (Also, it doesn't turn itself off! You have to go find it if it is playing forever. HAHAHA).

Happy Halloween!!

Here is trunk or treat from earlier in the week... Zach was working and we missed him:
Mommy and chloe carved a pumpkin Halloween morning. Daddy took pictures.Chloe went trick or treating with Uncle Jason!

Aunt Meggin and baby Amara.

Chloe's first time!!

Best Costume of the Night

I don't have time to post all our Halloween fun tonight, but I just wanted to post this picture I snapped... pretending to be taking a picture of little Chloe trick or treating. Check them out. Full body spandex with tatoos all over. Niiiiiiiiiicceeee........

KNOW YOUR MEDICINES!!

I sent the following letter to various Omaha news stations today. I felt the incident needed to be shared. While this may not make the televised news, I thought you all might enjoy hearing about our incident at the Wal*Mart pharmacy.

Here is the story as I sent it out:

Yesterday, after picking up a prescription from Wal*Mart for my 15 month old baby's eye infection, I noticed something strange on the prescription label. Though the medication was for eye infection, clearly typed on the label were the directions: "INSTILL ONE DROP INTO RIGHT EAR THREE TIMES DAILY FOR 5 DAYS."

This was interesting on several levels. Obviously, a drop in the ear would not cure the eye infection, but I was also intrigued because my daughter's infection was in both eyes and not only the right.



When I brought the mislabeling to the pharmacist's attention, she was flabbergasted and fixed the label to read "... IN THE RIGHT EYE..."I then asked her why just the right- when it had been both eyes that were affected. She realized her mistake and seemed embarrassed as she said, "oh- the doctor's instructions said to the affected area..."



She tried to snatch away the medicine to re-label it yet another time, but I told her I was in a hurry and just needed to make sure there was enough in there for both eyes.



As I was walking away, I wondered how terribly this could have gone awry if, perchance, a heart medication was given to an elderly person with incorrect directions to take as a suppository (for example). I don't know if this interests you (as a story), but I feel compelled to tell others to make sure they understand how to take their medicine in case of pharmacy error.



The pharmacy in question is the 132nd and L st. Wal*Mart. Thank you for your time, and let me know if you ever want to use this story. I will keep the evidence :)



Anyone think I have a chance at a law suit?! J/K

Look Who's Walking!!

Click Here to see Chloe walking!!!

She has been able to walk around for a while now, but lacked the confidence to let go of our fingers. The second she did, she would just fall down.

One day (last week) she suddenly decided to just walk by herself about 5 steps. Later, she went 8 steps at a time. At the end of the week she was doing about 20.

This video was taken at the pet store (her FAVORITE place). She looked really cute that day, but she pulled out her piggy tails and that gave her CRAZY hair. In her ponytail pulling frenzy, she also had a tantrum and cried, and so as you see her here she is looking a little ragged. She had the BEST time though. She walked everywhere in that store and really seemed to get a huge thrill because she could decide where she wanted to go. It was a really fun day, and it has been a really fun couple of weeks- just being able to see her so proud of herself.

Interesting to note here also is that Chloe is learning her alphabet! She is so interested in letters for some reason. Sometimes during the day, Chloe gets 80%-90% of them right when I quiz her. Other times she just ignores me and points randomly at the letters... she just has to be interested when I quiz her. Everywhere we go, wherever she sees an "O" she exclaims "OOOOO!!!" The same goes for A, B, W, M, S, and P. She knows most of the other letters, but can't say them. She just points when you ask her where they are. I am going to work on getting this on tape because it is really something to see. I was startled at first, but upon researching this sort of thing online, I learned that many babies can learn to "read" whole words at this age. They just have phenomenal right brained learning capabilities at this stage of life, and can memorise all sorts of things. I guess we can work on words next if Chloe seems interested!

I just found a link to something that is just like Chloe on youtube. Click Here to see what I am talking about!

A Zoo Day & A Goat Lover

Chloe was very weepy when she awoke from her nap this afternoon for some reason. I could not help her to be happy, which is very unusual for her. She perked up only when I asked her if she wanted to go see the puppy dogs (at the pet store). On the way there, I decided to take it up a notch , and we went to the Omaha Zoo instead.

We saw the gorillas, and the bears. Chloe got excited about the bears and growled a lot. Then we chased a peacock around making warbling sounds. A peacock lover and expert (evidently) gave us some food to feed the peacock. Chloe was delighted as the peacock pecked at the food in my hand (though I was very nervous- after my grey parrot incident).

Next, we hit the petting zoo. Chloe loved it.

We were having a great time, but it was a little icky. It may be because I had just witnessed the goat raise its tail, and its sphincter relax to allow the contents of its goat bowels to expel all over the concrete that I was bothered. It could be because I had determined only a minute before that goats were probably one of the stupidest creatures on this planet. But when this lady came into the petting zoo and began loving up the goats with such passion, I was frozen in my tracks. My mouth was hanging open shamelessly, and I began snapping pictures. First she sat right down on the nasty concrete, with no regard to the copious poo poo pebbles. She began caressing the goats face and speaking to him like he could understand. As you can see in this picture, the goat is not even looking at her. He is looking at me. "bleeet"

I was completely stunned at what happened next. This woman actually laid down on the ground, and I can only imagine it was to allow the goat to nuzzle her stomach, or give her "goat kisses" on the face... with his goat lips. All I could see was her apparently clean hair getting all the poop in it. Horrible.

Her boyfriend was with her, and I have to wonder if that was their last date. Actually, he was taking pictures of her at the same time with his cell phone... probably so he could file a complaint with e-harmony (thank you Dori for that one). He totally saw me taking pictures of her, in a horrified fashion, and the look he gave me was not unpleasant.

That was a very weird thing to witness, but we still managed to have a great day at the zoo. The rest of the story is pretty boring actually:

We "fed" the hippo our paper. The hippo is a trash can hooked to a vacuum. Chloe thought it was hilarious. We fed him all the trash we could find in mommy's purse.

Then we went to the aquarium. Chloe started getting ornery and biting me. Right after I took this picture, I realized she was probably hungry for a snack. It's so funny that she bites me when she's hungry. I think it's because I always ask her if she wants a bite when I am feeding her.

On our way out, I got some pictures of the jelly fish. The bottom two pictures are taken in black and white mode, only showing blue for a color.

And that was our day.

My Favorite Things

I love broccoli.

I love Cheese.

If I had a picture to show you, you would know I LOVE peas!!!

I love Chuck E Cheese.

But later, I suffered from PTCECD (Post traumatic Chuck E Cheese Disorder)
I thoroughly enjoyed the Omaha Children's Museum.

I love smiling for the camera!

I love my friend Kate to play with me.

A Day at the Park

Our new camera is a lot of fun. I don't know how it knows, but it can discern colors and make only one color show up etc. Pretty fancy schmancy!

Here are some pictures we took at the park with our friends LanaMarie and baby Wesson.

The other day, Chloe got really mad when I stepped out to the balcony to take pictures of the sunset (with our new camera's sunset mode). Here are some funny pictures of her getting pretty ornery.