reach for the stars, or bubbles...

we've gotten on more of a routine finally; i joined a gym, so that gets us out of the house 3x's a week and starting in september, she'll go to a "mothers' day out" program one day a week for 3 hours. because she's doing so great when we leave her at the church and gym nurseries, i'm not even a bit hesitant about this program. i know she and i both need it, so i'm looking forward to it!

on our 'non-gym' days, we read a lot of books, blow a lot of bubbles and try to make it to some playgroup dates.

i am having soo much fun being a mommy. it's incredible to watch her grow-by the way, she's walking more than crawling and smiles so big at herself while doing it!

we had her 15-month well baby appointment yesterday-she's still in the 17 pound range but healthy! praise God! it's so funny to watch her, watch the doctor. she sits soo still and quiet and looks as if she's taking it all in. she likes to reach for the stethascope, too. hmmmm. there's a book we have at home that has a picture of a baby dressed as a doctor, which she always points to...

so he gave in...

Daddy, let me in!!!

kevin's air force PT test is next week, so he's been spending some time on the treadmill. myah is fascinated with it-and therefore gets too close. i finally had to shut the door and she pointed, blew kisses and whined the whole time he was in there!

Grandma & Grandpa Brinley come to visit!

my parents came down for the weekend; they were having myah withdrawls. the last time they were here was the weekend we moved in...needless to say we've done a lot since then, so there weren't many projects on the 'to-do' list. i think my dad was veeery happy about that! they'd just gotten thru fixing up/selling my grandparents home-so he was very happy to relax. my mom and i sewed curtains for the living room; what a beautiful 'welcome to your new home gift!' thank you guys sooo much!

"aunt" jody comes 2 visit

myah's OSU "aunts" are the greatest! here's jody, who went two hours out of her way (from visiting her grandmother in southern oklahoma) to come visit myah before she picked up her husband (flying in from hawaii!) at the OKC airport. she brought myah this super-cute flower-y outfit from stillwater. (go pokes!) we had fun visiting with her-then grabbed a quick lunch and off she went back to oklahoma.

toe time

it just wouldn't be fair to only paint my toes...she loves it!

the letter "M"

each nite after her bath, we have to stop in the hallway and look at every one's pictures; naming each person. then she found the letter "M" that i painted on a small canvas on the front of her bedroom door-so now, after we name people in the pix, we say "M, M says mmmmm, mmmm-mommy, mmmm-myah, mmmm-moo." she now says mmmmmm everytime we walk thru her bedroom door and when we set her on her changing table (like in this pix), she grabs that cute little "M" burp cloth karissa gave her and says mmmmm!

anatomy lesson

it's kinda hard to tell what she's doing, buuuut-she's looking for her nipples!!! there have been several times where kevin is just wearing his pajama pants in the mornings (no shirt) and whenever she sees his nipples; she likes to pinch them and point and say 'uh' until we tell her what it is. (she does this with everything). so, what do we do? we chose to tell her exactly what it is, right? nipples! so a few days later when she was questioning what kev's were again, he asked her where hers were...she looked down, pulled out the top of her shirt and looked down as if to say, right here! hahahahahaha!

our little "lady"bug

kevin's mom sent her this adorable ladybug outfit...myah loved it and kept pointing at the ladybugs on her shirt-then at the ones around her room. smart girl! :)

strollin thru the kitchen

she loves this little bike, especially the kitty in the basket-and it keeps her busy while i'm cooking. by the way, we had to take her into the base doc to have a chest x-ray; several babies from our group in china have come down with active TB. praise God she's all clear! aaaand, is a whoppin 17 1/2 pounds! woo-hoooo :)

checkin it out

she's either really studying this chef-drummer-dude, or maybe she wants to be a rock-star and is practicing her stage moves?!

birthday party 4 isabella

our friends the Gilberts were in town visiting family, so we helped them celebrte bella's 3rd BD at chucky cheese!

chuck E cheese, please!

oh no! does this mean she's going to like play station-just like daddy?!

taking steps!

after seeing jay get baptized, we all went to their house (including kev's parents and rhonda's parents and scott/rhonda and kids) for lunch and visiting. rhonda wanted to see if myah would take some steps...she sure did! about 3.
the next day (back in texas) i tried it, she ended up taking 10 steps at once! she still prefers to crawl, but does take a few steps here and there on her own. fun! notice how big her mouth is-it's like she's so exicted and happy for herself! ha!

to oklahoma 4 the day

myah's cousin jay called a few weeks ago to tell us he'd asked Jesus in his heart! he then wanted to know if we could come to their church (in oklahoma) to see him get baptized, by his DAD! that's kevin's brother scott-the pastor of their church. NEAT!

diggin thru the diaper bag

she enjoys pulling everything out of the diaper bag. inside she found her hat, a paci and the tide pen; but notice how elmo still gets her attention in the background! oh great.

hooked on elmo

not a whole lot to report this week...but here's her favorite morning thing; to sit in her rocky-chair (used to be mine when i was little) and watch elmo!

and i'm proud 2B an american...

aaahh! living in america, having big bows in her hair and getting pulled by her daddy in her wagon...i bet she's smiling b/c she's thinking "I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!"

happy birthday, america!

the newells come to visit

over the july 4th weekend, neal and bec newell and their 3 kiddos (camden-in the background, owen and emma) came to stay, fun-fun! we had a BBQ, went to the water park and had a picnic. we had all the fireworks bought and ready to go when we were informed they were illegal w/in the city limits. so we stuck to sparklers instead. bummer!

yoko ono

okay, i have no idea if that's how you spell her name, but w/ being asian and sportin these lennon glasses, that's all i can think of! ha!

happy with a biter biscuit

i know i posted a similar picture, but i'm using this one just for something to use for my text. i just wanted to tell you some things she's doing at this stage (14 months). she started crawling two weeks ago, yippeeeee! and altho we tho't her first word was going to be 'moo' (she loves to point at the cow in one of her favorite books)-she's good at the mmmmm part, but the oo just doesn't follow; but even better...last weekend when kevin was mowing the backyard, she could see him from the living room. i'd been walking back and forth thru the living room and kept saying "there's daddy." one time when i walked back thru by where she was sitting, she as plain as day pointed out the window and said "da-da." aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! it was so neat! kevin couldn't believe it when i told him and just hugged her and loved all over her!
she also LOOOOVES the itsy-bitsy spider. oh my! she gets her fingers together (thinking she's doing it) and grunts at us until we sing it (over and over and over!) but it's sooo cute! just the other day, we had her 5 'little people' animals sitting in a row on her floor. we asked her where the pig was, she crawled over and picked it up! she knew all 5!!! she's also going to be walking real soon. she's been good at standing/squatting for quite awhile now and can really walk well w/ our fingers and on the furniture. more and more she'll let go and stand alone for a pretty long time. today in fact, she went from standing alone to squatting back to standing; i really praised her for it, so she did it again! well, i better enjoy the last little bit of her not being able to get into EVERYTHING, huh?!

ridin' along in my automobile

this was us after the waterpark; sunburned, exhausted and now completely full after a yummy mexican dinner and free ice cream!

myah is so good at sharing

oh so fun

myah could have sat here all day! she'd throw the key into the water, pick it up. throw it. get it.

enjoying the water

at the water park

here's brinley, bryson and myah after a long day in the sun.

karissa comes to texas

my best friend karissa and her boys (brinley and bryson) came up one weekend to meet myah and play...

happy first fathers' day, kevin!

this was the first weekend we had alone-since we'd just been with our dads the weekend prior, so we visited a church here in WF. since we were 'church shopping,' we knew we had to put myah in the nursery. aaahhh! this was a first. okay, so i got teary-eyed as i handed her to the worker and so i white-knuckled the pager during the entire service, but i didn't even go peek in on her once! (well, i asked kevin if i could two different times, he said no; ha!) i made a bee-line for the nursery immediately after the final prayer and there she was-doing absolutely fine! they said she played the whole time, ate all her snacks (what's new?!) and never cried! waa-hooooo! this is huge for me! after church, we went to lunch w/ our next-door neighbors and then came home for a relaxing afternoon.

happy napper

she's still taking 2 naps a day, but we've noticed they only last about 45 minutes; verses if we really stretch her, she'll sleep anywhere from 1 hour to 1.5. still not quite long enuf (according to me!) but she's is SUCH a good napper, i can't complain! all we do is say "myah, do you want your paci?" she'll lead us into where her paci is, open her mouth for it then we pick her up and she leans into her bed. while we're covering her up, she's grunting and pointing up to her bunny mobile; making sure we don't forget to wind it up. we'll then blow her a kiss-to which she does it back (thru her paci, no less!) and smiles and is usually quiet and out in a few minutes. goooood baby! praise God! whew! oh yeah, as you can see, she holds onto that tie on the back side, too!

why mommy?

okay, do you think she ever wonders why i always have the camera out and am snappin pix of her? i really just wanted to take this to show her grandma; she sent this new shirt to myah-but she's sooo cute and tiny, i wanted to share her with you all!

my future's so bright...

i gotta wear shades!

flyin' high

i know it's blurry, but i still love it! we take her out on a blanket in the front yard sometimes after dinner. she LOVES being thrown up in the air like this and also being held upside down!

did i mention...

she only knows how to give open-mouthed kisses?!

learning to feed baby

myah is such a kisser! she has a doll that speaks english and chinese; every time we push it to say I LOVE YOU, myah kisses her! she also kisses Jesus in her bible storybooks every time we point Him out! sweeeet baby girl!

gotta love snack time!

even more new cousins!

we spent 2 nites in tulsa-logan and jay got to meet myah and hang out for her one day. they looooved her and could not stop kissing her! too cute!

meeting great grandma davis

this is kev's grandma-both great grandma davis and myah were happy to meet each other!

a stop thru stillwater

after the wedding, we spent two nites in enid with my parents. on the way to spend time with kev's parents in tulsa-we stopped thru stillwater (GO POKES!) to see our good college friends, brett and julie-along with their daughters emily and leslie. by the way, anytime myah sees our pistol pete magnet on the frig, she puts her hands in the "O" shape above her hands! good girl!

dancing w/ daddy

more new cousins...

here we are at the reception (no comments about the OU behind us!!!) with my brother jason's wife susan and their three kids; mason, aspen and hannah.

road trip

okay, so i accidentally hit 'medium' on the picture size; think i'm gonna leave it. the second weekend of june, we drove up to yukon for a college friends' baby shower, then headed to norman for my cousin's wedding. here's another one of my cousins, shawn. he and his wife julie and their two boys (gage and jake) are awaiting their china baby; should be going this fall/winter to get her!

it sometimes takes two!

woah! i have no idea why this pix is so big. but here's kev and his dad changing myah. ha!

meeting great aunt/uncle born

kay and charles drove up from houston; they're missing their grandson who currently lives in russia w/ their son and daughter-in-law.

more family visitors

kevin's parents as well as his aunt and uncle came up for a quick weekend early june. here's g-pa gordon reading to myah...

spaghetti girl

watching daddy mow

it's so nice to finally have grass! she really enjoyed watching him go back and forth in the backyard-so he came up to the window to say hi.

post-hair cut

i thought her bangs were too short and choppy, so i pulled what little i could up in a clippy a lot!

2nd set of visitors

over the memorial day weekend, kevin's brother and sister-in-law (scott and rhonda) came to help us get unpacked, well actually-they really came to meet myah! their boys, logan and jay, were at disney world with rhonda's parents; they'll get to meet myah in a few weeks.

first hair cut!