Thursday, May 8, 2008

It's a PicNic

We are coming to you tonight from the state of Virginia where we are under an official tornado warning (we were just upgraded from the watch). We are currently experiencing one of the heaviest rainstorms that I have ever seen. It is really quite amazing. Hopefully the tornados hold off.

I have to say right now that Hill and I are addicted to the TV show Lost. We just finished up another intense episode. If anyone is looking to waste a bunch of time, or really looking for a new TV show to get hooked on, we highly recommend picking up the first few seasons and catching up. If there ever was a show with more twists and turns, I haven't found it. Definitely the most unpredictable show I know of. Anyways, two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I wanted to share this picture that Mandy Caroll took of me and Claire. Typically I am the one taking the pictures so it feels good to be on the other end. Thanks Mandy (her blog address is off to the left).


Yesterday I had the day off prior to working a night shift last night. I came up with a brilliant idea... a picnic at Pleasant Grove park. I had these visions of a leisurely stroll down to the river where we would find a nice grassy knoll and we would all sit down for a feast of pb and j, applesauce, string cheese, and teddy grahams with frosting. Things went well, but not that well.

Being the good parents that we are, we of course forgot both the sunscreen and the sun hat. Brilliant. We kept trying to hold the blanket up over her, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Finally we just had to tie it to her head. She didn't like that either, but we were able to get a good picture out of it. It was a hot, sunny day and it felt great.


This is Claire's reaction when I told her that this was our picnic spot. She laughed uncontrollably and mama wanted nothing to do with it. We weren't familiar with the area and Claire was getting wrestless (actually it was mama). Claire is always up for a good laugh.



This is now one of my new favorite pictures of Claire. She was intent on getting to the river, but of course her efforts were thwarted.


"Did you just see that frog dad? That was cool."



We quickly ended our trip to the river as I was being bit by bugs and Hill really wanted to eat (I am telling you, you don't want to cross Hill when she hasn't eaten). We made it back up to the car and found a nice piece of grass to enjoy our picnic feast. Everyone relaxed a little when there was food moving into their tummies. Funny enough there were actually a few ants crawling around on our blanket. Even funnier was watching Claire trying to catch them.


Just a few pictures of Claire that we wanted to share. She is so stinkin' cute in her overalls.



Hill thinks that she looks so much like me. Poor little girl. Thank you mom and Claire for such a fun family outing. Looking forward to alot more.

Here is a photograph to document a little run in that Claire and I had last night. I was in charge of feeding her and she was not cooperating. She had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from our picnic and decided that that was her afternoon nap. So by the time dinner time came around, she was done. You will notice food all over her and her high chair. She wont take a bottle. She won't take a sippy. So, in order to get her to drink water, I sometimes use a medicine dropper and squirt it into her mouth. She did well for the first few minutes, but then she stopped cooperating. So, I squirted her in the head. And then I squirted her again. She thought it was pretty funny. Luckily for me I was heading out the door to work right after that. Mom got to take care of the bath. Thanks mom. We love you.

Just so everyone knows, the tornado warning has passed.

We are so excited for the upcoming few weeks. We are off to the Outer Banks on saturday. Stay tuned for some fun pictures from our trip. Unil then....

8 comments:

Amanda said...

Tornado watch in Charlottesville? I never got to experience that... I'm jealous.

Claire is so dang cute... when is she gonna start walking? Though I'm sure you will, you MUST document that.

Amanda said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

That sounds like a great picnic. I can sympathize with you on the feeding thing Nate, that's basically what it looked like everytime I tried to feed her during my visit. I don't know how Hill does it without making a mess, I think she has a secret deal with Claire.
Alyson

Anonymous said...

She is the most perfect...beautiful...photogenic baby I've ever seen. Nate I think it's hard to pick a favorite. I beleive, or so it appears, Claire is the one in charge of Mom & Dad.
Keep up the good work Nate. You have an avid fan in La Nona.
Can't wait to see you all. Love Ya

Papa Norm said...

Wouldn't you rather deal with earthquakes than tornados? Just something to think about for the future. You'll be here in less than two short weeks and I'm counting the days, minutes and seconds. And I have to agree with the other posts, Claire is the cutest June Bug on the planet. See you soon, love you bunches and you're all the best. The pictures are perfect.

Anonymous said...

THIS Mama thinks you have a bee-oo-tee-full family, Hillory!
And,
YES,
Mr. Rogers ROCKS! WAY!!!
SURE I'd drive ALL the way to Cedar to see a zoo, if it was as good as the Nat'l Zoo in D.C.
(You DO know that our Carly works @ the New Orleans Zoo...Yes?) In fact, it was she who tipped me 2 your blogspot.
I was pleased 2 see pic's of "La Nona", et al.
HAPPY, HAPPY 1st MOM's DAY 2 YOU!!! ☺
Luvs,
(from Cedar)
"Mama" Suzi.

Anonymous said...

just wanted to leave a comment on the blog. i hope your doing well i cant wait to see you

mandy carroll said...

Cutie Claire! These are great, Nate! Glad you had a fun picnic!

And I had to laugh at the squirting Claire with water incident- it must be a dad thing because I can picture Tim doing the exact same thing!