Schenk Olympians

Well, kind of. This past weekend one of our friends celebrated his 40th birthday and in his honor, his wife coordinated the Matt Birthday Olympics. With a Red-White-Blue, retro theme, dozens of families showed up to celebrate in the park, enjoy the nice weather and take part in some good old fashioned competition.  We joined another family and took home 3rd place. I am afraid to say, we probably could have finished second, but I gave Jack a sub-par toss during the water baloon event. Sorry honey :)

These Two

Pretty much any time these two get together it's just instant cuteness. Now that Shelby is steady on her feet, we spend a lot more time in our backyard. It doesn't take too long on the weekends before Shelby is demanding, "outside! outside!"

Shelby is doing GREAT with her language and even speaks in full sentences on occasion. He favorite sentence: Thank you my Daddy.

Name, Name, Name

Shelby practices writing her name a lot at school, I can tell. She regularly begs for a pen and paper and when she gets it, she wants to practice her name. She'll say "name, name" and then she hands me the pen, wanting me to write her name, and then I hand it back to her and she'll try it. Of course she cannot create anything that resembles a letter, but I'm tickled just the same. When she is doodling she often talks to herself  and I hear hear say "S", "Y", "H." Adorable. Her other favorite thing to draw is an oval. It cracks me up...she will hand me the pen and say, "Mama Oval," and she points to where she wants me to draw and oval - over and over and over. This little game can last up to 10 minutes, which is Shelby-time, is a LONG time!  She is certainly soaking in the world around her. I think of all the toys I have ever bought her, the $20 Magnadoodle has been the best purchase; she loves that thing too.

TV!

Yes, that is right. I added an exclaimation point and I am excited about our new TV! Something I never thought would come from my mouth. After five years of being a single TV household, we finally have a TV upstairs in our room....and not any old TV, a nice one that Jack did a flawless job installing. He routed all the cable and wires so it is mess free - always a major success in my book!!

It was just time. We sometimes need a distraction for Shelby in the morning - I miss watching the morning news each day - Jack and I prefer different shows and go to bed on different schedules; it was just time.

Shelby Vision

One of my favorite things to do when Shelby goes to bed is well.....watch her sleep on our baby monitor.  Or should I say watch her entertaining performance before she falls asleep. I would say about half the time Shelby will wiggle around, adjust her blanket and animal and then fall peacefully asleep, like babies do in the movies. The other half of the time, is less conventional and far more comical.

The proof is the in pudding...the second video is actually of her waking up. And don't worry, this first one does not have sound, so it's not your computer :)

And a cute photo from last year of my "sleeping" beauty.

Baby's First Haircut

It was time. For the longest time I hoped that Shelby would come around, and just learn to like ponytails, clips and the like, but it just wasn't happening. I would pull her whispy hair out of her face and within an hour, sometimes minutes, the accessory was out and her hair looked more disheveled than it started. I just couldn't stand picking her up from school a single more day with hair covering those baby blue eyes....so I took her to Sharkey's Cuts for Kids and it was fantastic. The staff was great, Shelby was well-behaved and her hair, in my opinion, looks so much better!

Love this face.

Miss Independent

Check out this big girl at the park. Mom who?