Laney's Baby Blessing!

We were kind of up in the air about when we would bless Laney at church. Lolli and Pop were in town for Thanksgiving so we called the bishop last minute and got her scheduled to be blessed on November 27th, 2009.

One big happy family right before church.

Aunt Nicole let us borrow the blessing dress that all 4 Downard cousin girls wore. It was so beautiful and had the cutest little bow on the back. It was off-white with little white lace and pearls scattered all over it. She held on to the little string, hanging from the middle, for the whole duration. Too cute.

This it the bow. Clayton and Chris both said she looked like a fairy. I think that's a good thing :)

Here is a full shot. I don't know if you can see all the detail but it really is quite beautiful. The hair bow didn't quite make it to church with us though!

Our Day....

Smiles all around!

I rest my case! Our poor fish!

This makes it all worth it!

Updated Laney Pictures...2 months

what's a blog posting without Clayton?

My Little Tornado...Literally!!!

I know people think that exaggerate a little bit when I call Clayton my little tornado, but here is a small glimps of proof. I sent Clayton in his clean and orderly room to nap.... I shortly return to find every drawer empty and all the shelves bare. As soon as he saw me coming, he starting shoving things into his drawer. He even got out all the Christmas presents I was 'hiding' in his closet and scattered them everywhere.

What can I say? He is Oklahoma born and raised....my personal little twister.PS. This is Clayton showing me that he got into the flower beds; right after he tore his train set apart and threw every-single-piece onto the floor...one-by-one.

I'm not complaining. We still have a great time. It's just amazing what little people find to play with while the big people are feeding the infants.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Happy Halloween!

This year's Trunk-or-Treat/ Halloween had to have been my favorite holiday with Clayton so far!! He loved every minute of it and was our little ham(as you can see in the picture of the 'stick-up').

OK, so it looks like we dressed our kid in tights and a dress....well, we did but this little ghost was too cute and we had to have some ghosts for daddy to rangle!

and this little ghost was cute too! The Mays joined us for an afternoon of sushi and Michael Jackson's Thriller CD!

Then off to trunk-or-treat at the church. At first Clayton was utterly confused why I was dragging him from car to car. BUT, he soon realized that if he said trick-or-treat, he would get candy. (You should have seen his face when the first car threw a handful of sugar in his bag). He recited it all the way home....over, and over....and over again!

Chris handed out the candy for our car. Clayton and I were walking by our car when I heard

Chris telling every kid, "Here is a reeces for you, and don't forget to visit your friendly, local dentist".Or "Here is a handful of stomach ache for you and here is some diarrhea for you". They looked at him in such confusion but I saw all the adults laughing and the kids kept coming back for more!

This is Clayton showing off his loot! I don't even want to know how much sugar he consumed yesterday but he wasn't about to give up the bag!

We had a great week with Grandma Downard. She took Clayton on all sorts of adventures and let me rest. THANK YOU mom! This is the pumpkin patch where you go on a hay ride, pet some animals and play in a hay-bale maze. You even get to pick a pumpkin as you leave. I have to say, I think that it is my favorite thing when Clayton says "Pumpkin".

Laney is starting to hold her head up. But she still has the ' deer in head lights' look.

Clayton loves holding Laney and he is ALWAYS kissing her. It has turned into his way of stalling but it is too cute to get mad at.

Post bath...

Sunday Afternoon!

I only have two children and I already realize that the second one doesn't have a fraction of pictures taken as the first one does. So, I snapped a few pictures this afternoon as we waited for Grandma Downard to come into town.

I needed a reference picture of how small this little lady is. And, the elephant isn't that big ;)

A Gift...

We heard that when bringing home a new baby, it is a good idea to have a 'gift' from the baby to the other siblings. So, lucky Clayton, got his long-awaited train table. I don't know that he fully understands that the baby brought him a gift. But, it sure has worked magic in keeping him occupied.

It is out in the sun room. The Problem: so is Lolli's sleeping quarters. She gets awaken each morning with a " Choo Choo".

Coming Home

The Big Day!

The big day has arrived and it was only 1 day early. The hospital called and asked if we could reschedule the C-section for Sunday morning instead of Monday. SURE! This is my last picture with our little 'basketball' baby.

C-section picture. I haven't felt this good in months. I love the drugs, I guess. There isn't anything pretty about child birth, but a scheduled C-section has to be the next best thing.
So, I have the best husband who never left my side...except to go home to get his camping cot to set up in the room. Everyone that came in thought it was a great idea. The last night we were there, a drunk driver hit the buildings gas line and we froze. A 60 degree room, a cold shower and the discharge papers were the highlight of our Tuesday!

Laney's first kiss! So, far Clayton has been great with Laney. He got a train table 'from her' when we got home and has been very occupied since she arrived home.

I love this picture. The doctor's first words were 'She has hair'. And, then my next words: "good. we have bows". This is the beginning of a great life.

Still Waiting...

Hi everyone, here's a little update: Nope there still isn't a baby Loftin, I am just slacking on my blog postings. Looks like we are going to make it to the original C-section date on Monday. So, stay tuned....pictures to come soon!!!

This Week...

Yesterday, some of the dental student's wives had a baby shower/BBQ for 3 of us pregnant girls. Despite fall showing its chilly face, it was a lot of fun and , once again, I'm so greatful for everone that came and supported us! (But I forgot my camera, so no pictures of that festivity.)

If you haven't been around Clayton in awhile, here is his new past-time...I guess you could call it 'stripping'. I know we posted that he was taking his clothes off at Nursery. Well, he's more consistent now. I was having my blood drawn yesterday and looked over, behind the chair, and he was unclothed. Then we were all opening up our gifts at the baby shower and a friend came up to Chris and says "Hey, do you know who's kid is stripping on the picnic table over there?"

He used to hide to expose, now he is proud and wide open. Any suggestions on keeping our kid modest?

The second time manager in our son's life is his new found obsession with Mamma Mia. He wakes up asking for it, sings the songs while riding in the car and always is talking about it. At least this day he is multi tasking with his animals AND Mamma Mia.

Labor Day Weekend In A Nut-shell...

We started out our weekend with some friends giving myself and Nicole Dill an "all girls" baby shower on Friday. I am always amazed at how generous people are and I was very greatful for everyone that came and played with us. Clayton's new pass time is computer games.

The rest of the weekend was Clayton's. We headed down to the Oklahoma Railroad museum and road the train. It's a love-hate relationship. He loves trains...and hates being next to these BIG, noisy machines (hence his covered ears).

I just snapped this picture right before church while he was still dressed and groomed. We walked into Nursery to pick up Clayton today and the teacher said "He's in the closet taking off his clothes". Sure enough, we found him bottom-less and working on the top half. At least he knows to go into private places before making his big entrance.

Our little Social Bug

Apparently I didn't take any pictures this week because my camera is empty. So, I thought that I would blog one of my favorite videos of Clayton from almost 2 months ago. He has a little obsession with the phone. He will hand me the phone and run down every name that he can think of in efforts to get me to call someone. Looks like he got an audience on this one. PLUS, he is multi-tasking. Check out the toy hopping while talking. Serious talent ;)

PS. He talks a whole lot better now but there is still a lot of jabber inbetween recognizable words.

Third Trimester...

Here you go Teryn ;)! This is the first and one of the only pictures I have of this pregnancy. (It is about 5:20 here and this is the result of a 1:00 church interrupting our nap time.) This is one of those pregnancies where I look like I have a big basketball in my shirt most of the time. Clayton still doesn't get the concept of a 'baby in the belly'...he is still the baby. So at least we have photo proof that he snuggled up to his sister at one point!

Summer Vacation

Well, school is back in for Chris and I realized that I haven't even posted the summer vacation pictures yet. Here they are:

Everything this summer has been a 'shark' for Clayton. At first it freaked me out when he would yell "shark" as we were walking along the beach but now I get that it is anything that swims. We caught a catfish....shark, Chris caught some minos..."shark", shamu at Sea World...."shark"- you get the idea ;)!

This is Clayton in the middle of doing the Shamu cheer. If you put your hands together and wave them like a fin, Shamu will come around and splash you. He is still talking about Shamu. It was one of the hightlights, for sure!

On our way down to San Antonio, we stopped at a cave. It was surprisingly interesting and we even got to see some bats (they called them 'furry chicken nuggets' because they were so small).

So, every time that we get the luggage out to use, Clayton askes to "ride, ride". It makes moving him from one place to the next a whole lot easier but you should see the looks we get in the airport. I promise, he really likes it.