Little Tea is a running machine

Little Tea's latest trick.

Torrey Pines

My dad came in town for business and we were lucky to find a few hours to meet up with him.

Little Tea loved seeing her grandpa and had a great time on our hike to the beach.

Once we got to the beach I was telling my dad how I really wanted to see whales before leaving California. Lance has researched the best places and times to go whale watching, so I had been anticipating an outing to search for whales. About 10 minutes later we saw two whales. It was incredible and exciting! Thanks dad, I'm glad we got to visit with you it was fun!

Its Craft Time!!!

Jess has been busy working away on this beautiful little dress of Tea. I have to admit she did a great job. Pictures of Little Tea in the dress will come later.

These are the ornaments I made for Little Tea and Jess this year for Christmas. They were both very fun to make.

Happy Valentines!!!

Little Tea wanted to wish everyone a happy valentines day.

9 Months

Teagan is 9 months.... well almost 10 months now, but these pictures were taken a few weeks ago. She is growing up too fast. I love watching her discover the world around her. She is such an adventurous, daring, curious, determined, flirty little girl. She loves crawling up the stairs, following dad around, picking up small objects and putting them in her mouth, eating avocados and mandarin oranges, making funny faces, sleeping with mom, and pinching dad's elbow fat and mom's tummy rolls.

A Quick Look at Our Christmas Fun

I'm a little slow in getting these pictures up, but I've had a couple requests so here is a sneak peak at our vacation.

We've had such a wonderful Christmas Vacation. Thank you everyone for making it so fun! Here are a few pictures of what we were up to.

Snowboarding.........

A Day with Santa (Isn't He a Great Santa?)......

Christmas Church Service and Weddings....

Snowmobiling (Teagan loved it!)...

A Couple Trips to the Pool (Yaya is going to make sure Tea is a little fish, Thanks for swimming with her!)...

Visiting Family...

and More Fun to Follow!

Thanksgiving in St.Louis

Joshua Tree

Happy Birthday Lance!

While in Vegas we had a little birthday party for Lance. One of his presents was a backpack for him and little Tea (thanks Mom and Dad). So once we got back we had to try it out.

We headed to Joshua Tree and found some fun places to do a little hiking.

Little Tea did great. She loved the backpack.

She loves apples.

Lance wanted a Lion King moment with Tea.

She did great, but by the end of the day she was exhausted!

I think this face is pretty funny. "Seriously mom and dad, I'm done. Let's go home! And enough with the pictures!"

Updates from October

We have neglected the blog for awhile, but we are back here is an update of our October.

South Dakota Pheasant Hunting Trip-As always it was a blast.

Pumpkin Patch

Lots of sewing projects

Las Vegas Lacrosse Tournament- Go Uncle Taylor! Tea loved crawling on the turf and playing with Dad.

Little Tea's favorite things to do this month:

The worm (Tea has a unique way of crawling that looks like she is doing the worm)

carrying things in her mouth..........

smiling..........

playing with dogs.........

and giving mommy hugs.

Asking for YOUR Help

Hello fellow bloggers. I need you to help me brainstorm.

Recently I completed a course as part of my certification process to become a DONA certified birth doula. Many of you may be familiar with what a birth doula is, some of you may even have used a birth doula for the birth of your children, and then there is probably many of you that have never even heard the word doula before. A birth doula gives continuous emotional and physical support to a woman and her spouse before, during and after childbirth. The word doula is greek meaning woman caregiver.

As I am in the process of becoming a certified doula I need to come up with a name for my business. Here are some of the names of doula services in our area: A Loving Embrace, DouLA Birth Partners of LA, BEST Doulas, Baby Zen, Family Doula, Personal Doula, Sacred Passage, Reflexology, Quantum Touch, Synsational Births, etc.

So I'm asking for your help in coming up with a good business name for my doula services. Any ideas?

A few more words on what a Doula is: (this comes from the DONA Birth Doula Workshop Manual, What is a Doula?)

"A birth doula...
....recognizes birth as a key life experience that the mother will remember all her life...
....understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a woman in labor.....
.....assists the woman and her partner in preparing for and carrying out their plans for birth....
......stays by the side of the laboring woman throughout the entire labor........
......provides emotional support, physical comfort measures, an objective viewpoint, and assistance to the woman in getting the information she needs to make good decisions....
.....facilitates communication between the laboring woman, her partner, and clinical care providers.....
....perceives her role as one who nurtures and protects the woman's memory of her birth experience."

The Kings

So once Lance saw little Tea's costume, he just had to have one for himself.
And once Brooke saw Lance wearing it, she just had to try it on.....


And well Trevor wanted to feel this "transformation" they continued to talk about so......

I'M ALL SHOOK UP!!!

The King wanted to tell everyone HAPPY HALLOWEEN. (Special thanks to Jessica and Cindy for making the costume).