Instruction Manual for Babies

Check out this website for some great dos and don'ts on raising a baby. Sadly, I'm guilty of being a don't on at least a couple of these (like Cleaning Baby's Nose and Helping Baby Teethe).

Terry and Benita should have seen this one before they put 2-week-old Kasey to sleep in a hotel drawer!:



Who hasn't been tempted to do this, especially after starting finger foods?:

Reading with Uncles

Here are a couple of photos from a while back of Myla reading with her Uncle Jonathan:



and her Great-Uncle Tim:

Recent Buckles Family Visit

In March, Myla's Nana, Pop, and Aunt Kelly came to visit. Some pics:


Aunt Kelly lets me play with her digital camera!

Nana reads to me . . .

. . . and this one was just cute.

Myla with the Daily Racing Form after a Long Day at Keeneland

Show me to the beach!

I recently bought a few swimsuits to get Myla ready for summer vacations and afternoons at the Smokers' pool (hint, hint!). :) I love those chubby legs!

10 Months

This time, I was on my own to take Myla's 10-month pictures. I had as much trouble as Matthew did getting her to sit still with the sign in the picture. Here's my first attempt:



Hmm . . .that's a better picture of the sign than it is of Myla. Maybe if I put it on the ground and have her crawl toward it . . .


. . . and now she's past it!


Then I had a flash of genius . . . give her her favorite item in the world, my cell phone. I could have taken pictures for a half hour.

"Are you really letting me play with this?"

Old School shows the kiddies how it's done

Notre Dame is the home of "Bookstore Basketball," which is billed as the world's largest 5-on-5 outdoor basketball tournament. Amost 700 teams participated this year, and Matthew and I were both on teams--me with the Econ dept. (The Invisible Hands, ha ha), and Matthew with some human resources folks (Old School). While The Invisible Hands put up a good fight but bowed out in their first game, Old School won FOUR games and made it to the round of 32. It's hard to understand what a big deal this is if you're not familiar with the tournament, but here's the article from today's student newspaper. Their "Cinderella run" was newsworthy enough that they grabbed the headline:

Cinderella run ends as Old School falls to Delivery Boys

No. 6 Delivery Boys 21, Old School 15
Using their youth and athleticism, the No. 6 Delivery Boys held off Old School on their way to a victory that moves them into the Sweet 16. One of the Cinderella stories of the tournament, unranked Old School, whose average age is 35 years old, hung with the Delivery Boys, but just did not have enough to pull out a victory.

"They're tough on the boards, and as soon as they're on the boards, they're breaking, so you have to get back," Old School captain Todd Hill said. "It was tough on us. It just wore us down."

The Delivery Boys set the pace of the game right from the outset, but Old School stayed with them through most of the first half. It was not until the second half, when the Delivery Boys switched their defense, that they pulled out to a solid lead.

"We switched up to man to man and got on the boards and got out running. That's our strength, to get out on the open floor, and we did that well," Delivery Boys sophomore David Rudy said. "They were scrappy. They were fighting for loose balls. We started out in a zone and they tore it apart. We just fought back and played well."

Despite the loss, Hill felt good about the way his team performed. "We knew they were going to try to run us, so we tried to slow them down with old-man ball," he said. "That's all we could do. We still have the competitive spirit of a 20-year-old. Unfortunately it's trapped in 30- and 40-year-old bodies, so it makes it tough."

The Delivery Boys look to use their speed and the fast break to their advantage as they continue in the tournament."[We have to] keep it running and play well," Rudy said.

Easter Preview

While we haven't been able to upload our Easter photos yet, Aunt Kelly has come to the rescue and put some of hers up on their blog. You can click over there for more, but here are a couple of good ones. Thanks, Kelly!

Also, there are some great new pictures of Myla's cousins Anna and Megan at the Zumbiel Family Blog.

Hang in there, readers!

I've been in Lexington since the 6th and won't be back until the 20th, which means I haven't been able to post new pictures on the blog. Matthew has been either a single dad or a bachelor, which also doesn't leave much time for blogging. The point is, we haven't forgotten about you! We'll reward your patience with pictures of Easter, Keeneland, etc., when we get back next week.

P.S. Congrats to Andy, Mandy, and Sean, who welcomed beautiful Violet Sue Kinnucan to the family on Saturday!

Does Babies R Us sell cages?

I got home from work today at 5:30, and started putting Myla to bed at 7:30. At various points during the intervening two hours, she got her hands on the following items:

1. My cell phone
2. The TV remotes
3. A box of Kleenex
4. The dinner I was trying to eat
5. My shoes
6. Her diapers
7. The baby monitor
8. The cranks on our windows
9. The garbage can
10. Our refrigerator magnets

In each case, she played with the item until I caught her or decided she'd danced with danger long enough, and then she got mad when I took it away. Things she was not interested in:

1. Her books
2. Her toys
3. Anything age-appropriate.
4. Anything that involves sitting in one place.

I'm loving that she's starting to be so active and to exercise her free will, but I'm exhausted!