There's a Butz front and center!!!!

Ah, "Push It"'

Jack and I went to Red Oak again. Laura had her dance recital and I try to never miss one of those. So we loaded up one day after work and went to see our favorite Butz girls. We hung out with Natalie and Caitie during the recital, and were so proud of Laura.

Laura dancing to "Let it Be"

You see, she shares my genes... and thus is not naturally blessed to be a great dancer. She has been able to overcome the genetic blessing her father bestowed her and is a wonderful dancer. She's so good that they put her front and center!!!!! When I told my high school friends, they couldn't believe my own flesh and blood would ever have such a prestigious position in a dance recital, but it is true, she is MARVELOUS!

She's doin' a thing called the "Crocodile Rock"

After the recital, the girls, Jack and I headed to Red Oak. Bill and Christie went to Walmart, which is just a regular old one, nothing super, and you have no idea how SUPER it really is...wonderful little store, doesn't drive you crazy. While we went on home, Bill and Christie bought a swimming pool. The girls were very excited when that surprise arrived.

We prepared for our "slumber party". The original plan was for Natalie to sleep downstairs with Jack and me... but potential tornadic activity expanded our slumber party to the whole family. This was the same day that Kearney had tornado trouble. Fortunately, none of our friends in Kearney suffered any major damage, and we had a relatively quiet night in Red Oak except for a few BIG BOOMS of thunder throughout the night. Jack was a good little boy and slept through them.

Caitie and Jack playing by her special floor bed.

Caitie seeing if Jack's seat will work for her.

Laura preparing to be a big sister to a baby GIRL.
We're so excited to see if Baby Question? can be even cuter than her sisters!

Caitie and Jack got to spend lots of time together uninterrupted
since the big girls had a piano party to attend the day after the recital.

Caitie making "sheet angels".

Jack and Bill spend the lunch hour figuring out how to install the new pool.

After lunch we headed back to Lincoln to prepare for our big Saturday. Jack and I got up and about early enough to go to the farmer's market, and then went to wait in line for Husker baseball tickets. The Huskers were hosting a regional in Lincoln and we wanted to go.

Jack took it easy while we were in line... and the line wasn't too long, so I survived.

We went on a picnic with one of Jess' Nelnet friends and his family,
but I didn't manage to get any pictures of our fun time there.

That evening we went to the game.

Jack really had a fun time, and so did we. It was
a beautiful evening, but not a real exciting game. And they lost,
so that was the end of ourHusker baseball season.

Later that week Aunt Steph and Cori came to visit.

Cori in her new cover-up.
(What a bod!)

She had fun playing with her old toys and "copying" Jack as he sat in Steph's lap.

That night we had our first tornado warning. As you have children, your perspective on severe storms changes. Jess and I have been taking turns looking at the storms while the other stays in the basement with Jack. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

Jack and I watched some Baby Einstein on the computer while we waited the first warning out.

We had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad weekend the next weekend.
Jack was SICK! He had an ear infection, that resulted in two
sleepless nights, but lots of napping and cuddling during the day.

We have since recovered and have had a lot of fun taking more walks and grilling out. Blackie has had a lot of fun lately too. Our good friends Jimi and Nicki adopted a puppy so Max comes over to run around our back yard a lot.

He's a very sweet little dog... and amazingly well behaved for a puppy! He doesn't really have the hang of bocce as we found out this weekend.

Jack has been really busy practicing crawling, standing, and climbing. He pulls himself up on everything, and doesn't really think anything is too much of a barrier for him to overcome. He's really been quite cute because his slender frame just looks too cute standing around. I don't really have any pictures of him standing in the last couple of weeks because I've been too busy wrangling him. In the video above, the crawl is fairly established.

We had a really nice father's day too. Jess slept in while Jack and I made him breakfast. For lunch we met Mom and Dad in York at the Chances R for their wonderful buffet. We went to a park after lunch so Jack could show Grammy and Papa how good he is at swinging. We loved getting to see them and to celebrate Jack's first father's day with his GREAT daddy and his Papa.

Jack is preparing for the rest of summer, so he insisted that we buy him a life jacket for the 4th of July. One might think a baby would find it cumbersome to wear, but Jack really seemed to love it. I'm not sure his love will last once we hit the water because he despises his backyard pool, but we'll keep our fingers crossed. I think this swimming thing may be progressive.

I started my Job three weeks ago already. I am clerking for a lawyer a few hours a week and have already done a variety of neat things. It is a great office to work in and I'm really putting what I learned in Civil Procedure and Legal Writing to good use, two of my better classes I might add.

Jack has still been going to daycare at least three days a week while I work. He was a highlighted student in this month's newsletter. "Butterfly Jack is slowly creeping along getting close and closer to crawling!" - This came out a few weeks ago... he's not so slow now.

His daily sheets say "he practiced crawling and standing... this is ALL he wants to do!"
He got himself stuck on the bottom shelf of a bookcase one day, so that gave them a rest for a minute while he couldn't figure out how to move from there.

We've been having a lot of fun and have three big weekends ahead, so check back in a while for another round of Osborn family happenings. Golden Girls starts in a minute, so I must go.