Hi everybody, and welcome to Amber's page!

I'm Wendi Pokorny, Amber's mom. I made this page so my folks in Grand Island (hi, Grandma Phyllis and Grandpa Joel Klein!), all the aunts and uncles, and my old college roommates can watch our girl grow up without waiting on me to get pictures in the mail. (Let's be honest, I was never going to get pictures in the mail.)

Brad farms corn and soybeans with his dad on the home place, four miles north of Harwell, and I work part-time at the bank in town. Brad's folks, Grandpa Richard and Grandma Cheryl, live a quarter mile down the road, so Amber sees them just about every day. And then there's Tucker, our nine-year-old black Lab. He was Brad's dog first. He's Amber's dog now.

About the pictures: every one of these came off our Sony Mavica. Brad bought it in July of '98 to take pictures of hail damage for the crop insurance adjuster, and it has been the baby camera ever since. It saves each picture right onto a regular floppy disk, so I just pop the disk in the computer and there they are. No film, no scanning, no waiting. We have a shoebox full of floppies now. The pictures are good-sized, so give them a minute to load.

Friday, September 4, 1998. The day after. Amber was born Thursday morning at 4:12 a.m. at the hospital in Kearney, and she has kept farmer's hours ever since. That's me in my gray sweatshirt, looking at her like I can't believe she's ours. I still can't some days. Brad took this one. It's the first picture on the floppy we labeled AMBER #1.

Saturday, September 12, 1998. Nine days old. Brad came in from the field for dinner, sat down "for a minute," and that was the end of that. Both of them out cold. Yes, those are his work boots on the recliner. I let it go. Look at them. Tucker is on guard duty. He's taken that job seriously since the day we brought her home.

Saturday, October 17, 1998. Six weeks old and already out in the field! Grandpa Richard climbed down off the combine long enough to show her the corn. She's in the pink snowsuit from Grandma Phyllis, zipped up to her chin. It wasn't that cold, but try telling a grandma that. He went right back to shelling corn after, but he says she's a natural.

Also in October: her first real smile. It was at Grandpa Richard. It's usually at Grandpa Richard.

Christmas Day, 1998. Almost four months old, in her Christmas dress from Grandma Cheryl, red velvet with a lace collar and a bow for her head, propped up in her pillow in front of the tree. She didn't care about the presents one bit. She liked the paper.

Later that afternoon she rolled over for the first time, right there on the living room carpet, and of course the camera was in the other room and the only one watching was Tucker.

Sunday, March 14, 1999. Her first rice cereal! Six months old in her yellow outfit and a bib, and that's my hand with the spoon. This is right before the first bite, and I think her face says it all. She was not sure about this. The second spoonful went better, and by the end of the week she was opening up like a baby bird. (Yes, that's our refrigerator. I know.)

Sunday, May 23, 1999. This was supposed to be a picture of Amber crawling after Tucker across the kitchen floor. She started crawling early in May, and once she figured it out, she was fast. By the time I got the camera up, this is what I got: Tucker, a whole lot of linoleum, and a pink blur in the corner. That's her! I kept it anyway, because that's exactly what May was like.

In June she started pulling up on everything: the couch, the coffee table, Tucker (he is very patient), and Grandpa Richard's pant legs. Everything breakable in the house moved up about three feet.

Sunday, July 4, 1999. Ten months old, standing up with Daddy on the front lawn in her flag outfit and her sun hat. She'd stand all day long if somebody would hold her hands, and Brad would let her. That's the front porch behind them, and the barn and the bins off to the right.

Sunday, August 29, 1999. Three whole steps, from the couch to Brad, in the living room after church! There is no picture, because the camera was out in the pickup. We have tried to get her to do it again for the camera about a hundred times since, and every time she just sits down and laughs at us. You'll have to take our word for it.

Sunday, September 5, 1999. Her first birthday party, at our kitchen table, with both sets of grandparents. She's in the old wooden high chair from Grandma Cheryl's, the one Brad sat in when he was little, in her pink overalls and a party hat. That's me on the left, Grandma Cheryl on the right, and Grandpa Richard in the back with his plate, waiting on his piece. Mom and Dad drove over from Grand Island, and Dad is the one out of the picture saying "Amber, look at the camera!"

This is right before she figured out what cake was for. Brad got the "after" pictures too, but I'm keeping those in the family. There was frosting in her ears.

Thanks for coming to see our girl! I'll put up more pictures as the floppies fill up. If you have a baby page too, send me the address. I love looking at them.

Love,
Wendi, Brad, Amber (and Tucker)