Isabelle likes to climb in David's bed when he wakes up from nap. Sometimes he's not quite ready to get up, or at least he's not ready for her enthusiastic hugging and playing. She doesn't seem to notice, and most of the time, he doesn't seem to mind.


Here's another picture from our little artist. If you can't tell, it's a duck! She mostly likes to (still) draw happy faces, but also draws flowers, spiders, balloons and suns. She also has begun to draw a picture and then color it in, so cometimes when she's finished it just looks like a big colored blob. If you ask her though, she can tell you what it is!

One of David's top teeth finally broke through, but he's still drooling like a faucet. I think he must have other teeth getting ready to come in right away.

He is getting ready to walk too. He can now sometimes stand without holding onto anything for about 5-10 seconds. He doesn't fall as much since his balance is improving, so we're happy about that!

She's had a strange fear of trees on and off for the last few months. We aren't sure where this comes from, except that she has quite an imagination... Anyway, we've spent some time trying to encourage her that trees are good. We talk about how they provide homes for animals and shade for us when it's hot, and so on... often she'll ask us to touch the tree as though if we can (and will) touch it, it must be ok. So we pat the tree with confidence and say, "this is a good tree..." or something like that.

Today Isabelle and I were out in the front yard, and Isabelle hugged the tree.... that's our girl:>)

Last weekend we went down to Heather and Mike's for a pre-4th BBQ. We had a great time. I brought the camera, but I think both Heather and I took about 4 pictures. We were just too busy with keeping Mike in check. Oh, and our little ones kept us busy too. Thus, I have only a couple of pictures to show you. One from us, two from Heather.






Jen also came by last week for a quick lunch time visit. Isabelle doesn't see her too much, but Jen has left enough of an impression from playing with her that she talks about her and asks when she's coming over sometimes. David likes Jen too. This time, he liked her shoes a lot. We don't wear shoes much in our house, so it's a novelty when someone keep theirs on and David might get a chance to bite them, or at the very least drool on them. He spent a lot of time trying to do that.

It's been a week since Julie stated that David had been sleeping through the night. And she hoped she didn't curse us. Well, in the last seven days, he's been up 4 of them. This morning when I got up, I don't think he was really hungry or wet, he just wanted to play. David was singing and banging on the mattress, while he still had his head on the mattress. I think he was discovering the world of sounds. But why does he need to practice percussion at 3:14 a.m.?

And the best part was, after I changed him, and gave him a bottle, and he fell asleep on my shoulder, I put him back in his crib, naturally, right? Then about 60 seconds later, his gyroscopic inertia attitude indication unit told him he was horizontal again, and he started to sing! So I picked him up again, getting him mostly vertical, again, and he fell asleep. Again. This time I held him for 15 minutes to hope that he would go into a deep sleep, and not notice his being layed down back in bed. This time it worked. Yawn!

I feel we may be raising the next catwoman. Isabelle likes to sing a few nursery rhymes substituting 'meows' in place of the words. Then she started to crawl around the house on her hands and knees, with occasional meows as she maneuvers through the furniture. Today she went one step further, and crawled up to me, and rubbed her chin on my hand. She hasn't got a black cat suit yet, but I'll keep you posted. Isabelle also has a little bit of a dark side. Although, unlike Selina Kyle's knack for stealing, Isabelle sometimes likes to step on flowers. Stomp on them really.

Here's a little story about that stomping part. Early in the spring, Isabelle started to pick dandelions. And that was fine, since there were everywhere, and they were going to get sprayed soon anyway. Well, she then started to pick just about any flower she came across. I think I've mentioned this before. So we are trying to teach her to leave the other flowers alone, so other people can enjoy them too. Also, we don't want her bringing a bunch of flowers inside, as they will eventually end up on the floor all scrunched and mashed. Then one of our cats will get them and 'process' them, then leave them in another spot on the floor.

So the other day, we were out at the park, and Isabelle really wanted to pick a flower. I reminded her that we only pick dandelions, and we should leave the others for everyone to enjoy. Then, as we turned back to the park, she reached back with her foot and stomped on it! As if to say, "if I can't pick 'em, no one will!" That little girl is funny.