August 2016

We had a fun visit with Bubba Linda at the beginning of the month, and we are very excited that she and Peter will be moving to Seattle next spring! We toured her around the area and of course had lots of play time with the kiddos.

Gloria has been eating up a storm- she is crazy for berries and fruit of all kinds, and is very intent on feeding herself. And she just got her first tooth- Poppi was the one who noticed it first. Then her second bottom tooth sprouted about a week later. She has started scooting around on the carpet and seems pretty eager to get mobile. We had her flat spot on her head evaluated by a specialist, 85% chance it will resolve on its own, but we have until the end of August to decide- to helmet or not to helmet! 

Charlotte has been really into chapter books - we're on our second reading of the Jungle Book, a very excellent gift from cousin Hattie. Her story telling skills have also really blossomed and it is really fun to get her going telling a tale. Charlotte's big sister skills have also been growing- she can make Gloria laugh hysterically and cheer her up if she is fussing. She can feed her a bottle, and she helps put her to bed every night reading her books and singing her songs. They are just too cute!

Matt had a weekend canoe trip with his best buds, leaving Mama alone with the girls for the weekend for the first time. Unfortunately they were the hottest two days on record in Seattle, so we had to camp out for the day Saturday at Nanni and Poppi's house with a/c and a pool! But we survived and threw in a little birthday party for Mama - Nanni's cheesecake is my absolute favorite. 

The celebration continued with a joint bday barbecue with uncle E who shares my birthday. Unfortunately the party was on another record-breaking hot day so we were all shvitzing a little bit as we ate our hotdogs, but lots of fun was had. Matt made a huge batch of butterscotch Blondies that were a big hit, and the kids mostly hung out in the shade eating watermelon.

7 months

Gloria is seven months old today. She's been eating up a storm this past month and has tried pretty much every food you can think of. She's getting much better at her pincher grip and can now feed herself pretty well.

 We had a fun but quiet month of July. Charlotte had a week of frozen dance camp while school was out. She came back after break as a fuzzy bunny meaning that she is officially a pre-kindergartener. This is a big and exciting step for her, and it also means that she leaves her lovey at home when she goes to school! She has also been continuing her amazing progress at swim class, jumping into the pool, swimming the entire length under water! It's been truly amazing to watch her just turn into a little fish. 

We had a visit from our cousins Ronnie and Elliot and we celebrated nanny's 70th birthday. We've also been getting to know our new nanny Melanie. Gloria loves her and smiles every time she comes in the room. Charlotte is a little more tentative and is still getting to know her but I think they will become fast friends. 

I have been back at work for three weeks and it has been going fairly well. The first week or so I was kind of disoriented and had trouble finding all those professional epidemiology words which I had not been using for the past six months, but now I'm back in the swing of things.

The biggest news is we bought a house. It's in Matthews Beach walking distance to the beach park and adjacent to the Burke Gilman trail. We're pretty excited about it, but not looking forward very much to moving our stuff at the end of September.