Wordless Wednesday (Some Backyard Fun)

Tuesday Tune

Visit the Tompkins Family for another tune!

Beach

Yesterday I took the girls to the beach (ocean) for the first time this year. Grace was really scared of the water at first, which surprised me. She can't get enough of the water when we're at the lake, but I guess the waves and all the noise was intimidating. It didn't take her too long to warm up to it, though. By the time we were ready to go, she didn't want to leave!

Our Garden

Brian and I have always said we would love to have a vegetable garden. Now that we have our own house, we can do that! It was too late in the summer when we moved in last year, so we decided to give it a go this year. We started out small, with tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers. We planted them in plastic totes, partly because we're not sure yet where we'd like to put a garden permanently, and because Papa has had good success growing these veggies this way. We also have some chives and oregano growing and we want to add more herbs too.

Grace loves the garden. She helped plant everything and loves doing the watering. She is always very proud to show guests her veggie garden and tell them what's what and how they're doing.

We lost our first bunch of cucumbers due to frost. Guess we planted too early! Everything is coming along nicely now, including our second batch of cucumbers. We picked our first cucumber the other night! It was really good; not too seedy, nice and crisp.

Checking out the tomatoes. "Still green! We can't pick them!"

Anna likes to help in the garden too.

Pointing out some of the bigger peppers.

Getting ready to pick the first cucumber!

First bite!

Anna had some too! I think it felt good on her gums.

Anna's Silly Face!

Wordless Wednesday (Help!)

9 Months!

At 9 months:

• Anna is crawling everywhere and into everything! She's pretty fast, especially when she's trying to keep up with her big sister. 
• She pulls herself up on her knees, and earlier this week she pulled herself up to standing using the coffee table at Zilla and Bampers'!
• She has mastered clapping and is just starting to wave. 
• She has two teeth on the bottom. The second one came up about 2 weeks after the first. 
• Anna loves the water, just like her big sister. We go to the lake a lot and she loves splashing around, trying to eat sand, and just smiles when Grace splashes her. She likes when I take her out in deeper water and "swim" her around. 
• She is a big fan of going on the swing at the playground. 
• She loves to talk and she is loud! Grace was also very vocal at this age but Anna likes to yell everything. I think she just wants to be heard over her sister!
• She's making all of the Da, Ma, Ba, Ga, and other sounds, and putting them together. She always seems to be trying so hard to talk to us! She says Mama and Dada but not yet specifically for us. 
• She's eating better and almost exclusively feeds herself. Once in a while she will let me spoon feed her. 
• Her pincer grasp is great and she can pick up anything we put on her tray. She's also good at finding and picking up the smallest pieces of lint or tiny rocks brought in on our shoes.
• She's growing out of her 6-12 month clothes. Time to move up a size! She wears size 3 diapers. 

Some things I don't want to forget: 

 - the little grin she gives me when I say "no" if she's getting into something she shouldn't be. 

 - the way she nose dives into her blankie when I put her in her crib to go to sleep. 

 - how she scrunches her nose up and does this funny little snort. I'm still trying to get a picture!

Wordless Wednesday (Grace & Pepé)