An Overdue Update

Mari can crawl (she has started pulling up on furniture and taking steps as well) really well now so our lives have gone from "never a dull moment" to "never a still moment" and thus never a moment to blog. I am working on rearranging things in the house to make it more 'Mobile Mari' friendly as Jake was 15 or 16 months old when we moved in. As with where we lived before there is tile in the kitchen and dining room and so I am dreading the first time she falls on it. She is still working on her first tooth. She is 7 and a half months old at the moment. I never know what Jake will say next and he is constantly surprising us with the connections he makes between things. He is so observant- very little gets by him and there is no tricking him. We are all excited about going to Scotland in two weeks. As Jake says "Fly airplane Scotland, see GG Mac, GG Bill". He now says this every time he sees an airplane as well as every morning when he eats breakfast. I am taking them both to the doctor tomorrow for a check-up so I will post updated heights and weights soon. I have got to find out how much of what to drug them with on the airplane. Just kidding, sort of...

Above is picture of my friend Elizabeth and her son Connor during a visit about two weeks ago. Elizabeth has quite a few more pictures of the visit on Connor's Blog. Notice Mari standing and trying to stomp around while holding herself up with one hand.

We had a nice treat on the evening on July 4th the City of Guntown fireworks display was across the street from our house so we all had a good view. James took these three pictures. As a side note; he had to change some settings on the camera to take these pictures and did not change them back and I only became aware of it tonight when I noticed all the pictures I took in the past few days are out of focus. So if a picture is a little blurry, that is why.

As you can see below, even Mari enjoyed them.

This is a picture of Mari sitting in Jake's chair while he was asleep one morning (she wakes up early so she can play with all his toys).
Below is a recent picture of part of our front yard to demonstrate progress with the landscaping efforts.

Above, playing on our pathway with his sidewalk chalk. No, he did not draw his own name (although he can spell his name and Mari's) but he did tell me he drew several 'I's and 'C's and the markings he made did actually look like 'I's and 'C's.

Mari and Jake share some Cheerios.

Jake 'helps' Mari play with her toys. Well actually only one of the toys in question is in fact Mari's, but the toys they are playing with are ones Jake has outgrown (he has taken a sudden interest in them now that she can play with them). The look on her face is classic!

She is going to hate me for this one (above) later, but it is so cute. She is so warm and snugly (probably not really a word- I know) and she loves taking naps with her Daddy!

The picture directly above and below are to demonstrate her crawling position when she wants a closer look at something. It is amazing how mobility has changed her world. It is almost like she has been waiting for months to go up to things around our house to get a closer look... ...and now she can!

These pictures were taken at dusk in our backyard. Above is pet dog Daisy standing guard while Jake climbs up his slide backwards. These next three are in a series.

This last picture was taken earlier tonight of Mari "reading" a book (and standing) we got for Jake to help him understand what was going on with me when I was pregnant. It is "Baby on the Way" by Dr Sears (et al). I figure that she took in interest in it for one of three reasons (a) she heard us read it to Jake so many times while I was pregnant with her and so now she just wanted to see the pictures for herself (b) as she ended up chewing on it shortly after this picture was made, it might be possible she was attempting to destroy it to keep us from having any more children and thus securing her position as the baby and saving herself from the dreaded fate of middle children or (c) she is teething and anything made of paper is her first target. Of course it is most likely C or some combination of all the above, it is just that it is 11:01 and I just got everyone asleep including James and after trying all day to finish this blog at this late hour I find the possibility of A and B funny. As to whether there will be any more children, we are still very much undecided on the issue but the book is safe in case we need it again.