walking!

Jude just stood up without holding on to anything and took two steps by himself! Wow!

out of commission

I can't believe how little time I get at the computer. And I feel guilty about the time I *do* take.

Jude is busy busy busy. The girls are busy busy busy. I might get more time this upcoming week because they are going to Ohio with their dad and Brian and Catherine. I am going to miss them terribly, but maybe I'll get the house clean for a few days. They are really good at trashing it. I plan to pick a room each day and work on it. I dread the playroom.

Today Tom and I went to the Little Finger Lakes festival with our friend Alyce and her daughter May. We ran into our friend Vicky there, with her son Quinn. Much fun was had by all. I have a few baby pictures I'll post later, if later ever comes.

Tom is currently cooking dinner and then we're going to watch the second half of Life Is Beautiful.

Jude is almost walking. He's taken a couple of steps here and there and has started to stand up by himself from the ground up, so to speak. He also stands for longer and longer periods by himself. He is saying words inconsistently. Hot was the new one today. Mama, dada, Emma (for both girls), UhUh for uhoh!, and more. He's just a ton of fun!

Emma is good. she had her TOPS competition today and David said she did "OK," whatever that means.

Um, what else. Not much. Summer fun, mostly :)

More Jude

He cut his second tooth today!
He is standing alone much more and stood up by himself twice on Monday. He is waving bye bye and hello and he is kissing! Of course, he won't actually KISS me, but he makes kissing noises in response to getting kisses ;). He is more than cruising - taking steps in between close pieces of furniture.

He had a playdate yesterday with a boy! He has no friends that are boys, and it was interesting to see how they interacted. They had a lot of fun. not that he doesn't have fun with his girl friends!

He's mad this morning because the dog stole his bagel out of his hand and ate it. And then the dog ate the chocolate cake off the table. So the girls are mad too :(.

stats

Jude had his well child check today. He weighed 20 lbs. even and was 29.5" long. 75th percentile for height and 30th for weight. He is 2 in. taller than Emma was a year and 5 lbs. heavier!

He was happy to show off his crawling and boogying. He now says mama, dada, Emma, i neen, nana, and woo! for woof. He also stood up twice from a crouch today. What a guy!

arts fest

I just got back from State College. It was a pretty good visit.

My mom drove me nuts by the time I was ready to leave. She just yammers on and on about everything and has advice about every aspect of my life.

i.e.: I shouldn't have more children because I am poor.
I should get my dad into a nursing home*
I'm too hard/soft on the girls
I should be careful with how I handle my relationship with David.
Ad nauseum. Ugh.

*I am waiting for a spot to open up in a nursing facility for my dad in an Alzheimer's Unit. He is not doing well. He was very confused this weekend when I was there, very belligerent and wouldn't talk to/see me really. It was very frustrating and sad.

Ugh, David just called and woke Jude up. And a HUGE tstorm is starting up, which IS cool, except that Tom should be on his way home and he has no headlights on his truck. And he wants to have dinner and I just ate a bag of popcorn b/c I was so hungry I couldn't wait! I have eaten nothing but junk today :-/.

Anyway, the trip was good. Got to go to the Arts Fest but I didn't buy a thing, I was a good girl.

Jude missed the girls and Tom dreadfully. He kept asking for Em-ma and Da-Da. It was kind of sad. We did see the girls yesterday, as they were at the fest with their dad. J. was SO glad to see T. when we got back to town today. Tom's over at Mike and Danielle's working though so we had to leave and come home. While I was there, I noticed that Sullivan is bigger than their black lab now! Holy cow.

I'm rambling. Will post some pics later.

trips galore

We're headed to PA this weekend. I haven't been home for quite a while and it's Arts Fest time. My mom is driving me batty though. She was supposed to be looking for a used jogging stroller for me that I could bring home and use and leave a regular stroller at her house for when I travel home.

Instead, she got sucked in and got a Peg Perego stroller, which although I'm sure it's lovely, is NOT what I need at all. I already have two regular strollers and about 3 umbrella strollers. And she was all offended that I wasn't impressed with her purchase.

David has the girls this coming weekend and he is taking them to PA too. Emma's friend Katri is visiting from CA, so they are going to get together. I know her friend Gabrielle is hoping to see her as well. Social butterfly, that one.

The only downside is that we're going to miss Audrey's bday party :(. It's Soren's best friend so we 're very sad. Tom is not going with us either. He is going to stay here and work on Mike's studio. He's moving out of his rental studio and into the garage of their new house, where they're building a really nice music studio. I will miss Tom though. It was lovely to have a whole week together as a family.

more catch up

Jude Bullet points:

-- Jude's new word is "I Neen!" which means Ice Cream, and I do mean NOW, dammit! If you eat ice cream in front of him, he will literally grab your hand and the spoon until you share with him. I don't know how I ended up with a 10 month old sugar addict already, but there you have it. Following in the footsteps of sister Soren I guess ;).

-- My MIL took us out to dinner on Sunday night and she sat next to Jude. She always plays pat-a-cake with him, and halfway through dinner he grabbed her hand and started patting her, clearly telling her he wanted to play. It was very cute.

-- Jude took his first step while we were on vacation! He was playing with a little girl in a restaurant lobby and when she ran across to her mom, he let go of the bench, turned all the way around and took a step before falling! He was very close to doing it again at the gym yesterday, but wussed out.

-- He also says mama, Emma and Nana now. His only signs are nurse and dog. Which are close, so sometimes it's hard to tell what he is talking about ;).

-- Poor little guy has a bug bite or something irritating around his left eye and he keeps rubbing it and rubbing it and it's all red.

We started back to the grind yesterday. I am working Monday mornings while the girls have practice, which is actually pretty cool. I'm only working 3 days a week over the summer. I have to take Jude with me, so I gated him in the office with me and he was very cooperative. I got everything done that I needed to do, thank goodness. The girls had a good first practice. They've got lots of physical stuff to do this summer. Team practice for both of them, dance workshop and ballet performance class for Soren, baseball through July and then soccer in August and September.

I'm actually looking forward to September to get started on more school-y type of stuff again. I want to really give them the summer off though.

What else? While we were gone, the circuit breaker that the pool filter is on got thrown and we came home to a very green pool. We're draining it and chlorinating it. Of course it's a thousand degrees this week and we can't use the pool. Feh. We're going to a friend's house today to swim. I can't wait.

Last night I had a terrible dream that Lis died of a heart attack on her walk! How weird is that? I haven't really even been following what she's been doing with the walk, except in a very tangential kind of way, but I consider her a friend, since we've been online together so long and I did get to eat lunch with her once. I'm glad to know that she's actually just fine.

I'm really jumping around here, but I've been blogging in my head for ten days now, so I'm just letting it all spew out now.

Back to vacation. Emma and I took a trail ride.

It was great fun. I haven't been riding in years. Jude got a cowboy hat. Howdy partner!



It was cool and rainy one day, so we went to the outlets. I got a really great pair of Skechers shoes for $25. They're Keen knock offs but still really good quality.

I got the girls some clothes for fall, which I like to do at the outlets. I really found some good bargains.

The ride home was good. We were trying to hurry because we had to get the rental car back by 8 p.m. and we just made it. The kids were great.

I think that about wraps it up. It was a good trip! It's good to be home too, but I could have easily and happily stayed another week.

Vacation

7/2
Vacation was wonderful. The drive there was long, but Jude was amazing. The girls kept him occupied, but also bickered the entire time they were awake. So they were only half-amazing. We got caught in a massive traffic jam getting into Rehoboth, DE, and sat for 2 hours pretty much, but the kids were amazingly patient about it and we checked in around 4 and got setup. Then we went down and had a wonderful seafood dinner in downtown Rehoboth.

After that we hit the grocery store and stocked up on stuff that we needed.

7/3
We had an amazingly easy time of it getting setup. Poor Tom is not used to having so much *stuff* to camp with, but we got it all in place since we had a decent night's sleep the night before. Soren and Jude fell asleep later on in the day though. It was so cute!



We got all sunscreened up and headed out to the beach finally.

Soren was so cute playing with Jude on the beach. They had a great time together, since neither one of them are that fond of swimming in the ocean. Jude was pretty intimidated by the surf, and it always takes Soren till the end of the week before she's ready to jump the waves.



We went to the fireworks, which were very cool. They shoot them off from a ship out in the ocean. It took us a long time to get back to the campsite, because of the traffic.



7/4 and 7/5
On Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember which, we went to Assateague Island and saw the wild ponies.



The beach there was absolutely lovely. In Rehoboth they are doing work to fix erosion and as a result there are a ton of rocks and shells in the sand because they're pumping it in from the ocean to make dunes. Aside from the seaweed, the beach in Assateague was incredible.


After the island we drove back into Ocean City, MD and had dinner at Phillip's Crabhouse. Their buffet is freaking amazing. I ate way too much.

7/6
More beach. Hot, ocean, loved every second of it.

7/7
Went to Frontier Town. Kids had a blast. Emma got a totally politically incorrect indian outfit and bow and arrow.



To make up for it, we went to the Native American dancing, which ended up being really cool. It's a homeschooling family (they homeschool because they're youngest son was viciously attacked in his private school and hospitalized due to being Native American) and their kids both compete in NA dancing. They are so good it's scary. The boys are 12 and 9. The oldest son painted the girls' faces.



More later. Time to watch a movie with my hubby!

vacation

We're headed out tomorrow. I've gone nomail on most of my lists. I have my digital camera ready and waiting for lots of beach pictures. Tom is so stressed the day before we travel. I want to kill him ;). Not really, but I'm just happy to be going. I'm trying to get Jude down for a nap so I can finish packing a bunch of stuff.

See you next weekend!