Pig tails

Lydia got her first set of pigtails this morning! Madeleine thought it was awesome that someone else was getting tortured besides her. Lydia is growing up so fast! She will be eleven months old in a few days.

She is the most determined little thing! A friend of ours gave us a giant bowl full of blackberries. Lydia thought they were the most delicious thing ever. She even figured out how to open the refrigerator to get to them.

Water Follies (Cheapo Style)

For those of you not from the Tri-Cities, every year at the end of July there is a weekend of boat racing and air shows called Water Follies. Now forking over a bunch of money to watch boats race all day doesn't make sense to us, but you can see the planes from outside the event area, so for the past three years I've taken the kids (and whoever I can drag with me) down to the Columbia River levee to watch the air show.

This year I could only wrangle Asher and Madeleine, which actually meant we could stay there longer. I brought a back pack full of water and a picnic lunch. We climbed down the levee to dangle our feet in the cool water, kicked back and watched the show.

This year they moved the boat track so we actually got to see them up close.
Mostly we (I) went for the air show (which really just consists of a couple planes flying around, but I love it and the kids tolerate it. This year there was a Russian World War II plane that the kids liked because it put out smoke.

Then there was a jet trainer that caught us off guard because its first approach brought it right over the levee from behind us. We had no idea it was coming until it went screaming over our head. It also flew the lowest of any of the planes, right through the smoke hovering over the river.

They also liked the C-17. It was a hulking cargo plane that flow low and slow, so slow it seemed like it must have been suspended by cables. It allowed us to get great pictures.
I got a pretty good video of it flying by, pulling its landing gear up.


Then we went home for a couple hours until the later air show. This time we had to bring Lydia with us, because Vanessa was at a birthday lunch for her mom. But the afternoon air show was a Navy F-18, by far the fastest (and noisiest) plane. It was so fast it was tough to get pictures of and the video was all super shaky as I would try to track it from one side to the other at 600 mph. I got this video which captured my favorite part of the experience: the sound it makes as it rips by.

Well I had great time and I think the kids did too. This was a picture of Asher and Madeleine during our first stint.

Mischief

I think it was Madeleine's idea, but Lydia is participating with gusto.

It's that time of year again...

My kids may need 3 baths a day, but they are having a fabulous time playing in the yard. This afternoon, Asher used the hose to turn the sandbox into a mud pit. I wasn't pleased, but it was very satisfying to use that same hose to spray off the mud before I would let them come inside the house.



Lydia wishes she could join in the fun. I am guessing by this time next year, I'll have three muddy kids on my hands.

New Skill

One of my favorite factors of Lydia's personality is her persistence. If she wants something, whether it is food, a toy, or the mastery of a new skill, she will keep going until she gets what she wants. She's been pulling herself up to stand now and has even started attempting little steps. Her attempts at letting go and stepping have been anything but successful. She falls every time, but she isn't giving up, and it's terrifying.

She is also very persistent in needing me in the middle of the night still. She is still waking up at night, sometimes several times, at eight months old. Asher slept 10 hours at night by the time he was 3 months old and Madeleine by the time she was 1 month old.

Lydia is almost 6 months old!

Lydia turns 6 months old this week! Where has the time gone? I have to be on guard with this girl because she tends to find things she shouldn't have and eat them. Anything paper is her particular favorite. She can't quite crawl yet, but she is still fast. Lydia's hair is starting to grow straight and blond like Asher's. She slept through the night starting when she was one month old up to three months old, and I haven't been able to replicate the magic since. At 6 moths old, she is officially our worst sleeper.

We've been busy this past month. We put our house up for sale. It was on the market for about a week when we had a change of heart and took the sign down. We are currently planning on staying put for another year, or two, or three.

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