Drumming

Mike, Hanna and Hanna's brother Karl visited this weekend. Karl was in town to record a segment for NPR's Echoes program and had a giant duffel bag full of drums and instruments. Needless to say, he was a big hit with the dancing queen.

PS. Sorry for the delay... blogger wasn't liking video last week

Kelly: Six Months

Oh, man... I love this age. Especially because Kelly is a happy, happy girl.

She soooo close to crawling. And without being an official crawler yet, she sure can get around. She's got a funny sideways scootch and loves to push herself up on her hands and tiptoes (think downward facing dog).

UPDATE- Kelly IS crawling! She figured out how to move her arms and now she is moving all over the place!

Since she's so happy on her tummy and moving, we done less sitting practice. So she's started it on her own. More and more often she goes from hands and tiptoes to plopping into a sideways bulldog-esque leaning sit.

Been slowly adding solids. Kelly's had rice cereal, oatmeal, bananas and pears.

Her sleeping habits vary. She's taking at least 2 naps during the day (sometimes a catnap around dinner as well). Her nighttime habits switch about every 2 weeks. Sometime she sleeps like a champ (7:30 to 6:30 or later) and other time she wakes up twice. Who knows...

No teeth yet, but they are coming. Kelly is a big fan of teethers.

PS. Shannon is obsessed with cameras and picture-taking right now. Since we had the elephant out, she thought you might like to see how big the rest of us are. Shannon "pushed button" on these, impressed?

Chincoteague 2009

Remember the great beach house and the "beach trip with Addie" from last year? We had so much fun on that trip to Chincoteague, we decided to go back for a long Labor Day vacation.

Addie and Monica (sans Steve-o who just started a new job and is studying for the boards) joined us for the beginning of the trip and Grandma and Grandpa McGee came down for the second half.

Unfortunately, we had tons of rain (and forgot to take the camera to beach on the sunny days) so the "beach" part of our beach vacation was a little sad.

Despite the gloomy weather, we still had a good time. Highlights included:

Making playdoh



Playing with Kelly


Morning runs (and stretching afterward)


Going for ice cream (which apparently made Kelly hungry too!)




Playing "game" with "monies"


"Dancin' on the crab"


Random two-year-old fun


Hanging out on the porch


(Uh-oh...this doesn't look like good parenting, does it?)

Good-bye, summer! We had fun!

Phillies Game

Goooooooo Phillies! We had a great night at the ballpark. First we played on the h-u-g-e playground near the 1st base gate. For the record, Citizen's Bank Park is awesome.

Then we found our seats. Woo-hoo! Seats!

It was Kelly's first game and Shannon's third. Apparently, game 3 is when you discover the joys of ballpark food.

peanuts

ice cream

What I will remember most is Shannon deciding that she was through with her hair being pulled back and also didn't want her hat. And I quote, "No ponytail! Crazy hair!"

Crazy hair indeed.

Kelly did great. We got her into jammies and she snoozed through a Phillies win!

Silly Shannon

My goodness, this girl cracks us up. Here's a handful of funny things about Shannon these days.

1. She gets "Amen" and "The end" mixed up. So when she finished a book, she closes it and says, amen.

2. Sometimes we do meals in the family room, sometimes while watching Elmo. (You do what you gotta do.) Shannon doesn't let this casual meal plan interfere with her standards... note the "table cloth" and coaster she set her table with.

3. Her hair. It's long enough to get into a ponytail but is so curly that it can grow/shrink by six inches, depending on if its newly washed (and humid) or has been through a few naps/bedtimes. At least once a week, someone asks me if she got a haircut when it's in "short mode."

4. She is really putting sentences together now and mimics things she hears us saying. Hearing her say things like, "oops, Shannon messed up" make me smile.

5. Loves playing hide-and-seek. Or "hideSEEEEEK!" as it's known around here. Again, more funny phrases: oh, no!, Shannon lost, hideseek, Shannon hidin', no see Shannon!

6. Little Miss Bossy telling mommy and daddy not to raise their voices at each other by shouting, "NO YELLIN' !!!" And laughing and getting louder each time she says it. I swear, she gets the irony.

7. Cracking herself up. We have a Sesame Street book where Cookie is eating soap. She loves looking at this page and saying, "Cookie, no eat soap. Eat cookies." And doing her forehead-bonking, head-shaking laugh afterward.

8. Speaking of Cookie Monster, she and Daddy do a pretty mean "C is for Cookie" duet.

9. Really into toddler songs right now. Favorite include Five Little Monkeys and Eensy-Weensy Spider, which she insists/prefers to sing as The Big, Big Spider. Every time. No idea where this comes from.

Love you, little weirdo!