Science is fun!

It was raining this morning, so Mike decided to show Rose a chemistry experiment!

First Mike lit the candle in the jar:

Then he mixed up a magic solution in a beaker:

Then he poured the special air (but not any liquid) into the jar, and the flame blew out! Magic!

Rose was impressed and kept signing for "more"!

Although I think she was just interested in the flames and smoke, and not so much the "magic." :)

Then we also spent some quality time with the cats this morning. Mac tends to carefully place himself out of reach when he wants to sleep. Here he is atop the scratching post:

Lucy had been asleep on the bed:

But then Little Miss wanted to pet her:

"Here I come!"

"Hugs!!!"

Ah, poor Lucy.


In other news, here's Rose's "official" 15-month picture:

Have a great week!

Mary's retirement party

My mother-in-law retired this year, after 40 years in education (20 teaching and 20 in administration). Mike and Anne hosted a garden party at our house in celebration!

Claire did an excellent job greeting the guests and passing out leis:

Her sister Ella showed everyone her newly lost tooth!

Our guest of honor seemed to have a good time!

So did our other guests!

There were 3 sisters in attendance...

...and also three Mary's!

Mike gave a great toast to his Mom.

My parents are just too cute for words.

When Rose woke up from her nap and joined the party, it was a real shame that there weren't any extended family members around to shower her with attention (ha ha).

It was a success! :)

bathing beauty

I took Rose to the splash pad this afternoon since it was about a bazillion degrees outside. She was *very* slow to warm up to it, but that seems to be her personality. Mostly she just enjoyed sitting back and watching the big kids play.

Rose loves applying sunscreen (and reapplying, and applying again!)

She was content to sit and watch on "our" chair. (I ended up on the ground.)

Eventually she got close to the little fountains.

And even touched it a few times!

Yummy.

Toward the very end she did venture off a couple times...

...but frequently hurried back to safely whenever she got even slightly splashed! :)

Cruiser!

I got a request for another "cruiser" video... here you go!

(Let me know if the video doesn't work - I was having blogger problems yet again, so I had to go through this totally convoluted process...)

Isn't it amazing how steady she is after only a week of being a full-time walker?!?

In other news, we tried to go strawberry picking yesterday but were turned off by the HUGE line of cars waiting to get in. So instead we stopped at a farmstand and bought pre-picked strawberries. (Which I think was actually preferable for the slightly hungover and sleep-deprived gentlemen I was with, even if I was a bit disappointed!)  The strawberries were delicious! We ate at least a quart before we got any of them home. :)

"The berries were so good, I even ate the stems!"

Yesterday we also had brunch with our Philly friends, Brad and Katie, as well as dinner with our local friends, Zach and Vanessa (and their daughter Clementine). It was so nice to "break bread" with some wonderful people. I feel like we're finally starting to emerge from the cocoon that we were in for the first year after Rose's birth. We were on survival mode for so long, and it's nice to now have the energy and interest in being social and having hobbies.

Speaking of which, I've started running again!  I had several false starts in the past year, getting curtailed every time by Rose's sicknesses, my sicknesses, or just general new parent exhaustion. But I've been running a couple times per week for the past month or so, and I'm hopeful that I can keep it up. Now I'm looking for a race of some sort to keep me motivated! I'll let you know once I find one.

Have a great weekend!

More pictures!

My friend Megan gave Rose some freshly picked strawberries. As you can see, Rose was VERY appreciative! We're going to have to find some strawberries to pick ourselves before the season ends! (Thanks again, Megan!)

I also finally was able to upload the final pictures from Milkapalooza a couple weekends ago. As I said in my last post on the topic, Rose LOVED it.

And here's the photo of Rose chasing Mac, who was chasing a squirrel while leashed to a bucket. (It's never dull in our backyard!)

Finally, for the good news: Rose is really getting confident with her independent walking! I'll have to take some more photos and video. And for the bad news: She is doing some serious teething, which she counters by sucking on her fingers - and now her fingers are raw and cracked! Poor girl. If anyone has home remedy ideas for this, let us know! It looks pretty painful.

Hope you're having a great week!

another video

Rose entertained herself for about 20 minutes last night. Then she fell and started crying, but when I picked her up to comfort her, she cried even louder and pushed me away! She was still crying as she crawled right back to the gate to continue walking back and forth through it for another 10 minutes or so.  :)

long time overdue update

Well, Rose got over her pinkeye pretty quickly. She got the drops the rest of Friday, then all day Saturday and Sunday. Monday she seemed back to normal, but Tuesday she woke up super early, didn't eat much, and was running a low grade fever. Sigh. I can't wait until her sicknesses are past!

In other news, we had HUGE storms in the on Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. I am so thankful that we lost no trees and had no damage to house, vehicles, or loved ones. I'm also thankful that we only lost power for about 8 hours on Friday night - some families at Rose's school still didn't have power as of this Tuesday morning!

The real excitement of the weekend was that Rose turned 14 months old on Saturday! Naturally, we celebrated by taking some photos. :)

"Hmmm ... do I prefer raspberries or blackberries?"

"Airplane!"

Rose is getting to be a rockstar at using her spoon:

(Yes, I know the video is a boring 13 seconds of her eating, but isn't she coordinated?!)

On Saturday, we also went to Milkapalooza! Rose LOVED getting close to the cows.

(We have more photos of Rose and the cows, but I'm having trouble uploading them right now.)

On Sunday we spent some time outside and grilled out for dinner. Mike made me the most delicious mojito ever, and Rose had a great time chasing the cats around the yard.

(Ugh - and now I can't upload those photos either! Boo!)

Well, to take a break from uploading photos, let me share my exciting about Mike earning a grant to partially cover his tuition in the teaching program! Congratulations, Mike!!! You are going to be an amazing chemistry teacher :)

Hope you're all having a great week!