Stormy weather...

Before the rain hit...

and right before we left Blossom...


Doesn't he look so grown up in this picture??



Crawling around... 42 weeks old!



As I type, it is hailing out. Hailstones the size of marbles, falling like rain. It's pretty wild, and pretty loud up here in my office, as I am very close to the roof. I am hoping we don't lose power, but have my laptop unplugged just in case.

First, Jack updates:
*He is starting to get "into" everything. He gets annoyed when I close the fridge without letting him explore inside. He loves taking things out of "his" cupboard, the one with tupperware and travel mugs. He zooms over to investigate when we open ANYTHING. I'm sure he is working on figuring out how to open it all himself. Cabinet locks, here we come.
* He is saying Mamama consistently now when he sees me or wants me. An endearing new habit is when he crawls over, saying mama, then pull up onto his knees by holding my leg. He's like a little puppy these days.
*One of his favorite toys is a string of house and tree shaped beads. He is very proficient at taking the beads off the string and will stay engaged in this task for a surprisingly long time.
*We are pretty sure there are some more teeth on their way, on the bottom. He's been much more whiny than normal the past few days. Still not bad, but we're just not used to happy boy being this vocal about things.
*Speaking of vocal, a new not-so-nice habit is screaming when he is laid down for a nap or at night. I say habit because he gave himself away today. When I first laid him down for his morning nap, he stretched a little and was relaxed. Then, he looked around, looked at me, and starting wailing. I think he is under the impression that he should cry at this time. We'll have to work on that.
* He is staring to get excited about looking at books. A current favorite is "Henry's colors".
* He will imitate us when we sing a little tune to him, with the "words" la, la, la... he'll give his little sweet voiced la, la, la back. It is incredibly adorable.

For the most part, the weather this weekend has been ideal, just punctuated by spectacular storms. I spent Monday thru Thursday attending a math assessment conference at CSU, which was actually very informative. And, it was a lot of fun to spend time with th folks on the math cluster. But, it still led to my first week of summer break feeling an awful lot like work. I felt like Friday was my first "real" day off. It was not only the longest day of the year, but really very lovely. We went for a pleasant, meandering bike ride in the morning, and then Melinda and Will came over and while Melinda and I laid around and entertained baby boy on a blanket in the yard, Nat and Will ran around with a chain saw and made a tremendous amount of progress on consolidating and cutting up all the dead wood we've brought down recently. We got up into the tree house and got all inspired to fix it up... of course, it's still pretty low on the priority list, as even NEXT year the kiddo will still be under 2. But we may at least shore up one of the railings and waterproof it this year...

Saturday was a full and wonderful summer day. We rode out bikes to the Shaker Square farmer's market, which was perfect except for the fact that we didn't have any device to tote around the extremely heavy baby, once he was out of his bike trailer. So, we didn't stay too long! After Jack's first "nap" (in quotes because he never actually fell asleep, we just gave up on him napping after he alternately fussed and played for an hour) we went to a few moving sales in the neighborhood, where we were fairly restrained in our spending. We got a very unseasonal new ski bag and more appropriate window fan, and I got a great new necklace. Then, back home where M and W (who'd joined us for the sales) loitered on the porch with us for a while. To top the day off we headed to Blossom for Prairie Home Companion. We'd decided to attend last minute, on Friday, when we heard the Wailin Jennys were going to perform. It was supposed to be an idyllic evening of lounging and picnic-ing on the hill in the summer sun, but approximately 4 minutes before the show was to begin, we were hit with-- you guessed it-- a doozy of a storm. We all went and hid in a pavilion just over the edge of the hill, where we enjoyed a great picnic meal and stayed nice and dry, but couldn't hear much of anything. So, at around the one hour mark, as the rain let up a bit, we donned garbage bags and stood under some trees and we were able to enjoy some of the show. If we looked hard enough, we could make out the general outline of Garrison Keillor. :) The best part of the show, in my opinion, was the "after concert" given by the Jennys after the show. We had to wait around for a while, while they retaped a portion of the broadcast to make up for when the power went out during the show (!) but as we waited, a rainbow came out and it was really pretty spectacular. Poor little Jack was pretty exhausted but held up like a champ so I could see my favorite singers perform, at close range! Little man was up for about 8 hours all told! We give him a lot of credit for being a very sweet, happy baby almost the entire time, despite being tired and slightly damp. Good kid.

Today we've stayed home and cleaned and played in the playroom a lot and kiddo is napping like a fiend! We're having friends over for supper tonight so, off to put finishing touches on dinner...