Catching up again

Here I am mailing off the last payment for my car. Oh happy day!


Mikey has been learning some new tricks, like how to get his toes in his mouth and how to blow spit bubbles. Both are pretty funny to watch.


He's eating more foods now, and seems to like pureed vegetables better than fruit. He's a good eater. He took to eating from a spoon like a natural. He's also had Cheerios and small bites of pizza crust, yogurt melts, and applesauce.

We took him for his 6 month checkup on Aug 23rd (my dad's b-day!) and these were his stats:

Height 27 inches, 74th %ile
Weight 15 lbs 1.5 oz, 11th %ile
I didn't get the head circumference this time, but it's growing too :) He's still a long and lean baby.


He has been preferring to sleep on his side or stomach ever since he got really good at rolling. Every time I set him in his crib now for a nap or bedtime, he immediately rolls on his side or stomach. I thought this was cute when he fell asleep holding his giraffe's face.


In mid August, we took our THIRD trip to California! This time we drove with my brother and sis in law, Duncan and Liz. We had very pleasant weather there. We all took a nap after church on Sunday on a blanket in the backyard.


One of the big things we did while visiting my parents was a 2 day trip to Monterey, and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is where we ate lunch the first day, at a Mexican restaurant right on the Bay. There were sea lions and birds out on the rocks just outside our window. Pretty fun!


Grandma Glenn loved her Mikey time. Not that she hogged him at all... or fought over him with Duncan, Liz, and my dad. :)


We spent the night in a nearby hotel courtesy of my parents (THANKS!) and then we were off to see the aquarium. We had some fun on our lunch break burning off the calories from the sandwiches we ate. I look about two feet taller than Liz in this picture, but it's just the weird perspective. She was a hula hooping champ even with her 7 month pregnant belly!


There were so many cool, colorful creatures to see in the aquarium. I liked the complimentary colors of the orange jellyfish in the bright blue tank. They're also mesmerizing to watch, like a campfire or a lava lamp. I think I was hypnotized for a while. :)


This was the most exciting part of the trip. OK, not really, but close. We stopped at the Nestle Toll House Cafe for a decadent dessert. This is a create-your-own ice cream sandwich. Mine featured a chocolate chip toffee cookie and a snicker doodle surrounding chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. MMMMMMMMMMMM.....


My dad was there with us too, but he was the photographer on this shot.


Unkie Dunkie, Aunt Liz, and Mikey hangin' with the penguins.


Mikey was fascinated by all the colorful, attention-grabbing creatures on display. He had an awesome time!


We took a quick photo in the lobby with the giant Orca in the background. It was such a fun trip! I wish Kevin could have been with us, but alas, he had to work all week. Two weeks prior to this, Kevin was able to go backpacking in the Wind River Mountains and take some time off work. Hopefully we'll get some of those pictures up here soon too.


This is Mikey's first time in a baby swing at a park. We walked to this park near my parents' house when Mikey and I had a day home alone. My dad was at work and my mom, Dunc, and Liz were all at the temple.


What a cute little dude, huh?


The very next weekend after returning from California, Kevin, Mikey and I went to Bear Lake in Utah to spend some time with Kevin's family. We had a blast with his parents, his brother and sister, and their families. Mikey went swimming in his first ever lake. The water was cold, but not frigid and he put up with it. He was kicking his little feet in the water like crazy. He also liked to reach down with his hands, grab handfuls of sand from the ground, and then lift them out of the water and drop them. A fascinating new texture for him! I took my eyes off his hands for two seconds, though, and he ended up eating some sand. Yuck. So I was a little more vigilant after that.


Our nephew that is closest in age to Mikey was going to turn one year old in a few days, so we celebrated his birthday while we were there. We had some pretty good thunder storms overnight and sporadically through the days, but still had plenty of sunshine to play in as well.


Here are all the nieces and nephews in attendance (except our nephew who was gone for a few hours to play a soccer game), posing for a pajama picture on the last night. They are all so wonderful and have such distinct personalities. It has been fun to be an aunt to all these cuties. We are really missing our other two nieces who live in Virginia, but they have less than a year left until their dad graduates and moves back closer to the family. Hooray! Thanks for a fun time, Lewis family.



I took quite a few videos at the aquarium that were really cool too, but my computer or my version of blogger takes FOREVER to upload videos to my blog, so I wore myself out after these two. One is demonstrating the difficulty of getting 9 tired children to pose for a picture and all smile and look at the camera at the same time. It was pretty comical. The other is Mikey's swimming adventure. Enjoy!