Months 11- 12 (!!)

I cannot believe Caitlin is going to be a year on Tuesday. The time is flying by so quickly which brings mixed emotions as milestones come and go and my little baby is becoming a toddler. Speaking of milestones, there is a lot to blog about from the past few weeks -- first and foremost: Caitlin took her first steps this weekend!! She is a lot more cautious than her brother and still much prefers to crawl or cruise around the room holding onto stuff, but she definitely took a few unassisted steps several times and fell down laughing each time because of my squealing and cheering!! She also started talking. Her first intelligible word was "uh oh" which is probably telling... She can also say Isaac, agua, si (with an emphatic head nod), and Dada and a few others that we're working on interpreting. She started playing peek-a-boo, which is adorable (and messy as she prefers to do it when she has food all over her hands). And finally, she not only protests the spoon if anyone else trys to feed her, but she now grabs it to try to feed herself (also very messy, but cute to watch). Another independent child...

Isaac is also growing up quickly. He is totally potty trained (except for nighttime), is doing great with drop-off at camp on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and has started to get himself dressed in the mornings. He is very confident speeding his bike up and down the sidewalk and has gotten braver in the pool dunking his head and doing big jumps to Bill. He is very literal (for example, I said "Isaac hold my hand" when I was holding groceries and he said "mommy, that's not your hand, that's only your finger, I need to hold your hand when we cross the street" and when I said "Isaac it makes mommy very upset when you don't listen" he looked at me and gave me a kiss and said "don't be upset mommy, I'll kiss it all better" which, of course, melted me) and very empathetic giving Caitlin hugs and giving her a pacifier when she cries. He is also getting more independent -- we have new neighbors with 3 daughters (13, 6 and 4 years old) and they get along great with Isaac and always want him to come over and play. He now puts on his shoes and heads for the door and says "mom can I go to Angie's house to play?" before he heads out, walks over and disappears into their house. Obviously I follow close behind to make sure he gets there, but then he just plays and comes home when he is ready. How is my baby boy old enough for this???

It has been so unbelievably hot that we've been looking for activities to keep out of the heat. We went to a new kids play place that just opened on the Hill called the Playseum. We had a great time playing with all their toys, and they even had a kids bakery where Isaac got to decorate his own cupcake. The other kids dutifully waited for each of their toppings from the chef and then for the instruction that it was okay to eat -- Isaac ate each topping from the spoon as it was offered and finished half the cupcake before the demonstration was done!

We've spent lots of time in the water too - the first few pictures are from the slip-n-slide at Cesi's house with her neice and nephew. The rest are from our new pool (yes, we do seem to get a new pool every week, they don't last very long in our house!!). This one is especially fun because it has a slide and water sprays out of the palm trees :) The girls in the pool with Isaac are our new neighbors who Isaac is in LOVE with - watch out Lusa ;)

Finally, some pictures from 4th of July. We had grand ambitions of making our way down to the Mall after watching the parade to watch the fireworks - but then the reality of our life got in the way when Caitlin refused to sleep in the stroller. So, we adapted and had a fun bbq at our house with Lusa's family. We struggled to keep the kids awake for the 9:15 fireworks start and schlepped them onto our roof to watch. They were great sports, but a few minutes into it they determined that the show did not live up to our hype and each asked separately - "is it over yet, can we go to bed??" :)

These are some cute pictures from Cesi -- in the second one you can see part of the fun mural Uncle Chad painted on Caitlin's wall.

Some cute videos of Caitlin saying "agua" (water) and drinking a bottle that is mixed with real cow's milk for the first time in anticipation of weaning next week: