We all had a wonderful time during Gram and Grand-dad’s visit at the end of July.  Blaine and Sarah loved playing with their gifts, including an awesome lego firehouse set and personalized photo books.

Sarah loved her “piano in the park” experience with Gram!

Here’s a video:

We also enjoyed some delicious dinners in, and out, including one special night out for Mommy and Daddy sans kids.

Lastly, here are a few pics from a ladies-only trip to Chihuly Garden and Glass.  Sarah was fascinated by all the colors and shapes – we loved seeing her reactions to all the displays.

A very happy (belated) birthday to Uncle Fran!  Sorry that these pics are getting up so late!  Both kids loved helping out with your birthday card/banner.  We started out drawing a mountain with you climbing up the side, but then Blaine wanted to make you into a firefighter (of course) and so there was a fire on the mountain, etc.  Poor Curious George seems to be caught in the middle!  We miss you and look forward to seeing you in September!

Love, Blaine, Sarah, Sally Ann, and Andrew

A few extra pics from July!

This one is Blaine’s official “school photo” from his Twos 2 room at Bright Horizons.  I can’t believe they got him to give such a big smile on cue…

Blaine was so excited to help color this birthday sign for Mom-Mom.  We got a little carried away and ended up making some cookie monster fire fighters, spraying an out-of-control birthday cake fire.  🙂

We’re sorry that we aren’t there to celebrate with you, Mom-Mom!  We can’t wait to see you again in September.

Love, Blaine, Sarah, Sally Ann, and Andrew

Sarah wouldn’t sit still for long, so many of the pics look like this:

And lastly, here are some closeups of the kiddos.  I can’t believe how grown up Blaine looks in this one.  Sigh.

Blaine and I visited the arboretum last Saturday morning and did the waterfront walk, which we’ve never done before.  The views of Lake Washington were beautiful, and Blaine loved seeing the boats go by!  We decided against having a “picnic” snack as we’d intended when a bunch of hungry ducks swarmed around Blaine’s stroller.

Sarah’s first guacamole.

Family brunch at Vios, and Sarah’s first biscuit.

Reading with Daddy:

Blaine’s duplo tower.

I turned 35 on July 10.

The kids celebrated by playing nicely together!

Daddy watched Sarah while I got a pedicure.

And Danielle watched the kids while we had a delicious dinner out at Sitka and Spruce.  This is the morels dish with a fino sherry cream sauce, garlic, and egg yolk.  So yummy!

On Saturday, Blaine was so excited to help Daddy bake a cake (he particularly wanted to use the mixer).

The finished product was beautiful, and so delicious.

We even let Sarah have her first taste of cake.  When she got some of the chocolate icing into her mouth she laughed out loud.

Sarah was 9 months old on 7/10.  At her pediatrician checkup she weighed in at 20 lbs, 9 oz (85th percentile) and was 27.5″ tall.  She has three teeth and is starting to use them on various solid foods (bread, black beans, broccoli, grapes, blueberries, strawberries), though most of it ends up on her lap or down the front of her onesie.  She can say “Da da” and seems to use it to refer to Andrew; she also says other consonants like “ra” and “ga” (but so far no “ma”), and she still loves to shriek.  She can sign for “milk” and we’re working on “more” and “all done”.  She loves music, especially Bob Marley.  She does not like the sound of the dust buster.

Here’s a pic of her top tooth:

And, since she appears to be always happy on this blog, I thought I’d include one of her sad face:

It’s hard to believe how quickly she’s growing up.  🙁

Month by month series:

Sarah crawled for the first time (not counting her backwards slide) on 7/7.  Here’s a video:

Here’s another video of her crawling two days later:

She’s crawling all over the place now, pulling things down from shelves, playing with cords, getting into trouble.

We had a HOT weekend here in Seattle, but we still had some fun.  Blaine was so excited to see the wading pool being filled.  The pool attendant even showed him the tool to turn the water on and off.

We did a lot of our dining outside on the deck.  Sarah has developed a fondness for laying her face down on her tray, in her food (perhaps inspired by Aunt Molly?).

Sarah and Blaine playing on the futon:

On the 4th we met up with some friends at Mt. Baker beach on Lake Washington. Here’s Blaine working on his beach bum look.

Some more al fresco dining – we enjoyed some patriotic strawberry and blueberry shortcake.

On Sunday we went for some walks and went to a BBQ.

This weekend Sarah also worked on a new skill – she pushed up to a sitting position from her tummy for the first time!  Here are two videos.

At one point she somehow ended up sitting under a kitchen chair.

We don’t think it’ll be long before she’s figured out crawling!