July was a big month!

Here is a recent video of Christopher. In the past couple weeks he has started doing so many new things. I have a few videos that I'm trying to compile into a movie to show the development, but the Flip software is not really doing what I want. So he started crawling and doing the army man crawl a couple weeks ago. He seems to prefer the army man because it was faster until today. Today he really started to get into crawling with speed. Last weekend he started pulling up on the couch. Now all he wants to do is stand. He will even walk a bit holding our hands. Each day he gets better and better. I'm amazed at how quickly he masters new skills.

He stared using some baby signs this week, too. Hopefully knowing 'more' and 'all done' will make mealtimes easier. Well, they are pretty easy now, so I don't know if they will actually get easier. Christopher loves to clap. He claps a lot when he hears any kind of music. It's pretty cute. As you can see in the video, Christopher is quite thrilled with his voice.

This month Daniel is taking on the puzzle world among many other new things. He loves jigsaw puzzles. He is getting pretty good a the 30 piece puzzle from Gamma and Boppa. When he finished it, he always makes me wait a minute while he looks at the picture. Daniel is also becoming quite the pack rat. He will get attached to the strangest things sometimes. Last weekend we went to a parade and he got two lime green frisbees. They are about 3- or 4-inches in diameter. Anyway, he likes them so much that he has taken them to school each day and sleeps with them for naps and at night. He has also reached the age where he will tell me stories about what happens at school or he will start doing things he learned there like singing "Yankee Doodle" in Target today or doing the "Firecracker, firecracker, boom, boom, boom" cheer between stories and prayers tonight. The "boom, boom, boom" was complete with hip shaking for those of you who were wondering. I can't wait to see what comes next.

Christopher's Big Week

I know I already mentioned it here, but Christopher had a huge week. He got his first two teeth, started sitting, and is almost crawling. The pictures and videos here are already out of date. Now he is getting up on all four and rocking. I'm trying to enjoy my last few days with a stationary child. As you will see, he is quite vocal, too. He loves squeeling. He is naked in the pictures because he is such a messy eater that his clothes had to go in the wash after lunch. I should be a pro at babyfeeding, but this kid is sneaky and quick. He will distract me and then grab the spoon. Maybe I'm just a pushover? The videos are kind of long, sorry.

Lots of Happenings

Where to begin? Maybe with the littlest member of the family. He has been busy doing new things every day. He has suddenly changed from a relatively stationary baby to one that can't move enough. He is not quite crawling, but he is trying really hard. He is pulling his knees up underneath him and trying to pull himself up. He is also starting to do the army man crawl and sitting quite well. He got his first tooth on Saturday, and the second one is not far behind! I suspect that the second tooth is why he was so crabby last night.

Last weekend we headed to Pittsburgh to go to my Dad's Mom's family reunion and to see the Guarino's who I insisteded on calling the Antonetti's. The kids had a great time playing all weekend long, and even though we did not spend much time with the extended family, the time we spent was great. The car ride there was quite challenging, but we used our hard earned experience to make the return much smoother.

Daniel is loving summertime. He is a fish and loves all sports. He is particularly into golf at the moment. He goes in the porch and gets a club and ball for each of us and makes me go outsite and hit the ball with him. So cute! He is still very curious. On Wednesday I got a phone call from his school saying that I had to come pick him up. He had put a raisin in his nose. Thankfully, I was prepared with an extraction method after the Cheerio incident.

Here are some pictures from the weekend and other adventures.