My birthday has gotten off to a good start.  Thank you for the card and dollar, Rosemary.  It was the first present I got.  Kate left me chocolate, bubbly and a book – a great combination.  Last night Amy and Brad packed a great picnic and met us at Samuel Grand Park for Cymbeline, a Shakespeare play none of us even knew about.  We have been going since Shakespeare was done in the bandshell at Fair Park.  I wonder what year that was.  We had a great chicken salad on ciabatta bread, tortilla rollups and jicama with chile and lime.  Yum!  Giada enjoyed the relatively cool night air – there was a nice breeze, especially as the evening lengthened.  The acting was really good – as usual.  As Michael said – live beats movies or TV anyday.  And there is something about outdoors in the summer time.  

Yesterday I took Giada to Baby Bounce at Lakewood Library.  There were three other babies there, two her age and one four months old.  I enjoyed talking to another grandmother who has moved here from Amarillo with her husband to take care of their four month old grandson full time.  One of the babies was Indian with mom and grandma, and the other will be brought by the Spanish-speaking nanny, though mom was there the first time.  Today I am going to take her to Lochwood Library for the same program.  It will be interesting to see how another librarian does it.  It is about fifteen minutes of fingerplay songs, and then a social time.  Giada was noncommittal, though she seemed to enjoy looking at the other kids.  Of course, I am going to be gone for the next two weeks, but I am glad to get started doing something with her on a regular basis.  She is growing like a weed and on the very verge of crawling.  We had some pictures taken at Target and she is just as photogenic as her mother.  I am hoping to get some of them on the juice this afternoon.  

Well, we were supposed to go to the Little Forest Hills Fourth of July parade but after walking all over the neighborhood looking for it. We finally found out that it had been the day before. So I guess we actually did have a “parade” but it was just us following one another in all our Fourth of July Finery. Here’s a pic of Giada at Fourth of July looking like a boy – I can’t believe a child of mine (or grandchild of my Mother’s)needs bows. What is up with that??

Isn’t this such a Sweet face? You know how you laugh so hard at something your whole face hurts and you just have to relax it? Thie is what is happening here. She laughed at this fish puppet so much she had to take a face rest.

My Sister says that this is not a swim suit but it sure looked like one to me. It has mermaids all over it. We call it Giada’s Swimmy suit and she wears it in the pool at my aunt Delores’s.

Giada is starting to pull up on stuff.  She doesn’t know how to crawl yet or even how to get herself to a sitting position, but she scoots all over on her bottom and if she comes to something she can grab onto, she starts pulling herself up.  Of course she doesn’t know how to get back down, so she has sustained a few bumps and bruises.

I am in terror of falling down the stairs with Giada. Speaking of, we have been having a great time with her in the pool. She just splashes away and doesn’t care when she gets water in her eyes or on her face. We haven’t put her underwater yet like those water babies because it freaks me out and I just don’t see the point. I mean its not like she is going to swim around on her own. Hmmm… Anyone else done this and purpose? Brad said we are taking her to the pool every night now. We got home last night Brad put her down on the bed, she cried for like 1 second and was out like a light for the whole night. She has 2 teeth on her bottom gum and they are sharp!

On the home renovation front we have rehabbed the ugliest fence in the world. I actually wish I had a before picture because the transformation is so good. We had a nasty rotted at the top and bottom side by side board fence. We just bought some cedar planks and strakes and covered up the top and the bottom. Put some new treated wood back braces and rescrewed in each fence board. Capped it with another cedar board, power washed the whole thing and stained. I can’t believe it! It almost looks like a brand new fence. We just got serious about the part that will be seen by the deck but that is the part I look out my window at so I think it is great! We are still undecided about deck planking. It is just so Damn expensive. We decided treated is out. Possibly redwood but even the guys at the lumber yard are urging us to use Trex or something like it.

isn’t Gia darling?  I like Amy’s blog, but it needs more pictures.  Kate is writing a very good blog about Columbia called Capturing CoMo, but I wish she would twitter more about the twins.  I really enjoyed that picture of Ana and hearing from J.  I would love to get those two babies together.  Gia does not like being on her front.  She wants to sit up from a prone position which is a little hard to say the least.

Geezzz… she is drooling all day and putting everything in her mouth and chowing down – no sign of teeth. I keep looking for the red bumps but no cigar. We fed her meat for the first time yesterday, Chicken and Rice and Chicken Noodle. She seems to like it as much as veggies, no big difference.

Last night I was feeding her and she got this concentrated look on her face and turned as red as a beet. I grabbed brad and was like, “Look! She is pooping!” We both laughed and then she did it again and we laughed harder.

Well, the joke was on us. 

After I finished feeding her we took her out of her seat and I was like, “Wow! You have carrots all over you! How did you get so may carrots on you?” Needless to say it wasn’t carrots.  I have never seen this child poop so much! All over her, her chair, and consequently all over me since I had picked her up all ready. Brad’s and my mouths just dropped. We were in awe. I took Giada off to get cleaned up and I could hear Brad gagging in the kitchen as he tried to fit the whole chair in the dishwasher. Giada was happy a lark and blew a bunch of raspberries. Hmmm…