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.

You would think that she would just love to be held, but No! You best be prepared to help her jumpy jump all around until your arms are about to fall off. Poor Aunt Kate!

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.