The last month!

Hard to believe we've been back in Texas for almost a month.

The gray, rainy skies of Paris and England are but happy memories under the blistering sun of Texas. So, yeah, it's been really hot here. Really, really hot. It rained for all of 2 minutes yesterday, but the clouds kept the temperature at only 97 degrees, breaking the 40-day streak of 100+ temps (two days shy of the record for the longest streak, oh, it burns....).

But I know some of you might be more visual learners. So how hot has it been? Here's a picture of my hard plastic water bottle that got left in the car for a day.

How have we been keeping cool? Well, we just don't really go outside all that much. And sometimes we play winter dress-up.

 Also, I bought myself a little ice cream maker toy. My thinking was that I could then control the ingredients myself, cutting the sugar and fakey oils and make my own more natural ice creams and frozen yogurts. So far I've made peach frozen yogurt, roasted banana stracciatella ice cream, and I have prepped some blueberry - raspberry frozen yogurt that I'll make tonight.

There's also gazpacho, but that's somehow less exciting (not that that will stop me, of course).

Continuing the food portion of this post, August 1st was our 7th wedding anniversary. We opted to stay in, and Mike and Natalie cooked a delicious feast. It was lovely. We had appetizers of bruschetta honey-cheese figs, chilled avocado soup with toasted pine nuts, smoked paprika fish, and chocolate mousse. Everything was SO GOOD.

This concludes the food portion of the blog. Remember, back in the day, when that was, like, the major topic? Yeah, me neither. But I'm told that I used to spend all weekend hiking, picking blackberries, and then making blackberry pie.

In the new and improved life version, here are some recent indoor excursions with Natalie, to the coffeeshop and to Target.

(note that we didn't come home with any cookie leftovers or with the Elmo bubble bath, although the latter may be making an appearance at Chanukah. I'm still working out how I feel about "character toys", though...)

Toys I feel good about? Sporting equipment. Here are Natalie and daddy playing with Natalie's birthday gift from Uncle Eric. She likes the baseball bat, although, oddly, she persists in calling it "quatar" - which we think is "guitar".

Well, what about our girl lately? She's sooo loveable and sweet. Of course, we're seeing some of the typical temper tantrum stuff - she's been known to lay herself flat-out on the floor and cry, usually over such weighty issues as being cut off from dried cherries, washing hands, having to put shoes / sunscreen on, or being told no more crayons for the day (after her artistic expression has migrated from the paper to the table and chairs; I guess you can't constrain genius).

But, yeah, she's great. She's also become such a big talker. She's really getting a hold of short sentences. The other morning, Mike went up to get her and they came back into the bedroom. Mike climbed back into bed, but she turned down our offer of being lifted into our bed. Then, a few minutes later, she came to the side of the bed and said, "Snuggle me, snuggle me" and indicated that we should lift her up. Too sweet!

She's also a great narrator. "Mommy get shoes" , "Mommy put [on] hat" , "Nani drink wa-wa" , "Nani see armadiddo [armadillo]", "Daddy cook pizza", "Mommy goggles [glasses]". Good thing we're not trying to rob a bank....

In addition to the language explosion, she's really started to imitate us.

(the imitation comes in the form of blowing her nose and using a camera, not riding tigers - just to clarify....)

She always asks for a fork with her food (which, I think, really means "utensil"), even if it's neither fork or spoon food.

She's also started announcing that she's "go[ing to] work". So she'll pick up one - or more - of her tote bags and declare "Nani go work." We've been trying to talk to her about her upcoming time at school, and occasionally it'll be "Nani go sool", too.

Hope your school or work is going well!