Playing Catch-up

I'm behind again. My goal in this post is to get the "I'm five months old" pictures up before next week's six-month milestone.

Things have been going well here. The siblings continue to do reasonably well together. I expect this to last exactly one more nanosecond.

In other news, motherhood remains exhausting:

But awesome:

 

Here's Natalie helping Mike make naan:

And here's Jacob up on campus for his liquid lunch.

It's been so long on the blog that we need to back up to Natalie's end-of-year party in her classroom. I wasn't there, but Mike took these pics.

It looks like a good time was had by all!


Also, here are some very belated pics of a dinner party that Mike and Natalie attended while I was in San Francisco with Jacob. Natalie initiated the group hug!

Mike and Jacob, just kicking back on the couch:

Our Fourth was very sweet and low-key. We had a few friends over, grilled, let the kids do their thing, etc. I'm not exactly sure what "their thing" was, but it seemed to involve ride-sharing and parading.

The other families left to go downtown for the fireworks; we put the kids to bed and watched Top Chef from five months ago. We're party animals, I tell you.

We've also been engaged in (what feels like) a massive room-shuffling project. Natalie's room became our new office / guest bedroom, the old office became Natalie's new room, and the guest room became Jacob's new room. We're only, uh, six months late on all of this! Anyway, more detailed pictures to follow once we put the finishing touches on each room, but here is a nice picture of Natalie and my friend Jen Em hanging the butterfly decals on Natalie's wall, plus a shot of Natalie's butterfly sheets. Any guesses as to the theme of Natalie's room? Hah. Major thanks to Jen for helping out with this (and to Meh for helping assemble the Big Girl Bed when she was in town in May).

When Jen was in town, we also went to see the cows. Our tax dollars at work! (We've been having a cool spell here, so it was considerably cooler than the last time I was at the cattle drive.)

And then we went to the farmer's market. And I bought some eggplant. And then I came home and took an arty picture of the eggplant. You're welcome.

Here are some slightly less arty pictures of blackberries and tomatoes from my garden.

Speaking of arty pursuits, I recently finished sewing Natalie a pool robe. I cut the pattern pieces from towels - this was kind of a fun project. It was also my first time working with bias tape. A little tricky for one's third sewing project ever. 'Tis far from good, but from far away, it's good!

And here's Natalie doing her thing at swim class:

In other milestones, Jacob's been trying a little food: cereal, sweet potatoes, bananas, and applesauce. His general reaction is to look something between angry and puzzled when you put the food in his mouth, and then to quickly express his displeasure that more isn't forthcoming quickly enough. Babies!

Natalie will be four (FOUR!!!) later this month, but sometimes she looks, like, seven to me:

The princess butterfly fairy, she is not pleased:

Although snack can fix many woes:

Natalie loves to play! Here she is playing music show, restaurant ( be she may actually be nursing her baby there - way to multitask, girlfriend!), and teacher.

Here's the cat - complete with ears and whiskers - that Natalie drew the other day:

Here are a few Jacob pictures. Jacob is such a sweet baby.

And here are the promised five-months pictures. Note the outfit change mid-photo shoot. We're keepin' it real.

Next post - all the videos from this last month. Coming soon!
 

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And, as a reward for reading this far, a short Natalie story.  Kate is having a knitting party, and one of her knitting friends brought a little boy over.  As I was putting Natalie to bed, she happened to see the boy throwing her Texas Rangers batting helmet (I fear I might be losing in my struggle to make her into a Tigers fan) into the air.  I put her to bed, told her a story, sang her her goodnight songs, and then as I was leaving she said very sweetly "Daddy?  Can you please go tell [THE BOY'S NAME] not to throw my toys?  And can you please tell him in your angry voice?"

My parents' visit

A few weeks ago Bubbe and Gramps came to Texas.  We went swimming at the TCU pool, we did a lot of playing around the house, we got to go to our favorite Sunday brunch spot, and Bubbe and Gramps even watched the kids while Kate and I went out for dinner and a folk concert.  Overall, it was a great visit.  We wish that we could have been there with them on Monday to help celebrate their 40 year wedding anniversary, but we are excited to see them in less than two weeks!

Here are a few of the pictures that Bubbe took of their visit:

Happy Father's Day!

I meant to share this last week (the dad in question did see it on the proper day, mind you!).

It's amazing what a good subject and two minutes of editing can do . . . .