At the Beach

My sister Ashley and her husband Tyler came to visit us this month! (yes- during this insane heat wave, I don't know if they will ever come back!) We took them to the Museum of Fine Arts, drove them downtown, gave them a walking-tour of the medical center, and took them to the beach! Ashley wrote about their visit here, you should go look at her pictures, I love the ones of the squirrel feeding. We had a lot of fun playing with them, and Christine loved all the extra attention.

The beach was everyone's favorite part of the visit. We started off taking turns bogey-boarding and playing with Christine under the shade of our umbrella.

Christine tasted her first real cheeto (thanks to Uncle Tyler)

Last time we went to the beach Christine did not like the water or the sand at all, and I expected the same reaction. But Christine surprised me.

"Hey mom, what's all that water over there? Let's go play over there!"

"Hmmmm, odd texture, but it looks safe. I think I'm going to explore a little"

"It's kinda like the bath tub, but bigger!"

"Yes. I like this!"

"Let's go swimming Daddy!"

Ha ha! I just have to laugh at these pictures. Christine is fearless! The water would splash in her face and she'd swallow some. You would think this would scare her and make her cry, but no, she would cough and then laugh!

10 months

I haven't purchased a replacement laptop yet, so I am still behind in blogging. So even though Christine turns 11 months in just a few days, here is her 10th month post.

Christine is so beautiful, but her hair always looks so messy. In fact, I am often asked if I tried to cut her hair. I guess people think the only way it could look so bad is if I haphazardly took a pair of scissors to it. Nope, it's Jeff's fault. He passed on his weird cowlicks. I try to put headbands and hair clips on her to improve the hair-do, but Christine is an expert at getting those things off.
Christine has two teeth now. Those teeth are very slow at coming in, all of her little friends who are months younger than her have 7 or 8 teeth. That's okay with me because when Christine is feeling ignored she likes to bite my knee.Christine took her first steps on Thursday, July 28th. She was playing with GiGi (aka Jeff's mom. she would die if I used the g-ma word) and I was talking on the phone with Jeff during his lunch break, Christine was standing at the coffee table and then took about 4 steps toward GiGi. It was amazing! Every day she takes a few steps here and there, but she still prefers to crawl.
Now that she's more mobile, she's getting into a lot more trouble. This sheet was draped across the desk to keep her from playing with the computer cords. Now the sheet turns the space underneath the desk into Christine's personal fortress.

Another new discovery: windows

...and drapes!

One more example of Christine's trouble-making:

"Mom, why are you packing away all of my clothes?"

"This isn't too small for me. We should keep it out."

"I can't believe you packed this away!"

"It's okay I still love you mom! Just don't pack away my stuff."

Amazing Husband

I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and found a cockroach guarding the bathroom. Poor Jeff woke up to me chasing the cockroach through a maze of Christine's toys trying to smoosh it with a wipes container (bad choice of cockroach killing weapons, but it was closest to me at the time) as I yelled DIE! DIE! DIE! Jeff hopped out of bed and killed it immediately.

One of the many reasons why I love him.