Delizioso!

Enjoying gelato with Honey at Staccato Gelato in Sellwood.

Audrey's Art

Audrey is currently a prolific painter of rainbows and flowers.

Chocoholic in training

Mmmmmmm, ice cream bon bons!

Party time!

Audrey and Kate throw a party, one of their biggest to date.

Penguin Pride

Audrey's first swim lesson of the summer started this evening at Grant Pool. She's a Penguin, a beginner level one step up from Goldfish. Today's highlight was her retrieving a diving ring from the bottom of the pool by putting her face in the water (usually she would use her feet or do whatever it takes to keep her face out of the water). It's quite an improvement, which was probably helped along by some good practice she got in the kiddie pool at Sunriver last week.

Cousin Convention

Audrey and Kate enjoyed pool time at Sunriver with cousins Elsa and Lily.  Matching ballerina swimsuits were provided by GG. 

Grandpa David's Fort

Grandpa kept Audrey and Kate busy during our first dinner in Sunriver.

Watch out, Annie Leibovitz!

Among the gifts Audrey received last Christmas was a working digital camera. The pink, bulky Vtech Kidizoom ain't no Nikon, but Audrey has enjoyed using it and took over 700(!) pictures with it over the last seven months. Following is a selection of her best work (plus a few taken by her friend Brin) she picked out for us to have printed so she can create her first photo album.

(Click here if slideshow doesn't appear below.)

We have liftoff!

As best we could tell, Kate officially jumped -- i.e., with both feet leaving the ground more or less simultaneously -- for the first time early this evening. She maybe cleared a few centimeters at most and wasn't able to repeat it, but we're going to count it. WNBA, here we come!

Tubular!

Checking things out at Wellington Park, which we affectionately call "Misti's Park," in honor of Anna's friend who used to live up the street from it.

"My" goodness

Kate has started to speak in full sentences. One of the first she started saying was, "Here you go, Sweet Pea," which she'd say when handing us something. Not sure where she picked it up (Grandma Honey, maybe?), but it still brings a smile whenever she says it. The other day she said to me, "Dada, knock it off" when she didn't like the way I was pretending to speak like a robot.

It's interesting to hear her work on the verb to be. Instead of saying "I'm tired" or "I'm okay", she'll say "My tired" or "Me okay". The other day she comforted Audrey by saying "You okay, you okay." Audrey did the same thing at a similar stage in her speech development, and it's probably universal, but it's still cute to hear.

Audrey's pretty much mastered the basics of spoken English by now, with an occasional exception. One interesting one has been around the letter "s". For the longest time she struggled with words with an initial "s" sound, such that "Spanish," "skirt," and "school" would come out as "Panish", "curt," and "cool." This was even though she could pronounce the "s" sound when it came in the middle or at the end of a word. She's pretty much got it down now, although "squid" (one of her favorite foods, when fried as calamari) will still sometimes come out as "fwid" with an "f" sound at the beginning. The letter "l" can also give her some trouble, often getting pronounced as a "w," so that "Lily" and "lube" come out as "Will-we" and "wube."

Gotta start 'em young

The perfect birthday gift for a Portland 2-year-old. Thanks, Aunt Jill!

The Portland Princesses