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Arlo had his 9-month check-up this week. He’s getting so big! He is 24 pounds,  and is 2 feet 5 inches tall . He’s been very busy this past month. He is crawling, eating some chunky food, having fun on the playground’s baby swings, and just starting to play peek-a-boo (which is adorable)! He is a great sleeper, and has the best early-morning-wake-up mood of the whole family!

His current top three favorite toys are: Steven’s hand drum from New Mexico, with mallet; Steven’s guitar; and anything with wheels.

Lili loves going to school each day. She likes Science, Math, Vocals, Art and French the best. She is continuing with her Saturday Morning art class at Fleisher Art Memorial. Last year she made some fun pictures with a variety of media, so we’re looking forward to what she brings home this year.

The first picture is of Lili and Arlo at our local park. The second picture is the house after Lili and Arlo played with the shredded paper from a gift basket we received. Needless to say, the gift basket had something for us all. (Cleaning up all the paper went a lot quicker than I expected!) (The toppled Coca-Cola bottle is also one of Arlo’s current favorite toys. He loves to knock it over and roll it around. We’ll never drink it, so he may as well get some use out of it!)

It sure does happen fast! I think she’s my cute little kid taking naps on the couch,

then she turns 6, and the next thing I know, she is in first grade!

Lili finished off a quiet summer with a traditional birthday party. She put on a puppet show for her guests, they played party games (pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and freeze dance), and made a puppet craft. The birthday girl requested chocolate chip cookies instead of cake, so we had a brie cake decorated with fruit to hold the candles.

Then, in the blink of an eye, I’m pulling out her old uniform for the first day of school! The first day seemed to go just fine. She went in saying that first grade is boring and not as fun as kindergarten, and she came out saying that she might even love first grade better than kindergarten!

Arlo has been enjoying his first summer and the trips we have taken. First we visited Aunt Sue and Uncle Mark at their beach house. He loved the attention he got from his cousins. We went to the beach (Arlo lasted for a whole 20 minutes …but you have to start somewhere!) Then later he turned old enough to lather on the sunscreen, so we visited Pop-Pop and Grabu and went to the pool!

Meanwhile, Lili is loving being a big sister, and enjoys posing for pictures with Arlo any chance she gets.

Lili just received her first grade teacher and room assignment. She is really trying to be excited about first grade, but she is scared and would rather stay with her kindergarten teacher. For summer homework she has to do a puppet show, so keep an eye out for photos of that to come!

On June 7th, Arlo turned 5 months old. We celebrated with a picnic at Peace Valley Park with Jen’s brother Jake, his wife, Amy, and their two kids, Gavin and Haley.

This was the first time Arlo was in the outdoors, and he had a blast! Here he is, ready to enjoy the fresh air with Jen.

After our picnic, which included several different colors of lollipops to turn the kids’ tongues odd shades, Lili, Gavin, and Haley made a bee-line for the lake.

They waded into the lake and splashed for a while, until Gavin threw his hat into the water, retrieved it, and then asked why his hat was all wet. Too funny!

Lili, Gavin, and Haley all enjoyed going out on the fishing pier, though the people trying to catch fish may not have enjoyed their enthusiasm as much. All in all it was a great day and a fun way to celebrate Arlo turning 5 months old.

Boy, time flies when you have a baby! A few weeks ago the pediatrician said we can start giving Arlo rice cereal. We just recently got around to trying it, and I can’t say there was a lot of excitement about the whole ordeal. I think the pictures prove my point!

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