After a leisurely breakfast with lots of food and lots of sunlight, Mom went back to Troy today. We already miss her. It was a really nice week. We got a lot of work done and also did some cool things, like visit the botanical garden, root for Matt at his softball game, and eat some great food both at home and at restaurants.
We're almost finished with Chip's room. We started by painting clouds on the ceiling, but when we went to pick up his curtain rods at Bombay Kids (won't put those up until we buy the curtains), we found some adorable decals that don't hurt the walls and match his bedding, mobile, and nightlight perfectly. We also found some PJs to match! Click here for some photos.
Gabriel is showing even more personality, if that's possible. He yells at everyone we pass in stores, and he's starting to play act that he's sleeping or eating. He's walking a little more confidently now and actually does it intentionally to get places sometimes, and the food situation is starting to improve, which is good because we have been really frustrated with feeding him baby food so much.
The other day, he ate corn on the cob by himself. Today, he ate cheese (that we fed him) and capellini with meat sauce! We fed him the pasta, but he had two forks and was feeding Mommy with them. He also imitated her spinning the pasta around the utensil. He's imitating a lot more now, and we think that might actually be why he tried the cheese.
We spent some time this evening doing yardwork. The trees in the front yard - a cherry, a plum, and a river birch - have various fungal ailments and are dropping their leaves like it's autumn. After we swept the driveway, we washed the Liberty and sprayed the trees with fungicide. Our mosquito spray has been working really well, so we only need to use that every couple of weeks.
On the bright side, the rose bush on the side of the porch is doing great, especially since we thought it had already bloomed for the summer and was dormant. We've got three beautiful deep red roses that we cut and put in a vase in the foyer, and there is a yellow rose blooming along with more buds. It's a nice treat to have freshly cut flowers from our own yard in the house. We miss cutting tons and tons of daisies in our Ann Arbor yard, along with irises, lilies, and whatever else happened to be blooming.
We just found a grasshopper on our bay window, which is surprising since we are at least 15 feet off the ground. About half an hour ago, a new moth visited us. It was at least as big as the others (5" wingspan), but it was much more delicate and had spots on the wings, which it held differenly than the others. It didn't crash loudly against our window but instead fluttered. It was quite pretty. At the moment, there's also a small moth with hairy legs on the window by the kitchen sink. It's a lot scarier looking than the big ones.
And don't forget, everyone: 22 August marks the day Jack William Kelly entered the world, and everything's been a little crazier, we mean nicer, ever since.
