Banana Leaf Bonanza

Virginia

The first weekend in June we traveled to Virginia for my 10 year college reunion (yikes, where has the time flown?) But mostly we wanted to spend some time in Charlottesville and see some family in DC. We started off the trip with a dinner at Panera's with Lucas' Aunt Jill. It was great to see her again and catch up however short our time with her was. It's so hard to have long meals and conversations when you've got a baby.
Next, we drove to Andrea and Ameer's house to stay the night and spend the morning together. We couldn't believe how big Zayna and Amity have gotten even though we just saw them very recently.


I didn't take many photos in C-ville- mostly because it was 105 degrees out if you included the heat index (99 otherwise) and so humid that it was pointless to dry off after showers. I was just too uncomfortable to carry a camera and use it! :) We spent most of our time indoors in the AC in our cute Victorian house B&B and at various restaurants in town (Charlottesville has some great ones!) Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to go back again in the autumn one of these years. Maybe when the students are on fall break. There are some great hikes and wineries I want to share with Laith. Here's Laith sitting on a window seat in Cabell Hall where I used to always study:

San Francisco

Laith, Lucas and I flew to San Francisco over Memorial Day weekend to attend the wedding of one of my college friends. It was great to catch up with Peter and Andrea and we were also soooo excited about staying in a hotel right next to Golden Gate park. We were able to walk everywhere for meals and go hiking right out the door. It was cool enough out (50s-60s) that we weren't sweating out of every pore like we do in Austin and Lucas was very comfortable in his carrier. It was almost like we had our old pre-baby life back because Lucas was totally content to be carried everywhere and we could really check out the city without hearing a peep.

Lucas has been spending too much time in the Haight Ashbury area and flashes us the peace sign. :)
Hiking at Buena Vista Park. At the top there's a view of the city and the Golden Gate Bridge.

It really wasn't hot enough for a tank top but walking these San Francisco hills was a workout for this flat-lander!
Lucas LOVES display cases- especially if there's food inside.
Peter and Lucas at Golden Gate Park

Peter and Andrea's wedding was beautiful and I had the honor of being their photographer! I posted my favorites below.

New parenting skills

Notice how Laith uses the baby-holding arm to secure Mr. Grabby Hands and prevent him from "helping" to spread the peanut butter or do the 'toast toss'.

I Eight the Baby!

Why is it that when something is so cute we want to EAT it?! Anyway, Lucas is 8 months old today and this age is proving to be the cutest yet! Here's a snapshot of our baby boy this month:

Latest skill: crawling! He's up on his hands and knees now. Watch out, world!

Skill he's working on: pincer grasp and cup drinking.

Favorites:
Food: bananas! (Fitting for such a monkey boy)

Toy: Anything he can bang on or bang with. He also loves empty plastic water bottles and his caterpillar stuffed animal.

Places: the great outdoors and in our arms.

Cute Behaviors:

• Whenever we open the fridge doors, Lucas gets really excited and starts kicking his legs and panting like a puppy.
• He tries to put his pacifier and his baby spoons in our mouths and thinks it's hilarious if we pretend to suck on them.
• He blows raspberries when he's tired, stressed or upset and it helps soothe him. These have a vocalization behind them. He also blows short, fun raspberries with no vocalization when he's playing.
• His favorite word is Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba etc.
• He often hums himself to sleep.

Cutie in the Tub

And the sink is the perfect shape for placing wet baby in towel!

Rock N Roll Baby

In addition to Lucas being an amazing opera singer (see this post), he also is a bit of a strummer and a crooner. I caught him in the act on our front stoop, singing his heart out.

Grammy's visit

Catching Up

I've got a TON of photos to catch up on. The last 4 to 5 weeks have been busy and jam-packed with lots of new things for Lucas. Hopefully I'll be able to post every 2 or 3 days to get up to speed and write some things down before I forget them! So, we'll start with the oldest news...
Lucas is a model. Isn't that what this pose looks like? It reminds me of a cheesy 1980s Olan Mills pictures session. He totally did this on his own!


Next up is my roster of cute and cute and cute. :) I love baby boys wearing sun hats and overalls as you can see.

Mr. SplashyPants

Lucas LOVES the water. We've been spending as much time as possible in baby pools lately since this is turning into one hot summer. My friend Cheasty came over during one of our pool romps and wrote this really nice blog entry. Check it out *here*.
Today Ravyn, Sufyan, Lucas and I had some fun pool time- here are the photos. Sufyan's not a splasher yet, but just you wait- soon these boys will be having all kinds of fun together in our back yard pools!

Family photos