August 2012 – Page 2 – The Williams Family

Banana Men

Daddy came up with these cute little snacks: banana men!

Kate is adding so many new skills lately. She is starting to free stand and trying to take some steps. She says “hi” ALL the time, waves and can repeat some sounds (she repeats “later” at the end of this video). She started doing sign language this week (“all done”). And she started pointing out animals in her book when I ask. I’m blown away by all her skills, and she keeps adding new ones as fast as I can take note of the old ones. She’s such a smart little cookie! She had her 9 month appointment yesterday. Everything looks good. She’s 28.5″ (75%) and 18 lbs (holding steady at 30%).

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Cleaning Up

Kate is such a busy bee. Here are a couple videos of her recent efforts at cleaning up, which typically just involves picking things up and throwing them…

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Monterey Trip

We spent the weekend in Monterey visiting the aquarium – twice!, playing at the world’s coolest playground, going on a beautiful bike ride along the bay and struggling through dinners and lunches at restaurants with tired kids (pictures here). The weather was crummy, but that didn’t stop our fun. Nicky was obsessed with seeing sea lions all weekend but was so scared whenever we found any that he covered his eyes. Now that we’ve had a practice run we’re all ready for our big road trip to Oregon next week!

At the aquarium

Fast asleep on our bike ride

Our very own Dennis the Menace

Playing at the park

Eating pasta

The gang

Visit From Grandma and Grandpa

We had a fun visit from grandpa Sam and grandma Cheryl last week. We were all so happy to spend time with grandma and grandpa. Nicky had lots of good one on one time; Kate was busy being shy all week, silly girl; and Sam and I loved being pampered with a night of babysitting for a date night!

Update

Not many pictures lately because we are in summer survival mode, bouncing from one fun activity to the next (grandma and grandpa visited this week and we’ll be going to Monterey and then Oregon over the next couple weeks) and I had a business trip thrown in there as well. Another complication: dealing with the terrible twos. We’re working through a patch of defiance right now. The constant refrain from Nick is “can I play a little bit?” asked in a very sweet little voice with an occasional “please” tacked on at the end…precious really. Until you realize that the only acceptable answer in his two-year old brain is “yes”, which of course is not always the answer he gets. Needless to say, the temper tantrums that follow are not necessarily the moments you want to capture on film. But, there are plenty of moments in between that do deserve to be captured. Here’s a quick catch up:

Our little imp