Josie’s a real stickler for realism in photos.

Ewan now keeps me extra on my toes, as he got up into this spot by himself.

This year at the end of July we went on our annual trip with my parents to Cape Cod for a week. This time we tried out a new house, still with a pool, but it was overall a bit smaller. We had a great time, but it’s always a pretty chill and relaxing week for us. We get there, play in the pool, go to the beach a few times, do an early morning trip of just me and the kids to dunkies and the beach, play more in the pool, do some grilling, eat lots of ice cream and pretty much that’s the week! The kids get older so their habits change a bit.

This year Ewan could do something on the beach other than just nap in the tent with me. He loved to dig in the sand and found low tide to be super fun to run around in the small puddles, jumping and throwing balls into them. We spent two whole days at the beach and low tide was near the end and they still all loved it. The water was warmer and shallower to run in.

Josie and Celia enjoyed their boogie boards going way out in the water with a grown up. They also liked finding hermit crabs and snails in the tide pools. Celia is still very big on digging and making castles whereas Josie wanted to spend more time in the water and even practiced a bit of swimming.

For our morning trip to the beach we were all a little too late with the super-early sunrise in July (rather than late August) to really get the good light, but we made an effort and they had fun digging and eating some munchkins.

The house this year was further from the beach, and so that made evening beach outings not so frequent. We only made it out once to fly kites and take pictures. But two of those days we were just barely getting home for dinner anyway from the beach. We also made it to one cotuit kettleers baseball game. (Note to self: no vegetarian food, bring dinner next year) We fed them a well rounded diet of popcorn, nachos with cheeze Celia refused to eat, ice cream and a cheese on a hamburger bun.

As always we spent a lot of time hanging around the house, letting Ewan nap, doing art projects and generally relaxing.

One of Ewan’s favorite activities, typical of a 1 year old, was play with the pots and pans. The kitchen was super loaded with supplies and we only had so many cabinet locks so he had his pick of several pots and pans and enjoyed stacking and banging them.

On Thursday night we managed to get a beautiful day, an early dinner and got us all clean and out to the beach to take pictures. Last year was a serious flop, but this year we hit it right and didn’t have any diaper blow-outs. I’ll leave you with some of my favorite photos of the year so far of us all!

I’m still working back in July here, and for Ewan’s birthday Jordi’s parents and sister came up to Boston to visit us and enjoy a Boston summer! They first came right in and headed straight to Jordi’s office to check out the cool new digs at google. Once they enjoyed the coffee, a tour, some lunch, and some more coffee we headed back to Arlington to relax and unwind as they’d had a very early morning flight. We enjoyed some time at the playground before picking up some Thai takeout and going to the free concert at the library, meeting up with my parents too. Classic Boston summer where we can hang out outside without melting into a puddle most days 🙂

The next day we headed up to New Hampshire to Canobie lake park! After a quick stop at Costco to pick up the tickets we were on our way up to the park. We had a great day getting to go on the rides, Ewan did a few baby ones, Josie liked the bigger roller coasters (but not the super big ones) and lots of little kid rides for Celia. It was great having more people to go on the rides since Jordi isn’t a fan of the spinny rides and I got to go on all of them previously. We also hit up the water park to get wet and slide down the slides. Jordi and I spent a few minutes by ourselves and went all the way up to the top and got to dump buckets of water on other people instead of being the dumpee down below. Other people got to enjoy the log flume and I got to skip it! We even were serenaded by One Direction* during dinner! (*Note: may not have actually been One Direction, but a cover band instead, still had a lot of screaming teenage girls) Too soon for the kids though, we were tired enough to head back on home.

Saturday was Ewan’s actual birthday and we took it easier and slower with a trip to Quebrada in the morning and playing in the park. We all enjoyed some homemade carrot cake for Ewan’s birthday, although he wasn’t super interested in it yet. I didn’t let him have the frosting, but he took a few bites of cake. Don’t worry, he’s since learned that dessert is something worth asking for.

After his nap we went to a cool playground in Cambridge and then out to dinner at Cambridge Common Restaurant. Told you we took it easy! The next morning we again went playground hopping to Joey’s park in Belmont and enjoyed the sunshine before they had to head off in the afternoon much to our disappointment. It was a quick trip but we got to have lots of fun time together and give Ewan a fabulous birthday!

When Ewan was born he ‘brought’ with him a family gift of a zoo membership, so that expired this July as he was born in July! The kids and I made one last trip down to the zoo together to enjoy all it had to offer. We spent the whole day there from opening till almost closing and still didn’t quite see everything! First off we learned that Ewan uses the word ‘woof’ to mean more than just dogs, because they don’t have dogs at the zoo and he said ‘woof’ for a few of them. He was also very impressed with the giraffes.

If I could have interpreted his baby language it would be ‘wow look at THAT THING! hey look dirt down here!’ Josie and Celia love to scamper all over the climbing structures that abound. Ewan was also suitable impressed with a kangaroo that looked like it was just showing off for us, hoping back and forth super fast. Ewan tried to jump like him, not a skill he’s mastered yet.

Then they played in the dirt some more, then we fed the budgee’s. No pictures here because I was trying to keep Celia from freaking out about the birds flying down and trying to land on us. You’d think someone had shown her Hitchcock. We bought some food to feed the birds who then flew right down to my hand and ate it. I was carrying Ewan on the front at the time so he made a few grabs for a bird and a few of the birds considered landed on him to see if he had food too. Celia was too scared but Josie tried a little but didn’t like the feel of the birds nails on her. Ewan and I thought they were pretty cool. I easily had six little birds on my hand and arms at a time, so cute.

We had a picnic lunch. Celia fell (not far) out of the tree and landed on a rock on her bum, ouch. Then we headed over to the Gorillas who were very sleepy at this post-lunch-time. Ewan managed to make the big one smile, and lots of other people watching the gorillas smile as he ran around and hid from me.

And here’s a realistic picture of what really happens when I try to photograph them. Celia hides, Ewan makes faces, and Josie doesn’t stop talking.

In this case, while it was a nice location, the photo just wasn’t worth it as they were not in the mood. Mostly they wanted to play with sticks and dirt.

Next we went to see the flamingos. Celia thought they looked thirsty I guess, and dropped her water bottle into their enclosure. Oops. And the dang thing has our name on it so the zoo people could track us down if they wanted to. Not like there are any more than five people in the world with our last name! Thankfully it didn’t actually fall into the birds, just the space around them.

We saw more birds, and more stuff that people dropped into the enclosures, sunglasses, pencils and such. Then headed back to the gorilla statue that had been monopolized by camps earlier in the day and got another mom to snap one of us.

Celia couldn’t manage to look away from the impending camp group coming toward us, we had been dodging the many groups all day as they were loud and rambunctious. Then she fell down the statue. Poor kid had a rough day.

After a nice recharging snack we went through the barnyard and finally I let them go to the massive giant expansive playground. I had been avoiding it because once they were there no way were they going to do anything else. It was so late the camps had finally cleared out though so it wasn’t super busy and I felt comfortable letting my eyes off of Celia and Josie once they promised to stay together. Ewan thought the place was fantastic and I chased him around for a while till it was time to head home or risk sitting in insane amounts of traffic. Plus Ewan hadn’t napped since the drive over, and he definitely needed to nap again. One more picture by a stroke of luck they were all looking. It was an exhausting but great final trip to the zoo for this years membership!

We just came back from the cape, and while I tried to stay in the moment a lot of the time, I also had fun pulling out the camera at other random times, like at IHOP where we stopped for lunch on the way to the house. If you want to see me, you can look in Ewan’s eye, otherwise here’s the rest of us waiting for the food.

He picked his own outfit.

He’s getting harder to photograph lately because he just charges the camera and tries to touch the lens, with a giant smile on his face!

Right about 11 months, Ewan learned how to point. If I ask him ‘where’s Mio?’ he’ll point at Mio. Doesn’t work if I ask ‘where’s George?’ But at dinner he pointed at the food he wants. He’s also learned how to say ‘all done’ with sign language. He uses it frequently not only at the end of meals, but when we put him in his car seat, and when we try to change his diaper. At the grocery store, he was clearly calling Celia whenever she strayed too far away from the cart. Scolding her perhaps? poor girl’s got everyone on her case. He also goes and bangs on the bathroom door when Josie is in there and says a two syllable word (Josie gets distracted sometimes and overstays her turn), as I am prone to doing occasionally. We hear lots of ma ma ma ma still. He also understands the following words ‘nurse, milk, out, up, dance, share, guitar, ball, cat, kiss, hug, besito.’ We hear mama all day long, it seems to mean many things from ‘pick me up’ to ‘look at that’ to ‘I’m upset’ to ‘someone else screamed mama and so can I’ and more.

He is generally a very happy little boy so long as he’s not tired or hurt. He loves to chase after her sisters, and will play by himself too around them. He will not be left behind. He’s also convinced that once he knows how something works he insists that he gets to do it. Such as holding my credit card whenever he see’s it come out, brushing his hair, or stepping on the scale. He makes a big noise that signifies ‘stand back everyone! I’ve got this!’ and makes his grab. He’s getting to be so much more of a little boy, and less like a baby.

Ewan is not a very adventurous eater. He generally rejects anything new and won’t try most things. If I ever try to put something in his mouth it is automatically spit out. He insists on self feeding everything, so things like yogurt we aren’t getting far with these days. I’m super excited for him to be a year old when I open the flood gates for new ‘more-allergenic’ foods like milk, egg whites and everything else but nuts. He mostly wants to eat a set diet each day of oat cereal for breakfast, pasta for lunch, and beans for dinner. We can get some carrots, broccoli, peas, carrots and cheese into him if he’s in the mood. Sometimes he just about rejects the meal entirely and prefers to nurse instead.

He loves to head outside and is very excited every time I put on his shoes as he knows we’re headed out. He also loves to be carried and snuggle. He gives wonderful kisses and blows them to us! He also has learned how to dribble a ball as in soccer, he follows it and keeps kicking it. Another one of his favorite activities is dancing. He see’s me turn on the music and he starts dancing before the music even starts. Then he goes over and touches the corner of the TV as if it’s an ipad and he’s controlling it himself before dancing some more. If he’s in a good mood he’ll often dance when daddy gets home at night too. He’s pretty shy around strangers but he’ll come around after a few minutes of getting to interact and watch them.

We had been fighting this bad rash for many months but we’ve finally cleared that up and returned back to cloth diapers which makes us all much happier. Getting so close to a whole year old now!

• Size/weight: 18 months clothes; 20 lbs
• Favorite food: breastmilk, organic cheerios, black beans, pasta
• Favorite toy: ball, whatever his sister has
• Favorite book: just about no patience for that
• Favorite activity: Pushing things and playing outside
• New game: soccer – he follows and kicks the ball!
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:00; one short nap at 11:30; gets up 7am (on the good days, 5:30am on the bad)
• New skill: demonstrating his listening skills and understanding
• Teeth: 8. New ones are starting to cause pain
• Vocalizations: mamamamama, he signs more and all done

And joy