ABC's

Mikayla: Today we were taking a bike ride and I decided to sing a song. I sang my ABC's (nothing new--it's one of my favorite songs) but this was the first time I sang it the "traditional way." No repeats, 26 letters, in order. (Usually I skip the middle part, and repeat the end phrase a few times.) Mommy and Daddy cheered for me, and Elijah fell asleep against my shoulder.

New Milestones

Elijah: This week I took off crawling! It's lots of fun, but my knees get a little red. Mom decided I was ready for spaghetti; it was delicious! Mommy and Daddy had fun watching me make kissing noises as I sucked up the pasta. Can't wait to see what I get to try next!

Water Play

Our neighbors told us about a great park that is only a few miles away from our house. It has the standard playground equipment--with sun shades...nice. But it also has a splashzone area! We loved playing in the water, and mommy got all wet too! Mommy said we could go back again and again this summer!

Dolphins

There is a place at Sea World where you can feed the dolphins and touch them (if they come up to you.) We watched them for awhile and then discovered the best place in the park. The underwater viewing room for the dolphins. It was so cool to watch them swim by and play with each other. We noticed several of them go up to the surface get some air in their blowhole and then blow it out to make a little spinning air ring to play with. (Daddy says, "The website http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html has some information about these “air-core vortex rings” that dolphins can make. It doesn’t seem it’s as rare as mentioned in the article; I saw two or three dolphins doing it for about 20 minutes at SeaWorld.")

SeaWorld part 2

Mikayla: Because we live in Orlando mommy and daddy were able to get tickets to Sea World that last all year, so we can go back many times. We went again this weekend. This time we all got to see Shamu, and some very cool dolphins. We didn't sit in the splash zone though. I got to ride a dolphin (on the merry-go-round) Elijah napped in style, and I worked my cuteness. A nice lady came up to me and gave me this stuffed seal. I love it. I brought it home with me and introduced him to kitty and had him sleep in my bed!

Steak n shake

Elijah: The other day I was dressed in my camo shirt and army green overalls. I was inspired, it was like I was in baby boot camp. I practiced my army crawl, and even some regular crawling. The parents were proud of me so we went out to eat. Mikayla and I both got these jaunty little hats. (The look more like I'd be in the Navy but oh well.)

Happy Bday G-daddy

Wish we were there to celebrate with you! We love having you as our Grandpa!

Pumpkins

Our neighbor just brought over several boxes of clothes to go through for Elijah. We found what we will wear next October.

revisit small, medium, large

What a difference 10 months can make!

Park time

After church today we went to a park with some other families at church. We had a nice picnic and then got to play on the playground. It was fun, and helped us get ready for nap time.

Overheard at bedtime

(Mikayla was in her room at bedtime alone--well, except for her stuffed animals.) Overheard: I don't want to go to bed. But it's bedtime. I don't want to go to bed now. I don't want covers. You don't want covers? Not sure who she was talking to, but at least she was covering all the angles!

Snack Time

While Mikayla was riding all the cool rides I was watching with Daddy and decided to nibble on my toes. I wasn't sad about it though.

SeaWorld

Our daddy just had a milestone birthday and we had to celebrate. Sea World is letting us pay once and come back as many times as we want until the end of the year so we went there. We saw many animals doing tricks, Elmo and his friends were there, they had sharks and fun rides. Mikayla: I was big enough to go on a bunch of rides with mom and dad, they were so fun. We also got to meet a penguin. It started to rain in the afternoon from Tropical Storm Barry so we headed home. I hope my daddy knows how much we love him!