Water Play!

It's been H-O-T, hot here for the last few days, so Pierce and I have been spending lots of time in the shady backyard playing at the water table and in the baby pool. Even with the chilly temp of the hose water, Pierce loves splashing around.
Fueling up for playtime!

Pulled himself up! (and look at those thighs..) Tentative first splashes
Peek-a-boo! Copying Sadie rolling in the grass. Perfecting his "Mr. August" pose
Excited about pool time!

Animal Lover

Pierce loves Sadie the dog and Carter the cat, and thinks they are pretty funny creatures. He gets excited to see them, and will often peer around corners to see if he can find one of them. Lately, he has been fascinated by their food bowls, and will haul across the room to splash in their water dishes. The video below shows how pleased he is to discover one of his beloved pets at their feeding station.

Lazy Days of Summer

We've been in a heat wave for what feels like forever! We've spent a lot of our days indoors in front of the a/c, at the mall or at the grocery stores. Thank goodness we had Nana here as a distraction from the mundane. She and Pierce spent time reading and playing the piano together. They played lovely duets!Yesterday was a rainy day, and after Pierce's afternoon nap, I thought we could try a new game. The idea behind the game was to use a plastic cup to move cotton balls from one container (plastic tupperware) to a metal one (bowl) and explore dropping the cotton and other objects into the containers to hear the different noises, weights, etc. Well, Pierce will show you in the following series what he thought of my idea. "You want me to do what with these things?" "Gee, Mom, cotton balls are REALLY fun! Great idea."
"Can't I just tear them up or throw them behind me?"
Turns out Pierce had a better idea of what to do with the plastic container:

Summer Adventures!

My last three attempts at posting have been thwarted by the internet gods. Blogger refused to save my first post, and Firefox quit twice at pivotal moments while writing last night. So after writing long and wordy posts three times over, I am going to just give highlights from the last 3 weeks in the hopes that the 4th time is the charm....Perhaps I will now post more regularly to avoid publishing pitfalls!

Our summer kicked off with a trip to Dallas to see cousins Peggy and Barbara Moore make elegant debuts during a weekend of family festivities. They looked gorgeous and won over little Pierce with their hospitality and charm. Congratulations to the girls!Peggy and Barbara looked so beautiful! One week later, after a fun Father's Day hike with Dad, Pierce flew out to sunny CA for a trip to Nana and Pops' house in Tiburon. I made the flight solo, and Pierce continued to be an exellent and cooperative little traveler. He immediately adapted to CA time, and we filled our 10 days with walks, visits with friends, pool time, two museum trips, and playground romps with Nana and Pops. It was a great and relaxing trip, and even provided Halsey and I a chance to do a 2 night getaway to Sonoma. It was our first nights away from Pierce together, so was a little anxiety producing (at least for mom), but he had a blast at Camp Nana!Father's Day hike in the Fells. Pierce loved his backpack ride!
Above: Getting ready to swim in Tiburon. Below: No more paparazzi, please!Digging around at the playground!Checking out the "Pond Room" at the Bay Area Discovery Museum!Thanks for a great visit, Nana and Pops!

While we were away, Pierce picked up some new skills: crawling (still prefers his belly on the floor, but, boy, can he MOVE!), sitting up from a laying down position, first word--ball, and saying on and off to the lights in a room! He was proud of himself for each of these accomplishments, but most proud of his sitting up. He gave himself a HUGE round of applause the first time he did it and made sure to see that all of the people in the room were watching him. Too funny! The video below is taken back at home, but combines his sitting up, crawling and saying ball.

Since returning from CA, we've had lots of time for swimming at Myopia with Marmie, celebrated the 4th of July with the Harrisons and the Bourques, Aunt Darcy and Marmie and Papa, and had a return visit from Nana! He has also learned to wave, say 'bye and dog, and has started pulling himself up to a stand (which usually just involves a lot of jumping up and down on his knees). He seems to soak up everything you say to him now, and it's pretty amazing that he is trying to converse with you.It's hard to believe that we are almost halfway through July and that Pierce is nearly 11 months old. The time has flown!

School's Out For Summer!

Well I have been remiss about posting since school let out earlier this month! The last two weeks of school were so busy, then we had 4 days off together (Yay! Home with Pierce for the summer!) before flying out to San Francisco to visit Nana and Pops. We're out in sunny CA until next week, but stay tuned for a big post featuring our summer adventures to date!

Congratulations Uncle Chris!

We just got back from Chris' graduation from Princeton! After 5 long years, he is now a PhD in Geosciences. Congratulations! He'll be hanging around campus for the next 2 years as a post-doc, though, so at least he doesn't have to go far. We had an excellent weekend with family and friends, and loved celebrating Chris' big accomplishment together.
Pierce also had a great time with cousin Foster, laughing, playing and composing music...

May Days...

Well, since it's been so long since my last post, there's plenty to report. There are four big highlights from the last three weeks, so here goes, in no particular order.

My first Mother's Day was lovely, and Pierce continues to be the best present I could have ever hoped for. We had a great brunch with Marmie and Papa, followed by Erin Bourque's first birthday party! It was a full day, but Pierce remained a charmer throughout, even though he was dressed in his party clothes instead of comfy play clothes. It's hard to believe that first birthdays are already rolling around for Pierce's friends and family. We're headed to Princeton over Memorial Day Weekend to celebrate Foster's 1st birthday (a week late)! Pierce will be 1 before we know it.
Pierce has started clapping, which may be the cutest thing I have ever seen. It is usually accompanied by a scrunched up nose and a smile. He loves when people acknowledge his clapping with a YAY, and usually claps some more. Here's a video catching him in action:

Also, Pierce is feeding himself--both with his bottles and finger foods. He loves all of the cut up food we've offered so far...except tomatoes. We finally found a food he doesn't devour! We're working on getting him to chew all of the food in his mouth before putting more food in...his first lesson in manners. Two new foods he adores--blackberries and goat cheese and avocado spread on bread. Yum.Lastly, Pierce is making some excellent headway in his crawling. He's doing a sidewinder--hard to explain, but shown in the video below. He is making some huge efforts to move, and is starting to show more interest in pulling up on to things! Guess we should finally start babyproofing.

We had a beautiful weekend here, full of lots of gardening and outdoor time. Pierce loves the fresh air, and even helped us garden by tearing up the grass around his blanket! Looks like we've got a weeder on our hands.