First blog - 4th of July weekend

Hi ! I have been meaning to do this for the past two years and now I finally decided to do it. Hopefully this way I can keep you all updated with what we are doing in Austin and how the girls are doing.
So far we are doing very well. We are settled and starting to know the area better. We don't get out much (thanks to our little monsters ;-) but slowly we will get there. It is starting to feel like home so that is good.

The girls are doing well. Izzie is 8 months old and is growing up really fast. She is very good at crawling now and she is pretty fast, especially when she sees a cable she wants to get her teeth into. She is pulling up on anything she can find and has started cruising around. She loves to play with all of Natalie's toys, especially the ones that Natalie is playing with at the time. Also Izzie has discovered the basket where we keep the dog toys and she thinks they are her teething toys, so we have to keep our eye on her. We started giving her some table food. She tries to eat it but it ends up mostly on her lap. She makes a big mess but she is very happy about it and is happy to try. So far she likes peas, broccoli and chicken. Parker is very excited and he has become our official high chair cleaner.

Natalie is doing good as well. Also getting very big. We moved her up into a big girl bed. She loves it and I can't believe she is not a baby anymore that does not need a crib. We started a little bit of potty training, since they do it at school but she does not have that much interest at home so I stopped trying until she shows more interest. She is currently crazy for dancing. She pretty much dances to any music she hears, even commercials. It is hilarious to watch. She has finally accepted other music than Jack Johnson so Aaron is very happy to be able to hear other music. We have been going to the pool and she has been enjoying it a lot. Not as much as Izzie. Izzie could be in the pool all day if we let her. Natalie jumps in and tries to put her head in the water. Maybe by the end of the summer she will. At least it is better than last year.

The doggies are doing well. Parker hates the heat. Abi does not mind it as much. They are both in hibernation pretty much all day and are awake early in the morning and in the evenings. The rest of the time Parker is somewhere in the tile floor and Abi is hiding from the girls.

This past weekend was 4th of July. On Thursday there was a party at Natalie's school. They had all the kids in their bathing suits playing in the water and running around. It was cute seeing all the kids running around. Natalie was trying to show us around the school. At the school there is a little farm with some ponies and goats. She was showing us the horses. She won't pet them but she gets close to them through the fence. They do have a baby goat inside the playground and all the kids are crazy for him. We were shocked to see Natalie pet him. Since she is so afraid of everything. We will see when the goat gets bigger how she does with him.

On Friday we went to downtown Round Rock for their annual parade. We went with a mom I met at playgroup and her husband and their 2 year old daughter. We had a lot of fun. Izzie did very well. Natalie was scared but she did better than we expected. As people walked by they would throw candy. Natalie never tried to get any (must be Aaron's genes). For the rest of the weekend we did not do much more. We set up Natalie's new room with her new bed and stuff and moved her old stuff into Izzie's room.

I will try to keep updating as much as I can and put pictures or the links to kodak gallery.

take care
Irene