James is growing and developing and learning so much every day. He laughs now with regularity. If you get in his face and laugh and make funny faces, he will laugh back at you. And he loves watching Annika play and be a goofball. He's always watching her, smiling and laughing at her silliness. James has also had a lot of firsts this last week. He found his toes and now he always has his toes in his mouth. It's hard to change his diaper because as soon as his diaper comes off his feet are up and in his mouth. I have to pry his legs back down to get the new diaper on. And James is going to be a thumbsucker. In just the last couple weeks he has mastered getting his right thumb into his mouth. Often now when I'm feeding him on my right side he'll suck, suck, suck and then roll away to suck his thumb for a few seconds, then roll back, latch on and suck, suck, suck, roll away, etc. This is usually toward the end of a feeding. I guess that's my cue that he's done. And last night James was so close to rolling from his stomach to his back. We think he's done it before but he doesn't quite have the hang of it yet. Last night though he was twisting his body and had his legs over, but not his shoulders. One of these days he'll be a little rolling machine. Saturday was a big day for James. He had his first taste of rice cereal! I was going to wait until he was 5 months old to start cereal but he was just so ready! I actually felt bad eating in front of him! He watches us constantly when we're eating, watching the fork go from our food to our mouths. And if he's sitting on your lap when you eat, he's constantly trying to grab your food or your fork and shove it into his mouth. Plus all the signs I've listed earlier too are still there. So, Saturday Kris got the highchair up from the basement, we got out the rice cereal we bought earlier in the week and off we went. Auntie Krystle was over (to babysit so Kris and I could go on a motorcycle ride - my first of the season - woo-hoo!) so she was armed with the camera while Daddy had the video camera going. James did pretty well too. At first he made the funniest faces but he actually got down a few tablespoons and has again each day since. I'll just feed him rice cereal for a few weeks to a month before introducing other cereals.

Annika has been cracking us up lately. Sunday she pulled out use of a couple new phrases. One was "Mommy, you know what?" And then I would say what and she would ramble off some fact or memory or nonsense. Annika is playing with words lately and will just make up something new. We spend a lot of time saying "Oh, uh-huh" when we have no idea what she's saying. It's all just made up. Her other new phrase this weekend was "That's amazing!" I don't remember what this was in reference to but it was hilarious to hear it coming from her. Then yesterday Kris called me from the park, where some workmen are doing some maintenance, to relay this:

Annika: Daddy, where did that man go?
Daddy: What man?
Annika: The cute man. He pretty for me. He's going to get me. (When we play the chase game we say "I'm gonna get you!" and she laughs hysterically while running away.)

Oy, we are in trouble if at 2 she is already noticing the boys! She did it again last night. I was at Lowe's buying some stakes for our garden (it is growing so much that I have to stake all our pepper plants! We even harvested some peppers and cilantro out of there already for lunch on Saturday!) and we passed a family of father, mother and son in the store. The son was about 10 years old and as we walked past Annika pointed at him and said "He's cute!" She is too funny! We've always known that Annika has had a preference for her uncles and grandpas over the aunts and grandmas. I figured it was because the uncles are usually more physical in their play with her, chasing her, throwing her in the air, etc. Nope, I think she just really likes the boys!

Here is your last funny Annika story for the day. Ever since we went to Jessie's 3rd birthday party, Annika has been talking about her birthday. Sunday she was insisting that she is already three but last night she told me she was two and that "after my birthday in September (mispronounced in the cutest way of course!) I will be three!" I think she's really excited for her birthday party so she can be three and hold up three fingers instead of two. My funny little girl. Oh, and family and friends - Annika's third birthday party will be Saturday, September 8th. Time TBD. Invites to go out closer to the date, etc., etc.