More Updates

Happy 4th, everyone!

Here are a few recent photos and tidbits from the Charlebois home.

Our little Ruby Ann is changing so quickly! She turned 9 months old on the 29th, and if you look away for one instant, she's changed or developed in at least some small way. Besides being a master crawler now, she has also started pulling herself up to her feet AND climbing stairs. You would have never imagined my shock when I ran upstairs for just a moment and upon returning found her up three steps. Time to break out the gates, I guess.
Ruby finally sprouted two bottom teeth and has been gracefully struggling her way through the teething process. She is our little snuggle bunny, and also our little rough-and-tumbler. She loves to get dirty and climb into tight spots or over obstacles. She brings us so much joy!
Israel is equally as amazing. She wows us every day with just how smart and attentive she is. She can count in English and in Spanish and can recite her ABC's perfectly. She's a little comedian, and loves doing funny things to make mommy & daddy smile. She loves to sing, and her current favorite tunes are "Old MacDonald" and "The Farmer in the Dell." We'll also spy her sitting in a corner making up songs for her dolls, or singing to herself about how much she loves various people in her family (usually Ava). She loves to swim and to take naps in mommy & daddy's bed.
Right now we are struggling through our third try at potty training. Some days she's great, other days are frustrating for both of us. I know she'll get the hang of it -- I just wish it were sooner rather than later!

Remember my post about the garden we started in our window sill? Remember how excited I was that they were all growing? Well, they all died. They died because I didn't transplant them quickly enough. But we are trying again. We started our seedlings in the window sill again and then moved them out into 5 gallon buckets on the deck (We decided we didn't want to invest the time and money into tilling up a garden at a property we don't own). We have lettuce, corn, green beans, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, bell peppers and cucumbers. And SO FAR, so good.
Today we took the girls strawberry picking. There is a little berry farm not more than five minutes from our house -- all you can pick for $1.70/lb. Rae loved the adventure, but probably ate more strawberries than she put in our box. It only took us about 7 minutes to pick more than six pounds of strawberries. Maybe that's a good thing when you have two small kids, but it was also sort of anti-climactic. Rae was covered in strawberry juice, as was her WHITE shirt. What was I thinking?That's it for now. Our doctor has been on vacation, so Ruby will have her 9-month checkup sometime in the next week or so. I'll post that update soon.