Alexis is 10 months old

Alexis is ten months old already.  She's crawling, clapping and giving high fives.  She's pulling up on everything that is (and isn't) nailed down.  She really wants to walk but she doesn't have the balance yet (she still has very very little feet).

The other major change is that she now eats everything.  Some nights for dinner she eats more than Evan (and no, I'm not making that up).  It's not just quantity - it's variety too.  I remember Evan at this age.  He ate everything too.  It's still amazing to me that just ten months ago she became part of our family.  Jill, Evan and I can't even imagine a world without her now.

Evan and Seth's Seaplane Adventure

Jill and Alexis were out of town today so I though I'd come up with a real special activity for me and Evan.  I decided to surprise him with a seaplane tour of Seattle.  He sees them flying, taking off, and landing all the time on Lake Union so I figured he'd love a ride on one.  I didn't tell him what we were doing until we arrived at Kenmore Air.  Once we got there and he saw the planes, he figured out what we were doing pretty fast.  He was real excited.  We waited for our flight, climbed on board and had a blast looking at our city from the air.  It was a fantastic blue day so I took a bunch of pictures.  I hope you enjoy the slide show.

Here's some video I shot during the flight.

Contemplating the stairs

Alexis is crawling around the house real well now.  Today I caught her at the bottom of the stairs.  She looked at them for a long time and I'd like to think she was trying to figure out how she could get up them.  It's definitely time for some gates!

The Google Picnic

This weekend we all went to the Google summer picnic.  It was held at a big farm about an hour from Seattle and it was an absolutely beautiful day (for once).  There was great "fair style" food and tons of activities for everyone.  There was a horse drawn carriage ride, a hay ride and little hand powered paddle boats for Evan.

The whole event was done in a Renaissance Fair theme so there were knights jousting and doing hand combat.  Here's Evan checking out a battle close up.

Without a doubt Evan's favorite thing was the "Evan Wash" - a large inflatable car wash like toy that showered him with water.  If he went through once he went through twenty times.

Alexis had fun sitting in the grass, eating food and looking at everything.

Here's Evan trying to eat his quickly melting ice cream bar.

We all had a great time at the picnic.  We even stopped by the Gymboree outlet on the way home so Jill could have some fun too!

Swim Lessons

Evan loves being in the water but hasn't really taken to swimming on his own.  Jill scheduled him for two sets of swim lessons this summer and he just finished.  I went to see him on his last day and he's improved a ton.  He's definitely more comfortable and goes completely underwater now for a few seconds at a time.  He still has a lot of learning - he kicks a few times and then stops and I'm not convinced he can float - but he's enjoying himself.  The most interesting thing to me is that Evan notices that after the lessons he has improved and he knows that if he takes more lessons he'll get even better.

The day I watched him he was allowed to go on the big water slide at the pool for the first time.  He went three times and absolutely loved it.  I see the Wildwood water park in our future next summer.

Alexis is crawling

Over the past week Alexis finally put it all together and started to crawl!  She'd been holding herself up in "crawl position" for some time but was not able to sequence her movements to make anything happen.  Well, the wait is over and the childproofing needs to begin ASAP.  She's on the move now!

Seafair Parade

This is the third year we've attended the Seafair parade in Magnolia with Evan (and of course it's Alexis's first).  It was rainy but that didn't stop the fun.  We watched marching bands, dancers and pirates parade before us.  Evan was finally old enough to beat out some of the other kids to get candy when it was thrown out of the floats.

After the parade we marched across the street to the festival in the local baseball field.  Evan had a blast going through the bouncy obstacle courses and down the giant slides.  By far his favorite thing to do was go on the little train.  Here he is with Jill taking a ride:

It happened -- for real this time

I know I jumped the gun in this post in June but today it actually happened.  I put Alexis down for nap today and walked out of the room.  A few minutes later I heard some squawking so I went in to see what was going on.  This is what I saw:

Needless to say she didn't take a nap but she did help me lower her mattress. 

Vacation Bible School

Evan went to Vacation Bible School the first week of August.  He was slow to warm up to the idea the first day but ended up really liking it.  They listened to stories, played games, and did crafts.  Evan's favorite part of the program was the singing.  By the end of the second day he was singing the songs and doing the hand motions.  At the end of the week the children had an open house at night.  Here is Evan singing with the group.

We realized after watching him we need to talk to him before his next performance about staying on stage.  He got so enthusiastic he ran down the steps and started dancing in front of the group. 
All in all it was a great experience and we will definitely be signing him up for next year.