Use your words...and your feet!

Update here from the land of Silverstein. We are settled in quite nicely to our home, and the only things standing in the way of completion are a fabulous bedspread for the guest room (shout out to Andrea for her handy skills!) and the Closet of Shame. We have 3 kinds of fruit-bearing trees - figs (an overabundance, if I may say so), limes (not ripe yet), and avocados. It's fun watching the squirrels go after the fruit and chuck the remains...(note to self, do not leave Ivy's pink buggy under the fig tree). We also adopted a sweet hand-me-down play set with a slide and climbing aparatus. Ivy is enjoying that as well, and we are beyond pleased with the new set up.

It's been the summer of ultimate staycations, as we've been on the receiving end of many out of town family member and friend visits. First we had Elyse and Shira from Boston, which was great fun since I haven't seen Elyse in ages and Shira since she was about Ivy's age (she's now 9), so that was lovely to get caught up. The following weekend, Mike's parents came to town and we had many an adventure with them - beaching, brunching, farmers marketing, etc. And finally last weekend, The Fluffies (aka Aunt Erica and Uncle Adam) came for a visit. We relaxed and took Ivy on her first trip to the zoo.

Speaking of animals, my daughter has developed quite the vocabulary, consisting of mostly animal sounds, in addition to "mommy", "daddy", "I-y!" (her name, without the V) and, most importantly, "shoes." Here's a little video of our chatterbox:

And then, on precisely the day she turned 14 months, she decided to put those little feet into action. Here she is, our little walker:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com