Sisters

Another talker?

Some of you might be inclined to think, "Wow, Emily talks a lot. Ellen will probably be a quiet kid." It seems that Ellen has instead taken this as a challenge. A challenge she will win. She will be the Michael Phelps of screaming.

Oh, dear

Emily found a highlighter this morning. A blue one.
And then had to learn the lesson that Ellen is not paper.

I love these giggles!!!

It's equally awesome that Emily is helping me make her laugh. I have more, but limited myself.

CHUBBY kid

4-month pictures, a bit late

Poor Ellen. I neglected to mention a major milestone--she rolled over! She turned from front to back last week, on her official four-month birthday, 8/5. Here's how she measures up:

Here she was at one week (how does 8lbs. look so scrawny?):
Not quite rolling over, but fun anyway:

Dora

Emily and Daddy were watching the new Dora that we borrowed from the library. I didn't get the camera out in time, but she was totally responding to all that Dora asked of her--shouting what she was supposed to shout, and doing what she was supposed to do (standing, jumping, arms in the air, etc). Ellen was also enjoying Dora--she has become quite the talker.

Silliness

(Disappointed that I won't feed her anything but tots)

Blueberries

We met up with the Budds to pick blueberries yesterday, just before delicious dinner at their house. I neglected to get any pictures of playing at their house, but I did get some at the blueberry farm. We had to be quick, but we managed to get four pounds of blueberries for $3.

Film festival picture

Talking & giggling

At Auntie Kim's

Before going to the annual Garden Home film festival (Kim's boss throws a big party and shows a movie on a giant screen in his yard every year), we hung out at Kim's. Emily played with Jenn's niece & nephews (Jenn used to be my roommate, and now she's Kim's neighbor).

Boots and coloring

Kim came over for dinner, and Emily tried on her boots. Yikes.
Everybody colored while Kim & I made caramel corn.

Back to the zoo

Apparently a 60-degree sort of drizzly day is the perfect day to hit the zoo. That, or the animals just REALLY like us. Here are three elephants:
The leopards were cooperative again.
Who even knew there were two? This is the second.
The sea lions were swimming loops right in front of the glass--a bit intimidating for Em.
A penguin posed in the window for us
As did a monkey--much to Emily's delight.
The gorillas (?) were up and about.
The ocelot even came near.
And a black bear.
We found more goats to pet. She liked this one because it was "chewing gum".
This polar bear was playing with a giant plastic barrel.
Then there were two others--one pacing on land, the other swimming laps.
The lap-swimmer would go over to the right, lay on his back & push off, then swim on his tummy across and start over.
Ellen really enjoyed all of this, of course.

Owls that were "a little scary" to Em.

Yet another close-up encounter: mountain lion

Laughing

You have to understand that you usually get "seconds" when we show videos--we enjoy what's going on, and then grab the camera. So Ellen was laughing a lot more prior to this video, but you get the idea.

Four-month checkup

Ellen now weighs in at 15 pounds (!) and is 24 3/4 inches long. That's not much bigger than Emily,
although looking through her baby book I noticed some discrepancies with measurements...the AF had her at 26 inches when she was 4 months old, then our other doctor (whom I tend to trust more), and her at 25 inches when she was 6 months old. So I guess we'll just have to compare weight.

Cutie

As much as she pretends to be a Mommy's girl, Ellen loves her Daddy's snuggles.

OMSI

My parents gave Emily an annual pass for OMSI for her birthday, and today we made our first trip. She played in the water a little:
She LOVED the balls (in the infant section, of course):

One of her favorite parts today was the dinosaurs


She actually touched the snake, but the camera took just a little too long and I missed it.
Much of the day was spent looking like this blur: