picasso 1 - ketchup painting

Liors paints during dinner--ketchup on her bread. She is a very serious artiste.

fourth at didi's and george's

We had a super busy 4th weekend, as you have seen. Our last evening, we had another BBQ, this time with the Yaunches family out in Reston, Virginia. Liora got to wear her beautiful red dress, and hang out with some kids. There was also a surprise special guest that she was extra excited about.

Hanging with cousin Becca

Mommy and Daddy got to spend a bit of time together because Liora was so interested in the kids.

Fourth of July Fish Face?

That is very interesting Karen, please tell me more!

And here is the special guest. Can you see in Liora's eyes...the need for a puppy of her own? I'm trying to teach her this sentence to say to daddy: "Daddy, can I please have a puppy?" But so far she just goes around saying: "puppies, puppies, puppies!"

It was extremely difficult to get photos of Liora with Rylee--since the puppy was such a special guest, every kid there wanted to cuddle with him.

"Maybe if I stand real close, he'll come home with me?"

Thanks to Aunt Didi and Uncle George for a fantastic BBQ. I'll email more photos to share with the crowd who attended.

more July 4th - patriotism

On the last day of our long weekend, we went out to breakfast at our favorite place. Here Liora taught mommy what July 4th is all about:

FREEDOM! Don't put babies behind bars.

Then, mommy did some food shopping while daddy and Liora went to our local playground. When I returned to the park, I learned that a July 4th parade had found them and swooped them up into their exciting bicycle ride, firetruck exhibit, and popsicle eating. This was Liora's first popsicle. She heartily enjoyed it!

July 4th is all about the freedom to have blue tongues, right?

Mommy agrees.

sunday funday with ep and jp

For our next July 4th BBQ, we headed north of Baltimore to the Putsche-Parowski residence. It was a super hot day, but Auntie Elizabeth made the outdoors enjoyable with a battery-powered bubble blower and some sidewalk chalk (more on that in anothe post--Liora became a little sidewalk chalk obsessed).

We had a great dinner, complete with a red, white, and blue layer cake. We also got to spend some quality time with Stackhouse (the real dog who Liora's favorite stuffed animal dog is based on), and their two cats, Frank and Bella. Of course, we didn't take many photos of all of this fun until the end, when Uncle Jason was having fun with Liora in the sunroom.

Liora thinks he's hilarious. Jason thinks so too apparently. :)

Jason rolled Liora up like a donut in this chair, and she LOVED it.

Adam obviously misses our kitties! Poor guy. Bella wasn't too interested, but she pretended for a moment because she felt sorry for him.

The ladies. Here we were watching the menfolk be silly while we were being perfectly normal.

Thanks for another great visit guys. So happy to see your beautiful home and as always, excited for our next time.

big-girl swinging and July 4th bbq #1

Brace yourselves people. Here is Liora looking very grown up.

We started July 4th weekend off right--at the playground of course!

And there Liora INSISTED on getting on the big girl swing. Then she impressed mommy and daddy by holding on tight and moving her body back and forth to get herself moving.

Don't worry though! She's still young enough to go topless at the pool.

At a yummy bbq at Tony and Rebecca's, it was really hot! But, we were rewarded with Liora and Nate getting to take a nice dip in the pool together. Thanks for the good times T, R, and N! 

kitchen dancing

And now for some dancing:

More Gobie!

June did a post about Liora's visit on her Gobie blog (us bloggers stick together).
If you want to hear more about the visit and see Gobie giving me kisses, check it out!
http://hnhr-gobie.blogspot.com/2011/06/visit-from-liora.html

meeting Gobie

In June, we visited with Miss June's pony Gobie! She adopted him from a rescue she was volunteering with, and she has started training him. He's such a sweet horse--very friendly and cuddly. Of course, as soon as she adopted Gobie, I was set on getting Liora to meet him.

Here's June with Gobie (darker) and his girlfriend Honey. When we arrived, Gobie came right up to the fence. The other horses were milling around, but he seemed genuinely excited to see people and to interact with us. Of course, Honey followed soon after.

Liora was in turns very excited about Gobie and his buddies or a little freaked out by their size. Here she is sizing them up from afar. And, starting with the smaller, more-her-size mammals--the corgis came out to say howdy to us as well.

And a little closer this time, with Daddy to protect her.

Honey said a nice "Hello!"

Then we got to brush Gobie. June brought him into an area where he was the only horse, and we got to pet him and give him some love. He was very gentle with us, and very interested in Liora--especially nuzzling her. She wasn't so sure about that.

Since Gobie is still being trained, June wanted to do some leading exercises with him. Here's Liora helping! "This way Gobie!"

She's just a girl on the farm today, don't ya know?

Love the pigtails!

We had so much fun meeting the horses. It was really cool to see it from Liora's perspective, and to see Gobie warm up to a tiny human. Mommy has decided that we need a horse too, but only if June will help! Until we can convince Daddy, we'll have Gobie to hang out with. Thanks June for the great visit.

Happy Father's Day

After we got back from Los Angeles, Grandma DeeDee came down for a visit the following weekend. As usual, we loved having her here! We got to do some exciting things, like go to Home Depot without Liora to pick out all of our bathroom fixtures (while DeeDee watched Liora at home, having much more fun than we did). We went food shopping. We ordered pizza. We watched movies. By now I am sure you are realizing that we didn't do anything that exciting for DeeDee, but we promise next time to do something that is!

She was also with us on Father's Day.

Here's Liora wishing daddy a Happy Father's Day. Still in her pajamas here, but soon after she was in a bathing suit to go to her first swim class (which she loves). Adam is dressed for softball--as you probably already know, he doesn't make a practice of wearing any color but blue, so seeing him in orange is different!

After, we met up with Saba, Aunt Nurit (who Liora seems to be calling Rita), Uncle Roy, and Tori for a Father's Day brunch. Here is Liora getting hugs from Saba, who she asks for all the time!

And getting some love from Tori--as usual, she is taken with the older kids.

The next day, we realized that we had yet again not been doing a good job of taking photos during DeeDee's visit. So we did a photo shoot when Nina arrived, starring Liora, Nina, DeeDee and Liora's favorite piece of furniture, the ottoman.

Liora got VERY goofball-y during this photo shoot. She was cracking me up. She knows now that when the camera comes out it is "cheese" time, so she starts hamming it up for the camera. Sometimes she just points at the camera on the shelf and says "cheese, cheese!" i.e., "mommy I am ready for my close up."

I warned you about her being a goofball!

Last day of LA

The last day of LA, we decided to take it easy and see the neighborhood where MeMe and Amity live. You already know that they lives 2 BLOCKS FROM THE OCEAN. My dream. What many of you don't know is that they also live one block to the Venice Canals.

That's right, some parts of Venice, California were modeled after Venice, Italy! They have blocks of canals with beautiful homes and gardens and nice, arched bridges.

We didn't take many photos this day, so instead we have a few from Amit's phone.

Here we are on the walk.

We found a local playground, and let Liora loose. She loved it.

A playground with sand on the bottom! This was very exciting to Liora (see yesterday's post), and her shoes had to come off right away. We talked to lots of friendly artsy parents and watched the ducks nearby while Liora kept busy with her bucket and sand.

That night, we went out to a very cool dinner. I had a burger that was delish. Liora had a harder time being in the restaurant than usual--we had to amuse her with our phones (see below) and take her outside very often. But we still managed to drink some good wine and enjoy each other's company.

And that is the end of our trip to LA! We had such a wonderful time, and send many thanks along to MeMe and Amity for the warm hospitality and fun times. Liora had a great time catching up with her grandparents, and so did mommy and daddy!

On the plane ride home, Liora had a bit more difficulty making it through. We were better prepared this time--by doing things like getting bulkhead seats so she could sit on the floor to play--but she was less inclined to view it as a new experience. She was still a pretty model baby plane rider in my opinion.

We can't wait to see everyone again in September, and will also try to make another trip out soon. This time, mommy may go alone for the first few days so I can hang out on the beach....just kidding of course. Until then, we'll always have Disney.

LA Day 3

 Not to be outdone by our Disney day, on the third day of our trip, we decided to go the L.A. Zoo. Of course, this brought up a favorite song from my childhood--the Gorilla at the LA Zoo by Warren Zevon--but unfortunately no one else had heard of it. I sang it for them anyway, lucky people.

We started the day off eating breakfast out.

Here's Liora placing her order.

Telling Amity what looks good on the menu.

Then we were off to the zoo, unfortuantely minus MeMe who was home with a sick tummy. The nice thing about L.A. is that the animals can be outside year-round, so unlike the DC Zoo, there weren't a lot of houses to go in and out of, just nice paths outside.

These meerkats were much calmer than their friends at the DC Zoo.

Amity had the camera again today, so we got some nice artsy shots of the animals, and again, a lot of good photos to chronicle our trip.

Love Koalas!

We spent a lot of time watching the gorillas. They were an interesting family.

Here's the big silver back telling the younger ones what's what.

On daddy's shoulders again--viewing is better from up high.

GiGi, meet the giraffes. (Liora kept trying to get off the fence and into the enclosure.)

Giraffes, meet GiGi.

Intently watchful, with Pooh bear of course.

If this photo looks familiar, it's because we have almost the exact replica from our DC Zoo trip, where Liora was on daddy's shoulders, watching elephants, and wearing the same outfit.

After the zoo, we decided it was time to walk the two short blocks from the apartment to the ocean! By this point in the day, June gloom had burned off and it was a beautiful day. Liora took this opportunity to "sit down" wherever she could, including this person's front steps:

Then mommy and Liora went for a walk on the beach. Though Liora has seen sand before, it was a while ago--the last time she was at the beach she was 9 months old. And, we haven't yet set up our sandbox from Aunt Gabi; we're waiting until we can be back in our house. So, this was sort of a new experience. What we learned: she will adore the sandbox. It took a REALLY long time to get her to walk across the sand. She wanted to pick it up and let it fall through her hands; she wanted to throw it at me; she wanted to take off her shoes. She is her mother's daughter when it comes to many things (love of books and sweets are two things); her love of the beach can be added to that list!

MeMe and Amity certainly know our favorite things; here we are enjoying cupcakes after another yummy dinner.

p.s. A cute note about Liora. Liora has been able to say "book" for a while now, but it has always sounded more like "bo" without the "k." Now, they are very clearly "boops." She woke up this morning and smiled at me, then said: "Boop mommy! Boop!" She wanted to read books, for a VERY long time. It's funny how her favorite activities come and go; she had sort of taken a break from reading. But now she wants to read 10 at a time, and she is starting to ask for repeats. She's brilliant, of course.