Back to Monrovia

Well, this past Saturday Erik, Cairo, Sienna, Guinness, and I all piled into out Jetta Wagon and headed back south to Monrovia. We really enjoyed our time up north this summer... time really flew by. As usual, we were sad to leave our home, family, and friends but I am excited to see baby Xander and get back to my classroom.

Here are some pictures of us enjoying our last night around our new (and not finished) fire pit, eating hot dogs and smores.





My cute little nephew- Xan-Man!

Surprise, it's Aunt Kimmie!

She's Walking!!!

Finally!!! Today, Cairo has decided that she is going to walk. Actually, it started yesterday when she was over at Erik's parents house playing with Cousin Mei. She walked from the couch to the chair in the living room. Then she can home and walked back and forth from Erik to me for a few minutes... but, nothing was like this evening. She walked across the room, though sometimes shakily, from one person to another. Here is a video of one of those person to person excursions...

Pictures

Last month my best friend Katie's brother took some pictures of Cairo. She wasn't in the best of moods but we got a few pictures of her happy... and a few of her crying, too!

Cheese!

While Cairo was eating lunch today I snapped a few pictures of her. In this first picture she is saying "cheese". Notice the hand she's holding her spoon with. Though we can't say for sure yet, Cairo may be a lefty. She tends to favor that hand over her right... even though she uses her right hand quite a bit, too.



Over the past few weeks Cairo has broken through four new teeth and is working on a few more. Please ignore the food on her face and check out her new teeth-

To ease her pain with teething, Cairo is biting and chewing on anything she can. At times she frantically searches for anything she can stuff in her mouth. A few times over the past couple of days, Cairo has even taken off her socks and stuffed them into her mouth. Yummy!

August

The last days of summer are flying by. It is hard to believe that August is already half way done. August in Humboldt County means it's Humboldt County Fair Time. Last Saturday, Erik, Cairo, and I went to the fair, ate some curly fries, looked at the exhibits, and visited the animals.(Not the best fair picture, but the camera stayed in the backpack for almost the entire time we were at the fair.)


After the fair, the Dedini family met up at Grandma Dedini's for a yummy BBQ- cheeseburgers, potato salad, watermelon, and corn. Cairo pigged out! Sometimes Erik and I wonder where she puts all that food she eats... but, the again, her cheeks are starting to fill out again.
Cairo enjoyed her first corn on the cobb.


Cairo has taken up singing. Her favorite song to sing, and currently the only song she knows, is "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." So far, she can sing the first three words of the song (row, row, row) as she rocks back and forth.


Over the summer Cairo has also picked up a few Japanese words from her Aunt Kyoko and Cousin Mei. The one word that has really stuck, though, is "Banzai!" According to some random webpage,"Banzai" is a Japanese cheer that can be translates as "Long life!" or "Hurrah!" It is usually repeated three times to express enthusiasm, celebrate a victory, applause and favor on happy occasion while raising both arms. Cairo still needs to work on her pronounciation, but that doesn't stop her from blurting it out several times a day and raising her hands in the air. For the past week or so, it is the first thing she says to me when I get her out of bed in the morning.

Our Patio

Erik has been working hard this summer on our backyard. So far, he cut the old patio into lots of little pieces, made a large dry fit retaining wall/ plateau on the hill with the patio remnants (we still have another plateau to build), dug out lots of dirt, and put a new patio in... just to name a few things. Here are a few pictures of Erik, Lee, and I working on the freshly laid cement:




We wanted to make sure that Cairo played a part in the project, so we put her feet in the wet cement.



The almost finished patio. The 2X4s in between the cement squares will come out in a few days and we'll be planting Irish Moss, Creeping Thyme, Baby Tears, and Blue Star Creeper in the cracks... and we'll see which ones work out the best.


The garden gnomes hard at work...