SWEET LAND O' LIBERTY

Whew! What a weekend! The weather was glorious, the extra day off with our little diva was fabulous, and the patriotic cause to celebrate had everybody in a good mood!

Momma Peach had an itchy camera finger, so you will be glad to see that her favorite diapered subject was well-documented over the last few days.  Here's a few of the pictorial products from the weekend ("few" being a major understatement!):

Discovering the limitations of Newton's Law of Gravity. Although the same forces and the same laws of physics apply everywhere in the universe, apparently a purple tennis ball can float entirely on its own by simply staring at it long enough.

Oh, wait. It floats because there is a dog attached to it!

Mumsy Neal took little Peach on a stroll around LaFayette Fountain to watch the Sweet Land of Liberty parade on Saturday. The fountain is a  replica of the statue in LePuy, France. Obviously, this wasn't a celebration of Bastille Day!

The happy little sailor girl. 

Where's my boat, guys? I've got the outfit and the jaunty hat, I just need a watercraft!



 

Our sailor decides to jump ship and show off her sea legs. Or lack of.

Hmmm... Diet Coke. Daddy drinks these all the time. I bet chewing on this cold can is a good teething remedy! I wonder if Daddy is teething too?

This bench is just my size! Convenient!

Mmmmm.... yummy dirt.

Look, mom! I found a rabbit!

Can I keep it?!

Hi, nice stranger. My mommy left me sitting on a garden path all by myself. Can I go home with you?

Rabbit-in-the-headlights look.

For Sale: One sailor baby.

Comes with a rabbit sidekick.  Seller can't attest to baby or rabbit's seaworthy-ness.

Mmmm... Georgia Tech just tastes so good.

Can I help you?

Mommy won't let me wear lipstick yet, so I have to stain my lips with blackberries!

"Uh... you want to take nekkid pictures of me again?"

"Sure, come on in. The water's fine!"

"Evie, we don't let people with cameras into the bathtub with us after a certain age. This will have to stop soon.  Like in 20 or so years."

"Fine. I'll turn my back to you and pout."

Conducting her own little symphony. With Trot's accompaniment.

Perfecting her bear crawl. Obstacles in her way don't stand a chance.
(She has been known to crawl over her classmates to get to the object of her desire.)

Mmmm... Leather couches. Great to pull up on. Even better to teeth on!

Our latest discovery has been the trash can.
It's a large R2-D2 looking object that makes a spectacular and quite satisfying crash when pulled over.

Trouble comes in so many shapes, sizes and forms.
Diapered/undiapered, hairless/furry. Both slobber and walk on all fours. So very similar, yet so very different. At least the dog is potty trained!

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!

SUMMER LOVIN'

The past week has been a whirlwind of adventure for us at the Yankee & Peach house. We made it to the water park not one, not two, but three different times in the span of four days. Yes, folks, it has been hot in Atlanta.

Speaking of whirlwinds...

Blue Eyes of Destruction.

Following Evie is like tracking the path of an F2 twister. (But on a baby-sized Fujita scale, of course.) It's typically an erratic route of tossed toys, annihilation of paper products, a solitary shoe or scattered article of clothing, but with a bundle of diapered cuteness waiting for you at the end of the trail.

I get hype for bedtime!

Mom likes performing crazy cheerleading lifts with me before I go to sleep. 

Uh... Dad?   Please stop her.   Now.

Just checking to see what Mom missed with the vacuum. I should wear white gloves and point out all the places Mom overlooks.

What? I have a personal standard of "clean." I won't crawl just anywhere, ya know!

Cleanliness doesn't apply to my toys. They can go anywhere I put them. My toys, my rules. 

Hmm... I'm eight months old now. In my opinion, I'm plenty old enough to pull up on objects and try to walk by myself. See that sharp corner of the TV stand? I want to get up close and personal with it!  Watch this, I'm gonna freak my parents out!

A D O R A B L E.  'Nuff said.

Check out my chompers!  I have four more coming in on top! 

And FOUR is the number of hours I stayed up after midnight on Saturday night when I decided to wake and express my displeasure about these dental nuisances to my Mom. I love my midnight conversations with Mom.  Although she's a good listener and lets me do all the talking, I suspect she's half asleep for most of our really good heart-to-heart chats.

My Pop came all the way from Rhode Island for a visit. He said he was here to fix an MRI machine at Emory, but I know he was actually here to see me.

Try to harness all this energy, Pop! I bet you could run an MRI for a week just on baby power.

You want me to share? Okay, I guess you can have the blue cup. I have 7 others. You're not taking the yellow one! It's my favorite!

Our cute little ambassador for GT. This is what we sent her wearing to school on Monday. 

 

And when I picked her up, she was wearing this. Yes, that's a Christmas bib on a baby in the month of June, but more importantly... it's RED. Everybody knows you can't have the color red associated with anything Georgia Tech. This confirms my suspicions that there are closet UGA fans employed by the Goddard School.

OFF WITH THE RED, MOM!

If you come to our house, you will be handed a baby and a ball. They will be waiting for you at the front door.

THE END

FAITHFUL COMPANIONS

We had quite a nice Father's Day weekend. (Yes, I'll speak for Chris... though he may disagree, but I'd doubt it.) Momma and Dadda escaped to Chastain Park to see Harry Connick, Jr. on Saturday night while the Neal grandparents and Uncle Battle were responsible for feeding, bathing, and bedding the little munchkin all by themselves. All went well (at least, that's what they told us!) and everyone survived the night un-harmed and in good spirits.

However, we were left wondering what questionable cuisine Grandmumsy Neal might have slipped the little lady during her Saturday night play time because we noticed a bit of diarrhea in two of her diapers the next day. (Mumsy Neal has the tendency to "let her try new things and explore everything!!" - thus rendering our leverage over healthy food null-and-void.)

We eventually dismissed the "problematic food theory" after we realized Evie is teething again and has a tendency to swallow a LOT of saliva during the process, thus creating runny diapers. (TMI, we know. That's the life of a parent, right?)  

No worries, though. Evie is crawling full-steam-ahead, pulling up on any object that will support her, and has two little pearly whites emerging from her upper gum line to match the two little chompers she already has on the bottom. Geeeeeez, what's next? Puberty?!

Trot incites instant laughter whenever he's around Evie. And he's ALWAYS around.

Evie has fully mastered the technique of forward crawling. She is now working on her crawling-while-holding-multiple-objects-she-refuses-to-release approach to mobility.

Trot: providing friendship, affection, comedic interjection into many situations, and a sniff test, if necessary.
(Evie is again showing off her crawling-while-holding-objects skills.)

Once more, Trot administers the sniff check on Evie. I should remind him that  deodorant (hopefully) won't be necessary for years to come.

 

 Blocks, blocks, blocks. I love blocks.
Or more appropriately: triangles, triangles, triangles. Obtuse, acute, or right angles...  It doesn't matter as long as they make a good sound when I smack them together! They're all polygons to me! (hahahah... poor kid has Tech grads for parents!)

 

Hmmm. I know this round object is of some importance to many people in my family. I guess I should learn what to do with it.  ("Scholarship!" says Momma.)

Already practicing her pull-ups on the kitchen table.
I seriously thought it would be years before she'd be able to do this, but once again, she proves me wrong. 
Ahhh... parental expectations shattered. I better get used to it!

And... last but not least:

Parents gone wild at Chastain Park!
A lovely little picnic spread.   Wine and cheese.   Candlelight and music.
Sooo very romantic and fun!
Yup, we were home and asleep by midnight.