Oh we had so much fun. If I had known this festival was so cool, and not lame like the other fairs out here, we would have been going for years. It was much much cooler than the one in Gainesville (and that one is pretty good!). Thalia enjoyed it a bunch and cooperated the entire time. The costumes were freaking awesome! And it got me all motivated. I’ve got to make costumes for next year. I’ve already got plans in the works. But it will probably take me all year to make them!

Thalia had a wonderful first birthday. She tore up her cake and opened her presents. She also got to go to the zoo, park, Garden of the Gods, swimming, the Sunbird… it’s been a busy week. We’ve all had tons of fun. And most importantly, Thalia LOVES loves loves her cousin Kylie. She gives her kisses every day. How sad she is going to be tomorrow when they leave.

Anywho, new album!

We so busy! Yeah… we’ve been busy lately. Our house is finally finished… roof, fence and all. Well, we have a blown fuse or something wrong with our outside lights (and new lights to replace them with)… but we’re hoping the Dads can help us out with that when they visit :)

Yard work is done… or at least as done as it’s going to be. We don’t do grass anymore, so our front yard looks pretty wild. Thalia is growing a bunch lately. She’s finally eating and she’s getting smarter! It must be one of those growth spurts I’ve heard so much about but haven’t witnessed in a looong time.

We’re very excited about her birthday weekend. We are all going to have a lot of fun. Can’t wait to see Kylie!!!

Picture time!

Thalia playing in her pool a couple weeks ago.

One veeery messy breakfast last week.

Playing with Bombadil.

Taking a bath a couple days ago.

She did it!!  Just a little bit ago.  She took her first steps!  And then she took a couple more.  And then a couple more.  Oh man.  I just about exploded from the excitement from that experience.  Of course, as soon as I turned the camera on, she stopped.

Our new fence is finished. We’ve been needing a new fence since we first moved into the house. Since we were replacing the old one anyway, we decided to expand our “yard” a little. Now the dogs have a little backyard to play in.

Alright. New this week… Thalia and I are taking another swim lesson, this time with Michelle and Joe. Thalia loves swimming still. After this set of lessons, she will probably move up into the next age group.

Thalia has learned how to climb off of the couches. She flips her little but around and drops her legs off. She still isn’t tall enough to pull herself onto them yet, but she’s figured out how to put her drum by one of them so she can climb up. She’s still practicing walking. She hold onto our hands, and sometimes just one hand, and walks along with us.

The cutest thing ever. The other day she was looking at Bombadil and he went to get a drink of water from his dog bowl. Thalia was watching him and I told her he was drinking water. She did the sign for water then pointed at his bowl. And I flipped. OH SO CUTE!

She’s known what a kitty was for a while now. But the other day she started to learn doggy. I showed her a doggy in her book then told her Java is a doggy. Something must have clicked because now she points at Java whenever we talk about doggies.

And she’s getting pretty good at following my instructions (for the time being). I tell her to hand me stuff, whatever she’s got a hold of, and put out my hand. Then she places whatever it is in my hand. The most important one being her spoon. She’s so good… for the time being…

And Thalia got a new cup this week. She loves it.

I just realized that I haven’t published any Thalia movies in over 2 weeks. I’m sorry about that. Since she’s been sick, we haven’t had many happy moments to video. It’s been a bad couple of weeks. So there isn’t even anything for me to put up right now. I’ll have to work on getting some videos this week. She’s finally starting to feel better. In fact, I think she’ll be able to go to swimming class on Wednesday.

Here she is saying, “I been sick.”

I’ve been trying to get a picture of her teeth for a while now. Finally got one yesterday! Obviously, click on the picture to see a bigger version.

I was wrong about her getting more teeth a couple weeks ago. And can you believe she is a very sick girl in that picture? It’s hard to believe. Yesterday we had to go to the doctor because of her nasty cold. Then we had to go get her chest x-rayed to make sure it’s nothing serious. Today we’re waiting for the results,

Thalia is sick this weekend. It’s not too surprising. She’s been around a lot of kids lately. She seems to be a pretty social being though. She loves playing with other children. But now she’s all snotty and coughy. It’s sad, but her attitude certainly hasn’t changed. She’s as lively as ever. Right now she is constantly closing herself into her bedroom. Then as soon as she realizes she can’t get out, she gets scared and cries. We open the door, rinse, repeat…

We had a Rockband party the other night. Thalia had so much fun. She got to stay up late and play with several other kids… quite a few her own age. Fortunately, all of our friends’ kids are very well behaved and very sweet. All the kids love her in our Mommy group, too. They were all playing with her last week. Robert even gave her big hugs. So cute. But anyway, she’s sick now. And look how tall! She’s trying to pull that plant down, now.

And here she is scooting across half the party scene. Most of the kids were off playing in the other side of the basement. (The other baby in the picture is Joe, Scott and Michelle’s 7 month old. Scott and Michelle are the two standing on the right)

Thalia loves her watermelon. I gave her some slices yesterday and she devoured them. She sucked them dry and handed me the rind and asked for another slice until she was about to pop. I feared her diaper that night.