The End of July

Time is still flying by - it is already the last day of July! On Thursday of this week, Rachel and I went to playgroup again and had a good time. She was on very good behavior again - she played for a little while and then took a nap. Here she is ready to head over there in her Winnie the Pooh top and green pants:

On Thursday evening, neither Wes nor I felt like making dinner so we decided to go out to eat in the Heights. We had great Italian food and brought some nice wine with us (it is BYOB). Rachel loves to go out to eat. The sounds of the restaurant seem to lull her to sleep. Here she is when we first arrived:


And here she is before our food even arrived:

Today, we have not been doing much. It is dark and cloudy outside - hopefully it will rain soon. I took some pictures of Rachel in the shirt Angela brought her from Chile.


Rachel also enjoyed playing in her play gym today. She is getting closer to actually playing with the toys these days rather than just hitting them by accident. Mostly she is still hitting the hanging toys by accident.

Angela Visits - Part II

On her way back from Austin to Mandeville, Angela could not resist stopping in to see little Rachel. She also got a free cup of coffee :). While she was here, we played with Rachel and took some pictures. Oh how we love to take pictures!!

In these, Rachel is trying out her new hybrid diapers - a combination of cloth and disposable. She seems to like them so far, although they are pretty expensive to maintain so she will not be wearing them all the time. We got the little pants free through another Mom in the Heights Kids group.

Tante Angela Visits

Rachel was excited last week that Angela was coming for a visit. She stayed with us on Thursday night on her way to Austin.

We had a good time visiting with Angela. We all went out to dinner on Thursday night. Then, Angela and I went to see the new Harry Potter while Wes got to spend some quality time at home with Rachel.

After Angela left, Rachel was much less enthusiastic...

Meeting Aunt Mandy

Mandy was in Houston for a few hours on Tuesday at the beginning of her visit to Texas this week. It was great to see her and Rachel was finally able to meet her aunt.

Mandy brought Rachel some adorable felted wool shoes - we tried to get her picture with them on the couch after dinner but she was not really cooperating.

In addition to having visitors, Rachel has been enjoying playing with her mommy...
...sleeping unswaddled at night...


...gazing at herself in the mirror above her swing...

...looking cute...


...sitting in her Bumbo (even when it makes her sneeze)...



...and concentrating while playing on her mat.


Rachel and I went to our first playgroup this week. It is a group that we found through Heights Kids for babies born March 1 to September 1 of this year, so they are all right around Rachel's age. We had a good time, even though the babies do not really interact much beyond staring at each other at this point.

Here are a couple more videos of Rachel talking and playing. I hear from her Oma, Opa and Aunt Angela that they enjoy watching them.

Weekend at Home

We spent this weekend at home - no family reunions or other activities going on. We relaxed with Rachel, did some shopping and had friends over for dinner. We had Greek/Turkish food to commemorate our friend Sarah's recent trip to Greece and Turkey. We got to see pictures of the trip - it looked like a lot of fun! We also saw pictures of Sarah and Kim's trip across the northern US to see Mount Rushmore.

Most of the food for the evening was provided by Sarah - she made a great Greek salad, tsatsiki and beef kebabs (grilled by Wes). Kim brought some very tasty pitas. Jared and Hope made fantastic baklava. With some roasted potatoes and hummus on the side, we were set.

Rachel was on good behavior most of the night, although she got grumpy and fussy during picture time. I guess she was jealous of the great trips. All of the excitement seemed to be good for her, though. After everyone left, she ate and then fell asleep and didn't wake up when we put her in her bed for the first time in weeks. She slept until 7:30 this morning.

After dinner, Jared decided to try and see the play gym from Rachel's perspective to see if it really was much fun.




Hope held Rachel while I was eating my baklava. We also had some ouzo with our dessert to bring in some Greek authenticity.



Lately, Rachel has started making lots of new sounds. We tried to capture them on video but she is a little camera shy. Here are some of our efforts for your viewing enjoyment:

Sutherland-Rogers Reunion

This weekend, we went to Kerrville for the Sutherland-Rogers reunion. Rachel was once again the youngest person at the reunion. We had a great time seeing GranDave and Mimi, Uncle Travis, the Ray family, Daniel and Jessica as well as many members of the extended family.

On the way to Kerrville, we stopped by the Real Ale Brewery in Blanco for a tour and some free samples.


Here is Rachel meeting some more family members.



Rachel enjoyed showing off her Sutherland onesie for the occasion.


Rachel found some of the reunion to be a little boring and sometimes she fell asleep...


She was very happy when it was time for her to get some dinner.