Here's Looking at You, Kid!

With all of the illnesses, eating strikes, and feeding panics going on around here, we've utterly neglected showing off our cute little girl and her antics. Happily there is a finite number of pictures available because her utterly exhausted moms have completely neglected to take any pictures of their darling daughter this week, but we hope that we'll resume that practice soon!

Anyway, what better way to usher in July than with a few Hallie cameos:

The day after Hallie's birthday party, we went down to visit Sharon's family for the day. Sharon was giving a presentation to the Northfield Community School's Seventh Grade on the Virginia State Capitol (a building planned and built by Thomas Jefferson that Sharon's firm--and Sharon--helped restore and for which they recently built an addition; way cool). After everyone was out of school, we took the big girls (Sarah and Meghan) out for ice cream. Hallie had a great time expanding her ice cream eating (?) skills:



Later that evening, Hallie unwrapped some cool presents from everyone. She got a walker and some new duds from Grammy and a spiffy new roadster, which was a gift to her from Aunt Laura, Uncle Bryan and the kids. She very eagerly unwrapped it because that made it easier for her to gorge herself on the wrapping paper (while I promise not to belabor her feeding, I would like to say that the kid is on a high fiber diet that includes a considerable amount of paper and carpet). Then she and cousins Adam and Hannah checked out the new wheels took turns in the car:



The next night, we took her to the park in her vehicle, where she showed it off to her friend Ethan.



Here, Ethan is flirting with Hallie (hoping that she'd take him for a ride in her car, no doubt). Please note: our little girl is flirting right back.



After parking the car, the kids (and Sharon), had a lot of fun on the slides. Hallie enjoyed going down the slide with Sharon a lot.



But she enjoyed walking up the slide even more:





Such determination!

And who wouldn't enjoy holding the hand of a cute boy like Ethan Byrne?



So, see, it hasn't been all sickness and struggle around here! And I do promise to try to get some shots (hopefully video) of Hallie cruising and playing in her playhut (which has now overtaken our miniscule living room) and outdoor play yard (aka Jail). Finally, just to tease all of you faithful readers, we will hopefully have some special pics of some very special friends from the blogosphere with whom we are planning an impromptu visit later this week. I won't let on who will be featured on this blog, so you're just going to have to tune in later this week! (Sheesh, what won't I do to enhance our web stats!)