New Kate Pics

Kate keeps growing and changing. The two teeth that first came in late June are now getting huge and a couple more pushed through this past week. I was gone for only a few days at the first of the month, and in that time she started talking more, rolling, crawling, pulling up -- even in that short period of time the changes were striking.

The teething, though, has been making Kate a bit fussy so we've tried to soothe her using some homeopathic teething drops, ora-gel, or children's tylenol (if all else fails). I am not certain any of it works, but it just gives her a new thing to focus on, a new sensation so it usually works to get her to stop crying. (ETA: thanks for the suggestions on the teething rings, I forgot we have a couple of them, though I must remember to keep them cold! She loves them, btw).

She's had a pretty fun week. She absolutely loves this bungee jumper that Nicki got for her. She could play in that for about an hour if we let her, she just pushes off and smiles. I thought that the color photo of her looking up me almost looks like she's in some Bruce Lee, martial arts pose.

The bath pics were from tonight. I was editing a wedding and Nicki called me in and asked me to shoot some more pics of Kate. I had promised my Mom after speaking with her today that I would post some pics on the blog tonight--plus Nicki wants to keep the S. African and world contingent up to speed, and rightly so.

I'm glad she did. It reminds me of those times shooting projects when I was in newspapers. Everytime I would go and continue work on a project (and these photos of Kate are my life-long project) there's always something that happens that is always a pay back for stepping out and taking some frames. Today was no exception.

We had a hectic weekend. The exterior of the house was painted starting early yesterday and finished today and it looks great. Our house is almost five years old and the original paint had started to fade due to the harsh sun and because of the last two winters which were particularly wet. There's a wave of repainting happening in our neighborhood, which is one of the first built in Ladera.

We've been in a huge home improvement mode as well. In addition to the exterior, the painters came back today and finished the last four walls needing paint (Nicki painted EVERYTHING else throughout the house including the red dining room walls which required five coats of paint and did an amazing job--even the painters were impressed!). These walls are huge going up the two stories and I didn't want either one of us to do it -- this one was a job for the pros.

We're also going through the process of renovating the garage. The floors are going to be acid stained and sealed, the walls painted and cabinets and shelving placed in there. It's a slow process gathering the quotes but we're so excited that things are moving forward and we should have everything completed by mid September.