Happiness Is…

A 4th of July street fair.

This has to be the best 4th of July party I have ever seen – but then, like I said, when Nantucket does something, they do it right.  Saturday morning, Nora and I headed down to the Unitarian Church for a public reading of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, and then joined the masses for the free street festival, complete with watermelon eating contests, a puppet show, a dunk tank anyone could try out, face painting, balloons, and so much more.  The library had a used book sale where I snagged a few new things to read, and at noon a firetruck came and hosed down the entire street!

A visit to the beach with only a few tears.

And in a patriotic bathing suit, too.

Making new friends.

Mr. V who’ll be coming a few evenings per week to play with us (and to help knock over our block towers).

Visiting Dada at work.

She actually started to cry when he tried to walk away from the table.  Sad for her, but it must have made Chris feel good.

Lazy Tuesday mornings in bed.

Which are especially amazing, now that a little someone is sleeping through the night in her crib!  She goes to bed around 8:30 and doesn’t wake up until 6:30 or 7, when she comes to our room to nurse and snooze for another hour or so, before climbing all over us, babbling away.

Super cute 9 month clothing.

Nora is on the small side (or maybe all of the other babies are fat) so at 10 months, she is still wearing mostly 6-9 month clothing.  This week she was able to start wearing some of her 9 month dresses, and the Polo dresses my mom got her are killing me.  They’re preppy, yes, but they’re so-darn-cute…and so-darn-Nantucket.

Writing in her baby book.

There’s so much going on!  It’s so amazing how many new things she’s learning and doing all at once.  Like sleeping through the night.  And just today I realized that she has two more top teeth coming in — meaning she has seven teeth!  And we’re…

A bottle-free household.

Honestly, we’ve basically been bottle free since May 28th, but only because I started staying home with her and all she’s been doing is nursing.  In the last week, we’ve been able to put the bottles away for real, because this girl is a rock star with a sippy cup – and not that bad with a glass either.

Wednesday baking days.

I officially have a baking day.  For the past three weeks instead of buying bread, I’ve baked it.  This is one of the amazing benefits of not working outside of the house anymore: having time to bake bread.  The last two weeks I made wheat from two different recipes, but today I made two loaves of fabulous white sandwich bread.  I’m not normally a white bread person, but this recipe is a keeper.  You probably wouldn’t even know that it wasn’t from the store (except that there’s no corn syrup, preservatives, or extra additives baked in).  Mmmm.

—Photo note:since my camera had a mishap at the beach, I’m stuck with only a cell phone.—