Red Shoe, Black Shoe, Old Friends, New Friends

Wow, sorry to all you blogcheckers out there for the long delay! We've been busy playing a local newspaper contest where they publish a photo of a location here in Clark County and if you find and submit digital photos of all of them, you have a chance to win $1000. We are in the final clue stage - we earned the final clue which tells the location of an orb that, if we find it, will get us the prize. We are not expecting to win, due to the hardcore players who drive around after midnight to get their pictures. Oh well, we still had fun. If you want to see Sydney in the contest photos, you can check out the Columbian newspaper's "Qvest" contest. Here is the link: http://www.columbiantalk.com/quest5/ If you need more info, email us and we'll tell you.

Here's one of the photos we submitted at one of the locations. Pretty random, huh?



So what's our brave girl been doing this month? Let's see. Her 18-month appointment went off without a hitch. She weighed in at 20lbs. and some ounces, and was 30" tall. So she grew three inches and put on some good weight. It looks like she's got almost all of her teeth in - guess we should schedule a dentist appointment soon. She can now crawl up onto chairs with some effort and do a somersault too. She is developing her sprinting abilities with fast results. (Wah-wahhh...groan.) She likes to lie down in the bathtub while kicking her legs in the water. She likes to put on her own shoes even though she takes them off every time in the car. She likes to share her snacks with whomever is in the near vicinity (Ellie is usually the benefactor). She gives hugs and kisses rather freely and loves to clap her hands whenever she hears others clapping. She attended her first concert at the Clark County Fair - country singer Sara Evans. Sydney thoroughly enjoyed bopping to the music and clapping a lot.

Sydney, our fashion-trend-breaker. She usually doesn't keep the ponytail holders in for long.



New words include "cap" (like the cap for a bottle) and "baa" for the sheep sound. She can identify hair, head, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, arm, leg, foot, toes, fingers, hands, knees, teeth, and belly button. We're not sure how she picked up most of those body parts because we really don't recall teaching them to her. Hmm. She babbles and bops and gubbles and inflects her voice frequently, and just this week has found a high-pitched screech (happy but ear-splitting) that sounds like it hurts to produce.

Although we don't quite have the bumper crop of tomatoes that we did last summer, we have a few that are finally ripening. Here's Sydney eating a whole tomato like an apple.



Another trip to the Oregon Zoo yielded our first official picture of Sydney actually seeing the elephants!



Our old neighbor friends Lavonne, Barbaros and BJ had moved away but are moving back to Vancouver. Here's Sydney playing the boxing game on the Nintendo Wii with BJ.



And finally, Sydney met her youngest new friend tonight: Brian's colleague Amy's 15-day old son Charley. GENTLE! GENTLE!