At just under four months now, Rosalie is getting so much more coordinated with her hands. She tries to grab on to almost anything around, and is especially good at keeping me from getting a new diaper on by putting her arms straight down by her sides! The next step, of course, is getting any captured items to her mouth, which she's starting to do here with this purple teether. I can't believe how fast she's growing!

In spite of the fact that both Tim and Joseph are still feeling a little under the weather, here we are at Six Flags Fiesta Texas this morning! (Have I mentioned that San Antonio is a really great place to visit? Six Flags, Sea World, Schlitterbahn, the Alamo, and more all within an hour of our house, plus the balmy Gulf Coast less than three hours away!) Tim's work is having it's annual picnic here today, so tickets were insanely cheap. I'm not sure if bringing your two-year-old to Six Flags is normally the best bang for your buck, but considering we spent less on tickets, parking, and lunch than you normally spend on parking alone (and got free return tickets to boot), this was an opportunity we just couldn't pass up!

Joseph sure is excited about riding rides again! He liked the truck ride and this little roller coaster (we're in the back car again) just fine, but when I asked him what he wanted to do next, he immediately said: "the carousel!" This kid knows what he wants.

Here we are waiting, and waiting, and waiting for it to start. I think we waited at least 15 minutes like this before the ride got going, and Joseph was so incredibly patient. He only said "want to go!" once, and he even smiled for the camera. He was so excited to be on the carousel, even if it wasn't actually moving yet!

Now, I will say that although Tim and I were really happy to take Joseph on the pint-sized rides, being at Six Flags also brought out the thrill-ride junkies in us. Here's Tim standing in front of the brand-new Goliath ride, one of those fantastic feet-dangling types. We each got a chance to ride it while the other watched the kids, which turned out even better than expected because of a separate, nearly-empty line for single riders. It was a blast! On a bit of a side note, Tim and I have actually been here together before. We came with a group of friends the summer we met here in San Antonio, and was just one of the many experiences that brought us together. It definitely was a different experience today with our two little ones in tow, but I was still just as happy to be here with the man of my dreams!

Tim picked up some kind of bug during his work trip early this week, and apparently had a pretty rough night last night. I found him here on the couch this morning buried under this pile of pillows. I hope he gets feeling better soon!

I just can't resist the way babies look all snuggled up in their towels after bath time! Joseph, apparently, can't resist poking Rosalie on the head! He just always wants to be around her, touch her, and give her kisses. I'm so glad their relationship is off to such a good start!

Rosalie sure has been talkative this afternoon! Here she is talking to me and the little bugs hanging from her bouncy seat.

It's just amazing to me how each little baby born into the world arrives already with her own personality, which just becomes more and more evident as she grows and gains control over that tiny body. One thing Rosalie seems to want to do quite naturally is whack her right hand against her hip whenever she gets excited or upset. Here she is showing off her skills this afternoon!

We just fall more and more in love with our little sweet pea every day!

Earlier today, Joseph, Rosalie, and I made our first visit to the O.P. Schnabel Park playground. I was highly impressed with the 220-acre park, full of live oaks, mountain laurels, roadrunners, cardinals, and chickadees, so we decided to come back tonight for family night and hike around a bit! It's a bit more crowded than it was this morning, but we're still finding ourselves alone much of the time. The park is less than ten minutes from our house, and is named after a man who devoted his life to the Beautify San Antonio Association. Apparently, he liked using catchy phrases to get his message across, such as "be a beauty bug, not a litter bug" and "nice people don't litter". Now that I think of it, it is pretty clean here, and all the trees make for lots of shade on this hot, hot day! What a pleasant place to be!

Happy Father's Day, Tim! Here we are after eating our machaca tacos tonight, just getting ready to have some banana pudding. It's always fun to have a nice meal to celebrate a special day!



Here's Joseph helping Tim try on the tie he made for him at our church nursery today. He loves his daddy so much! Even Rosalie grins excitedly whenever she sees him and loves to watch him eat during dinner! I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful, dedicated, loving husband!

Here's just a funny shot of this "bubble beard" on Rosalie!

This morning, Southwest Research is offering free on-site physicals for all employees and spouses, so before the actual exams begin, I'm finally getting my first tour of Tim's office! It reminds me quite a bit of where we both worked at Applied Research Labs in Austin, except he's got one of the "nice" offices now, with window, fancy chair, and big monitor. My favorite part is the white board full of crazy engineering scribblings, diagrams, and formulas. It has been over three years since I've seen that kind of thing!

I realized today that we've lived in our house here in San Antonio for almost six months now. We finally just hung up all the pictures on the walls last week, and that finally makes it feel like we're really moved in! So, as promised, here's a rather lengthy tour of the inside of our place, starting again with the view from the front door.



From that point looking left, here's a view of the living room panning left to right. The windows in the first shot look out onto the front lawn. Since we have no real living room furniture to speak of, this room is currently serving as a piano room and play room for Joseph. He likes playing here because it's right next to the kitchen, where I spend a lot of time during the day. The refrigerator is visible through the wooden double doors in the second shot.

Here's a shot looking through those double doors into the kitchen. Beyond are the computer desk where I do all my blogging and the breakfast nook where we do all our eating.

This is from the other side of the kitchen looking back toward the living room. The previous owner thought she was going to live in the house forever, so she seriously upgraded certain things: ceramic cooktop, silestone counters, dual ovens, tile floors, etc. We love it!

From that same spot, here's another shot of the breakfast nook. Those big windows look out into the back yard. Another upgrade, another reason we're glad we bought this older, less expensive, but well-maintained house, rather than the house we originally closed on. Our mortgage payment would have been a lot more than we're currently paying, and we would have had so many more improvements to make to get it to this point!

Looking to the left from that same spot again, here's the laundry room. Inside the laundry room to the left is the door to the garage, and between here and the laundry room to the right is the door to the master bedroom.



The window of our room looks out into the back yard, too. Almost all of the furniture and decorations we have we either got when we got married or have been given to us along the way. We're living proof that fancy things don't make a happy marriage! This set of wooden double doors looks into the master bath.

From those doors, the closet is to the right, and this huge whirlpool tub is to the left. This tub was touted as an upgrade by the seller, and while it is mighty nice, there's just one problem: it takes up so much room, there's no shower in this bathroom! The cost of remodeling to put one in is definitely going to set us back a bit father on that whole new furniture and decorations thing, but it's probably the next thing we're going to save up and do.

Now going back to the breakfast nook area, here's shot of our family room. The tiled entryway across the room leads back to the front door and living room.

Here's another view of the family room from that entryway. Those French doors go out to the back patio and yard.

Turning right and right again from the front entryway, here's the hallway to the other bedrooms.



Here's Joseph's room...

the second bathroom (complete with shower, thankfully)...

the spare bedroom...



and, last but not least, Rosalie's room! It's a cozy and comfy house, and we sure are thankful for it!

This morning, it occurred to me that Rosalie has gained quite a bit of flexibility in her legs since last week when she started wearing her hip brace. She seems more comfortable than she did right at first, and can even do a little tummy time now while wearing it! The brace is a Rhino Cruiser, and it's specifically designed to allow movement, especially for older babies who are learning to crawl and walk. I'm just glad it's so easy to use!

The best thing about her increased flexibility is that we can buckle her into her swing and bouncy seat once again! That's a big deal to us, since that's still her favorite place to sleep. This last week we've been putting a lot of padding under her bottom to keep her up out of the deep seat so her legs would be comfy. We rigged up various other ways of keeping her from falling out, but she kept sliding down off the head pillow, which she didn't seem to like too much. Now she's back in almost the same position as before! Hooray! On a side note, Joseph just loves giving Rosalie kisses! He's only mildly enthusiastic about giving kisses to or getting them from anyone else, but he just can't stop kissing his cute baby sister's hands, feet, and head!

Rosalie still loves her baths, and she's also starting to like diaper changes quite a bit, too. I remember Joseph enjoying diaper changes a lot when he was about this age, but after seeing how much Rosalie loathed them her first month or so, I wasn't sure we'd ever get there! She sure looks cute all wrapped up in her towel!

As I mentioned before, one of the challenges of Rosalie's new hip brace has been getting her properly swaddled. She's been pretty frustrated with the sloppy swaddling jobs we've been doing in order to keep her arms from getting squished into hard plastic, so I knew we needed a method that didn't require wrapping around the hips. So, I headed down to the fabric store and picked up some of this pretty cotton gauze, cut it into long strips, and sewed them together to wrap across, around, and under her. Here's a shot of my first try, and she really seems to like it! When I first wrapped her up, she calmed right down and started cooing and smiling, and even after a little nap, she still hasn't gotten those arms out! In any case, she sure is a cutie!

Doesn't Joseph look cute wearing Tim's shoes? As fast as he's growing, I guess it won't be too many years until they might actually fit!

Today Rosalie is three months old! I just can't believe how fast time is flying, and I'm doing my best to enjoy every moment I get to spend with our sweet little girl. She's getting those hands up to her face pretty regularly now, so I guess it won't be too long until she's putting things into her mouth! I love what a big flirt she is, always smiling and cooing at anyone she can get to look her in the eye.



For example, when we visited the pediatric orthopedist to check on Rosalie's hips this morning, she was shooting smiles right and left! Her hips have been clicking since birth, which is not uncommon for breech babies, but which can indicate a problem with hip joint development. We took her in for an ultrasound early on, and found out that the hip sockets weren't actually dislocated. Whew! However, we still needed x-rays to see whether the hip sockets were fully formed, and today was her appointment. As it turns out, the sockets are fairly shallow, so she'll need to wear this brace for the next six or eight weeks. Hopefully at that point all is well! The doctor said the issue is a matter of durability and longevity of the hip joint, not whether she would be able to walk, etc. So, now we're re-learning everything, from nursing (can't put her on her side), to clothing (note her feet sticking out of her sleeper legs), to sitting (bending at the waist impossible), to sleeping (the buckles of her swing won't reach and swaddling is proving difficult). One thing that will remain the same is the use of our Kozy and Connecta baby carriers. The doctor saw her in the Kozy yesterday and told me she was in the perfect position, and I could even take the brace off to carry her like that! Rosalie has been a great sport about it all, though. I'm just so glad there's something so simple we can do to help her!

Tim took these cute shots of Joseph playing outside this morning while I was at the doctor with Rosalie. I sure love having a back yard!

These two really seem to enjoy each other so much already!

Some friends from the ward here invited us over this afternoon for homemade pretzels! They were very tasty, and the perfect vehicle for a variety of yummy spreads: honey butter, jam, cream cheese, mustard, etc. Here are all the adults but me after eating our fill!

Here's Joseph eating his pretzel at the kids' table! He fell asleep for his nap so late this afternoon, we had to wake him up about 20 minutes later to get ready to go. He was feeling pretty grumpy, and we wondered if we should even go, but now he's having a blast!

I think his good mood stems from the fact that he's started to really love being around and playing with other kids. Here's a shot of him getting friendly with cute Jenna here. I think she actually wanted him to back off a little bit. I guess we're going to have to start teaching him about personal space!