Birthdays, Bikes, and Blasts

Abby turned 7-months-old today. And once again, Abby was teething on her birthday (she also did on her four and five month birthdays). In addition to the tooth she started cutting last week, her second top tooth looks like it will be appearing any day to bring her total up to four. So, other than dealing with a fussy baby today, we hung out with Daddy in the morning, went to Grandpa and Grandma's for lunch, did a little bit of gardening (while keeping an eye on a strange-looking fellow across the street who was having a bit of trouble with the cargo on his bike), and checked out the progress of the construction on our street (they begin working every morning at 7:00am practically right outside my bedroom window, so even if Abby sleeps in a bit longer I'm rudely awakened anyway!).

"Helping" Daddy at the computer/Eating in her "big girl" chair at Grandpa and Grandma's

The crazy, experimental drainage project the city is building on our road/Have you ever seen so many things on a bike before???

Besides dealing with Abby's first case of constipation (the parent-learning never stops!), we also had some fun times over the last few days. My nephews were up from Oregon for Memorial Day weekend. We celebrated Stephen's (my oldest nephew) 16th birthday. I made my chicken enchiladas (one of his all-time favorite meals) and we played frisbee golf together at Yauger Park (the last time we'd done that was on my birthday last July when I was 6 months pregnant!). On Monday, I took my nephews down to Vancouver where we toured Fort Vancouver and went to a waterfront park on the Columbia River. Abby got to enjoy her first experience riding on a swing there:

However, she did not enjoy the 21-cannon salute in honor of Memorial Day (the cannon blasts were terribly loud), but the boys sure did! When I'd planned the trip, I hadn't even thought about how much the cannons would scare Abby. For the first few blasts, she did fine (with me covering her ears, of course) but as they kept going (21 can seem like forever!) she started crying so I quickly walked a few blocks away. She recovered fairly fast and I was thankful it didn't go any worse. But, consequently, I only got pictures after the fact, when the smoke was clearing:

It was a fun trip, minus Abby crying most of the way home - the boys got dropped off just north of Vancouver where they were picked up by their dad, so Abby was all alone on the way back and was sick of riding in her carseat. But we made some good memories and had a great time together.

I know, they will all soon be taller than me!