Pull up a chair

Our little girl seems to be growing up right in front of our eyes lately. This morning she ate her very first meal seated at the kitchen table in a booster seat. Between sitting in a real chair and getting her own personal bowl of cereal, she was in hog heaven! After every single bite, she would say, "Yummy cereal!" or "Yay seat!" She had been asking to sit in a chair at the table for about a week, so we knew it was time. We are excited to have some extra space in the kitchen without the highchair hogging the corner, but we both agree that it's going to be weird to share a dinner table with a new person. Emma, on the other hand, will probably enjoy dinner a whole lot more than she has been. She is usually asking to come out of her high chair before I even sit down at the table. I have a feeling tonight she will want to sit in her seat for as long as we will let her!

Our neighbors pointed out something really cool to us this weekend. We recently got some new sod, and we've been outside every evening watering to make sure it stays alive until it takes root. With the sweltering heat and the blood-thirsty mosquitoes, we haven't had any interest in going back outside once the watering duties are finished for the night. Well, it turns out that after the sun goes down, Mother Nature gives us a pretty spectacular show in the backyard. There is a line of big (BIG) trees at the back of all of the yards on our section of the street. At night, there are thousands of lightning bugs, flickering all throughout the trees, all the way to the very tops. It looks like a forest of Christmas tree lights, all flashing at random. I didn't even know lightning bugs went up that high! Part of what makes it so neat is that you really don't see any in the backyard, where the grass is. They all congregate in the trees and flash their little hearts out. We tried to take some video, but the flashes didn't show up. So we'll just have to enjoy it for ourselves until the lightning bugs are gone for the season, and then we'll have to wait until next year to see it again.