C took lessons with her sister in July, and now the kid is swimming! She's in that stage where her confidence exceeds her ability so she has to be watched very closely, but she is sliding around in the water now, waving and smiling at me as she does it.
J has lost several of her front teeth, causing friends and family alike to gasp when they see her. With teeth missing on both the top and the bottom, you can spot the gap a mile away!
Both of them have been taking music lessons. C is taking violin and J is taking piano. C is listening closely while J practices and she is constantly at the keyboard trying to piece together songs by ear. We have not been "teaching" her on the piano, but just from doing this she has learned to play several tunes, including "Let It Go" from "Frozen."
We were still getting blackberries up until the end of the month. We got gallons and gallons from basically one plant. With 25+ other plants still not quite in prime bearing years, I can't help but wonder what next year will look like! Maybe I will have enough to make some blackberry wine.
We also started getting watermelon, which really means summer is in full swing.
Of course, we have an entire neighborhood festival centered around another summer fruit - the tomato. And, wow, have we gotten a lot of tomatoes!
A canned about 30-35 quarts before she finally tossed in the towel and declared it sufficient for the winter. The different varieties of tomato made some really beautiful jars.
Meals this month have featured a lot of summer foods: corn on the cob (from the Farmers' Market - we didn't plant any this year), tomatoes, watermelon, peaches...
I took the older girls downtown for an event at the Bridgestone Arena with their grandfather. They didn't get to ice skate like we planned (it was too crowded by the time we arrived), but they did get to put on facepaint and jump off a high shelf into a pile of fluff. C was a little terrified of the height at first but she eventually worked up the courage to do it, and when she did a crowd of onlookers cheered for her.
For the last weekend of the month we hosted a big birthday party for a friend of ours in our backyard. We had 40+ guests, a bounce house, "Batman" from 1966 on an outdoor screen, and Edley's BBQ. It was a blast!
We also adopted a stray cat this month. I was helping a friend move and the cat was hanging around the new house, just being friendly. After confirming that no one owned it, I took it home and C has dubbed it "Rosetta." (She has been pretty insistent about this name from long before we got the cat, and I have no idea where it came from.) Rosetta is quite friendly and has tolerated Wilbur's presence quite well.
R is still not walking, but she did take a few steps in a row at our church the weekend of July 24th (just as we were telling someone that she couldn't yet walk). She still crawls everywhere, but I suspect by the end of August she will have started walking.