What's new in the Harris household? Sailor's walking everywhere and getting into everything as usual, so I guess that's not new. She's using six words at the moment: mama, dada, this, that, book, and cheese. She's sleeping longer stretches now that I've night-weaned her, but she is still waking a couple of times a night. At least it's only for 2-3 minutes at a time now. Still, it's frustrating that the books say, "almost all babies will begin to sleep through the night if they can fall asleep on their own and are not being fed during the night." Someone please tell my child this. But, this too shall pass, and all too quickly I'm told.

I'm looking forward to next week, as Frank will be on vacation. We're going to have a "staycation," although I hate that word! It just irks me for some reason. But that's what we're planning to do. Lord willing, we will take Sailor to the zoo, Fairytale Town, Lake Tahoe, the California State Fair, and Old Sacramento. Now that I stop to think about it, we are blessed to have so many fun things to do in our immediate vicinity.

A pic of my favorite small person:

Sailor recently turned one. I was thinking about her first year of life and one of my favorite memories of her is how much she enjoyed the trip we took to Monterey when she was 7 months old. I turned 30 on February 13th and we wanted to do something special to celebrate my birthday, and since Frank's birthday is the 12th and Valentine's Day is the 14th, we decided to make a weekend of it. We wanted to do something that Sailor might enjoy, so we decided to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We stayed two nights in a hotel close to the aquarium and arranged our visits around Sailor's naps. Sailor loved it and we all had a great time! Here are some pictures:



It had been nearly 13 years since we had visited the aquarium. We were so impressed with the quality of the exhibits and how family-friendly everything was. We highly recommend it for those with children, and those without kids!

I miss posting on Xanga. Since I had Sailor, Facebook is an easier, faster way to keep in touch with everyone, but I miss the writing that I did on Xanga. Looks like lots of other people have abandoned it too. Come on, people, let's BRING BACK XANGA! I'll start...

Sailor's a year old now. I can't believe how fast the time has flown! She's a busy bee: she's been walking well for about a week and is waving and pointing at everything. She had about six words at one point, but she's not using them much at the moment. I read somewhere that verbal development may slow down when a child is mastering a physical skill (like walking). She jabbers a lot and she understands a lot of what we say, so I've no doubt she'll be a little chatterbox soon.

Mom was teasing me the other day because before Sailor was born I said I didn't want my living areas to be cluttered up with a ton of baby stuff. That was doable in the first several months, before she was mobile, but those days are long over. Now it looks like Babies R Us threw up on my living room. Sailor has learned how to open her toy box and delights in pulling out toys and throwing them over her shoulder. The messiness is hard for me to take, but I don't feel like picking up the same mess several times a day, so I'm learning to live with it. Mom's a teacher and has been off for the summer. She's been coming to help me out once or twice a week and it's been wonderful. She's going back to work next week and Sailor and I will miss her visits!

In other news, we just finished landscaping our backyard. It looks beautiful! We have been wanting to do this ever since we moved in 7 years ago and it feels great to finally have it done. I use the term "we" loosely, since we actually paid a landscaper to do almost all the work. He tore out our old cracked concrete, poured a new, more interesting patio, and installed automatic sprinklers and sod. He also planted shrubs across the front and back of the house, and created a pretty flower bed. We added some finishing touches -- new plants in the containers on the patio and window boxes. We have drip lines installed and I'm excited about not having to water everything. Sailor loves her new backyard! She has eaten dirt a couple of times. (Don't tell her daddy!)

Today we're going to lunch and go swimming with a couple of mommy friends and their babies. I'm so blessed to have a group of friends with babies close to Sailor's age.

I'll leave you with a photo. This was taken in June:


Your turn! What has everyone been up to?

I remember when Carisha was a brand new mom and said she couldn't understand how other moms ever find time to post. I heartily agree! I have never been so busy in my life, in a good way, but it leaves me little time for Xanga. I thought since it has been 3 months since my last post it was time for an update.

Let's see...we went to Indiana for Harris Family Thanksgiving. That was fun! Sailor is a great little traveler. She was so good on all four of our flights and slept great the whole time we were gone -- better than she does at home, actually. She loved all the attention from her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Here are some pics: