Here Comes Summer!

We are nine months old! Katharine weighs 15 pounds and Christopher is 18 and half pounds! We just keep growing and growing!

We have been on some walks and play dates with friends this month – we even walked up to Jammin’ Java in Vienna for lunch during a couple of morning concerts for kids. Seeing Rocknocerous was really fun on our birthday! Unfortunately we also got some really un-fun colds and haven’t seen our friends for about three weeks. We can’t wait to get better so we can get back to playing with our friends! But in the meantime, we’re having lots of fun together at home, playing, and learning lots of new things!

Both Katharine and Christopher are now sitting independently , and enjoy playing with our toys sitting for a while. We really like being able to see so much when we can sit up and look all around! At the end of the month, Katharine also started truly crawling, which prompted Mommy and Daddy to do some more safety proofing, including a gate across the playroom door. Mommy and Daddy also have to keep Katharine interested in her own toys, as she loves to play with Christopher and all of his toys. (Normally, we’d love to play together and share our toys, but we are also trying to get better from our colds by not sneezing and coughing all over each other ☺.)

We are still talking up a storm! Katharine’s characteristic Ah-Bah-Bah-Bwah filled our home for much of this month, and both of us still love Ah-Boofff. Our adventures in eating continue, as we have plowed through many vegetables and fruit and recently began proteins. So far we’ve tried lentils with rice (loved it!), chicken with brown rice (which Katharine found too runny), and beef/corn/carrot – which smells like beef stew – Yum! And we LOVE yogurt! We also love munching on an appetizer of teething biscuits or puffed cereal while waiting for our turn! Mommy finally figured out that Katharine just wants to feed herself. So as long as she can put her fingers in her food or help hold the spoon, she really thinks eating is fun!

On Sunday, May 15, we participated in the March of Dimes March For Babies. We had a beautiful day for the walk, and it was especially meaningful for us to walk amongst other families who have been blessed with little miracles. The hour-long walk was about four miles, from RestonTown Center, through the Lake Anne neighborhood and back. Along the route, there were corporate-sponsored "cheer stations", as well as signs honoring the brave fight faced at birth by so many other little ones in our community.

We are so thankful for the research that has been funded by previous walks, because it has contributed to the successful start our little ones have had. Thank you so much for your donations to support our family's walk in the March of Dimes this year! Thanks to you, our family exceeded our goal, raising $585 for the Fairfax NICU team, whose fundraising total was $30,378. There were more than 1,700 registered walkers (and estimate that there were about 3,000 who came out to walk), and raised more than $510,000 (This is $120,000 more than last year!).

And we were glad to end the month with a visit with Grandma and Grandpa Keller of Memorial Day weekend! We had lots of fun playing with them at home, and enjoying adventures out for dinner and brunch!
Here is the link for our May photo gallery on Kodak Gallery. You can paste this address into your browser to see them:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=1450703650105%3A1712894232&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee

Have a beautiful start to summer!

Love,

Katharine and Christopher