The McDevitts are off to Oregon for a fun-filled week of friends and festivities (Chris and Carla's wedding)!  Here's a little photo shoot to tide you over til we get back:







Morgan's not quite walking on her own yet but boy is she close!  Yesterday she figured out how to stand up without holding on to anything.  As soon as she did it she started clapping and smiling at us.  She knew it was a big "step!"

For future reference, the "locked" mode on a cell phone (which allows this delightful toy to make pleasant beeping noises but not place calls) does not prevent the calling of 911.  And, if you (or your baby) call 911 and hang up, they will call back to make sure everything is OK.  Everything is OK!

It's been a crazy week.  This is why I don't keep my daughter on a schedule.  It's much easier being flexible, so when we have unusual days at least she doesn't miss a specific routine.  This Monday (August 4), Morgan spent the day with my mother so I could go to work.  She ended up spending the night because it was easier than trying to get her back at the end of the day (she was to spend the next day with Grammie anyway).  This was by far the longest we'd been apart and Mom and I both found out that Morgan's been getting a lot more breastmilk at night than we thought!  She had to have a couple bottles in the middle of the night and nobody got much sleep, but other than that it wasn't too bad.  I am told again and again that Morgan doesn't miss me when I'm not around.

Wednesday night, Morgan decided to stay up late showing off her new tricks.  She would stand up, slap Daddy on the shoulder and say "Da! Da! Da!"  Then she'd lay down on her belly, wiggle over to me, stand up and slap me and say "Mam! Mam! Mam!"  It would have been cute except we were trying to get some much needed sleep before the next day's adventures....

Thursday morning I got up early (having only had 3.5 hours of sleep) and zipped off to the airport with Morgan.  We met Mom and my sisters and went to New York City for the day!  We flew into JFK and took the subway to Brooklyn.  We started in Chinatown (Anne and Claire wanted to go there for reasons I don't understand) and had lunch at a vegan Chinese restaurant.  It wasn't completely gross but I definitely don't recommend it to anyone who is really in the mood for breakfast.

We wandered into Little Italy and decided to have desserts at a little sidewalk restaurant/bar.  It turned out to be quite the adventure with multiple broken dishes and free desserts.  Anne, who insisted on a vegan lunch, had no qualms about scarfing down a cheesecake and chocolate cream something (but only because they were free and the rest of us were incapable of eating any more dessert).  Morgan enjoyed her share of Tiramisu and raspberry sorbet and then settled down for a nap:



We took a bus uptown and did some shopping, checked out Rockefeller Center and the farmer's market nearby, did some more shopping, and then went to visit Auntie Betty (Mom's godmother and the reason for the trip to NYC).  She is an absolutely fascinating woman and our time there was too short!  After dinner we rushed back to the subway and the airport so we could wait around there for hours while our return flight was delayed.  Morgan stayed up five hours past her bedtime and predictably had a little breakdown in the airport after we should have been already on the plane.  By the time we did finally get to our seats, she fell asleep instantly and slept solidly through the rest of the night.  What a full day of adventure!

We had a nice quiet weekend with a birthday dinner for Ryan's grandmother last night.  We're all caught up on sleep and back to our "routine" of breakfast, nap, play, lunch, hopefully nap, dinner, play, and bedtime!  Can't wait for bedtime....

I was halfway through a serving of mushed peaches with Morgan this morning when she suddenly screwed up her face and started to cry.  What could possibly be the matter?  So I asked her, with no hand motions, "Are you all done?"  And she made the sign for "all done!"  I put away the mushed peaches and instantly all was well again.  Morgan's signs are far from refined.  For "all done," she held up both her hands and flicked one of her wrists around, which isn't really that close to correct, but it was a good first effort and she was completely delighted that I figured out what she wanted right away. 

I thought teaching baby sign language would be a huge undertaking, like training a dog.  So far it hasn't taken much work at all.  Getting Morgan to sign "all done" was much easier than training Lily to "lick Daddy in the ear."

Though Morgan has yet to take any actual steps on her own, she is definitely on the move.  I am ready to admit that I have underestimated the concept of childproofing.  Outlet covers and gates on the stairs are obvious.  The kitchen, as it turns out, is a world of adventure.  This morning, I was putting detergent in the dishwasher when I (fortunately) noticed a box of macaroni and cheese stacked in with the dirty plates.  I don't want to know what a box of macaroni and cheese would look like after a round in the dishwasher.  We also have one of those trash bins that pulls out of a cabinet.  Morgan can't reach it and the dogs can't open cabinets, but working carefully together has proved to be exciting and dynamic for both parties.

When we moved in and set up bookcases, we didn't attach those safety tether things.  Are bookcases really that top heavy?  No, not really.  Until, of course, you move everything you don't want your toddler to reach up to higher shelves and she removes everything left on the bottom two shelves completely.  Sounds like we have a project for this weekend, doesn't it?

It's not a hat!  Morgan's favorite new game is to put something on her head until Daddy says "It's a hat!" and Momma says "It's not a hat!"  There is a peek-a-boo variation to this game.  I'll see if I can get some photos to illustrate.

Morgan has a molar poking through in a few places that doesn't seem to be bothering her too much, at least not yet.  She's very close to walking.  She cruises around holding onto anything she can find and is becoming quite a leg-hugger.  She'll let go soon....

Still no words past "MA MA MA MA MA," but she uses three signs now in addition to waving and clapping: more, Daddy, and eat.  It's so great that she's starting to be able to communicate what she wants.  Very exciting!

This is a catch-up post.  We'll start with the Fourth of July.  We couldn't have asked for better weather this year.  We went to the parade in Colchester and had a picnic at Brett & Krista's.  Karmen was super cute in her red, white and blue outfit and Morgan was hamming it up in her Wonder Woman onesie.



With Great Grandpa:



And she got a tour around the pool with Uncle Colby:



Fortunately, Grammie left early to meet up with Anne at the camp and she took Morgan with her.  Ryan and I stuck around for a while and took home a pair of sunburns!

Next up, here are some random pictures of a cutie in a bathtub:









And last but not least, Morgan has started getting the concept of sign language and she has finally learned to sit up!  This morning I had the rare experience of waking up before Morgan, so I got to watch her wake up on her own.  She rolled herself onto her tummy, pushed up onto one knee, and flopped back onto her butt.  Success!  She started clapping right away and got her Yays from Ryan and me.  Then when Ryan was making the "Daddy" sign to her, she signed it back for the first time.  More clapping!  She's touched her fingertips together for the "more" sign a few times this week, so now I'm convinced she actually "gets it."  Also, yesterday she was playing on the floor while I was reading in bed, and she stood up on both her feet by herself and peeked over the edge of the bed at me.  What's next?  Walking?  Talking? 

Yesterday I drove down to Somerville, MA to visit a very pregnant Beka and friends before the new baby makes his or her (we don't know yet!) appearance.  Morgan did OK on the drive.  She slept almost half of the eight hours we were in the car yesterday and today.  The rest of the time she spent saying Ah! Ah! Ah! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh! and getting chocolate everywhere.  Momma might have stopped for some mint Milano cookies and possibly decided that it was a good idea to share them with the baby.  As a result, said baby and her carseat were subjected to a thorough cleaning (which they both needed) upon arriving home.  It was totally worth it for the 1.5 hours that those three cookies kept her quiet.  Who knew they had so much chocolate in them?

We met up with the Sheas, Shakes, and Naomi for dinner at a nice restaurant in Boston's Italian North End.  It was the kind of place that doesn't have high chairs but Morgan was extremely well behaved and managed to sit quietly through dinner munching on bread the whole time.  It was a small miracle.  We also went exploring a bit around sunset and found some water (maybe my friends knew it was there but I didn't).



Then we found baby swings.  What fun!



...And big kid swings, too!



...And, well, it's nice to know your friends aren't "too" grown up.



Yep, this is the guy who will be a dad any day now.



The evening also included ice cream, another park, and Morgan's first subway rides (fascinating)!  While we wound down in front of a movie, Morgan struggled to stay awake until everyone else had gone to bed.  She almost made it, finally falling over asleep at 11:30pm.  She slept solidly through the night and even slept in after I got up this morning:



We were getting ready to go when Morgan found another "baby" to play with:



Look how close she is to walking!

Wow, I can't believe it's our second anything.  Time flies!

We celebrated at Al's today.  Morgan decided, after sampling both creemee flavors back and forth, that vanilla is in fact better than chocolate (although maybe just because it was Mommy's).  Then we went to the park for more fun on the baby swing.  The weather has been just fantastic on Sundays this summer. 

Morgan turned 1 yesterday!  To celebrate, we had pictures taken and enjoyed a family BBQ.



Morgan had a good time hamming it up for everyone, although she definitely wanted to be on the ground scooting around herself more than she wanted to be held and passed from lap to lap.  She really enjoyed the opening of presents and cards.  The best part was probably everyone looking at her and laughing.  It was cute. 

Of course the highlight of a first birthday party:  Baby's first cake!  At first Morgan was delicately picking off little bits of frosting...



...then she got to the cake and it was pretty tasty...



...and by the time she realized people were cheering her on, she really got into it!



Here's our little family: