Stony Brook!

I only have a minute, but I thought I'd post a quick video from our trip so far. David has once again proven himself to be quite the beach boy. He just loves it! He is also a real walker these days, so here's a video of him walking on the beach. (I promise I"ll start writing real entries again once we're back in Jena. With all the little cousins running around, it's hard to spend time on the computer!)

So, David's beach walk :)

David Conquers the Stairs

(Two posts in one day!) David is all about the stairs. If we let him, he'd climb the stairs in the main apartment building all day long. In fact, if we leave the apartment door open, he's out the door in 2 seconds flat, racing for the main building.

Going down stairs, however, is a lot trickier than going up them. A few days ago, we took David to see the ducks in the river. The ducks were OK, according to David, but the steps down to see the ducks--now those was something worth seeing. After a great deal of effort, David started to get the hang of going down the steps, as long as he started from the top landing.

Anyway, here is a pretty humorous progression of videos...

First, David tries to come down from the second step...



Next, he tries from the top...


And, finally...success! This last video is the best. It's got it all: David's doing his best to get down the stairs but, of course, one has to acknowledge one's fans...so all of David's efforts are punctuated by greetings. For whom, you ask? The older German woman who is, unsurprisingly, giving us all sorts of warnings and advice about how to keep David safe. Finally, note the ending. Yes, it's got it all :)

David's Birthday Party

Last Sunday, we had some friends over for cake to celebrate David's first birthday. Actually, we celebrated David's birthday and the birthday of a little girl we know from church, Sophie, who was born three days after David. We met Sophie just a few minutes after she was born, and it was wonderful to get to celebrate together a year later! (This is also the Sophie that David has tried to kiss at playgroup :)

The timing was perfect, because my cousin Kate was in town Saturday to Sunday and was able to celebrate with us! She was also there to talk me through my mini-freak-out as it became clear that (1) the 2 layers for my layer cake were nowhere near the same size, and (2) the buttercream frosting was a disaster due to the heat, and there was no way it was going to hold up for any caterpillars, or anything of the sort. (Hooray for chocolate letters and pre-made decorations.) Still, the nice thing about using Magnolia Bakery's recipe is that, no matter how the thing looks, the cake is always delicious. And really, that's what matters most! (To me at least :)

David, again, liked the cake :)


We were so happy to have so many friends join us! The hinterhof (backyard, sort of) is the perfect place to host a small get together in the summer. FAR better than the inside of a one bedroom apartment.

We have a little slide that belongs to our neighbor, but since his son is now 9 years old he said we could use it whenever we'd like. We hadn't tried before, but I cleaned it up for the party and it was a huge hit!

David, of course, needs a little help on the way down.

Emmanuel is a whole 3 months older, so he got to go down on his own. Although...

He couldn't QUITE stick the landing!

As David's Great-Grandpa noted in the last entry, David is a real people person. He was just thrilled to have so many people over, and showed his gratitude and affection by blowing kisses from Michael's shoulders.

The boy really seems to think he's a king, or at least a mayor or something of the sort.

There was only one minor hiccup in the day's festivities. The birthday boy and the birthday girl had a little tiff. Well, that's putting it nicely. Really, David decided to be a little bully for a few minutes! You know me, though, so I managed to capture some of it on camera. The progression:
Sophie, happily playing with her bike helmet.

David: "I'll take that, thank you very much."
Sophie makes a valiant effort to take BACK the bike helmet. At this point, David pulled the helmet back, dropped his chin, furrowed his brow, broke-out the index finger and gave Sophie a lengthy, stern talking-to! (At THAT point, I gave the helmet back to Sophie and gave DAVID a stern talking to.)

Sophie's mother, Dagmar, saw what was going on and very generously offered David a second bike helmet to play with. David gladly accepted the helmet...
...and then, storing it safely behind himself, made a play for Sophie's helmet again.
Little Stinker!