Michelle's growing more beautiful and clever every day. She has quite a baby-vocabulary now and as of yesterday pronounced "cheese" for the first time. She loves playing in the backyard and exploring every nook and cranny of it. She especially enjoys sampling the fragrances of our various plants and trees (*photo below of Michelle smelling a leaf from our lemon tree). She's very inquisitive and proves this by occasionally sampling dirt and other outdoor elements when she thinks mom or dad aren't watching. ;-)

She became an official "kid" a few weeks back when she fell on her knees and scraped both of them for the first time. Fortunately, she was having too much fun to notice and just carried on.

Indoors, she's sampling all sorts of new foods. Two weeks ago she tried her first 'California Roll' and last week she finished off a complete 'Corn on the Cob' all by herself. She loves fruit especially grapes.

Each night she reminds us that it's time for night-night by gesturing for her favorite bedtime book.

As many friends and family have remarked, it does indeed get more challenging *and* fun as they grow. In short, we're having a great summer and we hope you are too.

Lots of new pictures on her site: