It’s September, which means that Becky’s Bump Watch now begins! Place your vote in the comments section below and we’ll keep posting an updated spreadsheet here on QO. Categories you can guess: Name, date, sex, weight. Anyone is welcome to join in — even you quiet ones reading QO who have never commented before! Some information that might be relevant: Becky’s due date is the 28th September. Also, James was 10lb when born. Some people say that the father’s birth weight has nothing to do with your baby’s weight, but as Bex herself says, “Yeah right - have you SEEN my bump??” Check it out for yourself below…and you may be tempted to add in your own category, “number of babies expected.”

These days we’re just tag-alongs to Evie’s hectic social calendar. Sunday morning was a friend’s birthday party — and, like all little birthday parties she’s been to lately, there was a huge bouncy castle. At first, Evie was unsure, and every time she’d start to wobble a bit, she’d just back up into my lap — check out this reverse move:

But then Rob discovered, when he took Evie in the bouncy castle on his own, that she was much braver if I was out of sight…

Pretty soon she was throwing herself all over the place…

Look at that action shot! I love the way, in the pic below, her little chubby arms are straight up in the air as if she’s a gymnast waiting for the judges’ score. Of course, it would look a lot more impressive if her arms reached a bit further up past her ears…

Later Evie and Elliette spent some quality time in the playhouse — here Evie peers out the window and Elliette comes in the front door. The reason they’re both looking so serene is that it’s hard to fight over a playhouse — no one can pick it up and walk away!

And here Elliette indulges in her favorite activity — petting Evie’s hair.

At the local Rhinecliff Day down by the dock, a little old man had a second-hand rocking horse by his jewelry store, and when Evie took a liking to it, he said she could take it home for free! Evie quickly got the hang of the rocking motion…but horse-riding is clearly a serious business:

Now THIS is the way the farmers ride…

To quote Evie’s favorite word of the week, “Yay!”

And here’s Evie doing her best horse impression (instead of neighing or clip-clopping, she likes to do a horse snort with her lips…it seems to involve a lot of spit):

(By the way, the rosy red shiny cheeks are a result of it being in the mid 90s that day…looking at these photos, maybe we should have turned on the AC a little sooner!)

Todays special - homegrown parsnip and carrot puree!..   um not so sure .. well maybe that wasn’t so bad after all .. OK but I think I’ll still have the bottle as well - just in case!now thats what I call a feast!

Okay, so this post will be of interest to a very small percentage of the QO readership. In fact, maybe just one reader who specifically requested an update on the pool fence. In which case, perhaps the exclamation mark in the title of this post was a tad overreaching. Either way, here’s the new pool fence — ta da! First, the fence in progress — we brought the professionals in after it was decided that it was not a job for the Taylor/Tourtelot men (treacherous cliff + 6-foot snakes + heavy machinery + DIY-ers = recipe for disaster):

And here’s the finished product:

Closer up with a cool tugboat in the background…

And even closer up — the wood is unfinished so it’ll fade to a greyish shade to match the rest of the fence in a year or two. So now we can finally have pool parties without fearing that an overexcited toddler will go tumbling down the hill onto the train tracks below…

As an earlier post on this site demonstrated, Evie loves showing off her muscles by lifting big sticks. And Rob’s practice kali stick (check out this post to see Rob training with them) is a perfect prop for that. These photos remind me of the Olympic events the Waylors once invented using the plastic Wendy house poles as props…

Regular readers may recall that when Muz visited Rhinecliff earlier this summer, she spent much of her visit sewing curtains for our new house. Fortunately Wimbledon happened to be on at the time, so she didn’t mind being cooped up inside too much. Anyway, we finally got the wrought iron curtain rods up (no easy task in an old house like this… hence we left it to the professionals!) so it’s time for a photo shoot to show off Muz’s handiwork.

First, the bay window in the living room:

Then the river window in the living room:

Then the bay window in the dining room (the photo stylist apologizes for not fixing the lining that’s peeking out before the photo was taken!):

And another view of the bay window in the dining room:

And finally just a few “detail” shots for Muz’s portfolio:

Thank you Muz, they look gorgeous! You can come back anytime…

Elliette shows Evie the way to the snack bar at Barnes & Noble after story hour…

One of Evie’s favorite things to do is sit in the window seat and watch the world go by.

Her other favorite thing is to steal a little bite of whatever you happen to be snacking on (hmmm…wonder where she gets that from?).

(By the way, don’t forget to admire Muz’s fab customized window seat cushions!)