8 months!

This past month was full of excitement for Henry (and thus all of us) - he started rolling every which way, started commando crawling a few days ago, and we got a visit from Aunty Kristin! She made Henry a stuffed bunny with an "H" on the pocket when he was born, and then Ross got a yellow one at Christmas (which he named Hug-a-rrific), and on this visit, Madeleine was thrilled to get one with a rosy pink cover, and a flower embroidered on the pocket. She's named it Lily and snuggles with it every night.

We went to the Aquatic Park in Berkeley on the day Kristin arrived to take advantage of the sunny day.

Except that there was a chilly wind and my sensitive Californian children got cold - lucky for them Kristin shed all her layers to keep them cozy!

We all enjoyed some frozen yogurt one afternoon.

We tried to do a hike in Tennessee Valley that ended at a beach, but heavy rain was forecast for the following day, so they had closed the trail to the beach! We were disappointed, but went on to San Francisco and had fun at the beach by Crissy Fields.

Henry and Kristin share the same vibrant blue eyes!

I finally got around to taking some pictures of Henry and his 8 month sticker - but he just wanted to crumple and eat it.

He doesn't stay on his blankets for long anymore - now that he can roll off of them and scoot along our slippery tile and wood floors!

He loves holding this hockey stick and waving it around. It won't be long until he's getting in on the hallway hockey games here!

On an unrelated note, Steve had a busy month giving talks about the instrument his team is working on. He gave one talk to the Astronomy Department at Caltech (a private university in Southern California), pictured below. The other talk was to Madeleine's first grade class as this month they were learning about scientists. Her teacher invited a few scientist parents to talk about their work. Both talks were well-received, and Madeleine was very proud to have her Daddy come to her class.