First Words :-)

So, within the last week Rhea has been starting to talk! She uttered her first word (other than Mama and Papa, which count, but not really) last week Friday! We were in Lucia's room playing, and I handed her a little baby doll and said, "baby!" - seconds later, I thought I heard her say "bee-bee," but it was sort of quiet and could've been baby babbles, so I sort of ignored it. I did tell David about it, who was sitting in the living room, and he thought too that it might have been coincidence. So about 10 minutes later I got out my massive baby doll from when I was little, which Rhea hadn't seen in quite a while, and just had it peek around the couch at her. All of a sudden, Rhea's face lit up, and she said, "BEE-BEE!" It was sooo sweet! :)
Since then, she's also been imitating the word "hatzi" (German for "achoo" when you sneeze) - whenever I say that, she giggles, and then says, "ah-tssss." We're still working on the "i" part. :)
I'm looking forward to her birthday next weekend - can't believe she's only one week shy of a year old! This past year has flown, for lots of reasons - and now she's almost a toddler!

Today was a fun day - we went to the local zoo in Greenville (yes, amazing that a tiny town the size of ours has a zoo with lions, tigers, dromedars, lots of monkeys, a zebra, two kinds of kangaroos, and a great little petting zoo). It was fun and we got a few pictures - I'll try to upload them soon.
And... I'm probably more excited about this than Lucia, but I signed her up for her first gymnastics classes today! She'll have four weeks of free classes at Appleton's The Little Gym, and then we'll see if we sign her up for a whole semester's worth of classes starting in September. I think she'll really enjoy it. :)