Six Months

Happy 1/2 Year Birthday Lollipop!

Big, squeezy, cuddly hugs to you.  What a journey so far...  watching you grow, watching you become, watching you BE.  You are so sweet, so fun, so long-suffering.  Poodle is comforting to you, and you trust her.  She makes you laugh, she makes you happy.  Tooter is your buddy.  You still like to sit on Daddy's chair with him and watch a few minutes of a movie.  You love his face and his smile, and oh, he loves yours!  They both still want to come in and snuggle with you in Mommy and Daddy's bed in the mornings.  They listen for you to make sounds over the monitor and at the first wee inkling of a noise, they are waiting for me to say it's okay to go back and see you.

Rolling... rolling... rolling...  You are rolling around everywhere.  Back to front, front to back.  In fact, you rolled from your back to front at church!  On a table.  In the lunchroom.  On a Thursday night during a special meeting.  Eh, whatever works!  I didn't even really see it the first time.  MooMoo and GaGa were there letting you play on the table after they had finished eating.  But I caught you on the phone camera the 2nd time you did it.  And now, I set you on the floor and you just roll over and over like the old dog Rover to go get a toy or grab at something the older kids are playing with.  I'll be holding you, and you will literally reach for the floor so as to tell me that you want to be put down to play.

You are beginning to develop a schedule.  Your first nap of the day is your best one, and you want to take 2-3 more short ones during the day before you go down for the night around 6:30 to 7:00.  I have exactly started feeding you solids yet, because quite frankly, I don't want to admit that it's already time for that.  But, after I get through typing this, I'm going to start peeling apples to make your first applesauce.  It's time.  And you're ready.  And it's okay.  sigh....

To be honest, you've actually had a bit of food already.  This past Saturday night, while we were having a little David-and-Leah-are-here party, we let you try a little bit of smashed banana.  Audrey didn't finish all of hers, and so we let you eat a bit off of Daddy's finger, and then a spoon.  You pretty much grabbed the spoon from Daddy's hand as soon as you figured out what was going on.  Apparently, bananas=yummy.  Not that bananas are supposed to be your first food.  But, you didn't have that much.  And you did love it!

Oh, the shine in your eyes and the smile on your face when Daddy walks through the door after work.  Oh, how you love his voice.  How you love him to tickle you and kiss you and give you his great big smile.  You can be sleeping and hear his voice when he comes in, and you are instantly waking yourself up so you can share in the attention.

You've experienced a real snow!  On the 12th of this month, we had a sho'nuff snow"storm" that gave us some actual snowball-throwin', snowman building, covered everything type of snow fall.  It was gorgeous!  You didn't stay out in it for very long.  Just long enough to get your picture taken with the snowman, and then back inside you went.

You're still a smiley, happy, giggly, good-natured sort of girl.  Very curious and very much wanting to touch everything and put everything in your mouth.  Your eye-tracking is getting better and your grasp is improving every day.  I have begun to have to relearn how to not just do things one-handed, but do them one handed about 2 feet away from me so you can't grab onto something that will hurt you.  ha!

You genuinely like people.  You like being around them and looking at them.  I will admit that you aren't as quick to go to new people as you were a few months ago.  But, as of a couple of weeks ago, you discovered the power of holding your arms out to people.  So, you actually are more aware of where you are and who you are with.  And as it is with most babies, you like the status quo!

And, I will admit that you are quite attached to Mommy.  :-)  And by george, I love it.  I love being your mother.  And Tooter's mother.  And Poodle's mother.  I'm so blessed to have this gift of children inside of such a wonderful marriage.  As undeserving as I am, the blessing was still given to me.

To paraphrase Mr. Randy Travis,

We love you deeper than the holler, stronger than the rivers

Higher than the pine trees growin' tall upon the hill

Our love for you is purer than the snowflakes that fall in late December

And honest as a robin on a springtime window sill.

And we'll love you longer than the song of a Whippoorwill.

God bless you, precious child.  May He always keep you close to Him as you go through this life!

Conversations with Tooter

Scene:
Tooter is chasing Poodle around the house with a plastic frog that was unearthed in a recent clean-up-cause-company-is-coming event.  Poodle is playing along and pretending to be scared until she finally gets bored with the whole thing and wishes to be left alone so she can go cook some pretend food for our coming guest.

Poodle:
Mooooooommeeeeeeeee!  Make him stop!

Me:
Tooter, stop bugging your sister.

Tooter:
Okay Mommy!  I'll bug YOU!!!

(yes - completely unrelated picture to the above story.  I just wanted to share it, cause she's so squishy and cute!)

Ocho Anos

And some days it feels like I don't remember a time that I didn't know him.  He is the man that I always wanted, but wasn't supposed to meet until a bit later in my life.  He's the one who can make me laugh.  The one who understands me so well.  The one who always brings me back to sanity.
He is the one who loves me anyway.

We won't go out to a nice dinner tonight, because we're still trying to recuperate from this cold/flu that has gone around our house.  Twice in two weeks, it feels like.  (Drama much?)  And a quiet night at home, for us, is gold right now.  Well, as quiet as it gets when you have three small children.  But you know what I mean.

Honey, thank you for always being the best man you can be for me and for our family.  Thank you for giving so much to us and for always putting us first.  I love you completely and totally, and I know without any doubt that marrying you eight years ago was the smartest thing I've ever done.

And the happiest.

And I love you so very much!

Happy Anniversary my dearest.

Oh, blogging...

How I miss thee.  How I miss having time to share all those cute little things the kids say and do, because when I don't get them down somewhere, I usually end up asking jmk "who did this" and "which one did that?"  Sad thing is, that at 6, 4, and 5 months, I really ought to be able to remember.

Ah, but that time will come again, I hope.  Time to get thoughts and memories down in one place.  Time to go read all those other blogs that I enjoy perusing.  Time to take long, hot bubble baths at night.
Thought I'd slip that last one in while I was thinking out loud.  ::grin::

Since I had to get pictures off the camera for a specific reason, I was able to share this one.  I love these people.  And now, time to change the sweet baby!