happy baby!

In the last week or so, Mary Beth has REALLY begun to smile and giggle a lot. She's also squealing, like she does in that video with Orbit. That is slightly annoying. But the smiles aren't. And she loves when I do "pushups" in the air with her -- making her come back down for a kiss! Since she's 15 pounds now, I can only do about 10 at a time. For those of you wondering how a busy mom can keep in shape, there's your answer! There's a video--we'll post it later.

Grandma Lil came to stay for a bit, and here's some photos with her. Mary Beth LOVES her Grandma!

poor little kitty

Mary Beth is practicing sitting up on her own.

And Orbit decided to come get some love from us. Little did he know what he was in for...

wooooooah big sweetie!

Mary Beth had her 6 month appointment today. You know what that means! SHOTS!  Boo, hiss. She had 2 vaccines and a flu shot - which both her mommy and daddy need to have. And you all know how much I just love getting shots. Anyway, she did her normal, expected, blood-curdling scream as the shots were happening. But then when we picked her up, she stopped crying and screaming completely. She must have gotten that one from Bob...

So here's her stats, for those of you keeping score at home:  15 pounds (46th percentile), 26 inches tall (77th percentile) and 16.5 inches head circumference (47th percentile). I'm still absolutely amazed every day when I see her and realize how much she has grown from that 5.9 pound munchkin. When I was nursing her last night/this morning (hey, it was 2 am!), I couldn't help but compare to how LITTLE she was in my arms back then! This growing up thing is going to kill me...

i don't think she gets this whole eating thing...

Day Two of sweet potatoes. I don't think she likes them very much. I think they may be too thick for her, even when we add water or breast milk. But I think we need to teach her to cover her mouth when she sneezes...

half a year?!?!

Dear Mary Beth,

Six months?! Really? You're a whole half of a year old today. Six months ago today I terrorized some poor nurse who had the unfortunate job of giving me an i.v. and holding me in place when they gave me a spinal. Poor girl didn't know what she was getting herself into... Then before we knew it, Dr. Jeff was holding you and introducing you to the world. And our lives haven't been the same since.

You REALLY like to roll over now. In fact, I have to be careful with you when we're getting you ready for a bath. You tend to roll over off the bathmat and towards the toilet... Although you love the swing at daycare, you tend not to be a big fan of the one here at home. Not sure what that's all about, but you will tolerate it if you're watching Baby Einstein -- which I call Baby Crack. You're developing into more and more of a character each day. You love when I pretend to bite your tummy, and giggle and smile whenever your Dad lifts you up and down.

Drives to see Auntie Kim in San Antonio are not as much fun since you won't sleep for the entire drive anymore, but the new portable DVD player for Baby Einstein makes it a little better. And even after crying during the drive, you still gave Auntie Kim and Uncle Matt a big hug. In fact, you rolled across the couch to snuggle up next to Matt to watch football! We drove down there to make an appearance at the draft for your Grandpa Phil's Fantasy Football League. Your grandpa would have absolutely LOVED to see you there wearing your TOUCHDOWN onesie. And when you grabbed and hugged Carol -- well, I know your grandpa told you to do that. It made her smile on a day when we all needed that!

I kept promising you that I'd finally get you baptised, and I hope I don't jinx this but we now have it planned (again!) for the weekend of November 7-8. YEA!!! It's also Alumni Weekend, so we'll be going down to Trinity Saturday morning to meet the soccer team. Your mommy is supposed to play in the game. We'll see if that happens. If it does, you may have to help Daddy massage out my sore muscles...

Thank you for being such a cutie! We love you, Baby Love!

Love,
Mom and Dad