Ella Joy at 6 months

Half a year. Wow. Time has flown with this little princess. I can hardly believe she's already 6 months old. I still maintain that she's the sweetest, easiest baby I've ever met.

Even when she's cutting teeth. All (almost) 8 of them. What's that? You didn't know that 6 month old babies could have nearly 8 teeth? Yeah, ME NEITHER. But, she's sporting 4 all-the-way-in teeth on bottom and 4 more are pushing their way through on top.

When I posted with her 5 month pictures, I said that I was planning on waiting until she was 6 months old before giving her any solids. Well, what can I say, I caved. Which is fine because she was days older than 5 months when I started offering her baby cereal, which is well beyond the recommended 4 month mark.

As much lip smacking and head turning as she was doing at my food, I was sure she'd LOVE the cereal. Plus, PLEASESWEETJESUS eat something solid so MOMMACANSLEEPALLNIGHT.

So Grace held her, Luke snapped photos and I eagerly spooned baby cereal into her mouth.

Her reaction was less that what I had hoped for.


"Grace! Have you tasted this crap they're feeding me? Blech."

But keeping with her good-natured self, she continued to humor me bite after bite.

I especially love this next photo. Our laptop is set up so that the screen saver is all of our photos on a looping slide show. They circulate at random showing photos as old as Elizabeth's birth photos to ones I've just loaded that day. I love that the next photo shows our oldest girl getting her first bites of cereal at the same time our littlest girl is getting hers. Awesome, huh?

After Ella realized that I wasn't backing off on the spooning of yuck into her mouth, she began looking at me like this...

Then grabbing my hand as if to say, "Whoa lady. Seriously? Where's the milk?"

Finally I realized she'd had enough.

I haven't been as consistent with offering her solids as I should but she's now sampled bananas, applesauce, which made her gag, and just last night she had carrots for the first time.

Sweet Ella Joy has begun babbling "baa baa baa" and is rolling to get to whichever objects are out of her reach because clearly Momma doesn't know which toys are the best thankyouverymuch.

She's sitting up for extended periods of time but will still flop over after a bit, landing on her face or cheek then rolling over and offering up a huge grin as if to say, "Man, I'm so proud of myself. Did you see that dismount?"

She's still waking up 1 to 2 times a night, usually just to nurse for comfort, and is finally, FINALLY sleeping unswaddled. This is big people. Truth is, she's too chubby for any of the swaddle blankets I have so we had no choice but to unswaddle her.

And, she still melts my heart with each of her huge, toothy grins and makes me fill with joy with every single belly laugh. I love her more than is explainable.

Beach Bunny Bizzy

So, the final installment of our beach vaca is of my biggest girl. Mercy she's growing up so fast. Six years old. I still can't believe it. SIX. Who told her she could get so big?

She loved all things pertaining to life at the beach. Fanatic about the fish shaped pillow on her bed, smitten with the sand, overjoyed at the ocean. All of it. She loved every second.

Playing so sweetly with her littler brothers and sisters and obliging them with just about any game they wanted to play.

Yet also taking some time to play by herself and enjoying the option of running a toy through the sand as far as she desired.

Oh how she's beginning to teeter on the border of still little enough to play baby games and wavering into wanting to do "big kid" things. She humored me and allowed me to turn her into a mermaid.


And after a round of family beach photos, she was an easy option for a model.

That smile and her sweet laugh just melt me every time. And, even though I'm still very much her Mom/Disciplinarian most days, I'm getting a sweet taste of what, I pray, will be a treasured friendship between us when she becomes a woman.

I am so blessed to be able to walk along side her as God grows her into a woman who will do work for His glory. I can't wait to see what God has planned for my sweet, eldest daughter. Her heart already exudes so much of His love and is so tender toward so many things.

Um. You know, will still a splash or two of Sassy thrown in for good measure. ;)