ryan: 6 months

Tonight, as I was rocking Ryan in her nursery, she reached up and curled her chubby little fingers into the underside of my pony tail pulling me closer to her. Although she was nearly asleep, it was as if she wanted to stay just like that forever. I couldn't help but squint my eyes closed to stop the tears from flowing. It is these quiet moments that get to me and make me feel more loved than I ever have in my life. Not only by this amazing little girl, but even more loved by my Heavenly Father for giving me this unimaginable gift. Let me clarify - I never felt unloved as a child. In fact, I was beyond blessed to come from a family full of love, but somehow, parenthood makes things all look and feel a little different. As my mom has put it, now I get it. Everyday I see His love for me a little more clearly because of what I feel for my daughter.

She is laughing now, which brings an entirely new level of joy to our lives. We literally are those parents who just sit around and try to do whatever crazy antic will send her into a fit of giggles. Because hearing those giggles are so worth it. Her dad is much better at this than I am - which is frustrating and adorable at the same time. I love to see them together. I told him tonight that it truly makes me fall in love with him ten times over when I see what a good father he is to her. We are lucky girls to have him in our lives.

We just celebrated her 6 month "birthday" and she is pretty much sitting up by herself. We have to place her in that position, but she can hold it on her own for a little while. She is not interested in crawling in the slightest. She wants to stand and walk. She rolls and flips and just wiggles like crazy - no place is safe anymore. She has to be buckled into every contraption we own, definitely no walking away from the changing table and we are about to be forced into baby taping the fireplace to avoid any busted body parts. She is quite the adventurous eater and hasn't turned her nose up to anything. Some of her regular meals include squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, rice cereal, bananas, mangos, pears, etc. She loves them all and gets so excited for mealtime. She loves animals and the animals are doing so well at tolerating her. We are constantly coaxing her to "be gentle" but her idea of gentle is quite different than ours and usually involves a mouthful of fur. We have graduated to a high chair when we go out to eat and she is actually really fun to have at the table with us and has been very well behaved.

Each time she does something new, I claim, "this is my favorite age." But I really do think this is my favorite. She has developed such a little personality. She lights up when she sees us (a mutual feeling, I'm quite sure) and has the most expressive face of any child I have seen. Her eyebrows tell it all. Although our sleeping is still leaving much to be desired (sleep, that is), I wouldn't trade these days for anything in the world.