Family Life: Life Goes On

Although life has sort of felt like it has been on 'pause' for the last few months as we're living with our parents and waiting for answers for the next chapter of life, I look back at pictures from these last 2 months and see that my sweet babies have definitely not been paused. They're growing, changing, and making new discoveries daily. And, they each melt my heart at least 10 times a day. I can't catch up on all of our happenings in any organized way right now, so I'll just be posting random pictures for a while. Hope you regular blog checkers out there haven't given up on us -

Sweet Noelle is almost 9 months old! I'm going to list a bunch of details that you may or may not be interested in, but I haven't recorded anything anywhere else, so here it goes! She's come a long way since we left St Andrews! She was finally able to sit up on her own around 7 months. I say 'finally' because she'd been laying on her back trying desperately to sit straight up by crunching her little abs and lifting her head. She still can't get to the sitting position on her own, but she can sit steady for a long time. She's kind of mobile, but hasn't mastered the crawling thing yet. She scoots around on her tummy, but only backwards or in rotation. She's a pretty good eater, and her favorites include peas, sweet potatoes, bananas, and yogurt. In the last 2 months, she's definitely started to notice when I leave the room and, though she'll happily go to anyone, she knows she likes to be near mom. These days, I'm especially loving that long chunk of hair (formally the part that stuck straight up) because it is perfect for clipping little bows in her hair. And, I'm totally smitten with her when she flashes that big gummy smile, which she especially shows off when she sees Isaiah, looks at the world upside down, sees a dog, or gets tickled at just the right spot on her thighs or under her arms. She'll just about break her neck twisting around to see the television, and she has been enjoying gnawing on cold carrots. We've continued to be aware of how much she notices sounds and music. We wonder if she's the one with the musical ear in our family. I'm usually still up with her about twice/night, though we're working on that. She goes to bed pretty well, though, and she's usually settled in for the night by 6:30. Overall, she is such a sweet, easy going baby that is content to play with people or sit with a pile of toys on her own.

Here she is sitting happily in the backyard about a month ago.