Six months and counting

With winter coming up, I realized we need to take a family picture if we hope to send out Christmas cards.
We took some pictures of Korrali today, and I learned a lot.

Lesson #1: Pretty sun means squinting = grumpy baby face.

Lesson #2: It's cold and damp in the fall. Again = grumpy baby face.

Lesson #3: Babies who are already grumpy from getting the flu shot and not sleeping well the previous night probably will mostly have a grumpy face, even if you are singing their favorite song or clapping or calling their name.

Lesson #4: The amount a child is willing to smile is inversely proportional to the amount of time they have been subjected to being placed on the damp ground, next to cold gourds, with the sun shining in their face.

This was the last one we took. She does a fun grumpy face.

We did get a few nicer ones.. I don't know that they will be winning and baby photo awards but they'll do for documenting this stage.

The first one we took. Note the difference in expression between this and the last one.

 She is sitting up on her own here, despite my attempts to prop her up on a gourd. It's actually the first time she has held herself up without any support whatever. And, even though her cheeks are so round, she is actually only 36th percentile on her weight - 15 lbs 2 oz. This means she fits into 3 mo dresses and 6 mo and 9 mo outfits too.. (9 mo because she's 26 in tall). She rolls everywhere and is practicing getting up on her knees. She's not in any hurry though (thank goodness) and seems to just be testing out her knees to see if she can do it. She is mobile enough without the knees to get anywhere she wants to go and play with lots of things she likes to play with. I had underestimated the intelligence of babies... but for an extra challenge I started put all her toys into one basket on the floor every night, and then in the morning after I vacuum (yes, with our dog, I have to vacuum every morning or else pull dog hair out of Korrali's mouth all day long).. she rolls right over and grabs the toys she wants and spreads them around the floor..

JD taught her to turn the pages on her exersaucer piano too so right now I'm listening to a variety of musical and animal noises as she turns the page and changes the type of sounds it makes.
And we went trick-or-treating with her wonderful Eldredge cousins and as we went around receiving goods and saying trick-or-treat and thank you, she started holding her bag out and smiling right at the person doling out the goods as we went along.

It was pretty chilly on this rock too.. this is the only picture where she is even vaguely smiling.

I can't believe 6 months has already flown by! Every day I am grateful that JD's job allows me to stay home and be just a mom full time. (For now anyway.)