Happy 1/2 Birthday Pip!

It's her 1/2 birthday! Craziness I tell you! We are halfway to being one year old and seeing her smash cake all over her face! This is one of my favorite ages. The pudgy, not quite as fragile stage, where they smile at almost every eye contact, and where their personalities start to come out. I cannot wait to see how it continues to unfold being #3 in this crazy crew.

Happy 1/2 Birthday Pippi!

 6 months! 

I love her soft little smile

(a tad fuzzy and off colored because I took a picture of a picture instead of scanning it!)

You are crawling and sitting up by yourself (although still not totally trustworthy sitting without falling). You learned to crawl before you learned to sit up. You have perfected the tripod sit, where you are in a crawling position and try to push up to sit. You haven't gotten to full sitting by yourself. Here's the closest picture I could find of your tripod sit. It's super cute. Looks like I'll have to capture one on camera now. (Daddy says your after bath comb over looks like a German boy). 

 Your little personality is busting at the seams. You smile 99.9% of the time when someone makes eye contact with you and gives you attention. It's the cutest, biggest, open mouthed smile ever. You are beginning to love watching Mekonen and Evie. You sat out here for almost an hour watching them ride their bikes. You can also see the little bit of red tint in your hair in this picture. 

You had your first haircut, because let's face it, this rat tail had to go! 

You officially suck your fingers. We've tried very hard to switch you to a paci, because you can always take the paci away, but lo and behold, you refused. We would stick the pacifier in, walk away, come back in the room, and you would have your fingers. Oh well! Hopefully you'll give it up as easily as Mekonen did! 

You still prefer your belly to all other positions! 

You had your first swing at the park and LOVED it!!! We got video of you laughing and giggling like crazy. Such a sweet girl you are! 

You are an excellent sleeper, sleeping from 7:30pm-7:30am with one feeding around 10:30pm. You're taking 2-3 naps a day and are still eating at 7:30am, 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4:30pm, and 7:30pm. You've gotten into a great rhythm and mostly prefer to sleep in your bed now instead of other places. But you are still quite flexible, which is almost not an option being kid #3. 

Your bouts of screaming and unhappiness are fewer and farther between and you've also mostly stopped sreaming your brains out in the car (give or take a few rides here and there). Sometimes, I whip around in the car expecting to see an empty spot where your carseat should be because I don't hear you screaming and I fear I'm one of those moms who just left her baby in the grocery store. So far, I haven't! You're just so quiet back there now I panic! Once I yelled, "Where's Pip?!?!?!" as I whipped around and Evie said, "Mom, her carseat is right there." And I said, "yes, but is she in it?!?!" HA! She was. 

You add so much softness and tenderness to our bunch. We love you and thank God every day for you!