7 months old

brennan grace, you are 7 months old today...

* you are SO CLOSE to crawling and it is so cute to watch you try, get frustrated, and try again

* some of our favorite moments are early in the morning when you have just woken up (and woken us up), so either daddy or i will go get you and pull you into bed with us. you never go back to sleep, instead deciding that grabbing our face and arms is much more fun. i love waking up to your squeals of delight as you roll around in between us

* you sleep like a rockstar. most nights. not last night, but most nights

* we're still introducing solid foods, but so far your favorites are pears and pumpkin.

* you are sitting up by yourself now and look like such a BIG GIRL. i can't even handle it

* you LOVE faces. your hand is always reaching out to our eyes, nose, mouth. it is not uncommon for me to have to carry on a conversation with your fingers grabbing my lips

* we sing together. when i get you from a nap, as i change your diaper, as i carry you around the house... i'll sing and you get a big grin and go 'aaahhhhhh'

* you still love to do raspberries, though not as much as when you were 6 months old. i think you're too cool for them now, but i hope they make a reappearance because it's super cute as your go-to response for everything

* you are starting to get ticklish. especially on your tummy and it makes you double over in laughter. i LOVE to hear you laugh

happy 7 month birthday baby girl!

this looks like i caught you in the middle of being naughty.

maybe i'll see this look many more times in about 15 years

starting yesterday, this is what greets me after naptime. a little girl who is sitting up by herself, content as can be, playing with her lovies.

a collection of favorites

over the last two months we have been able to have a couple of photo shoots and i LOVE the way these pictures came out.

the first was with the whole sandifer crew, and though all of the kids at some point were DONE with the shoot, our photog somehow still managed to get amazing results. our little peanut was ms. serious the whole time, just staring the camera down and not being her super smiley happy self, but somehow still came out looking super cute.

the cousins

95% of people comment on how much she looks like lane. i don't mind that because that means she'll be super cute, as long as i can have dibs on some of our future kids looking like me.

every picture. so serious.

and a few faves from our shoot at home- a friend just came over to snap a few pictures to help build his photography portfolio, with which we were more than happy to help him

cousin-filled weekend

It had been waaay to long since we had seen mimi and papa so brennan and i took advantage of lane being gone for the weekend and headed down to monument to get some time with family.

gabe, makena, and ford were around for much of the time, and if i know one thing, it is that they LOVE their littlest cousin.

case in point: i walk in saturday morning to the three of them gathered around brennan 'playing' with her... "but auntie sarah, she loves to have toys piled on her. look! she's a butterfly in her cocoon!"

"she likes my glasses!" "she thinks i'm funny" "she likes my shirt!"

i think all in all it was a good self-esteem boosting weekend for all involved.

they really would play for long amounts of time with her... i think they have yet to realize that she can't move, talk, or really interact with them in any way yet besides stare and smile.

then we were off to the children's choir concert that makena and ford were in. ford possibly had a rough time being pried from anne's thigh in order to go sing, hence him holding the puppy dog

though it's not very clear, makena even had a speaking role in the performance and said a bible verse that she had memorized

cousin time! if i was nursing b or letting her sleep, it just wasn't acceptable to makena. she wanted to be playing with brennan AT ALL TIMES.

the sitting up on her own thing is new by the way... i propped her up to prove to anne that she could not, in fact, sit up on her own yet... then she just stayed up! atta girl!

somebody is mighty close to crawling

lets establish something first and foremost. it is just a fact that this child is going to grow up with a camera stuck in her face in my attempts to capture every single moment.

i think that in her heart she is saying 'maaaaaammmmaaaa, seriously?' i think i will see this look many times about fifteen years from now.

perfect form! i give it a 10. she just needs to work on her technical elements of moving arms and legs at the same time, which actually sounds fairly complicated. it might be a bit before perfect form translates into actual movement.

might i point out several things i love about this picture: #1: her amazing headband. #2: her cute little tuckus. #3: i really really love my wine barrel side table.

and just because she's beautiful:

a day in the life

our days typically consist of the same basic framework. in a typical day, brennan will:

play with her very favorite dog in the world: sophie. she thinks that sophie is just the funniest thing and will laugh at her and try to talk to her when sophie rolls around on the carpet. it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

do her exercises. she is currently perfecting downward dog which mostly happens when she is tired or upset

and plank.

all of that work gets exhausting, so she needs to take a break. even though i always lay her on the ground on either her playmat or blanket, i will undoubtedly find her somewhere on the carpet other than where i placed her. the girl can roll.

we are in the midst of introducing solid foods. this was the first attempt at avocados. subsequent tries were met with more food making it in her stomach than on her chin thankfully.

and then blessed naptime. her two lovies: her puppy and blankie are always found in her arms as she sleeps. love it.