and-a-half

Ellie turned 6 months on Monday. She's still having some hard times with feedings, but she really seems to be enjoying herself a lot of the time.
It was quite a feat to get a picture without her hands in her mouth. She has been teething for what feels like forever now. No teeth are popping through yet, but she will clamp down--hard--on anything she can get into her mouth. I have a bruise on my hand as evidence.

It's also really hard to get a picture without her tongue hanging out. Once those teeth do come in, she might be in for a bit of a surprise. She is turning into quite the ham. Sometimes it's hard to believe she's the same baby we brought home with us six months ago. She is turning into such a little person with a mind of her own. She is developing distinct preferences in music and literature. It's very clear when she likes a song or doesn't, and the leading contender right now for favorite book is The Belly Button Book (thanks again, Wrathalls) or any of the tiny Sesame Street books with Grover in them. Not much of an Elmo fan, but we can read those others over and over again.

See? She will bite anything close to her mouth. Seriously, after all this time, we better get half a dozen teeth breaking through and just not have to deal with it again for a while.

She's also been enjoying lots of time outside. And she is getting more and more fun to dress up. She actually wears whatever hats or headbands I put on her. She even leaves the sunglasses alone, which is good for the hot, sunny days we've been having.

Lots of dress up.

Lot and lots.

Apparently, this is Daddy's idea of dress up for her while I'm gone. Not entirely sure how this all came about, but I think he was trying to get her to stay asleep.

This is a picture mostly of the two of them trying to ignore me taking a picture. Ellie was having a really hard time one night with her teeth (or lack thereof--swollen painful gums, I should say). She really loves being outside. You can't tell in the picture, but we were having quite a spectacular rainstorm that night. So Brady pulled up a stool to the balcony door and they just sat there for a really long time watching the rain. She calmed right down and was pretty peaceful the rest of the night.

This post is already getting too long, but we haven't posted videos for the grandmas in a while. Ellie really loves seeing the videos our friends and family post on their blogs, and I realized we hadn't been taking any videos for quite a while. So here are a couple of Ellie on the changing table--her happiest place on earth. The first one is her favorite pass time, kicking. It makes it tricky to change a diaper sometimes. She will do this for as long as we let her.



The next one is Brady getting her to laugh. It's not the best sample of her laughing, but you get the idea. He usually gets her ready for bed at night while I rush around trying to tidy things up and get everything ready for bedtime and the next day. This is what I overhear. It's usually too irresistible for me to keep going with dishes or whatever and I have to come in and see.



So that's what we've been up to lately. Still no job yet and things are coming down to the wire with dissertation stuff for Brady, but we're hanging in there. Ellie seems to have more personality every day and gives us a reason to smile in spite of the nerve-wracking waiting and working. Kind of hard not to smile back at this.