Brooklyn is 6 months!

Happy Half Birthday, my love!

Brooklyn is such a happy baby! I mean, she's really a happy person in general. It' so cool! I remember when Abby was a baby, I would often call her a snob because not much impressed her. But Brooklyn? Her entire face lights up, she is completely ecstatic to be alive! 

She is still a giant baby, but is more proportionate now than she has been in the past. She is weighing in at 18lb 13oz (WOW!) which puts her in the 95th percentile for weight, and she is 26.5" long, which puts her in the 80th percentile for height. So yes, she weighs more than my parent's small dog, but she's also rather tall. 

She LOVES to eat. I mean, we started rice cereal right at 4 months because she was getting fussy every time we sat down to eat as a family, turns out she was feeling left out! So since she has some experience with food already, the doctor said we're good to proceed to stage 2 baby foods - this means mixed meals, foods with more texture, proteins, yogurt, puffs, cherrios, baby crackers, etc. I'm torn between being excited for her and feeling like my baby is growing out of her babyhood too quickly.

So far she has loved everything we've given her to eat. She even likes peas, but throws them up, so she may be allergic to peas. My kids have random allergies. Abby is allergic to pumpkin/squash & now Brooklyn is allergic to peas. Odd.

Brooklyn's starting to sit up on her own more. She can sit up for several seconds without falling over. This is decent progress since I don't think Abby started sitting on her own until almost 8 months old. Speaking of Abby, she is Brooklyn's favorite person. I mean, I'm pretty sure Brooklyn likes Abby more than me. I never had any siblings, so I didn't know what it would be like for Abigail & Brooklyn, but I have to say that it makes my heart burst into thousands of pieces to see these two interact. And Brooklyn can't even interact much yet! I can't wait until they can really play together! Abigail is already teaching Brooklyn things, she is truly the best big sister anyone could ask for! 

We've been ridiculously beyond busy lately. I mean, out of town every. single. weekend. since I can remember. We were finally in town this weekend, which didn't give us a break, just an opportunity to catch up on the mile-long list of chores we've been neglecting. We did manage to fit lunch and Alice in Wonderland (children's theater) in. Brandon & I thought the play was completely lame, but Abigail loved it, so I guess it was worth it. 

Abigail has officially been moved up at daycare to the 3 & 4 year old room/preschool group. Yes...this means come Fall, she will be receiving Preschool curriculum. I can't handle it. I mean really, how do moms not die of broken hearts as their kids get older? ugh! Friday, I took her to Toys-R-Us (cause I'm the nicest mommy ever!) and we stopped and got strawberry milkshakes (pink ice cream, as abby calls it). We picked up some water colors and a new coloring pad for her. They had all sorts of coloring pad options for her to pick from - princesses, fairies, flowers, horses, but of all things she picked a "boy" coloring pad - cars, dinosaurs & sharks. She's been painting about 5 pictures a day. 

She's not even modest about it. She is so proud of her artwork!

It was 85 degrees yesterday, and since we had been outside all day doing yard work, and since we don't have air conditioning, we were desperate to beat the heat last night. So we went outside and had an impromptu session of bicycle riding, and running through sprinklers. Brooklyn, as usual, was quite impressed with her sister. Abby's learning how to steer the bike and getting pretty good at it!

Now it's back to work today. No rest for the weary! I'll leave you with a video of Brooklyn laughing, cause it's awesome!