6 Months

My little girl is now 6 months!  Time seems to be flying by.  That's already 1/2 a year.  She's like a real person now and not a little, tiny newborn.  That's crazy to me!  She is so sweet and we just love her and all smother her with kisses.  Some of us smother her a little more than others. :) 

Her stats:

Height: 26.5 in (75%)

Weight: 16 lbs 8 oz (50%)

Austin loves that Kensley will now look at him, watch what he does and smiles at him.  He loves to go in and see her when he hears her wake up from napping.

 This little girl now likes to grab at everything, including the camera.  She can roll all over the place now and tries to get anything within her reach. 

She is doing great at eating infant cereal and the few fruits and veggies that we have tried so far. She has not been a very easy or fun baby when it comes to nursing.  Even still she has issues with it. Austin was so easy and I loved nursing but with her I will be counting down these last several months.

 She doesn't have any teeth yet, but she is quite the slobber queen. 

She is sleeping really good at night but is still getting up once a night to eat but is very easy to put back to sleep.

 Kensley is definitely a mama's girl.  She doesn't let Matthew comfort her or put her to sleep. 

 She seems to be as thrilled as I am about this summer heat too!

She is just such a sweet and happy girl and we couldn't love her more! Happy 1/2 birthday!

Austin's Birthday

Austin turned 3 this week! We had a great day celebrating.   

This is Austin waking up to balloons and presents.

We had our traditional pancake breakfast with candles and opened presents before Matthew had to go to school. 

 Austin got a plasma car and we enjoyed taking it outside to try it out. 

After naps we decorated cupcakes which I think was Austin's favorite part of the day!  I let him pick out his cake and he wanted white cake with white frosting and sprinkles. 

After dinner we all went to Chuck E Cheese to play for a little bit.  Austin loved it and Kensley enjoyed it too!

I can't believe I now have a three year old. Here are some things I want to remember about Austin at this age:
-He is really into rockets, trains, airplanes, and of course cars.
-He knows his ABC and can count to 10. He has just learned to write the letter A.  Pretty sure he has taken after me and is going to be left handed.
-He really loves to dance and to find the beat of anything like when the washer or dishwasher is going. It's so funny to watch him suddenly stop and listen and then bop his head to the beat.
-He still has to go to sleep with bear and blanket.
-His new favorite phrase is "Yeah, lets do it." whenever I suggest we do something.
-He is rockin' it at being potty trained. (It's been about a month and a half)
-He has just started saying "why" to everything we say.
-Loves to give Kensley kisses or get her toys and binkie for her.
-He is a early riser and will sometimes climb up in bed and cuddle with me.
-I love his laugh so much and he laughs a lot at almost anything.
-He is definitely a mama's boy.
And there are so many other reasons why we love Austin and so grateful for his cute self in our family!

He's Done!

Matthew took his board exam earlier this week and whew, we are so glad to have that behind us.  The last few weeks we have hardly seen him as he has been studying nonstop, day and night.  But he is done! This test covered all the material from the two years of medical school he has taken so far. He will have another one at the end of his fourth year.  
We were able to have a nice extra long weekend together before his summer classes start back up tomorrow. We took that time to spend as a family and do a couple fun things.  On Friday we went to the Arizona Science Museum. We all had fun and learned a few new things.

We also used this weekend to introduce Kensley to eating solids. Big girl in her high chair!

 This was her reaction to eating rice cereal:

"What are you putting in my mouth? And you want me to do what with it??"  It was pretty funny.  It has been a few days and she is getting slightly better.  We also tried bananas and she really didn't like them! She made this face as if they were sour. We will have to keep trying. 

Pinetop

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Pinetop, AZ. It's about 4 hours north of us.  We were meeting up with one of Matthew's friend from the mission and his family.  We had been seriously trying for a couple of years to get together and nothing has worked out so though we had to make it quick (we were there less than 48 hours) we made it work.  I'm so glad we did too cause it was a lot of fun and a great little escape from the Phoenix heat.

It was so nice to see Jason and Lara again and their cute kids.  I actually hadn't met any of the kids before, that's how long it had been since we had seen them. Austin got along great with them and they all became good buddies.

Pinetop was beautiful and it felt more like Colorado than Arizona with the high elevation, tall pine trees and cool weather. We did some hiking, swimming, hanging out, and playing at the park with the kids.

It was so nice to have Matthew all to ourselves for a couple of days. Now back to hard core studying for him as his board exams are coming up pretty soon.