Smiles and Laughter

The smile of my baby girl just melts my heart; and to be honest, my heart melts a lot these days. I am not sure if it's been happening while she's at daycare or if she's just so much happier now that momma is home with her for the summer (of course, I believe the latter!), but she is so smiley these days and I am loving it!!

I often hear what a serious baby she is, because she very much wears a serious face most of the time. Being home with her now and getting to see her light up, play, and have fun is awesome. I am so blessed to get this time with her while school's out for summer!

More Swimming!

I have a feeling we will be spending a LOT of time in the pool this summer. Today, after swim class, I took Molly to swim with her friends Alex, Juli, and Sara. The girls had a blast!

Swim Lessons

This week, we started swim lessons for Molly. She absolutely LOVES being in the water and swimming, and since she is completely fearless, we thought it would be a good idea to get her some basic independent swimming skills. She is enrolled in class at Houston Swim Club and will go every day for two weeks as a starting point in a class for "guppies". She has the company of two of her friends, Lacey and Addison, who signed up with us. And, to our surprise, the fourth student in her class is another little girl who used to go to daycare with Molly, Alison. So the girls all know one another, which makes it much less intimidating to each of them. So far, there have been NO tears from any of our little guppies!

The skills that the class is aiming to teach are basic breath control, back floating, kicking, and basic water safety. Here are some pictures from our first three days of class. Mind you, the quality is pretty bad since we sit behind a one-way mirror and I am having to take the pictures through the glass.

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

And here is a video from today as well. If you watch closely, you will see that Molly retrieves a blue ring from the bottom of the pool. It takes her two tries, but she gets it!

Playtime

5 Months Old

Ella Bella,

Today, you are 5 months old. I cannot believe that much time has elapsed since you came into our lives. You have grown to be a smiley, cuddly, loving baby. You adore your big sister and love to laugh at her while she plays with you. You still love your swing and also enjoy jumping and playing in your jumperoo.

You are finally starting to get the hang of eating cereal. Soon, we will rock your culinary world with things like peas and carrots and bananas and apples. I can't wait to see you experience all of these new tastes for the first time, and am so glad to be home with you for the summer as you do.

You roll over all the time from back to belly. Then you get mad about the fact that you are on your belly. Silly baby girl, you just need to figure out how to roll back the other way. Until you do, though, we will be here to flip you back over when you want. Sometimes when we go check on you at night, you are sleeping soundly on your tummy. You seem to care not that the experts discourage this behavior. C'est la vie, little bug.

Oh, and your newest skill is sitting independently. You have just started to really do this, and are getting better and stronger day by day. We are so proud of you and happy to have you as part of our family.

Fun in the Sun!

This past weekend, we got to spend some time at the pool. Saturday, Ella had her first swim experience, to which she was completely disinterested.
But she sure looked the part!



She followed it up on Sunday with her second swim experience, which yielded one of the best naps of her life.

Sitting Up!

It's not consistent just yet, but Ella is starting to sit on her own a little bit at a time. This weekend we managed to snap a few quick pics of her in action!