Lily is 6 Months Old!

Wow, I can't believe how fast the weeks and months are flying by lately. Lily had her half birthday last weekend. Crazy! How can my little baby be 6 months old already? It makes me a little sad that she isn't a tiny little newborn anymore, but I do love the stage that she is at now. She is so curious and funny and you can see her making new discoveries all the time. She is even sitting up by herself now.

Today I did her 6-month photoshoot and it was actually a lot of fun. I guess I am just so used to fighting with Ella to let me take her photos that I forgot what it was like to do a little shoot with a baby who can't run away from the camera. It was lovely! I wanted to try a fun, different kind of shoot, so I sat down last night and made her a tutu and I am SO glad that I did. I can't even stand how cute she looked in it. I also got a couple of headbands for her, which I don't love for everyday wear, but I do love for photo props. Anyway, I will stop rambling now and let you see for yourselves. Here is my sweet 6 month old baby!

I really wish that I had have used a different background for these next couple of shots. I really love the expressions that I got, but the grey came out darker than I wanted and I am not very happy with the texture of it. Oh well, I guess that just gives me an excuse for a reshoot :)

Is It Summer Yet?

I am starting to get seriously tired of winter. Just when I thought that the sickness had left our house and everyone was over the flu, Ella got the worst cold I could imagine. She has been coughing like crazy since Wednesday and hasn't had much of a voice since Thursday. The coughing has kept her up at night (along with Shawn and I) and it has also caused her to scream and cry a lot and be very cranky. Thankfully, she is finally getting over it.

The other reason that I am hating winter is that I am oh so tired of not being able to get outside and take some photos. I much prefer to shoot outside. The light is better and there is just so much more that I can take photos of - Ella can't hide nearly as well.

Since I have been busy taking care of my sick Ella (and Lily and the three other kids that I have been watching part-time), I'm only posting one photo for today. Ella is going to her grammy's for a few nigths this week, so I do hope to have time to edit some more photos and get them posted then. Until then, here is a shot of Ella feeding Lily. This was the first time she has ever wanted to hold Lily and feed her by herself, so I was pretty happy about it.

What My Girlies Have Been Up To

I spent all of last week sick with the flu, so needless to say I didn't feel much like taking photos or posting anything here. And now that I am feeling better, I've been spending all my spare time getting photos ready for my scrapbooking crop coming up this weekend (yay!). I've been going through lots of old photos, and new ones too, and I love seeing how the girls are changing not only in their looks, but also in what they are doing. So I thought I would a minute tonight to put up a few photos from the past couple of days of things my girls have been into lately.

Ella has been obsessed with these little pop beads that she got for Christmas. She always begs me to sit with her and make necklaces, rings, and watches. She even likes to string them ALL together and wrap them around herself, saying she is a Christmas tree. She cracks me up. You can also tell from this photo that she is still in the stage of making crazy faces at the camera. I can never get a natural expression from her. I keep hoping that will change some day...Lily is starting to sit on her own for a few seconds, but I'm too scared to let go of her long enough to take a photo for fear that she will fall down. She is loving laying on the floor, but only if I lay with her and sing her songs. She is truly the only person who can enjoy my singing voice. Her very favorite song is ABCs. I don't know why, but she laughs at it every time. I keep encouraging her to roll over, but she is showing absolutely zero interest. Ella used to use rolling to her advantage and go wherever she wanted in the room so I guess I just expected Lily to roll too. But no, she has no interest at all. I guess that's good for me so I don't have to chase her around yet. I'm also convinced that she is going to be a crawler because every time she has tummy time she tries to scoot herself along the floor to get her toys. She isn't quite able to move much yet, but she really tries. Little Miss Ella has been in love with anything creative. She is especially loving painting and gluing. The only thing is that she HATES getting glue on her fingers. She starts crying and tells me to "get the yuckies off".This is Lily's elephant that she is now in love with. She smiles and coos at it and tries so hard to get it in her mouth, but inevitably ends up dropping it and getting angry until someone will give it back to her again. And this is Ella's bed. Her teeny, tiny toddler bed. She is convinced that she needs to take five hundred animals to bed with her. Then she complains that she has nowhere to lay, but she will not let me take anyone out of her bed. She even has some of Lily's stuffies in there that she "takes care of" for Lily. Every night I try to sneak a couple out and hide them to make more room for her, but she takes inventory and always demands to have them back. It's starting to get out of control. I think maybe we should have went straight to a double bed and skipped the toddler bed altogether. And I couldn't resist putting this photo in because it just absolutely cracks me up. This is Ella and Lily in the ball pit. I love that Ella looks crazy and Lily looks terrified and confused. The poor little thing has no idea what's going on. Isn't it funny, though?