6 Months

Dear Isabelle,

Today you are 6-months old. Happy Half Birthday to you! At your checkup on Thursday you were 13 pounds, 6 ounces and 26 inches long. Tall and skinny! But very healthy. Today we are celebrating Easter Sunday with our family and listening to General Conference. Last time General Conference was on in October, I was in the hospital in labor waiting for your arrival. What a special day that was for our family. Listening to our church leaders all day today has brought back such wonderful feelings of your birthday.

In the last month you have become so much more aware of your surroundings. You reach for objects, notice colors on my shirt, grab my hair (ouch.) and watch people move around the room. You are a rolling champion now and can stand to be on your tummy more, though it’s not your favorite. You love to stand and jump and wiggle and are constantly moving. You are growing out of your 3 month clothes and are starting to wear some 6 month sizes. Suddenly you stretch across my whole chest when I’m holding you and its hard to remember when you were so tiny that you fit on my shoulder. You’ve grown out of your infant bath tub and your favorite part of the day is bath time. You squeal and splash to your heart’s content and if we let you, you would stay in there all night long.

We’ve started giving you a few solids now and your favorite food is sweet potatoes. You could eat them by the gallon and you usually screech at me if I am not feeding you fast enough. When you are drinking your bottle you love to play with my hair- you don’t pull it or grab it, you softly run it through your fingers over and over until you are full. These sweet little moments are among my favorite and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

The other day we rushed into church a little bit late and sat down next to Scott, JaNae, and two year old Madilyn. This little girl loves you so much, she is so careful and gentle with you- she loves to give you your toys and blankets and she calls you Belle. As we sat down on the bench next to her, she cradled your soft face in her small hands and smiled so big, leaned into you and loudly exclaimed “Hi, Belle!” I thought of your special little spirits in heaven before you were born, how you were probably the best of friends and couldn’t wait to come down to earth to see each other again.

6 months have come and gone since you joined our family. In this short time you have brought more joy to our lives than we ever thought possible. Yes, you still wake us up multiple times a night. Yes, sometimes you are a handful. Yes, occasionally I feel like I will never catch up on my life ever again. But you are so, so incredibly worth it. We love you so much.

Love, love, love you.

xoxo

Momma