Leila's first Thanksgiving

Leila is six months old as of November 2nd! We got a half-birthday picture of her wearing her birthday tiara.

We put together Leila's high chair and now she eats out of it several times daily. It's nice and convenient - it centralizes the mess and lets us sit upright when feeding her.

Leila's Grandmama and Granddaddy came up from Foley to see us for Thanksgiving this year. Chandler did a great job of preparing weeks in advance. She put together an exciting menu and we went out and got all the ingredients ahead of time. Once we got everything together we did a few test runs on some of the dishes. These were lots of fun even if they moved slowly since Leila kept waking up and demanding to know why she'd woken up all alone.

For Thanksgiving dinner we had a turkey breast, carrot pudding, homemade stuffing (with pearl onions, bread cubes, and bacon), sweet potato wedges, cranberry sauce, and a salad. We also had some nice wine that my parents brought to share with us. All of the food was excellent and we're still enjoying leftovers - turkey sandwiches and pumpkin pound cake with ice cream are my favorites. I cooked the turkey (and set off the smoke alarm a few times!) but Chandler was kind enough to do the majority of the cooking.

Cooking took most of the morning but when we had a break we passed the time playing with Leila and watching The World's Fastest Indian, a movie about a 67-year old grandfather who set a motorcycle land speed record in 1967. Frida enjoyed thanksgiving too. Overall Thanksgiving was a good time and we were very glad to have company. Leila definitely enjoyed getting to see her grandparents again and is looking forward to seeing more relatives at Christmas.

Half-Birthday

Even though she had an entire extra hour this weekend, Leila decided not to do too much out of the ordinary.

On Thursday, she enjoyed visiting with lots of people at Open Studio Night at UM. She had to leave early though, because she had worked really hard all day on her two front teeth. That's right . . . the tooth count is up to four now. I hope the tooth fairy has been taking notes. Leila got a little toothbrush last week that we're learning to use, but not with toothpaste yet.

Friday was Leila's first half-birthday. She spent most of the day shopping for baby shoes, but also took time to play in the front yard and pet Frida a lot. We also had fun reading the catalogs that come in the mail together (and by read, I mean I flip the pages and Leila shoves them in her mouth as quickly as possible to see how soggy she can get them before I pull them back out of her mouth).

On Saturday, Leila took us to her favorite swingset and even went down the slide without complaining. To celebrate, we all went to Huey's for cheeseburgers. Leila likes to eat cucumber slices while we snack on fries. I guess she's developing a pretty odd palate, with preferences for 'cukes and paper.

Today Leila took Frida to the dog park. Leila thinks dogs are pretty much the funniest animals on the planet (aside from rubber ducks), so she always has fun at Shelby Farms.

She also helped us rake the yard and was pretty impressed when we decided to rake all of the leaves in a ring around the tree to mulch instead of putting them in big plastic bags. Mostly she just wanted to eat the leaves and a couple of bugs. We tried to discourage that.

Leila's most favorite thing in the entire universe these days is splashing like a splash-machine in the bathtub. It's too bad we can't take her swimming soon, because I get the feeling that she's going to be like a little fish! She starts grinning as soon as we start getting her ready for the bath and when we actually get into the tub she squeals with excitement. She's a very rambunctious shampooer.

Next week Leila's going to lay low and try to figure out the mystery of why it's getting so dark so early!