8 months old!

Impossible! She can't be 8 months already! I swear I didn't give her permission to grow up.
Since her 6 month check up, she has changed so much and developed lots of new skills and abilities.

• However, she still can't roll over (back to tummy), and no signs of crawling yet
• She's also STILL not sleeping through the night (only waking once though)
• I plan to "sleep train" her as soon as I'm done working (JULY 2- LAST DAY!!! :))
• She cut two teeth
• Flew for the first time in an airplane (to AL)
• Had her first poop in the bathtub :)
• Can (kind of) shake her head "no, no"
• Can babble "mama" and "dada" indiscriminantly
• Loves to play with her tongue and spit (razzing)
• Swishes food around in her mouth
• Plays with mom's hair while she nurses
• Plays with her own hair when the helmet is off
• Getting better at feeding herself cheerios, puffs, and other easy to grab foods
• Starting to reach out for people to hold her
• Squeels LOTS when she's happy and excited
• She's so very annimated and quite often happy
• She sleeps on her side now
• We find her in really funny positions when she wakes up (i.e. turned 180 degrees from the way I put her to bed in her crib)
• Starting to give big open mouth kisses when you ask for one

And here's McKenna "playing" with her cousin Whitney (2 months younger). She's just trying to give her loves! Whitney wasn't so keen on the idea though.

WE LOVE OUR MCBABY!! She's such a blessing in our lives!

Boyfriend?

McKenna got her first piece of jewelry from a BOY! Not just any boy. This little guy!

(Kellie, I hope it's alright I took these pictures from your blog. :))

His name's Luke. Isn't he dreamy??

He's our neighbor that lives two doors down. He was making eyes at McKenna at church on Sunday. So, later that day he brought this over.

She thanked him by squeeling at him.
And then she tried to poke his eyes out.

Lovingly of course! :)

(They're 4 months apart in case you were wondering)

Helmet update

It's been just over a month now since we started the helmet treatment to re-shape our little one's head. Here's the latest:

We went in for another laser scan, which means...

And here's the progress. If you enlarge the picture below you will see the red line was her original head shape. The blue line is her current head shape. It's amazing how much it's changed!!

For now, the doctor says we'll do one more month of full time wear (23 hours a day). Then she'll probably only have to wear it for naps and night time for another few weeks.

Here's some cute smiley pictures of McBaby with her lovely head gear! (Notice the teeth!)

Trip to Alabama!! -Part 1, The Traveling!

We took McKenna on her FIRST airplane ride to Alabama to visit my sister Emily and her lovely family! We had four airplane rides total. 2 there, 2 back. Luckily each one happened to be around the same time as her nap time! So she did a lot of this...

Not so comfortable for me, but I would much prefer this than to have a sreaming baby.

The helmet was quite nice to have in this instance. Her head could be wedged between my hip and the arm rest and she couldn't feel a thing. Here she is with daddy checking out the planes before boarding.
During the flights, she was pretty good to play with toys, snack on puffs and cheerios, and playing games like this with daddy using grandpa's old cell phone:

Alabama- Part 2, The kids!

One of the best parts of our visit was seeing these kids together.

Kari (4 1/2) Kaitlyn (2) McKenna (7 months) Dylan (2 months)

Because the blessed South is so hot and humid, McKenna enjoyed quite a few breaks from the helmet.

A few things to notice in these pictures below:

• These two babies are 5 months apart but only about 1 inch and 2 pounds different in size.
• Also, McBaby has had a hair growth spurt and her hair now hangs over her ears a bit.
• In the tummy time pictures, Dylan's got the right idea to rest on his bent elbows. McKenna just stiff-arms it and then gets too tired. :)

This photo op was doomed to begin with if you look at Dylan's face. I think she's trying to cover her ears. :)

Then she tried to hold his hand to comfort him...

Here's our little family after church on Sunday.

McKenna also loved it when Kari played Peek-a-boo with her!

Kaitlyn couldn't stop giving McKenna kisses. She only seemed to mind a few times and got a little pay back when Kaitlyn would run into her helmet in the process of giving her loves. I'm sure Dylan was thankful McKenna took some of the heat off him. :)

McKenna (and I, a little bit) also "enjoyed" their dog Mollie.

Alabama- Part 3, Fun Times!

What were some of the fun things we did while on our visit to Alabama, you might ask??

1.) My sister planned awesome, yummy meals! So we ate, and ate, and ate some more! Sorry no pictures of the gluttony. Thanks for all your hard work Emily!

2.) Swimming!

All the Thompson Grandaughters
Everyone (except me taking the picture)
You know these two! (I'm still trying to convince Dan that it's ok to leave his wool sweater at home)

Cute girls relaxing poolside!

3.) We stayed up way too late playing games such as Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader and CLUE!

Alamaba- Part 4, Montgomery!

Before we flew home, we decided to stop by the capital city of Montgomery, AL for a quick drive-thru, early morning tour. It was on the way to the airport, kind of. :) Thanks Justin!

First White House of the Confederacy (directly to the South of the Capitol)The Baptist church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached and the Montgomery bus boycot was organized.
That's me in the bottom left corner.

Immediately to the east is the Alabama State Capitol Building (from the street in front of the Baptist church)

Cool water fountain with a quote from Dr. King in front of the Civil Rights Memorial (1 block SW of Church).

Old train station-nowhere near the church :)