Growing, growing, growing...

Sometimes Brandon comes home at the end of the day and asks what I did.  I get ready to tell him and then can't think of a single thing and my response becomes "I have no idea, but I'm exhausted and our baby is alive."  Genni started crawling at about 5 1/2 months, started eating solid foods at about 6 1/2 months and moved on to eat toilet paper at about 8 1/2 months (I'm not a neglectful mother, I promise).

Genevieve is very quick (and quiet) at getting into things now, which is exhausting.  However, along with the added mischievousness has come a lot more personality and a lot of fun.  She has started to really notice things around her, especially birds and ducks.  Our morning run is on the levee which makes it fairly easy to spot some of both, which is very exciting for her.  She'll point and "yell" (which is just how she talks now) at them and they immediately fly away...which is probably what she wants to see anyway.  She has fallen in love with books, which has motivated me to expand our board book collection so that I can read to her for longer periods of time without losing my mind.  I'll often find her sitting by the bookshelf in her room, all of her books cleared from the shelves and on the floor around her, with one in her lap (she is her father's daughter).  She is a very picky eater, but I guess that only applies to actual food (see photo above).  She is growing like a weed, a very cute weed.  I feel like I'm sorting her clothes and pulling out the next size all too often and it breaks my heart.  She isn't walking, but is getting really good at walking around the furniture and can crawl extremely fast when she's after something she wants and knows that you're going to try to stop her.  When Brandon works from home, she'll find the room he's in and yell and bang on the door until he comes to pay attention to her.  Yeah, she loves her dad.  She now has a total of four teeth...two on top and two on the bottom.  Each one represents hours of lost sleep which I will never see again, but they are making eating things like toilet paper and bugs much easier and make that smile even cuter than before.  She is SO happy MOST of the time.  Cashiers at stores often ask if my baby is "always this happy" because as soon as they make eye contact with her she gives them a big grin and starts jabbering at them.  I love it.  It makes my life as a full-time, stay-at-home mom a lot of fun and worth the challenging times.

She's a very social baby.  This is her friend Owen who was born hours after her, and in the same hospital.  He is one of the cutest little boys ever!  This was at the Children's Museum and it was a lot of fun.  A lot of taking objects away right before or after they went into their mouths, but still a lot of fun.  

Owen got a little sneaky with his hand while I was taking the picture, but can you blame him?!

Genevieve frequently loses her toys under the couch...

Already loves books!

My first Mother's Day!  Brandon and Genni treated me well.  They gave me a grain mill for my kitchenaid! 

Saying goodbye to Owen before his big move to Texas...we miss them already!

Swamp Tour!

Adrianne came to visit!!!  It was so great to see my Boston friend and for her to meet Genni.  We had a lot of fun catching up and the swamp tour was really neat (and apparently the only time we pulled out the camera).

I believe the words coming out of my mouth during this photo were, "Eeew!  Take it, take it, take it!"  Which referred to both the picture and the alligator.  I thought it was going to be cool to hold it, but as soon as I felt how squishy it was, it was all I could do not to toss it into the swamp.  

First time at the zoo!

Genevieve couldn't see a lot of the animals because they were either too small, too far away, or sleeping in a corner.  However, she loved the animals she could see.  The elephants got really close, as did the giraffes which was really fun for her, but most of all she loved the petting zoo.  I almost didn't take her in because I thought she might be scared of the animals or not really care...I was very wrong.  She especially loved getting a firm grip on the goat's ears and pulling.  Despite how much she loved them, I think they were pretty happy to see her go.  Another fun thing for her was getting a fist full of hair and screaming.  The sweet goats were so gentle and patient, but we did have to switch a few times because they were running away from us.

She thought that bird was pretty funny.  She would laugh a little bit and then scream at it.  And when I say scream here, I mean a scream that to Genni is a friendly greeting, but to an animal is probably a little bit scary.

I was constantly saying, "gentle, don't grab it's hair..."

Also in March...

Brandon grew a mustache!!!

For those who need an explanation: the men in our ward at church decided to grow mustaches for the father and son camp-out.  It took Brandon a few days to decide to do it, and I'm so glad he did.  He stopped shaving his face for about a week and then the day of the camp-out, he shaved to get his 'stache.  We had fun taking pictures of it, but were both happy to see it go in the end.  

And now for a lot of really cute pictures of our little girl.  Genni got her first teeth, which make her smile even cuter!

See?

First time on the swings!  She insisted on keeping her arms out, even though she was a little too small for the swing.

When she first started crawling, there were a few times that I found her sitting totally still like this, with no toys around her.  Funny girl.

Kiss!

Happy, happy baby...

...especially when riding on her dad's shoulders!  He loses a good amount of hair each time he lets her sit up there, but she loves it, so he suffers through.

This was on a very long (unintentionally so) walk through city park.  It may have been hot and we may have been starving, but it was still fun.

I'm no seamstress, but I really enjoy sewing things for my baby.  I made this little smock for her, and I thought it turned out pretty cute.

Genni has found a few foods that she likes to eat and sticks with it.  Whenever I introduce something new into her diet, it usually isn't well received.  Luckily, we have total control of what is introduced.  So if she sticks with sweet potatoes and spinach, I guess that's not the end of the world. She also really likes to feed herself.  She'll usually let me feed her a few bites and then intercepts the spoon on the way to her mouth and wants to do the rest.

This was her first time trying spinach...she LOVED it, so much so that it got all over her, the highchair, and anything else in arm's reach (me).