seven months!

this month has Flown by! with two long trips down to tennessee and packing up our apartment, things have been a little hectic. but you are taking it all in stride. you've made leaps and bounds this month! you've finally started playing with your feet-- grabbing your legs and rolling about. you are waking up a little earlier and momma is trying hard to figure out what sleeping pattern works best for you. you are still eating solids once a day and are getting better and better at swallowing! some favorite foods are-- peas, pears, and applesauce. you have started to grab for toys and shake them and put them in your mouth. when you reach for something and grab it, you get so excited that you have it-- you shine your Giant smile and shake it back and forth to your mouth. momma loves to see you so excited. you are getting better at holding your head up as your neck strengthens-- you will push up to try to see us. you have started sucking your fingers indiscriminately-- and momma's still trying to put a stop to it. at the LeNoir family christmas, you really liked to hold pieces of paper and put the crunchy ribbons in your mouth. everyone said how sweet and cuddlesome you are-- you just like to sit in their laps and observe the room around you. for christmas, momma and daddy gave you the complete stories of winnie the pooh and a little wagon full of alphabet blocks for when you are older. we are reading through an advent book as a family and also have started reading peter pan to you for the first time. you still love storytime before bed. at your nadaskay christmas visit, you Loved the helium balloon mammaw got you-- it was by far your favorite thing. you noticed another baby for the first time and smiled and smiled at him. you've begun to watch us eat and drink with much interest. you've started to grab your blanket, rub it against your face and coo and smile. your personality has exploded this month and you let us know all about it when you think things-- you will say 'ah ah ah' and then just make mouth motions with no sound. you will also mouth "ma-ma," but no sounds yet!

:::

the month of december was Crazy for us! i think we traveled a total of 28 hours over a seven day period. solomon was a champ-- i think we were more exhausted and worn than he was. i kept thinking, if it's this hard now, how will we do this next year when he's into everything? or how will we do it with multiple children?? we may not travel home every christmas-- but i'm not sure how to broach the subject with our families. and as much as i don't want guilt to be a motivator in my life anymore-- it's so HARD to say no and stick to your guns. we did have a good few days around christmas day where we were just at my parents house visiting. and that was low-key and nice. my little brother is getting married in june, so he and his fiance popped over a few times to visit. it was weird to think that the next time i see him, he will be almost married. ???!?!?!?

we are about four days into the post-holiday detox from constant attention from relatives and solomon is finally returning to his normal self. this has been paired with a phase where he realizes now when i leave the room! so there are A LOT of feelings. and i seem to have misplaced both his and our nail clippers. so i'm taking my life in my hands every time i hold him. ha!

we move to our new apartment in five days. my heart is breaking and i've cried a bit every day. i haven't been this attached to a place since Union. it's all making for difficult packing conditions-- since i will pack a box or two, have a cry, pump, feed the baby, repeat. i'm lucky if i get boxes packed. i don't think we will get everything moved on saturday, but C says that's ok. we will just move all the Big things with help from our friends and i will move the kitchen over. everything else we will have a few more days to pack up if we need to. it's been so hard to follow C in this as he follows God. giving up our home is such a risk for me-- and i'm not a gambler. but as C keeps telling me, it's better to risk disappointment and try for something Life-Giving than to settle for what is just comfortable. i don't want to just settle for a isolated life hiding away in a beautiful house-- i want sharpening community and i want to know how to live grace and speak truth and be someone different when 2016 rolls around. and we're risking our home to get it-- banking everything on 'if you seek then you will find.' please, let it be so.