a few of my favorites

our friend Kaity at www.thephotolove.com came over a couple of weeks ago and took some great 6 month photos of our sweet girl. (daddy didn't want to be in any of them...party pooper). here are a few of my favorites!

6 months!! can you believe it!?!

Ruby Belle is 6 months!!!

Stats:

15lbs 9oz (50th percentile)

26 inches (50th percentile)

i can hardly believe it! she's now starting to sit up...she can do it for about 20 or 30 seconds, then it's over, but she loves to try! and loves to scoot around on the ground, but not close to crawling yet (thank goodness, right?!)

haven't been to the doc yet for the 6 month stats...will post next week! :) here's our little fun, always smiling girl!!

(i also had some "professional" pics made last week and i'll post some soon!!! they are great!)

the double name game

it's so frustrating. maybe those of you w/double names can help me out here. we named our daughter (first name) Ruby (middle name) Belle. but we'd planned on calling her Ruby Belle. we were undecided for a couple of months before her birth, but decided that we'd call her both names by the time we'd had her. so, why doesn't everyone else do that? why don't they get it? who knows?! i call her Ruby Belle...why can't they? do i need to start correcting people? i don't want to be pushy, but maybe that's what i need to do? or do i need to get over it...i mean, she is only about 6 months old.

maybe one day it will sink in. then again, one day she'll be old enough to decide for herself which she likes better.

daycare...gotta love it! (really)

so, today i finally figured out why i love daycare. and yes, i feel guilty for saying that. i don't really "love" it, but it does have it's benefits! like today. i was up all night after going to bed at 7pm because i had food poisoning. i've never had food poisoning before...in all 31 years. i can now say it wasn't cool. so, this morning when it came time for the working world to get up, i decided it wasn't time for me to get up. i was not going to work. and then i got a quick guilty feeling that i should let Ruby Belle stay home w/me, but there was no way i could take care of her. so, ahhhh!! day care!! yep, it does have it's benefits. and speaking of benefits, i'm not sure what they do at daycare, but whatever it is it's good. Ruby Belle is always SO happy when i pick her up. i mean, really. i can't even begin to ask her to be that happy on a regular basis at home, but everytime i pick her up from day care she just smiles and smiles and giggles and giggles! i LOVE it!! and maybe i'm a bad mom for it, but daycare does have it's benefits!

i almost forgot!!! 5 months

oh, wow! i just realized we're quickly approaching 6 months and i forgot to post the 5 month pics!!! here they are...3 weeks late!

Our first night away

So this weekend we had our first night w/o Ruby Belle...fun, but boy did i miss her!! Our in-laws (mom, dad, brother, sister) got us a night at the Hilton at the Branson Landing, dinner out, and FREE baby sitting (by Granma and Papa, of course!...i think there were alterior motives here! ha!) for Christmas and booked it for us for Feb. 13th in celebration of our engagement night! So sweet!! we decided to upgrade our room to the King Suite (or something like that) and it was SUPER nice! i love sleeping in style! The Hilton is right on the Landing (kinda like the Boardwalk in Shreveport), so we literally walked out of our hotel and were in the middle of all the shops and restaurants! we started the day off by dropping of Ruby Belle at Granma and Papa's and then headed out to tour 2 local winerys. then off to check in and then a nap!!!...much needed after a long week (or month) at work! then we headed out to dinner at Macaroni Grill (we don't have one here so it was "different" for us) and then to a pub all conveniently located less than a block from our suite! we had a great time and survived our first night away from our daughter. i even asked Justin if he was missing her at dinner and he replied, "i haven't even thought about her!" if only we could all be that laid back! ;) we, of course, missed her, but she had a blast w/o us i'm sure! all in all, it was a great getaway!!

thanks so much to Martha Jean, King, Brandon, and Jamie!!!

it's about time!!!

he finally did it!!! Ty popped the question Wednesday night to his girlfriend, Stephanie!!! we are SO excited to have her joining our family soon!! i think they're talking about a wedding in July/August and i'm SUPER stoked! (i'm really gonna try hard not to be the annoying sister-in-law, but i really love weddings!) we love Stephanie and are excited she's becoming part of our family!!

(p.s. thanks steph for letting me borrow this pic from your blog!!! i couldn't find any of the 2 of you :( but i'm sure i'll have more soon!!!)