Hadley is 6 Months!!

Half a year. Wow!

Hadley, Here is what you are up to at 6 months!

+You weigh 16 lbs 1 oz (50%)

+You are 26 1/2 inches long (75)

+You get where you want to go with the army crawl. I have to be careful where I leave you!

 +You are sleeping great once you go to sleep. You started fighting going to sleep a couple weeks ago. It warms my heart though because you usually only want me! I enjoy our snuggles!

+You eat about 6-7 times a day

 +You have the sweetest personality. You pretty much let Ayda do anything to you and you go with the flow 99% of the time. You are so laid back!

+We are so proud of you, sweet girl! You've been so busy this month just learning to move around. It is so fun watching you explore and get to toys across the room now. If you want something you waste no time in getting there! You are such a joy and I love every minute with you! 

Ayda at 6 Months!

Have to add her stats (I was shocked when I looked back)

Weight: 18 lbs 13 oz (85%)

Length: 27 inches

She was almost 3 pounds heavier at 6 months than Hadley is! So funny!

Cocoa Beach, FL

Mom treated me and the girls to a weekend at Cocoa Beach. The weather was perfect and we had a blast. Ayda LOVES the beach to say the least. She talked about it for over a week before we left. She couldn't wait for "Pam Pam" to get here so we could go.

After dinner one night we went down to the beach to enjoy the sun setting. Ayda had a blast playing in the sand and building castles. 

Hadley enjoyed watching Ayda play and enjoyed walks in her stroller with Grand Pam. 

 My mom is the greatest and she is where Ayda gets her appreciation for the beach from. I think they both would have stayed another 2 weeks if I had said ok!

 My precious littlest Lin!

 Love these two girls more than words can say!

 Ayda also loves the pool and our hotel had a pretty nice one. It was right outside our back door. Perfect for lugging two littles ones out there. Technically Hadley could have gotten in since she turned 6 months while we were there but I decided to hold off. So Ayda enjoyed splashing around and Hadley watched and laughed at her!

Love that wrinkled nose smile! And if you look closely you can see her tooth! Only one still and it's just adorable!!

Trick Candles and a 4 Year Old

 My nephew Jack's first experience with "trick" candles. 

(I promise I didn't know when I bought them!)

 Serious determination to get what he thought were regular candles out...

Pleased with himself, yet intrigued (and confused) at the fact they were relighting...

Some more determination and recruited help to get those candles out!

Jack was so funny with these candles. He was completely confused with them relighting. And he took getting the candles to go out very seriously! We did finally get them to go out with the help of a wet paper towel. The kids thought it was great fun!

Sweet Moments with Grandma

I have so many wonderful memories of my Grandmother. I used to spend summers at her house in West Virginia. She lived in a teeny tiny town but my brother and I loved spending 6-8 weeks there. The summers flew by. So it is such a joy to see my girls with their Great Grandma now. I treasure pictures like these!

Wild Animal Safari

My brother and his family came to ATL when the girls and I were there and we spent Labor Day weekend together. I was really excited because usually we see each other in short spurts and it is crazy. We were all looking forward to just spending a few days together. We decided to pack up two mini vans on Sunday and head to the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain GA. Ayda went with my mom and step dad back in June and has talked about "the BIG animals" ever since. I knew she would be so excited to go. So we drove 1 1/2 hours to the safari with 6 kids (ranging in age from 5 months to 6 years) and 5 adults. It was going to be wild!!!

When we arrived we quickly realized it was packed. A lot of people had the same idea as us apparently. We were originally planning to rent a 15 passenger van. But the wait for one of those was 2 hours. Um yea...not going to work with our crew. There was also no way we were going to just pack up and head back home. So we took the car seats out of my van, folded the seats down and piled in. Yes all 11 of us! It was tight but oh so fun!

 Sweet Micah was a little terrified at first. But after about 10 minutes of cuddling with his momma and then Grand-Pam he was actually willing to go up to the window and check out the animals...at a distance! He was such a trooper!

 This picture says it all as far as what Ayda thought of the whole thing! She was SO excited to see the BIG animals again!

 Check out that insane tongue! I mean seriously!

 Jack was so fun to watch. He was very much boy, yet timid as well. He wanted to feed the animals and would get all geared up to do so...then the animal would come in the window and straight at him. He quickly chucked the food at the animal. He even managed to get a piece of food in one of the animal's nostrils. It was pretty impressive.

 My SIL with three of the four Lewis munchkins!!!

 Hadley played it safe in the front seat chilling with Uncle Josh. I don't think either of them minded having a front seat with the windows UP!

 Papaw really got into feeding the animals. I will not go into detail of how gross Papaw's hands were at the end of the safari, but it required some serious hand washing afterwards!

 Micah holding Grand-Pam's hand in all the chaos around him! So sweet!

 Wish the picture had sounds effects of all the kids giggling and squealing!

 Izzie was one of the bravest I think. She loved seeing all the animals. Her favorite was the Gruffalos! And she was NOT impressed with the slover!

 Abby ready to do some serious animal feeding!

 I managed to snag some sweet hugs and giggles from my little animal lover!

And why not end with this picture of Papaw taking care of the animals! It was a fun fun trip to the safari! Great memories were made!