6 Month Anniversary

Family photo at Aunt Marcia's Wedding at Triangle Fountain
Playing with Daddy
Daddy is SO much fun
Getting SOOOOO Big
I love my music box
See how big I am
At Triangle Fountain

Monday, we marked our 6th month anniversary of picking Haylie up from the orphanage in Russia. Boy, that time has sure flown!! She has also made remarkable progress since that time. I was looking at some pictures we took that day, and she almost doesn't even look like the same child. We just had our 6th month follow-up at the international adoption clinic and she has officially gained 5 pounds and and grown 4 inches in that short time. Her bloodwork was all still normal too. The doctor said she was a very "busy" 2-year-old, but typical and in her words, "very smart". She now knows all her body parts to point to (can't quite say them all yet, but tries) and also many animal sounds. She cracks us up saying some of them. She is doing sign language (learned from her speech therapist) which she picked up remarkably quick. "More" is her favorite sign and it comes out "Mo" "Mo" "Mo" with practically every bite. Her vocabulary seems to have really exploded in the last few weeks and she now says "up, out, down, hello, bye, nightnight, bow, hat and several others I can't even remember right now. She's also now making great strides eating solid foods...still eats probably 60% baby food, but now eats some pastas, potato soup, potato chips, etc. She's a carb queen just like her dear old mom!!

We took her to my dad's family's family reunion on Saturday in Indiana and got to introduce her to all of them for the first time which was great fun. It's kind of strange, she is actually the only little one in that family now as all the others have gotten big. The next youngest to Haylie was 10 years old. Seems so strange since I remember for years, tons of little kids running around everytime the family got together--guess we are all getting old....boo.