Many Faces of Marshall

Here are a series of faces made by Marshall as he ate his rice cereal and mushed peas.Here he is trying to sign "Mommy", but not getting it quite right!

My Cute Little Builders

Paul has surprised me by taking up wood-working as his new hobby! He's really getting into it and enjoying himself. When the weather is nice, he and Molly have had fun banging out some projects together!

More Toupee Styles

Marshall is proud to announce the addition of two new styles to his line of baby toupees:

INTRODUCING:

The Hasselhoff

and

The Ron Burgundy

6 Months Old

Marshall turned 6 months old on January 29th.
At his check-up he weighed 17lbs, 2oz and was 27.25 inches long. He's in the 75-90th percentile for both height and weight. Marshall is loving his baby foods and especially his MumMum crackers. I had hoped we'd be a lot farther along with bottles by now, but we'll keep working on it. So far he only takes bottles with any regularity from Mrs. Molly and MiMi. I know Molly was only nursing on her first and last feedings of the day by this age, so I am hoping to get Marshall moving in that direction this month.

In all I can't complain, he's a wonderfully content and happy baby. Even the two weeks that he was really sick you could tell how badly he wanted to be his happy self despite his runny nose and glassy eyes. He would still muster up that charming smile for everyone he saw.

Marshall loves being outside, especially swinging or kicking around in the bouncer.

He also loves being inside in the exersaucer with all of his chewy toys.Marshall just adores Molly and gets so excited whenever he sees her. I love hearing him laugh at her, it's one of the best sounds in the whole world.

Big Sister was so excited when Marshall wore his first Star Wars shirt. It's not the best picture of little man, but Molly begged me to take it! Cousin Carrie got them matching Star Wars shirts and nothing makes Molly happier than when they wear them together. I'll have to get that picture posted pretty soon!

Mad Hatter's Tea

I just realized that I never posted pictures from Molly's 5th Birthday party! I'll leave this post up for a few days, then put it in order with the rest of December's blogs...

When we went to Disney World in January Molly fell in love with Alice in Wonderland. She watched the movie several times in our hotel, then got to meet Alice when we visited Epcot. On our drive back to Houston, Molly announced that she was going to have an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party for her 5th Birthday. Paul and I were both surprised that she never once wavered from this idea. In the fall I started planning for our Mad Hatter's Tea. I collected tea pots and tea cups from resale shops and asked my cousin, Trenda, to make a few cute decorations for us. I had NO idea what kind of awesomeness she would provide for Molly's party. My friend, Jennifer, also made Molly's adorable invites.

Molly made her own decoration, she drew this picture of Alice and the Cheshire Cat:45 kiddos came to the party, it was a hectic afternoon, but oh-so-fun!

Nana and MarshallMolly posing with all of the characters that Nana drew!Thank you, Nana!
All your help and amazing character drawings made Molly's party AWESOME!

Marshall's First Pint

Tonight Marshall begged and begged until finally I gave in and let him drink from my glass.
He did really well!

5 Months Old!

Marshall turned 5 months old on December 29th and I've been a little behind on getting some pictures of him with his puppy. I kept meaning to dress him up in a cute outfit and take some pictures, but as we got further and further into January, I gave up that idea and decided to snap some pictures of him in his jammies just before bed one night. This picture just cracks me up:

Marshall has mastered the art of rolling over and now loves to spend lots of time on his belly playing with his toys. He's gotten really good at reaching out and grabbing something and putting it right in his mouth. We've started talking to Molly about leaving small items within Marshall's reach and told her that pretty soon anything she doesn't want Marshall to chew on should be moved into her bedroom.

A few days ago I decided to give Marshall a bottle while he was playing on the floor. He loves drinking and playing with bottles full of water and has gotten pretty good at getting them into his mouth himself so I decided to see what he could do with a bottle of formula...

He started out shaking the bottle and playing with it...
which resulted in a few drops in his eyes... finally, covered in formula, he decided to get down to business...Mommy was so proud!After drinking nearly 3 oz. by himself he was in a great mood and ready to play!
After getting a little fussy on the floor he started pushing with his legs and shoving himself forward - on his face no-less!
I'll have to look and see exactly when Molly started crawling (I think 7 or 8 months, maybe?) but I guess pretty soon it will be time to think about cabinet locks and baby gates for the stairs!


Molly continues to amaze us with how gentle and kind she is with her little brother, but we have not been surprised at all by her desire to be in all his pictures. Whenever I start taking pictures of Marshall she always scoots in next to him -she really cracks me up.
This pose was all her idea!
And yes, Marshall is still sporting his Santa jams in January... they are really snugly and warm and considering yesterday's low was 20, I think they're justified!