Dear Laurel,
It is hard to believe that 6 months have already gone by, but like the saying goes… time flies when you’re having fun! You have certainly generated tons of excitement for daddy and me. 6 months ago, we had no idea what to expect and how different our lives would truly be, but we have quickly adjusted to a new “normal” and being a family of 3. When I came home from work today, you were hanging out with daddy on the couch. When you looked up and saw me, you gave me the biggest smile that lit up my entire day. It’s such a great feeling!
You are growing and developing fast these days. We’ll know exactly how fast later today at your doctor’s appointment, but according to my scale, you are 16 pounds.
You have almost mastered rolling over. You can do it, but sometimes you can’t figure out how to get your arm from underneath your body after you have rolled over. You certainly have determination though because you keep trying. You also like to reach overhead and grab things when you are laying down. This can be particularly interesting when you are laying on your changing pad and decide to clear off the whole dresser when you reach up and start pushing things around. You are trying to sit up by yourself, but you’re not quite there yet. I would give it another couple weeks, but I am not rushing b/c the next step will be crawling and daddy and I won’t be able to keep up with you!
You are just beginning to explore foods, but still haven’t shown huge interest. We’ve tried rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and bananas and nothing seems to be a favorite yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.
Your personality is also slowly beginning to emerge. Overall, you seem to be very mellow and I have nicknamed you “mellow yellow”. Daddy thinks the yellow is in reference to your skin color, but it’s not! You are generally very content and happy. You usually will only fuss if you are tired or hungry, which is easily managed. Another clue that you give when you are tired is to put your hands up to your ears like earmuffs (I put a photo with an example below). Recently you have also done this when you hear loud noises. It’s pretty funny!!
You are still putting everything in your mouth…burp clothes, toys, daddy’s finger, and you like to chew on your pacifier backwards. You probably have some teeth coming in, but nothing that has broken the surface. You received two jumperoo’s for Christmas and that seems to be your favorite pastime… oh wait… and watching football. You still love football, so daddy is concerned about what will happen in a few weeks when the Superbowl is over and there is no football for you to watch.
You were sleeping 8 hour stretches at the end of last year and first week in January, but now you seem to be back to waking up every 3-4 hours. What happened?? Please feel free to return to the 8 hour stretches 
You have brought daddy and I so much joy over the past 6 months and I know that will continue for years to come. As fast as these 6 months have gone by, it’s already time to start planning your 1st birthday party! What fun that will be!
I love you!
Mommy
4 days old
6 months old (your signature earmuff pose)
Cute baby!!
William and I have had some busy weekends and last weekend was no exception. We traveled to my birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio for my cousin Shannon’s wedding. She was a beautiful bride and I enjoyed being a part of her special day! It was also Laurel’s first time in Ohio and her first time seeing many of my family members, including my dad. He had surgery right before she was born and did not get a chance to come down with my mom. My mom hadn’t seen her in a few months either. It was an exhausting, but fun weekend. Click here for photos.
Here are a couple of videos from December that I never got around to posting. This first is us lighting the Christmas tree for Laurel. The second was our first attempt at feeding her solid foods, which didn’t go well.
Okay, break time is over. Kyllan and I return to work tomorrow. I’ll be teaching Immunology and Molecular Biology this semester, so even though classes won’t start for a couple of weeks, I have to get started on putting together lectures. We really enjoyed all the time with Laurel. A few pictures from the past few days can be found on my flickr.
Below is a video slideshow of my favorite photos of 2011 and a link to the same photos on flickr. It has been an absolutely amazing year! I can’t wait to see what 2012 brings.
Best of 2011 on flickr
Experiencing Christmas as a parent was amazing. Yes, Laurel is way too young to have really understood what was going on, and a lot of it was just us being excited to share the occasion with her, but when it comes down to it we just enjoyed seeing her smile so much. Thanksgiving and Christmas really gave Kyllan and me a chance to break the monotony of our work week schedule and allowed us to really spend some time with Laurel and enjoy all the changes she has made so quickly over the last few months. Watching her play with her new toys and enjoy interacting with Kyllan, my parents, and her aunt and uncle, truly did provide me with memories I will always hold dear. Kyllan enjoyed it so much I think she has already started planning her 1st birthday party. If you haven’t already taken a peak, pictures are up on my flickr. I should have some video of Laurel opening gifts in a few days. (It’s taking me longer because one of my gifts was a new computer.)
Stocking Stuffers
Laurel's 1st Present
Laurel Loved the Wrapping Paper
Laurel's 1st Christmas
Yesterday, Laurel turned 5 months old, and today she celebrated her first Christmas! It was a great day. William’s parents were in town to help us celebrate. My parents were not able to make it down, but we will see them in a few weeks when we go to Cleveland for my cousin Shannon’s wedding. We started the morning by checking out the goodies in our stockings. William loves to be in charge of stocking stuffers, and does a great job every year. He fills them with our favorite candy, and some small trinkets. Laurel’s stocking was filled with things like new teething rings, and fun toys. She sat in her Bumbo seat and played with her stocking toys for quite a while. We then began opening gifts. Laurel had some great gifts, but was much more excited about trying to eat the wrapping paper. She became a bit tired midway through opening her gifts… yes… she had that many, so she took a nap and we continued later. After enjoying some blueberry Belgium waffles using the batter William picked up at Williams-Sonoma, I began my cooking. The spread for the day included turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, corn on the cob, greens, rolls. I also baked a sweet potato pie and chess squares the night before, so we had some sweets in the house (although my mom sent chocolate chip cookies she baked, so I was already on a sugar high). It was the first time I had done that much cooking since Laurel was born and I really enjoyed it. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew joined us later for dinner. After a failed attempt last week to feed Laurel rice cereal, which she had absolutely zero interest in eating, we tried offering her sweet potatoes today so that she could join in on the Christmas dinner, but did not seem interested in those either and actually made a face as if to say she did not like them at all. So… perhaps we will try again another day. We have both photos and video, so we’ll get those posted as soon as William gets them downloaded on his computer.
We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!!
The Codys would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We will be sure to post plenty of pictures and stories of Laurel’s first Christmas over the next few days.
Merry Christmas
Laurel made her first trip out of Texas and first plane ride two weekends ago when we traveled to Jacksonville, Florida to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. We were so nervous about how she would handle the trip, but she slept the entire way down and back! We had a great time with my parents. They were amazed at how much Laurel grew over the past month. We had Thanksgiving diner on Thursday, of course, did a “little” black Friday shopping on Friday and Laurel entertained a few family friends on Friday. Pictures from the weekend can be found here.
Kyllan & Laurel
Beautiful Smile!
Laurel with "Bebe"
Big Kids
A couple of weekends ago our good friends Jamaal and Maya made the trip down to Dallas to meet Laurel. Jamaal was a little nervous to hold Laurel, but quickly found that it wasn’t difficult at all. She was on her best behavior, and we cleaned up pretty good before they got here, so they didn’t get a chance to actually see just how much out lives have been turned upside down. After a busy week, I finally got around to uploading some of the photos.
Laurel, Jamaal and Maya
Dallas
44°
