Long overdue

My apologies for taking so long to update the blog. Day after day I'd tell myself to get it done, but something else would always come up. Well, in the past couple months things have been wonderful. I feel like our little unit is really starting to enjoy family life. Marley is starting to sleep better, which means everyone is sleeping better, and in turn everyone is happier and nicer to each other.

Marley is turning into quite the young observer. He likes to sit back and survey the surroundings. When he holds an object he looks at it very thoughtfully, turning it with his hands, tasting it with his mouth, and looking at it with a furrowed brow. It's amazing to see him experiencing brand new things every day. It would be wonderful if we could carry that innocence with us into our adulthood. To experience everything without judgement, bias, and be open to whatever we encounter.

Marley now has four teeth and some molars are currently sprouting. He's been able to roll over for quite some time now and is crawling GI Joe style. We've been feeding him home made baby food and so far he's tried bananas, peas, sweet potato, rice cereal, oat cereal, and avocado. He's starting to drink breastmilk and water from a sippy cup, which is a HUGE relief for me because he refused the bottle at 3 months old (after he'd taken it previously). We transitioned him to cloth diapers too. It's not as cumbersome as I thought it would be. Plus, he's had no problems with diaper rashes like he had with disposable diapers.

Marley is nearly 7 months old now. My how fast time flies!

Some of the things we've done in the past couple months:

Jeany's visit with us from Thailand.

Gene and Minah's first date night since having Marley!

Playdates and lunches with other moms and babies.

Dinner with our neighbors, Ken, Ashley, and their 2 year old son Casey (Marley's future best buddy)
Jason and Jenny's visit with us from Maryland.

Annual trip to Downieville (Marley's first time at the Yuba River).

We went back to our Bradley teacher's class to speak to her current students about our birth and postpartum experience.

Gene and Minah's 2nd wedding anniversary.

Gene's first Father's Day.