Forgot to post M's stats last week. More pictures.

We took an unofficial height and weight of Mercer. About 1 week ago (at 4 mo and 1 week old), he was 15 lbs and 25 3/4" long. He's grown almost 2" each month for the past 4 months!!

We're sure he is slightly larger this week!

Tuesday night, we were invited to meet a neighbor up on Lake Altoona and go for a pontoon boat ride. This was Mercer's first boat ride -- and was really nice for Todd & I to go / relax. Todd put a video on YouTube if you want to watch it... but we thought instead of posting, we'd put this nice family picture on the blog. I like this other picture too -- Todd, Mercer, and our neighbor Orie (the captain of the boat for the evening taking a break). Thanks for the relaxing trip, Orie!!

There is a GREAT video that you'd definitely want to check out on YouTube: Mercer and His Mirror: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3UTcZe4JRI He has discoverd the baby in the mirror and is so cute!

There's also a video posted of Mercer eating. We captured it because he's starting to really like his food and he's chomping at the bit to eat it. (We'll start working on adding vegetables this week mixed in with his rice cereal.) But - one funny thing in the video, "Mercer Starts to enjoy Solid Foods," is that he's blowing bubbles while eating and making a huge mess. I ended up wearing some of the food this time b/c he got some power behind one of those bubbles with a mouth-full of food. Good times.

On the 4th of July, we walked up to the square to watch the parade & attend a craft fair in the square... and then walked home to hang out for a few hours. Later that day, we walked to a friend's house (on the other side of the square) for a 4th picnic then headed towards the square to watch fireworks that night. We weren't sure what Mercer was going to do when the fireworks went off, but as luck would have it... Mercer's schedule was messed up & he ended up eating his bottle around 9:15. Fireworks started at 9:20. Mercer ate through the whole thing. He would jump every now & then, but he never got scared. he was too focused on his bottle. (At left, he's sporting his new red & blue sun glasses (and a hand-me-down shirt w/ flag). He looked very patriotic!

My mom came on Saturday. We didn't do much - grandma Gloria and baby Mercer got to hang out while Todd & I vacuumed out the pond. We had a low-key day for the most part -- but Sunday -- what a day! We decided to head north and visit a museum in Cartersville GA: The Booth Western Arts Museum. We were so surprised and impressed with it. We expected to see a lot of traditional-style pieces, however, there was a lot of modern art represented, sculpture, and cool movie posters. Also, there was a Presidential Exhibit that was very large and included statistics / hand-signed letters / and photographs of each president. We would definitely recommend people to check it out! http://www.boothmuseum.org/permcollection.htm Afterwards, Todd and I went out on our first "date" since bringing Mercer into our lives. Mom offered to babysit. We went to see the movie Hancock (we enjoyed it) and we also went to a nice dinner. (FYI - over the past few years, we have tried bread pudding at all sorts of restaurants around Atlanta and found one Sunday that will be at the top of our list: Rum Raisin Bread Pudding from the Lobster Bar. YUM!) Thanks for the evening out, mom!

Now, we're back to the daily grind - but we're savoring the great time we had over the long holiday weekend! We hope you & yours had a safe / fun holiday.