Oh, watching an infant is so much fun!!

Some things that I could sit and stare at ALL DAY LONG:
     - babies sleeping on their stomachs with their bottoms sticking up in the air (and ruffles on their bottoms too)
     - Isabella waking up from a nap.  She will smoosh her lips together, arch her back, lean to one side, and stick an arm in the air... that's how she stretches.  It's so cute to watch!!
     - Isabella coo-ing and gurgling and trying to "talk"
     - Mercer rubbing rubbing or tapping her head kissing on his baby sister
     - toothless grins
     - smiling in her sleep

     - even when she poops in her diaper, she's cute (yes - caught on camera -- check out this expression!!!)

At 2 months old, Isabella is becoming pretty expressive.  She already seems to be a happy baby - as she smiles a lot (waaaay more than she fusses or cries). Let's hope it stays that way!  She may even be teething right now - a slight fever / drooling a lot / bulges on her gums in two spots... but she still has a fantastic demeanor.  (We will, of course, update the blog at first sign of a tooth)

This past week, we had some visitors at the house!  My mom passed through for one day on her way to her cruise in the Bahamas!  She came at a sort-of stressful time (mid-week) and I had to work a lot, but that meant she got to spend a lot of time hanging with baby girl!  We will try to do more things on her return trip as she's passing back through & snap some photos!

My dad and step-mom Charlie also passed through town -- stopping by on Friday night to visit their newest grand daughter for the first time.   







We ate dinner together, played board games afterwards, and they oogled at Mercer and the baby throughout the whole evening -- giving each lots of attention.
   

One thing that was kind of interesting... Charlie would tell Isabella "I love you" and her coo-ing sounded like she was trying to say the same back.  (genius!)  I was recently reading that babies try to repeat the "aah" and the "ooh" sounds as early as 2 - 3 months.  It was really amazing!

Mercer still likes taking photos with his new camera... and one of his favorite subjects:  baby sister~

Mercer has been playing basketball in a little church league up on the square.  It's pretty casual, but it's a good fit for him to burn a little energy, learn some basic skills like dribbling, and practicing his "listening" to coach and tyring to play as a team-mate. 

Here, he's actually playing with a neighbor, Luther-Gibson, in green and a former neighbor, Lily, in yellow. 

It seems (so far) that the little guy likes to leave his post / run / go get the ball (sort of like was happening in T-ball).  And - I did observe more than one pile-up at the players tackled & wrestled the ball out of another kid's arms -- even if the kid at the bottom of the pile was on his own team.  Oh well!



Todd's been plugging away working on Mercer's closet and the trim-work around the perimeter of Mercer's new room.  The goal is to get him in there by his 5th birthday.  We had talked about getting him a booster seat (instead of his car seat) when he turned 5, but we snagged a sale & went ahead and got some for our cars.  He is SO proud of his new seat!  Funny kid~

Mercer will be 5 soon.... yikes!  We've already been planning his birthday party.  More news on that will be in next month's blog.  (but there will be a lot of things to blog about before that, I'm sure!)