a beautiful fall afternoon~ finally!

rain, rain, rain. that's all we've been getting...until today! so i packed marley up and off we went to one of marion's cool old cemeteries. now, i know you texans reading this don't experience a change in seasons, so i did my best to capture the beautiful trees. i think we are peaking here, which is to bad as mom and resa will be here next week. i'm sure we will still have some color though. i've never been good at capturing fall color, but i did my best. i think it is like a grand mountain vista. you can get a good photo of it, but it will never do the real thing justice. marley seemed to really enjoy the outing. i love cemetaries. they're so peaceful. and old ones have such neat artwork. oh yeah, we went for our 8 month wellness check up on thursday. marley is doing great. she seems to have slowed down on the growth, which is nice b/c she might fit into her clothes for more than two weeks. she now weighs 8lbs 15oz, which is up less than 1/2 lb since last time. and she is now 27 inches long, so she only grew a quarter of an inch. the doctor seems to think her teeth will keep coming in at this excellerated rate, so wish us luck! poor thing is chewing on everything. and thru it all, she is still remarkably happy. ben's grandparents came and stayed with us this week. it was wonderful to have them. marley loved them and put on a show, little ham that she is. marley and i went back to the farm on saturday to visit grandma barb. it felt so nice to be there. it's crazy how much i miss it. and especially the time i got to spend with grandma barb. but we will get better about visiting...

8 months today!

can you believe it?! ben and i sure can't. time is flying by. she's a tad grumpy and drooly at the moment, as she is teething again...she put herself to sleep today playing. very sweet, in her crib surrounded by her toys...here's a sweet photo of the cutie

munch munch chew and crunch

it makes my heart happy to be able to pass on the ditty my dad used to sing to me, one of the hidden benefits of passing on the name mae. as you can see below, marley is quickly getting the hang of her puffs. surprisingly most of those went into her mouth. she loves them. as i am also sure you can tell. we have no idea where she got the humming-while-eating thing from. =) i have started making all of marley's food. which, if you ever had anything i've cooked, you might be concerned about. but it is surprisingly simple, especially with my fancy cuisinart. it's nice knowing exactly what went into the food she is eating. her sixth tooth has finally broken through, so at this rate she should have all her teeth by next week. she is army crawling everywhere these days. she especially loves louie's toys and the cat bed that the cats don't even sleep in. louie, however, is very concerned with this development. i think he's afraid he's going to lose his toys. omar has taken to hiding in closets. marley still doesn't know gentle yet. louie is great with her, lets her pull out big wads of fur while she is "petting" him. he has even become quite great on his leash so i can walk him and push the stroller at the same time. it's already cold as all holy hell here and it's only october. thankfully we have a fireplace. it is wonderful. tommorrow marley and i go to our first storytime at the local library. it's geared towards babies 12 months and younger. seems like a great library, with an entire floor for kids. i'm hoping to meet some moms there and see if i can find out about a local mom and me play group that marley and i can join. friday i go for an interview to volunteer at the local dv shelter, which i am super excited about. i've really missed doing dv work, it will be nice to get back into it. ben's a happy boy, if you know the bengals you know why. seems after 30 years they are finally on a winning streak. they play the texans this sunday. keep your fingers crossed for them, or for ben. marley also stands while holding on to things now. hmmm, it seems there should have been a bigger gap between crawling and standing...

the great pumpkin

bonus photos from the trip east

i think that most of these were taken in the poconos, and all with my big camera, which had some setting issues at first...marley is wearing her bling though, thanks granny!

marley the marine

here she is doing her belly crawl...she is everywhere now. especially in louie's toys. ben and i only thought we were tired...and who knew we were so slow?!