Growing up too fast

Our sweet baby girl.

Mina standing with her new toy.

We got to Texas on December 18th. Since we have been here she has learned to do so many things. For weeks Mina had been so close to sitting up all by herself. On December 20th she finally did it at Grandma and Grandpa Jorgensen's house. It's so amazing that it just takes one time doing something and then she can just do it like she's been doing it her whole life. She's also finally got "real" crawling down. I think she still prefers to army crawl because she's much faster that way, but I think she'll switch over permanently soon enough. She mostly real crawls on the tile and I think she does because she doesn't like how cold it is on her belly. She also attempts to crawl with her legs straight so that her knees don't touch the ground. It's pretty funny to watch.

She's also been trying to pull herself up the last couple of weeks and finally accomplished it all by herself last night. Yesterday when I went to get her from her nap, she was in her pack and play crying on her knees with her hands against the side netting. Today she woke up from her nap and stood up in her pack and play crying trying to look over the top (and surely trying to figure a way out of there). She also climbed up the stairs today. When we first got here she had successfully made it up one step and stopped at that.

Mina standing in her pack-n-play. (Taken with a cell phone. Sorry for the poor quality.)

She's gotten very good at copying and can mimic many noises and faces that we make at her. She also is very good at clapping to "If You're Happy and You Know It." It's really great to see her wait for the right moments to clap. She's so smart. She's very good at reading books to herself, too. Today she climbed under her bouncer like it was a little tent and pulled a book under there with her and just had a blast turning the pages and "reading." She loves to play peek-a-boo and likes to pull the blanket to cover her eyes all by herself. She's really good at keeping herself entertained. Many times when we let her play by herself, we look over to see her with no toys, but talking to herself and waving her arms just as happy as can be.

This is Mina's favorite face to make. It's usually accompanied by her breathing very hard and slowly out of her nose.

We tried to get a good picture of Mina and her cousin, William. You can't tell by this picture but Mina was the one who wouldn't cooperate that day.

Mina is just a very happy baby. She's the one thing in this world that can brighten my day at any moment. Dru and I love her so much and we couldn't have asked for a better baby. Even when you know she's in pain, like now with about 4 teeth ready to sprout, it seems as if she's on top of the world. I love it. I love her. I love my family.

My beautiful baby girl.