Six

Can you believe this little girl is six months old already?

Neither can I.

Here she is in the same dress at six weeks old.

Yeah.

It still fits.

She had her six month check up this week and weighed in at 15.5 pounds and was 25.5 inches long. At six months T was 17.9 lbs and 27.5 inches, so about 2 lbs and 2 inches bigger.

They love each other.

And one of just T:

This next one is for Grandad:

Not the greatest picture, but T discovered basketball last week. We were playing in the gym at our community center after arts and crafts last week and there was an older boy (and when I say older, I mean seven-ish) there playing basketball with his grandmother (or mom? Hopefully grandma). T watched him for a little bit and then went after the extra ball and started trying to dribble it and shoot it like he was. She did a pretty good job with her dribbling and was so cute shooting the ball. I wonder if she honestly thought she would be able to get it in the basket?

Anyway, I shouldn't have been too surprised, because she loves all sorts of balls, we spend half our day playing catch.

Nora was a cute little spectator:

'Matoes

We decided to try our hand at a little bit of gardening this year. We didn't have a ton of room to work with, so we just planted some tomatoes and peppers. The pepper plants had an unfortunate meeting with a weed whacker, so it was all up to the tomatoes to make our gardening dreams come true. They didn't disappoint.

This was about a month or so ago:

And today:

Wow, I'm so embarrassed about all the weeds! Well, mostly its mint. Turns out mint never, ever goes away. I've cleared that mint out more times than I can count, and it returns again and again. In fact, I think it comes back stronger each time. Not cool. Anyway, we've had an awesome crop. We planted four cherry tomatoes and four regular (big boy? I can't remember the exact type) plants. T LOVES the "matoes". We actually don't usually get to pick too many because she eats them as soon as they're any shade of red. And sometimes when they're green too. I love when she'll come in from playing out there and be covered in little tomato seeds and chomping away on another one. We did get out to pick some before she got to them yesterday:

Totally worth having to drag our hose through the house every day to water them.

Right after this picture I had to go change and feed Nora, and when I could finally investigate why T was being so quiet I found this:

Every day I regret buying her that stool. And the aftermath:

Here's T modeling both the tomatoes and her new dress today:

I got some Mickey pajamas a few months ago because I thought T would like if I wore them, but she seriously couldn't have cared less. And I never, ever wear the shirt, so I decided to make it into a dress for T instead. She loves it! It was super easy, it only took about 45 minutes to do. The sleeves are a little tight (sleeves are totally my nemesis when sewing!), but the rest of it fits, so I'll call it a win.

The one with all the shaving cream

And a video.

Shaving cream from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

Visitors, hair, etc. Basically, the rest of July

We were so excited to have Fiona and her cute kiddos come to visit us last week. Teresa had so much fun with her cousins and "Auntie Tara" as she insisted on calling Fiona. Every time we asked her to say Fiona she replied "I can't". So. I guess because Bran and Nuala were calling me that? Who knows. It was insanely hot and humid and nasty weather wise, but we still had fun at the park the first day.

The heat just sapped all of Nora's energy, and she fell asleep in the swing

We went on a fun pirate cruise in Annapolis. All the kids had been excited to go on a boat, and the pirate part was supposed to be a fun surprise. Too bad we couldn't get reservations until 5, and then all the kids fell asleep on the drive there. Also, there was jet lag involved. The first half of the boat ride involved a lot of crying and refusing to participate. Eventually they all warmed up and really enjoyed the rest of it.

Bran and Nuala helped haul up the pirate treasure:

And then they each got to fill a bag with treasure.

T immediately started lining up each piece of treasure. She's been doing it all week at home too, I keep having to step over lines of treasure on the stairs.

It was a pretty cool cruise, the kids got to be pirates and help find where the treasure was buried in the water. They got to shoot water cannons at another 'pirate' and pull up some pirate 'grog' (ginger ale) from the water as well. The only lame part was that Nora had to pay full price, too. Really, guys? She's five months. We totally should have demanded a bag of treasure for her.

The next day we did some backyard swimming. This was around 9:30 in the morning. While we were out there sweating, Marc came out of the air conditioning to let us know it was already 100 degrees, with a heat index of 120 or something. It was pretty ridiculous. But, the kids were having fun, so we suffered through it ;)

We were going to go to a real pool on base as well, but they don't open til 11, and by then there was a lot of napping going on. Turns out it's kinda hard to coordinate leaving the house with 5 kids!

Maeve is so cute! Seriously, she is just so happy and cute, I loved sitting at the dinner table with her, she would just randomly wave at people, with a big, cute smile. Love her.

And she looooved holding Nora. Nora did not love it so much.

They're just about exactly a year apart.

I know they'll absolutely love this picture one day:

We had to get some last minute cousin shots. These were the best we could come up with.

Auntie Fiona inspired us to be more adventurous with the girls' hair:

And Nora's just cute here:

And here too:

T was coloring this morning, and was just absent-mindedly singing to herself while she colored. Of course we thought it was so cute, so Marc tried to get a video of it without her noticing.

Monday morning from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

And, one last picture of T. That's her little hair accessory holder, it's supposed to have three little drawers in it. I have no idea how she got in there, but she was freaking out about not being able to get out. I couldn't get her out either, so I had to carry her down like that to get help from Marc. We got her out eventually (obviously), but it definitely took some work. She's a crazy girl.