I {heart} fireflies and cute shoes!!

Mallory is trying so hard to stand up and to crawl. Just this past week she started to pull herself over her feet from a sitting position to being on her tummy. She tries to kick a little but ends up scooting backwards and then rolls over to her back. And she will try to pull herself up on anything she can get her hands on – a bucket of toys, her parents, and – when he is close enough – the dog. Here is a video of her trying oh so hard to get to her feet, while a very tolerant Cooper sits still (click here for video). Notice her finding her hands full of tufts of Cooper hair. LOL.

New pics were added to her album this week (link to the right “Mallory Pictures”), but here are a couple pictures of the Lake Princess enjoying her new domain!

The biggest sign of summer in my world is when I see my first firefly of the season, and that happened tonight. We were on our way home from town and I kept seeing the distinctive yellow flash of lightening bugs. (Someone told me they have seen them for a few weeks and I realized that I am usually in bed before it’s dark out.) We usually have a ton at our house and I love watching them in the lot across the street; unfortunately I think Mallory will be too little this summer to really appreciate her mom’s favorite insect but I am looking forward to catching some in a jar for her.

In other news: baby got a new pair of shoes! We’d been debating for a while about whether shoes were necessary. Everything you read says that barefeet are best for babies as they are learning to crawl and walk. But there are times when Mallory has socks on because it’s chilly in the air conditioning and since her preferred position is standing up, she ends up slip-sliding her way to the splits if she tries to stand in socks on carpet. I gave Rick three options of pedipeds (they claim to be the next best thing to barefeet) – all pink, navy with pink, and pink with brown. To my surprise he picked all pink. I cannot get over how adorable she looks in her little shoes. But she looks adorable without the shoes too.