The Beach!

I've been meaning to post pictures of our vacation for the last week since we've been home and as usual time just gets away from me. We had a great trip to the beach in Delaware with Jess's family. It was a wonderful week of relaxing, hanging out on the beach and spending time with Grandma, Pappy, aunts, uncles & of course Connor. Faith loved splashing her feet in the ocean, but wasn't too sure about the sand. As we expected - she tried to eat it, which didn't go very well :-) Her favorite thing to do at the beach was hang out in the baby pool with Connor. She learned how to eat a hard shell crab - even though she can't actually eat it yet. We went through lots of sunblock and bug spray and she wore all of the hats in her extensive collection. Mommy got to read and actually finish a book and Daddy played two rounds of golf - things we did all the time BF (before Faith) and took for granted. Another highlight for Faith was meeting our dear friends Claire & Bryan, who live at the beach! 

This month Faith also entered the world of solid food. As you can see by one of the pictures below, she started eating cereal just before we left for the beach. She had only tried rice cereal and avocado when she picked up a stomach virus and we had to go back to just formula. She's finally feeling better, so we're hoping to try some new foods later this week. Mommy made up a batch of sweet potatoes and squash tonight so those will be our next food adventures along with some bananas and yogurt. 

Over the last month we've been making the "grandparent rounds" and Faith got to see her Grandma & Pop Pop Chaney and her Mom Mom & Pop Pop Grove. Of course they all can't get enough of her! We have a busy rest of the summer with lots of birthday parties, visits with family and friends, a trip to West Virginia, hopefully a few more dips in the pool and just enjoying the last few weeks of summer before Daddy has to go back to school. 

Hoping all of you are enjoying summer! 

Much Love,

The Groves

First time in the sand & the ocean

Fun on the beach with Mommy

Taking it all in with Daddy

Trying to eat sand (or should I say eating sand)

First glimpse of the ocean

All covered up & greased up for the beach

Chillin' in the pool with Connor

Laughing at our crazy mommies 

The pool turns into a ball pit

Learning how to share toys

Family beach photo

Being a ham

First tastes of rice cereal

Silly mommy put a colander on my head

Posing for mommy - "Who me?" 

6 Months Old

Faith celebrated her half birthday day today! We had a great family day of relaxing by the pool - the baby pool that is. You can check out the pictures below. She loved her first swim so much & then got to swim again in Aunt Sandy & Uncle John's pool on the 4th of July. We are convinced she's going to be a little fish and just LOVES the water. She doesn't even mind getting her head & face wet. Actually if you don't hold her tight in the big pool she tries to dunk her head under. We are headed to the beach this weekend and I'm sure the baby pool and dipping her toes in the ocean will be a big hit there too! 

We have had many firsts in our house over the last two weeks. Faith can now officially sit up on her own. We don't get too far away yet without putting pillows around her, but she does really well. She still kind of does the forward lean to keep her balance. But considering she went from not sitting at all on her own to doing it alone in a matter of days - not weeks, we think she's pretty awesome! It will definitely make the sand and beach more exciting next week knowing that she'll be able to see it from a vertical view. 

Given how well she was starting to sit up we figured we'd try out another first - a highchair. The one we have for our house is still in storage (whoops), but Grandma had one so we gave it a try over the 4th of July holiday. It was a hit! Especially when she can sit right next to Connor in his highchair. I think daddy will be digging ours out of storage this week. 

Faith got to go to her first wedding this weekend. We celebrated the marriage of our friends Sara & Dan in a great restaurant in DC on the hottest day of the year. Faith wore her party dress and we all had a great time - inside, thank goodness! We had another exciting event this weekend - mommy & daddy bought a fancy new camera. So be ready - you'll start to see A LOT more pictures. This will definitely be mommy's new toy for a long time. We took some of the pictures below with the fancy new camera so you might even be able to tell how awesome it is. Jess was so excited about the new camera today that she forgot to take a picture of Faith with her 6 month old sign. She couldn't break tradition so Faith got her first sleeping with the sign shot. Randy thinks Jess has lost her mind! 

On a serious note we turned in all of our paperwork to officially adopt Faith and are just waiting to hear from the courts on a date for the big day! We will of course let you all know as soon as we hear anything and can't wait to post an "It's official" blog with a picture of Faith & the Baltimore judge. But it's really been "official" in our minds since January 12th :-)

Happy summer to all! Here's to hoping you are managing to stay cool and out of trouble!

Much Love,

The Groves

Whoops - mommy forgot to take a picture with my official sign

Hanging out in my pool

I'm a big girl

Post pool time and still smiling

Hanging out with Mommy on the 4th of July

All dressed up for Sara & Dan's wedding

Sitting up all by mysef

Daddy's knee makes a good pillow

My mommy is hilarious

My first time in a highchair at Grandma's house