Goodbye Summer

Mommy making silly faces... Impressive
Mimi's hand.... VERY Impressive
Miles and miles of nature's most serene and beautiful merging of land and sea.... Pretty Boring!

Hello all! The first two pictures were taken at the beach... indoors... where we were forced to spend the entire first three days due to relentless rain. The third picture was taken on Sunday when our patience was rewarded with... more rain.... and 20 minutes of a light mist that we took advantage of to get said photo. I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the smiles for two reasons. 1. They're the most beautiful smiles I've ever seen, and I'm sure you all agree :) 2. I'm quite relieved my child is able to smile while awake. Let me explain. I didn't realize that babies are supposed to be "awake smiling" in response to entertaining stimuli by 2 months of age. When I took her to the doctor last week, he asked me if she was smiling, and I truthfully answered, "no, not consistently." His response was, "we'll keep an eye on that; I don't think she has autism." My paranoid, first-time-mom ears heard, "I'm trying to think of a polite way to say that your child is autistic. We'll re-address this at a future visit," and I proceeded to have multiple panic-attacks. Thankfully, she started smiling at daddy (do you think she's making a statement on who is entertaining in our house?) the very next day, and I was able to catch a couple of them on camera during our abundant indoor time at the beach. Despite the rain, we had an excellent time. I got to spend a whole afternoon doing one of my favorite things - shopping for clothes at the outlet mall with money my sweet husband gave me for my upcoming birthday. Since my parents were with us, I got to pick out a few things "from them" as well! As a result, Christa will be well-dressed in the fall, and I have a new wardrobe more appropriate for my motherhood-enhanced body (that I'm still trying to embrace.)
My patient husband is waiting on me to watch a movie with him, so I must go. Talk to you on Thursday!