Happy HALF Birthday, Presley Rose!

**Presley's 1/2 birthday was Monday the 20th, but I waited to write this until after her 6 month checkup (which was today) so I could include all her new stats**

Wow!  Can you hardly believe that Presley is halfway to her first birthday?  Tony and I sure can't!  I would definitely say that he is in denial about her getting older and wants to keep her our little baby for as long as possible.  I'm always sad when I pack away the clothes she's grown out of, but I'm more excited for all the fun, new clothes I'm filling the empty spaces with!  When I was pulling out all her 6-9 month clothes he seemed to not like that at all and for the first time, Tony asked Presley to slow down.  In addition to that, we still haven't switched Presley to sit forward-facing in her stroller.  I'm open to it (although she's not sitting up the best yet) but Tony is absolutely against it, still.  He likes being able to look at her while we walk around with her in the stroller and I can't blame him.  He is going to be one sad (but proud!) daddy once she starts moving around...

• Speaking of that, Presley is still pretty immobile.  She's extremely close to fully flipping from her back to belly.  She has an interest in practicing it over and over again, but she just can't seem to pick her head up to do that final turn.  She'll get it sooner or later, but for now she's still not rolling.

Looks like her bear is in the way, but even if he wasn't there next to her, that's as far as she can get!

•  In addition to that, Presley has shown no interest in even trying to go from her belly to her back!  It's funny, because she has already done that one just a few times - almost as if those few times were on accident - but I haven't seen her try to do that at all in the past two months.

• She loves playing on her activity mat... after I change and feed her, playing on her mat is the first thing she does every day.

• As I said before, she's not quite sitting up on her own without support from us.  She likes it when we help her sit up straight, though, because she sees her toys from a new perspective and gets very excited about it!
• I swear, this child may walk before she crawls!  She loves standing up - with assistance, of course!  She wiggles around on her belly and may start scooting soon, but nothing much in that department, yet.  Sometimes if I leave her on her back on her play mat, I will come back and she will be in a completely different spot than I left her!  So she's learning to wiggle around on her back.  This happened the past few nights, too...  I will check on her before I go to bed and she's in a completely different spot than I left her!!!
• Up until this point, we have not introduced cereal or any baby foods to her.  At her 4 month appointment, we talked with Dr. Brodd and decided waiting til 6 months was good for us.  Well, that appointment was today.  I think we are going to start with cereal and then dive right in with veggies next week!  I. Am. So. EXCITED!!!
• Speaking of her 6 month appointment, she weighed in at 15 pounds & 13 ounces and is 26 inches tall!  That puts her a little under 50% for weight, a little above 50% for height, and her head is in the 75%!

Waiting for the doctor this afternoon!

•  Still, no teeth present!  She's certainly drooling and chomping on anything within reach, though! 

• She loves drinking water out of a straw!  It's so cute.  I used to just drop water in her mouth with my straw but now I can keep it plugged with my finger and she's learned to suck the water out of it!  So adorable.

• Presley will get to meet a TON of her Memphis/Mississippi family over Labor Day weekend!  We are going to visit to celebrate Tony's Uncle Donald's life, as he recently passed away after a valiant battle with cancer.  Although I would much rather be going to visit for different circumstances, we wouldn't miss this for anything and I am so happy Presley will get to spend some time with some of the best people I've come to know!  So expect a great big post with lots of pictures from our trip.
• Unfortunately, while we're gone, we will be missing my cousin Breanne's baby shower and I am so bummed about it.  Just means that we will have to start planning a trip ASAP to visit them in Milwaukee!
• It's the CUTEST thing to see Presley passing toys from one hand to the next!  For some reason, seeing her do that has really cemented that she's getting so much bigger.
• Presley doesn't necessarily have any "favorite" toys other than a couple squeaky frogs that are really bath toys - but she loves them!  She also likes her Sophie Giraffe - which is the squeaky teething toy.  And she really does love mirrors!
• She's in 6-9 month clothes & sleepers and is still being swaddled for the most at nap & bedtime - though we are starting to wean her of that!  She still uses her paci for sleeping, too, but other than that she could care less about that thing!  
• She's in size 3 diapers, still.  We still love Pampers & Luvs the best for diapers and have found out that she has a reaction when we use Target wipes and Huggies wipes.  She does well with the Parent's Choice gentle wipes from Wal-mart so that's what we've been using.
• She's got a bit of cradle cap that I am hoping starts to go away soon!
• This girl can drool, so we put a bib on her pretty much 24/7!
• Presley has such an awesome little personality and EVERY day I am surprised by how sweet she is and how hilarious she is.  I feel so blessed by the Lord to be her mommy.

Presley had a pretty fun week!

On Monday, I took her pictures at home like I do on the 20th of each month.

On Tuesday, we took Presley to get her 6 month pictures taken at a photography studio nearby that is very reasonably priced and they turned out to be so precious!  I had THE hardest time choosing between her different pictures, but this is the one we ended up going with...

I just love it.  She was hugely laughing at our photographer - not sure if she was laughing at the faces she was making or the noises but it was absolutely precious.  I wish you could see her whole outfit because it is a precious little nautical outfit!  I love that it's unisex so IF there is ever a Baby Duggan #2 then we can have their picture (boy or girl) in the same outfit.

On Wednesday, we visited her Gramma and her Great Grandparents and went on a little walk where Presley sat front-facing in her stroller (shh! Don't tell her daddy...) and she LOVED it.  She really liked sitting up straight and even hoisted her foot onto the tray in front of her and used it as a foot rest.

On Thursday, we had our weekly play date with her twin friends who are just a few months older than her.  We were having such a fun time - Presley was watching Alli & Molly sitting up like big girls and it really caused Presley to sit up better than she ever has!  Isn't that so funny/cute?  We are so lucky to have such great little friends for Presley to learn from.  And their Aunt Megan who watches them throughout the day has been so great for me to get to hang with every week!!  All of a sudden at our play date, Presley got upset and started acting funny so we left a little abruptly for home.  She was feeling a little warm so I took her temperature later and she was 100.4 and I figured it was teething.  She took a nap & afterwards her temp was 101.6!  Gave her some Tylenol and it seemed to help the temp but she was pretty upset until around 9pm when she finally started falling asleep.

Today, we both woke up smiling, happy, and no fever!  We saw Dr. Brodd at 12:30pm and he decided we'd wait on her shots because of her fever yesterday... YAY!  So I will reschedule to get her shots at a time that Tony can come with us.  I love our pediatrician so very much; we are so very blessed with Dr. Brodd!  After her appointment we stopped by my Uncle Jeff's pharmacy (Illini Clinic Pharmacy) to fill a prescription for Presley (which is a whole other story!) and we got to hang out with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Donna for a little bit.  We just don't see them enough so I was elated that both Presley and I got to spend some time with them this afternoon.

And here we are caught up to the present moment.  Both baby & daddy are napping right now!

The picture is very dark - but it's Presley sleeping on my lap & Tony sleeping next to us!

So, that's what's new with Miss Presley!  I can't believe how fast the last six months have seemed to go.  And I can't believe that the changes have really just begun!  I am so thankful to have a healthy baby to hold every day and that my husband provides so well for us so that I can stay at home with her for now.  We are blessed with family and friends who are supportive and loving both near and far and I need to remember to give thanks to God more often for these beautiful things!