But the highlight was definitely Friday night when our friend Joaquin was sweet enough to drive up from San Antonio to have dinner with the three of us. As always it was great to see him and so fun for him to meet Maya for the first time.

Hope we can get back to Austin again soon. It really is a city filled with energy.

Needless to say, it’s a good thing for the other dogs that Bailey is ineligible for the contest. The winner is announced in Thursday’s issue of DFW Ink, but satiate your desire for more cute dog pics in their 100 or so photos of the finalists.

Sunday a big group of Cranes came over for a pool party. It was Maya’s first swim in her Grandad’s pool and she had a great time. We’re ready to get back again soon for some more fun in the sun!

We took a road trip to Mount Magazine, the highest point in Arkansas. Let’s forget about the six-and-a-half hour drive up there, and the seven-and-a-half hour drive back (Dallas rush hour!). Everything else was awesome. The Arkansas state park-run lodge was beautiful. Every room has a great view of the surrounding mountains and the huge lake in the valley below. We spent our days hiking (short ones, at Maya’s request), swimming in their huge pool and taking drives throughout the park. We had a balcony, which was nice for the adults after Maya headed to bed at 8!

Swimming was a huge hit for Maya. She LOVED her first dip in a pool, so we made many trips back while we stayed at the lodge. Must have worn her out because she slept through torrential rain and constant lightning that lit up our entire room our last night there.

We spent the afternoon at home playing, and then the entire family took an hour nap! That never happens! Then it was Bailey’s turn for some fun, so we all headed to the dog park. Maya likes watching all the pups run around, too.

Missed being able to spend the day with my wonderful mom, but hopefully she’ll get down here soon for another visit with Maya!

The beautiful photos in this slide show are thanks to our wonderful friend Amy who took some family photos for us at the botanic gardens last weekend.

We had lots of fun doing a whole lot of nothing. The weather was perfect (sunny and in the 70s) so we spent many afternoons lounging on my parents’ deck. We did take Maya to the Como Zoo (St. Paul’s free, yes free, zoo) and Conservatory one afternoon. She’d been to the zoo before, but usual slept through the trips. This time she was actually interested in a few of the animals, especially the giraffes. She started sitting in her stroller like a “big girl”, without the car seat, so she had a good time sitting back and letting us show her the animals.

Maya was also pretty into my family’s two cats, Tiger and Freddy. But something we need to work on: learning to pet, not pinch! She doesn’t quite have that down yet. Doesn’t matter with Bailey too much. Her pinches don’t do much to our 90-pound dog. But the cats weren’t too thrilled. But they were very sweet to just get up and run away when they were tired of her!

Maya also got to take her first wagon ride. The family who rents out my dad’s old photo studio had one they let us use. (Along with lots of other toys, too.)

And I was very thankful that once again our flights were fairly uneventful. They were kind enough to find us a spot next to an empty seat both coming and going. This time around was trickier than Maya’s first flights in December because she doesn’t sleep during the day like she used to! So I had to do a lot more entertaining, but overall she did great. Hardly a tear was shed.

Her first tooth is almost halfway in now, too! She’s been a trooper through the teething. Sometimes it seems to really be bothering her, but other times she doesn’t seem to be hurting at all. Her first tooth will be her bottom, right tooth in the front. It looks like the one on the left is just starting to poke out, too. Let’s hope they don’t start to bother her anymore than they already have.

We’ve also been making daily trips to the park right behind our house. Maya gets so happy when we push her in the bucket swing. Her face lights up as soon as you put her in it. She also likes going down the small slide. (With mom and dad’s help, of course.) Sometimes when we get to the bottom she’ll just hang out there looking at all the trees and the blue sky. We’ve been having great weather in Fort Worth lately!

Now if only she could get her naps down, life would be perfect! For awhile she’d been doing down for a long nap each morning, but the last week she’s decided she doesn’t want to be put in her crib for her naps. She’s definitely starting to have a little separation anxiety because she gets upset when we leave the room much more often these days. Hopefully it won’t be long before she figures out that we’re always coming back for her. There’s often work waiting for mom when Maya goes down for her naps, so she really doesn’t have a choice in the matter!

Height: 26.5 inches (up from 26 inches two months ago)
Weight: 16 pounds 14 ounces (up from 15 pounds 8 ounces)
Head: 42.5 cm (up from 16 1/4 inches… don’t know why they changed measurement systems on this one, but I’ll leave the math up to you to see how much her head grew.)

She was in the 75th percentile for height and weight, so her pace is slowing a bit, which we expected. After all, her mom and dad aren’t in the 95th percentile of anything, especially height!

It’s been an amazing six months, and we couldn’t imagine our lives without Miss Maya. It’s great fun to watch her grow before our eyes, and her smile melts our hearts each and every time.

With this doctor appointment came her transition to solid foods. She had already started rice cereal, but now we’re diving in to tastier things. So far she’s had oatmeal and squash. Next on the list is peas. She never got much into the rice cereal, but she seems to love the oatmeal and squash most of the time. Sometimes her patience is short for eating though, and I think she’d rather just have some good ol’ milk. But she never makes it through a meal without cracking Jason and I up. Squash ends up in the most unlikely places!

She’s also babbling like crazy… she has a million things to tell us about. And she hasn’t mastered the difference between indoor and outdoor voices! She’s rolling over both ways, but still hasn’t used these skills to head all the way across a room. I guess she’s just happy hanging on her blankets for now.

I wouldn’t say she totally hates it, but she definitely doesn’t love it either. Although I think time will really tell. She’s still kind of figuring out what the heck she should be doing with this spoon that keeps coming at her face. Most of the cereal ends up on her bib or back on the spoon. Sometime she decides she’ll clamp her mouth shut to make it more fun for us. But sometimes she opens right up.

The family member most excited about Maya’s transition to solid foods is Bailey. They’ve been becoming best of friends lately: she reaches her hand out for kisses whenever he’s around. The first time we fed Maya cereal, Bailey was lingering around the high chair making eyes at Maya. She leaned right over the edge toward him, and he licked her face clean. They both loved it. We have a feeling Bailey will love it even more when she figures out how to throw the food down to him.

We head back to the doctor in about another week, so then we’ll get to start trying some other foods out. I mean really, would you want to eat that rice cereal? Looks worse than Cream of Wheat to me!

Jason and I especially loved being able to get out without our sweet girl a couple of times. We got to go to the gym on a regular basis, which doesn’t fit into our day very often anymore. And we also got to go out on a date one night and out with a group of friends another. Have to say, it was really, really nice to be out with our friends and around only adults for a few hours. Something we have to make sure we make time for at least every so often!

We had a few days of nice weather, so Nana got Maya outside on a blanket and in her bouncy chair so she could enjoy the weather before heading back to the Minnesota cold. We even took her to the park to give her her first push in a swing. She was so tiny! Not quite ready for the park yet! We also ate well, at home and out, and just did a lot of hanging out. She made my work week extra easy too. I can work much faster with a full-time Nana watching Maya as opposed to working as fast as I can with a few hours with a sitter. (But I do love our sitters too!)