Brax, Brody and Everleigh

I was playing with my camera this morning and captured this sweet picture. His expression is the perfect combination of innocence and mischief. Those two words perfectly define him at this stage!! Brax is standing so well by himself. He pulls himself up, grabs a toy, and plays for several minutes before plopping back down to the ground. He scurries on his hands and knees over to the next spot and does it all over again. He easily moves from coffee table to couch, but flatly refuses to take a step without the security of an object underhand. I know that those first steps will come all too soon. Brax has started to assert his independence in many ways. The most obvious is his desire to feed himself. There are times when he refuses to eat anything that I attempt to feed him. This has made for many meals with goldfish crackers as a main course :0) His verbal skills have made leaps and bounds over the past few weeks. He has long conversations with himself and with Reese. I have noticed that when I sing him a song, or repeat a word over and over, he attempts to copy the rhythm of my voice and sometimes even tries to articulate part of the word. His stranger awareness is developing as well. He doesn't appear very fearful, but he doesn't give his smiles as freely anymore. I guess that's the high spots of his development these days. We celebrated a bittersweet farewell on Sunday night. Our friends, TJ and Holly McCloud, are about to embark on two years of mission work in the Dominican Republic. I put a link to their website so that you can all keep up with them as well. They are two of the most kind-hearted people that we've ever known and they will be greatly missed at Otter Creek. I know that they would appreciate you keeping them in your prayers!

Hope that everyone has had a wonderful week. Thanks for checking in on us!