The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Tomorrow is the 8th, and we'll have had Liv home for 2 months! Wow did that go fast! We've been in SC for 2 weeks now and there's been some ups and downs, but we're doing okay.

The Good:

• Liv can now give high-5's. It's pretty cute :).
• If you ask her for a kiss, she knows what that means and will move toward you with her mouth open ready to lay one on you.
• She's had yogurt a few times and now seems to love it.
• We took her to a restaurant (not fast food, but actually a nice restaurant when we went for a staff dinner last week), and she did great! We brought her supper with; so she ate there which kept her occupied for a bit. But we were there for 2 hours and she did okay! Amazing! I mean, she was definitely ready to go by the end, but still... And then we went to TGI Fridays on Thursday night and were there for an hour and a half, and again, she did great! So that's a blessing that we can bring her there, and she can last for so long.
• She's becoming a lot more social. She'll watch people, and I swear she'll watch for them to look at her - then she'll smile at them. It's one thing I prayed for was for a baby that enjoys people because we're with large groups frequently. So it's fun to watch her personality blossom as she's adjusting to our family.
• We live really close to Walmart and have made frequent trips there. A container of parmesian cheese kept her entertained for a good 20 minutes while I shopped. So she's doing good sitting in the shopping cart :).
• I've gotten to eat Chick-fil-A a few times - so good :).

The Bad:

• The stomach bug she had gave her a break from eating baby food: a.k.a. food we have to feed her with a spoon. So we went through a lot of drama getting her to eat last week. It seems to be getting better, and she's eating more spoon-fed things... though there can still be drama occasionally. I had tried to feed her more finger foods, but she'd spit that out and only eat cooked apple bits, bread, and cheerios.
• Sleep was also challenging. I think in part from all the adjustment and new places she was in the past few weeks. She was waking up at 5 a lot, but this week has been a bit better.
• New "surfaces" have been interesting - those being the sand, grass, or the astro-turf surface on our deck. She'll either hold both legs up when you try to set her down or do what I call the flamingo - just have one foot down and hold the other up to have as little touching as possible :). We went out to the beach for a few minutes in the early morning last week to just get her feet in the water and on the sand - not a fan yet, but I want to keep trying.

The Ugly:

• It's really hot! We're having unseasonably hot weather down here for June. It's been in the mid-90's and the problem with that is that by early to mid afternoon, our little wall unit air conditioner can't keep up. So it's pretty toasty in our little apartment for about half the day. I know it's been unseasonably cool back home, and believe me, I'd love to give you a little of our excess heat and take some of your cool...

So there's a few snippits from our time so far. Aaron is really enjoying the small group of student men that he has in Bible study and in ministry mentoring. They're good guys. We getting to know some staff in our region that we haven't spent a lot of time with, and that's been really fun. And we also have some very dear friends down here as well; so it's always good to have time with them. Hope you're all doing well! Love the Joneses :)