Parkes Ranch: Cordelia and Estella are seven months old!

I'm finding that life with a toddler, two infants, and a dissertation to defend is BUSY! Something has to be put on the back-burner for a while, and recently it has been posting to the blog. But our babies turned seven months old recently (yay!) and I didn't want to get too far behind in chronicling their development, so here is a recent picture of our beautiful little girls. Cordelia is on the left and Estella is on the right.

Both Estella and Cordelia have grown up so much in the past month! Just a few days after they turned six months old, both babies mastered new skills: Cordelia learned to sit up well by herself, and Estella learned to army crawl! Interestingly, one month after they mastered these skills, Estella still can't sit up by herself and Cordelia still can't army crawl. I am reminded every day that these are two different babies who are developing differently and that there is no one "right" way for a child to develop.

Cordelia is loud. She has a loud cry, a loud (and wonderful!) laugh, and generally loud vocalizations. We almost have to wear earplugs when we feed Cordelia because, mere seconds after one bite of food is in her mouth, she is loudly squealing for another bite! More than anything else, Cordelia loves to "talk" to Adelaida. Whenever she sees her big sister, Cordelia makes a loud, happy noise that Adelaida loves to hear!

Since Estella has become mobile, nothing stops her from getting what she wants -- and more often that not, that is a foot! When we lay her down on the floor, she immediately looks around to find Cordelia, then makes a bee-line for Cordelia's feet. They must taste really good, because both of the babies like to chew on Cordelia's feet! If Cordelia isn't on the floor with her, she'll crawl toward my feet, Dale's feet, Adelaida's feet, or any shoes she can find -- we've recently started putting our shoes on top of the coffee table or TV stand to keep them out of Estella's mouth.

Here are pictures from the first seven months of the girls' lives:

one-month-old Estella