Luca is 3 months old

Luca is 3 months old now, and it's amazing how time flies and yet stands still when you have a child. She's the same sweet baby she was 13 weeks ago, but she's a whole new fun little person as well.

Most nights she sleeps a solid 5-6 hours, which is great since both of us are back at work. Darrick started teaching at Mt. Pointe HS this week. He's teaching freshmen and sophomores, so he needs his sleep! Anyhow, most nights she sleeps through, which she's been doing since she was about 5 weeks old. We sure got lucky in that sense!

She smiles a lot now, and just in the past 2 weeks she has really discovered her hands. It started with her grabbing shirts of people holding her. Then it became her grabbing my hair when I would hold her on my shoulder. And now she plays with toys if you give them to her. It's just about the cutest thing I've ever seen to watch her grab at something and hold it and put it in her mouth to see what it is. We bought a toy bar for her car seat, and she really likes to play with links. Of course, discovering her hands all means fun new hand gestures.

Just this week, she really discovered her feet as well. I never knew how cute a baby grabbing her own feet could be, but when you spend 13 long weeks watching her slowly notice them and figure them out, it's so exciting when all the sudden she's playing with her toes.

We feel like such lucky people. Darrick and I sometimes sit there and stare at her and say to each other, "Other parents must be jealous of us since we have the world's cutest baby. Ever." And, at just that moment, parents across the world are probably looking at their own sweet kids and saying the same thing. We all know they're wrong and we are right, though!

We also celebrated Darrick's birthday on August 1st. His mom came to town, and Luca got to spend some quality time with her Uncles (that's Uncle Brandon) and her Grandparents. And, of course, Darrick rang in the day with a rousing game of 'Flying Baby'. That's her coming in for a landing and a kiss. We're real party animals these days! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARRICK!