two front teeth for Christmas

Overdue for an update, so much to tell!!

First, Kyla had her 6 month check-up on the 13th (a day after her 6 month birthday) and here are the stats:
19.1 lbs
27.5 inches tall

Yes, still in the 90-something percentile for both, so she is growing fast!

And speaking of growing fast, she is now the proud owner of 2 new teeth! Poor thing. At her 6 month check-up she had a couple of immunizations including the flu shot. That night she developed a cough and runny nose (from the flu shot or from one of the sniffly, miserable kids in the waiting room, don't know) and was not happy at all. On that Saturday morning we noticed a small white thing peeking through her gums -- first tooth! (Don't know how much of those symptoms were due to the teeth and how much was due to the flu shot or a cold -- she is finally doing better now) About a week later it's pal appeared, so there are a pair of sharp little chompers in there now.
We attempted to take a picture but the tongue keeps getting in the way. This is the best so far, and it's not the most flattering shot of her! (will try to post a better one later)




The other milestone also has to do with her mouth. We've started on solid foods, an idea she has quickly accepted! We started rice cereal a few weeks ago and just offered sweet potatoes this past week. So far she has been quite receptive and happily opens her mouth to allow the spoon feeding.
It's not the neatest process, as you can see:






Being from a mixed religion family could make for confusion, but meanwhile we'll celebrate all the holidays. Here she is celebrating two December holidays:








We've had Rachel's family here to celebrate one of the two. Here are Kyla and Kirk watching a pre-holiday Seahawks game and decked out appropriately:




Here she is with Grandpa. No, we didn't give her a rubber chicken for Christmas, but somehow she has decided it is hers. She spent a long time carefully studying each of the chicken toes... and then trying to eat it! Not something we are allowing since those little sharp teeth could help her really eat the chicken. (and we should get through a few vegis and fruit before she starts with meat!)




The original plan was to spend Christmas at Kirk's house in Seattle, but we decided not to travel in case we were able to finalize our adoption this month. Unfortunately there were hold-ups at several stages in our paperwork so we aren't going to be able to finalize until January. The finalization is really just a formality (accompanied by much paperwork and social worker meetings) that typically takes place about 6 months after placement, but it means that we apply for the revised birth certificate (to replace her birth name with the name we gave her) and means that we are pretty much done with the adoption process. It'll be nice to be done with all of this. Who needs legal mumbo jumbo when you just want to play with your baby!
We were pretty disappointed in the delay, partly for that reason, but also because a big advantage to finalizing by the end of 2007 would have been that we could have applied for the adoption tax credit. The credit is a generous reimbursement of some of the costs and would have been extremely useful to have now rather than a year from now.
Oh well. What are you going to do. More importantly, we have this beautiful little girl at home with us.

So, we are enjoying hosting for the holidays and San Diego is cooperating with beautiful warm weather.

Hope the holidays are treating you well!
(our holiday greeting cards are late, as usual, but coming!)