About to be 5 months old

Maxine is a little bundle of fun these days. She'll be 5 months old on Christmas Day. Her hands are becoming very useful to her. She doesn't have great control or aim but she knows what they're capable of. Sometimes she stares at her toes and looks like she wants to eat them. We have taken her to the local mall twice in the past week and both times she was very excited and happy too see children playing in the indoor playground and enjoyed the atmosphere in general.
I don't know if I am just imagining it but when I am walking through the mall with Raquel and Maxine, the girls attract a lot of attention. People look and talk about how pretty they are and I'm usually thinking something along the lines of: my daughters don't resemble their mother so I wonder if these people think I'm their babysitter or adoptive mother. Then I think, How is it they look so much like Jose but are nonetheless so beautiful? *wink*
Continuuing about Maxine...She tries really hard to grip her bottle when I'm feeding her but she can't really do it. She can hold small objects and squeeze her dolls and put things to her mouth.
I think she's going to walk earlier than Raquel did, which was at 11 months of age. Maxine is lucky she has Raquel to learn from. She sees what Raquel does everyday and you can tell she wants to copy her so badly. Sometimes when I hold her she feels like, if she could, she'd get right up and walk across the room to play with Raquel. She really wants to!
You can tickle Maxine and now, if you do it right, she'll let out a big, boyish chuckle that will melt your heart. She knows when we're trying to make her laugh and she totally humors us. It's a shame she's so shy around other people. They're really missing out.
And now here's my gingerbread man.