8 month newsletter

Avonlea,

You are 8 months old. So much has changed since your last newsletter.

You are now appropriately in your 6-9 month clothing, and they seem to fit you alright. Your pants are getting too short, and the shirts are a bit big, but they work for now. Soon we will need to go on another clothing shopping spree, but we can hold out for now. Your hair has grown much thicker, and now it doesn't look too weird when I put a little clip in it. And with that, your hollywood lashes have gotten thicker too...drawing even more attention from strangers! I didn't think it was possible!

In the past month, you started waving at us. At first we thought it was a fluke, and then you became more consistent. You wave at us, at your aunties and grandparents, at your kitties, at strangers, and even at the people on television. You have started crawling...backwards, nonetheless, but crawling. You haven't quite figured out how to go forward yet, but I know that a few days after this posts, you will have figured it out on your own. You started standing with some help, and now you can pull up to stand all by yourself, tucking your little leg beneath your body and pushing yourself up to reach your play table or the coffee table. My newest favorite thing that you do is "dance" when you hear music, wiggling your belly back and forth and giggling like a maniac. I love it!
You haven't changed much in terms of your food choices:

loves:

sweet potatoes

butternut squash

raw grapes

raw apples

puffs

crackers

likes:

bananas

avocado

carrots

biter biscuits

dislikes:

pears

peaches

apples

peas

zucchini

I have had a sippy cup/straw cup out for the past two months. Every day, you tipped it, you chewed on the bottom, you chewed on the straw....but you would never drink out of them. Every day, you would steal my straw out of my Starbucks cups to chew on...but would never suck up any of its chai deliciousness. Finally, I got you a little valveless Santa mug, and one day...while you were watching mommy drink out of her straw cup, I could just see that you got it...and I ran and got your santa mug. Immediately, you leaned over and sipped up a huge gulp of cold water...and that was the end of that. Now you want sips of everything that there is to offer.

Your vocabulary has also grown. you can currently say "hiiiiiiiiii" in a your high pitched baby voice. Grandpa taught you "Hey" and I believe that mommy taught you "yeah". In addition to that, you say "dada", though inconsistently. And every time you see a kitty you stare hard at them and say "keee". One morning, while cuddling in bed, one of the kitties jumped up onto the bed and you waved to it and said "hiiiiiii keee" and mommy almost fell over. You haven't repeated it, but still. I am amazed!

Every day, your personality shows more and more, and more often than not, you are an uber friendly, uber happy baby, who is a total ham in front of my camera, and even when I hold my phone up to take a picture. You certainly know how to work a crowd, flashing your cheesy grin and batting your hollywood lashes at just the opportune time.

I can hardly believe all of the changes that you went through this month, and I just have a feeling that next month is going to show up this month! I can't wait to see where your cute, Conversed tootsies will take us this month! Bring on the holidays!

we love you baby girl!

A Giving of Thanks

I am thankful.

For this home that becomes a little more like home every day.

For this job that keeps me on my toes, and keeps me humble.

For this amazing family network that I have and have married into, who love unconditionally and provide when there is need.

For warm food and cold drinks, like punkin pie and iced chai tea.

For friends who have made me who I am in one way or another.

For my ever-loving, if not sometimes frisky, kitties.

For my sister, who keeps me laughing, keeps me from crying, and keeps me sane, among a trillion other things.

For this past year, which has been hard and amazingly satisfying all rolled up into one package.

But most of all...

I am thankful for this child, who takes my breath away every day, and who makes me become a better person so that I can, someday, make her proud of her mommy.

And I am thankful for this man, this love, which is just beyond all of the words on this page.

I am so so so so thankful.

7 month newsletter: abbreviated

ok. so i haven't gotten around to this month either. here is what's going on with the peanut, in abbreviated form.

awesome at sitting up
started getting on all fours and scootching around but not quite crawling
also does that pre-crawl bouncing that looks hilarious because she's so little
is definetely on a stable schedule, sleeping most of the way through the night, with one feed squeezed in there

started some solids this month
likes:: rice cereal
butternut squash
sweet potato
avocado (of all things???)
tolerates some of those gerber puffs

dislikes:: everything else (haha)
for example...apples
pears
peas
peaches

we will continue to trial the dislikes. she'll get there. the look on her face when you put something in her mouth is priceless though...almost like we are trying to torture her. ha!

6 month shots went fine. i caved and we all got the H1N1 vaccine after i took care of a sick-as-shit little one at work with it. enough to scare the bejesus out of a new mommy.

spending lots of time with grandparents and aunties. loves lunch dates and play dates with amy & the girls.

i think that's it for now. i promise her 8 month newsletter will be a real one!

ah!

lobster #2

my little lobstah

so, i wasn't going to post this yet....but i just can't wait anymore! here she was in her halloween costume....a lovely little lobster. she loved wearing the frock but hated being carried around in a stock pot. ;)

no seriously. we did.

hope this makes your day. :)

corderoy

owl eyes

i think this is one of my favorite photos. e.v.e.r.

apple munchin with grandpa

tutu2

tutu

nom nom

smooches

6 month newsletter

Ok---so I know i'm a bit behind. Here is the 6 month newsletter that I was working on, with some pictures to come. Since I uploaded new photo software, it wont let me post pictures INTO my blogs anymore OR post more than one edited photo into the same blog. i have spent a great deal of time kicking and screaming. so here is the newsletter, and here are the pictures to follow it up.

Avonlea,
Today you are 6 months old! Half of a year has gone by! I can hardly believe it! You weigh about 13lbs, and have grown so long that we have needed to go up two notches on your excersaucer to keep you bouncing on your piggy toes. Just as I had predicted, two days after I wrote your last newsletter, I woke up, and just like that you had outgrown your 0-3 month clothing. You are petite, but very long, and so we have skipped the 3-6 month genre all together, and have opted to go straight to 6 month. I know you will get much more wear out of these clothes, even though they are big on you now. While reorganizing your drawers, I was shocked to see just how much of your clothing you had never even worn, and was reminded of how wonderful our family and friends are to have kept you so well dressed. Your little face has grown up so much since your puffy newborn days, and every day I can see a glimmer of a little pig-tailed girl carefully playing with her toys. I love to watch you play, because your movements are so gentle, so deliberate, and nothing like the hurricanes of other babies with their grabby hands and flailing limbs.

Not surprising, while visiting with Amy and the girls, we determined that you could sit up by yourself, and you did so well that I had to fend off the mommy-guilt because I hadn't even attempted to sit you up on your own. You were barely rolling over, but there you were, playing with toys and laughing at Kylie from your newly seated stance. As the days went on, you got stronger and stronger, and now you can even correct yourself when you start to topple or lean too far forward when you want to munch on your toes. We are still anxiously awaiting that first tooth to break through, and I laugh every time you shove my hand in your mouth for a good, fierce noshing to help ease that teething pain. Tylenol has been your friend this month.

One of my favorite parts of this month has been seeing your bond with your Daddy. He takes amazing care of you, and it is obvious that the three months that he was home this summer were wonderful for the two of you. I love to see your reaction when he comes home in the afternoon…you get so excited, all smiles and laughs, even in the middle of the worst of meltdowns.

Not too much has happened this month, we have just been enjoying you and your emerging personality. Next month begins the flurry of the holidays, and we cant wait for trick-or-treating and beginning new traditions.

Here’s to you, little peanut.

6 month newsletter