nanny's birthday & father's day weekend

the girls were so excited to see their big cousin Caleb :)

 Adelaide loved having her younger cousin Mira visit!

uh oh...nanny went to Amish country this weekend and brought back bonnets for the 3 littlest....

love the uplifted leg - always does that...so cute :)

8 months

Adelaide starting crawling right around 7 months and has quickly become quite the fast little crawler, which of course has led her to the next goal of trying to pull up, which she hasn't quite gotten the hang of yet. Her personality is coming out more and more and we've learned she does NOT like when you take something from her and will often cry very hard when you do. Her favorite toys are still the remote & now that she's mobile, cords. She also enjoys my water bottle and pretty much anything that's not a toy. Her sleep schedule has still been a bit of a mess this month, but on average she goes down around 9:30 and sleeps until 7, sometimes waking around 1 & 4, sometimes not. I need to knock on wood, but today is the 4th consecutive night she has slept all the way through, so we're hoping that was just a phase and it's over for now. She still takes a morning & afternoon nap, and on most days an evening nap too. I still nurse her in the morning then she drinks (2) 6oz bottles while I'm at work, then I nurse her 2-3 times in the evening. She gets a little homemade rice, oatmeal or millet cereal with an icecube size portion of fruit for breakfast and then a vegetable for lunch. We stopped giving her solids for dinner for now - perhaps we're being superstitious, but as soon as we reduced her bottles from 7 to 6 oz and stopped giving her dinner she slept through the night again - is it possible she was too full? No idea! I absolutely love how she gingerly plays with my earrings or necklace while I nurse her. It is my favorite time with her, watching her staring up at me, then getting to hold her as she drifts off to sleep, so incredibly sweet. We've introduced more solids to her this month - cucumber, ground oatmeal, ground rice, ground millet, asparagus, mangoes, peaches, cantelope, hummus - so far she hasn't met too many foods she hasn't liked! She has a little side rat tail on the left side of her head that is clearly an inch or two longer than the rest of her hair, but we just can't get ourselves to cut it especially when it curls (which happens often in the heat wave we've been enduring!) She loves being outside, and thankfully the weather is finally cooperating and she gets to spend most days outside at Zia's. She is getting some color from the sun and her little feet are already tan! She is becoming more vocal and makes these screechy sounds, which has led to me calling her a pterodactyl. She is trying to jabber and she gets a huge smile across her face when we repeat her when she says 'dis'. Her top two teeth are coming in, a bit cockeyed with a space between them, which makes them all the more adorable. She has grown pretty attached to me lately and will sometimes get upset when I walk away from her. I love that she will crawl after me, sit by my feet and look up at me to pick her up, how can I resist that? She has also started reaching out to you if she wants to be held. She still loves bath time and I'm looking forward to getting to take her to the pool this summer. She is getting to be such a big girl and I cannot believe how quickly the time is going!

daddy makes me laugh

Photo Book

I created this book on shutterfly with a groupon purchase I made ~ now I'll receive a $10 gift certificate for blogging about it ~ not a bad deal!

Click here to view this photo book larger

adelaide's first swing

mother's day weekend

Mother's day weekend flew by and we had such a wonderful time. Mary, Justin & Mira visited and it was so fun to have so much family time! Friday we celebrated my sister Joy's birthday and the girls went out for dinner while the dads watched all the kids! What a great time to have one on one time with my mom and sisters...doesn't happen too often at all anymore with all the babies! Sunday we had Brad's parents & brother and his fiance over for Mother's Day brunch, then headed back to Jenna's for a cookout. The weather was beautiful and it was a lovely weekend.

Emma Clare holding her littlest baby cousin, Mira

mom & maggi

proud cousin meredyth with mira

proud nanny with the youngest of her 11 grandchildren, Mira Mae

maggi & adelaide - I love how much these girls love their new little cousins

naomi & mira mae

emma clare & naomi

jenna & joy with EC & Adelaide

samuel is clearly outnumbered by all these girlies! but he is so sweet with them!

my mom with her gaggle of girls & their girls (&1 boy!) on mother's day :)

again, proud cousin meredyth with mira mae

someone found some mud...

not sure what was so funny, but this might be my favorite picture

wonder what she's smiling about

sweet girlies maggi & mira

bathtime is even more fun with a playmate!

7 months!

       Adelaide has developed quite a little personality this month. She gets Very upset if you take something away from her that she's not supposed to have...her favorites being the TV remote & my blackberry. She is reaching for everything and her nickname of nosey rosey has never been more accurate. As soon as we pick her up, she pushes away so she can face outward and see what's going on. She started the month by being able to sit on her own in the tripod pose, and ended it with being able to sit up unassisted. She's trying so hard to crawl, so far she just manages to scoot backwards though, which is very frustrating to her. Her sleeping schedule has been a mess - between teething & practicing her new skills we've had a few rough stretches, but we've been back on track for the past week or so now. She sprouted her 2 bottom teeth, the first with no fanfare whatsoever, but the second warranted a week of fussy evenings and waking up in the middle of the night. It was so hard to see her so upset and not really be able to do anything about it, but she survived. We love watching her play with her teeth with her tongue. So cute. She still generally goes to bed around 10 or so, but she'll wake up anywhere between 5 & 7 now - we read around 6 months this usually happens because they're developing so many new skills and like to practice them whenever they can, even at 5am. Depending upon what time she wakes herself up, once we've settled her down she'll usually go back to sleep until about 7:30 or so then I nurse her before I go to work. We started introducing solids to her this month - mashed avocado, sweet potatoes, bananas, peas, green beans, carrots, apples & pears - it is so fun to watch her little expressions as she tastes the different foods. So far, we just offer them to her once a day between feedings and she'll have a few tastes and be done with them. Brad went back to work this past week, so Adelaide goes to Lora's house 4 days a week. Lora is Italian and we LOVE that Adelaide will get to learn this language! Lora also watches a 2 year old girl, Lily and occasionally a 2 year old boy, Dominico. I'm excited that Adelaide will be able to interact with other little ones on a regular basis.