Family Pics

 A friend of ours from our community group is a photographer and she agreed to take family pictures of us when Heidi was six months old.  We had beautiful weather and a lot of fun.  Now to just start updating the pictures in frames around the house.

Concentration

This girl is working hard at improving her coloring skills!  Love how she sticks her tongue out when she is concentrating so hard.

Seven Months

 The Heidi-bug turned 7-months-old this week!  Time to share a few tid bits on her, although we don't have stats since there wasn't a dr. appointment.  A few general notes: Heidi is very social; she loves going to daycare to play with her friends.  Her current favorite toy is Sophie the Giraffe - not sure why babies love that toy but they sure do.  Now onto the details...

 Eating: Heidi loves food; which is a good thing!  She also got her first two teeth this month; the two bottom teeth popped up together one day.  She eats all sorts of things - favorites include peaches, pears & mangoes, butternut squash, carrots, peas & sweet potatoes.  Her not-so-favorites are apricots (they were really tart!) and green beans (a bit too much texture) and cottage cheese (I'm giving her the stuff that has live cultures, it is pretty sour).  We've expanded beyond fruits and veggies a bit, too.  She eats unsweetened vanilla yogurt (the only one in the family!), grains (rice, oatmeal, millet & barley baby cereal) and we've started using the baby food mill - so she's eaten salmon & quinoa, Tuscan bean stew and spaghetti thanks to the mill.

 Sleeping: We decided it was time for Heidi to be a 'big girl' - she goes down to bed at 7 pm and we leave her until the morning.  We get her up at 6 am.  Fairly often she wakes up before then and occasionally we'll help her find her pacifier.  Someday she'll learn to sleep in, right?  Thankfully she is great at going down for her naps and generally naps well.

Moving: In the last month Heidi has gotten a lot better at sitting up.  Which means she is spending less time on her tummy.  She still does her little army crawl but she hasn't gotten any better at it.  She will get up on all fours frequently, though.  She really wants to move forward; her legs move a lot but she can't quite get her arms to cooperate.  Yet.  It is only a matter of time, I suppose!

Bath Time

 I think it is fabulous that Heidi is old enough to sit up in her little tub and really enjoy baths.  And I love snuggling with her in her little lambie towel wrap (one of the very few items be bought in preparation for her arrival, if she had been a boy I hadn't thought it would be fair to have his 'first bath' pictures wrapped up in a pink baby towel!).  It won't be long now 'til Heidi will have to move to the big tub due to her splashing and 'grabiness' (as Mark likes to say).

Hot Air Balloons

 We were crazy enough to get our girls up this morning to go to the balloon launch at our local Art & Air festival.  Allison loved every minute of it.  Heidi was fascinated, too.  And I didn't end up with any pictures of our dear friend, Myra, who was visiting from Florida and able to join us.

 There were at least 30 balloons at the launch.

We wrapped up the morning by going out to breakfast after the launch.  And thankfully we all survived the day without falling apart from getting up at 5:45 this morning....

Summer Swinging

These two had fun at the park today!

Brought to You by the Letter 'L'

L is for....

Leaves!

 

 

 Lemon Lollipops (which BTW were a complete flop - I really shouldn't try to make candy without a candy thermometer - we redeemed the letter 'L' by making gluten-and-dairy-free Lemon Bars but I don't have photos)

....and Lions!

One of the Big Girls

 

I had to post this picture!  Heidi is so proud of herself when she gets to be one of the big girls.  Sitting at the table with Allison & Bekah....now if only she could eat the same food they do she'd really be proud!

Growing Up

 Now that Heidi is six months old we are noticing she is growing up in leaps and bounds!  She is turning into a great eater; she's eaten everything we've tried to give her (including some rather tart apricots).  She is eating more and more at each 'meal' now, too.  She needs to be eating more, too.  This girl likes to move.  And she is strong.  See the perfect example of her strength below!  That is a nearly perfect plank position.

And she needs to be eating more since we decided it was time for her to sleep through the night.  Without us giving her a pacifier whenever she woke up.  We were prepared for quite the battle like her sister gave us when we cut her off from intervention during the night.  Thankfully, though, this girl is a real champ at sleeping!  Some morning she has woken up before 6 am - and we leave her in her crib until then - but for the most part she's been sleeping beautifully.  Whew!

Little Mommy

 Allison loves taking care of her baby the same way we take care of Heidi.  She has her own bottle which she fills with blocks for baby to drink.  And she'll go up to Heidi's room and change baby's diaper all by herself.  I've told her there is a limit to the number of diapers she can use, though, otherwise baby would be going through more diapers than Heidi!

And Heidi likes to get ahold of baby's accessories, too! 

Sittin' Pretty

 Awhile back I realized Allison was sitting up pretty well when she was only 4 months old.  Heidi enjoys being on her stomach so much we hadn't been giving her much sitting practice.  Soo...we've been having her practice sitting up more and more.  And before long the little Heidi-bug was sitting like a champ.  She is one determined little girl!

And really - have you seen a funnier baby face than this?