Happy Birthday Greg!

Yesterday was Greg's 36th birthday and words can not express how excited Meredith was to celebrate Daddy's birthday. Jabberjaws wouldn't shut her trap all day about it. And don't expect a 4-year-old to keep a secret. I took her birthday shopping a few weeks earlier just to get ideas and she blabbed about everything we looked at, even though I told her to keep it a secret. "But we didn't buy Daddy anything, Mom". She even blabbed about how he was getting a cake with balloons on it (I don't recall talking to her about cakes, but maybe I did?). Then she blabbed about how we picked out a musical card for him. ::shakes head::

I ended up ordering him a fancy Spyder sweater jacket. I think he's secretly jealous of my awesome metallic purple winter Spyder jacket.

Anyhow, back to the cake thing. I had purchased a Groupon from Woullet a few months back to get $30 for $15 so I ordered him a Lady Baltimore cake with lemon filling and vanilla buttercream icing so this cake cost me only $15 or so. Yummy!!!!!

I hope you had a great day, Greg!

She sits!

Anna's been working on sitting for a long time now. Since sometime in December I'd say. She has progressively been getting better at controlling her back. As of the last few weeks, she has been able to sit just fine supported by the boppy or a pillow but has needed a little help with being able to balance herself (think of a Weeble). Today I put her down and she was able to sit by herself for quite a long time before toppling over. That makes her a little over a week shy of 7 months. Meredith was sitting on her own at 6.5 month so they are following the same pace with each other so far. Now, if this kid would take to eating like Meredith did.

She has been rolling from back to belly for a couple months now and she loves to sleep on her tummy. And I think she sleeps better now that she can roll over onto her tummy.

She still can't roll from her belly to her back but I think that is coming fairly soon. She is really working on it. I can't wait until she is able to do that because I'm tired of having to roll her back when she gets frustrated because she can't do it on her own.

Feeding Update

We started Anna on solid food about two weeks ago. If you read my post about it, you know it didn't go very well. I'm sad to update that things have not been going well when it comes to eating solids. I have been giving it my best but she just doesn't want to do it or lacks interest in doing it. Don't get me wrong, it is better than the first day. But on most days, I'm lucky to get 5 bites in her mouth before she clamps it shut and starts spitting out with her tongue so it splatters everywhere. It's just a wee bit frustrating. I knew going into this I didn't want to start solids but I guess I have to at some point.

See that heap of stuff above? I'm working on getting all my baby and maternity stuff that has been outgrown or no longer used ready for a consignment sale next month. I am done having babies so this stuff has to go. It feels so good to get it out of my house and hopefully I can make a little cash. It's a work in progress and a lot of work it has been.

**Nerd alert here** A lot of the clothes I'm selling are so cute and I have so many fond memories of my girls in them. It makes me really sad to part with it all, but I can't keep it and it doesn't make sense to keep it. After I had all my clothes prepped and hanging on hangers for the sale, I decided to take pictures of everything individually. I'm putting it all in an album so I have photos of everything they wore.

January Days

The months of December, January, and February are hard on me. Actually December isn't that bad because it goes by fast because of the holidays, but January and February just linger on and on and on. I mainly don't like them because of the extremely short days and the cold. I really dislike having to close my blinds at 4 p.m. and not having any daylight until after 8 a.m. And to have bitter cold just makes it so much worse.

I have really enjoyed this winter! We have made it through both December AND January with all but about two bitterly cold days and no more than 4" of snowfall in any one given day. These 30-40 degree days are spoiling me. Earlier in the month when it reached a balmy 52 degrees, we went outside to play. We played with sidewalk chalk and blew bubbles! I would have never imagined doing that in January.

Now we're into February and it looks like this weather is going to continue. Once we hit March, I consider that the light at the end of the tunnel so as far as I'm concerned, we just need to get through three more weeks of winter and then we will enter the tunnel! I'm so excited for spring - especially now that I'm not working.

In your wildest dreams, would you have ever thought it was possible to see a hornet flying around on January 10 which happens to be the deepest, darkest days of the winter? Ironically, I was just telling Meredith that we didn't have to worry about bugs when we play outside in January. And then this thing decided to interrupt our play time. I bet he wishes he never came out of hibernation.

6 months!

Anna is officially 6 months old now. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. Half a summer, all of fall, and half of winter has gone and passed. The good thing about aging babies is that they just get cuter and cuter every days that passes.

We went in for Anna's 6 month check-up yesterday and she is doing great. She weighed 15 lbs., 14.5 oz. (50th percentile) and was 26.5" long (75th percentile). She got a her flu shot as well so they postponed another one of her shots so she wouldn't have to get more than 4 shots at once. We will have to go back in another month to get her second flu shot and the one she missed (I can't remember which one it is right now - I'd have to look at her chart).

We've been holding off starting on solid food simply because I'm lazy and I just don't want to change the routine we have going. Anna is on a great nap routine and she is sleeping GREAT all though the night.

Her doctor said no hurry to start solids - they prefer that you wait until at least 6 months (although some people start after 4 months) and can start anytime from now up until 9 months. She is very interested in watching us eat so I figured I'd give it a whirl. And Meredith was sooooo excited to have her eat 'big girl' food.

This was right before we tried rice cereal. She was just as happy as can be.

She wasn't sure what to think of all that odd stuff in her mouth.

Just about ready to gag in this picture.

Ummmm.....yeah. It was an epic fail. We'll keep at it to see if she will get used to it. If not, we'll wait a few weeks and try again. I remember Meredith took to it right away and it was a very easy transition so I'm hoping today wasn't a sign of difficult times to come.

And just a pic of the big sister (and helper). I can't leave her out.