Eight Great Months

I am LOVING every moment with this darling girl!! I am the most blessed mommy in the world because I get to be her mommy!




Lots of new stuff this month!

Crawling! She is oh-so-mobile! A week after she turned 7 months she figured it out. Sunday night she couldn't crawl and I was trying to teach her by enticing her with my cell phone as a prize. Monday she took a few "steps" and Tuesday she was off! It still amazes me how quickly they perfect something once they get it! She also learned how to push up to a sit on the same day. So now she's a happy girl! She can get to what she wants and then can play with it as she wants to.

And now she is into EVERYTHING! I have to watch her like a hawk and really keep an eye on what toys get left out. Day 1 of mobility she almost choked on both a cardboard tag from a stuffed animal and little doll dress at the same time. Actually the only reason I realized she had a whole tag stuck on the top of her mouth was cuz I discovered it when retrieving the dress! But I do love that she can decide what toys she wants to play with on her own. She's less frustrated because of that. Her favorite spot right now is the kitchen pantry. I've put the plastic spices on the bottom shelf and she takes them out and rolls them all of the kitchen. Seriously hours of entertainment!

She loves bath time oh so much! If you put her down on the floor of her room, especially if you don't put clothes back on her, she BOLTS to the bathroom, thinking it's time for a bath. When the big kids are in the bath, she insists on sitting next to it and watching them.

It's hard to believe, but she may be our loudest child yet. Maybe it's just me blocking it out, but while I remember the others going through a shrieking phase, I don't remember it at this volume! She shrieks happy, sad, hungry, bored or excited and sometimes, just for the heck of it. I tend to tune it out a fair amount but it drives Brian nuts. I'm hoping our neighbors aren't bothered too!

She still has yet to turn down a single bite of food! It's so fun! She gets very excited for mealtime and I swear she's yelling/shrieking "more" if I wait too long between bites. We've done fruit pieces, small chicken pieces and salmon in addition to all the usual purees. And we just added yogurts in too. She still is a little bit of a spitter, so no my carpet has a whole array of little colored stains. I'm constantly scrubbing it! I guess that makes up for not having to clean out quite as many diaper blowouts thanks to the solid foods!

In fact, she likes food so much, if it's near mealtime and you ask her if she wants to eat, she tries to eat your face.

She's already picking up on signing! She is really fascinated when I show her "milk", "more", or "all done". Almost from the beginning she would practice "milk" when I'd show her. And just before she turned 8 months she was hungry and fussy and started signing milk for me! I think "more" and "all done" will be along shortly. I know Austin was over a year before he signed at all, but then loved it and I can't remember how old McKenna was.

She's just picking up giving high fives, head bonks and kisses. And she's just getting waving hello at people. She usually will do it if you move her arm for her the 1st time. But occasionally you'll get an unprompted hello!

She's in what I like to call the puppy dog phase. Everything goes in her mouth. But she also loves to crawl around the house carrying things hanging out of her mouth. Puzzle pieces, socks, dolls, etc. She looks so silly.

She's starting to actually get a little clingy. She's been such a low maintenance kid which has been a blessing when I have to give the big kids attention or discipline or prepare meals or get them ready for bed. But now she wants to be in the mix and wants to be up in my arms more than usual. She can still be distracted by toys when its necessary, but since she's not much of a snuggler, it's nice to get some extra holding in!

She got her first two teeth this month.

I'm pretty sure her eyes are going be blue. It's still kind of hard to tell, but that's the way they seem to be leaning. Hopefully they're just as beautiful as her big sister's!

Two-fer: Happy Half Birthday, Sweet Bella & One More

Woops! 2 months got away from me. So this post is a two-fer!

I started writing Bella's 6 months post on the day she turned 6 months! Obviously my life with three kiddos is a lot more busy than I thought it would be! But oh so worth it though! What a fun 7 months it's been! I swear Bella is absolutely the best baby ever! She is so much fun and I'm so blessed to be her mommy!

Every time I write a month post, I open up Austin's & McKenna's posts for their same months so I can see how the kids differ and how they are the same. When I did it this time I was surprised, because while I thought Bella was hitting milestones earlier than the other kids, I could have copied and pasted most of each of their posts here instead!





As of 6 months...

She loves to shake her head. One day she just started copying me when she was a little loopy tired and now she just thinks its the funniest thing to do. She has an amazing knack and shaking in response to appropriate questions. Auntie Suz asked her if she could be any cuter and she correctly shook her head "no", with a big smile on her sweet face!

She is so proud of her tongue! She constantly has it sticking out. She is also incredibly fond of blowing raspberries and clicking her tongue.

She loves her toys! She gets so excited when she sees her toys and is amazingly content to play with them for as long as she can reach them. And when she can't reach her own, she happily gets into all of the big kid toys!

She's a sitter! Not completely, but getting better everyday. She can sit without supporting herself with her hands for short periods too. She loves to sit with her toys because she can get at them even better.

She is learning volume control from her brother & sister! She is sooooo loud when she gets shrieking! While I'm glad she wakes up happy in the morning, 5am is not a time to enjoy shrieking! I suppose it's better than crying but a good ol' fashion fussy whimper would be much more preferable! Brian has to endure the shrieking in his ear while he tries to sleep because I have to bring her into our bed so she doesn't wake up McKenna.

The poofy hair is mostly gone. I'm sad! I miss it! Every once in a while it makes an appearance after a good hard nap.

She loves giving kisses! It's like being attacked by an octopus!

We had to quickly adapt to unswaddled naps. She was strong enough to roll over swaddled but not strong enough to really be able to keep her head up while swaddled on her tummy. I felt so bad doing it though! She was such a good napper swaddled and really had a hard time figuring out how to settle down unswaddled. The first time I every really had to let her fuss to sleep because she couldn't even settle while being rocked and it broke my heart to see her struggle. It took a couple weeks but she finally got it and is back to a great napper!

Her plugged eye ducts are resolving! I was fairly certain she'd need surgery eventually but I was wrong. The left eye is clear and the right eye is so much better than it used to be. The dr. is good with waiting and giving it some more time! Praying it resolves completely on its own!

6 month stats - 17lbs 1 oz - 65%, 27.5" - 95%. Still a chunk! I affectionately call her my Squishy!

7 Months!



As of 7 months, she still wasn't officially crawling but man, could she get around! I'm actually not sure how, exactly. When you're watching her she stays in one spot, but when you walk out of the room for about 15 seconds and come back she's across the room! She rolls and scoots and turns and rolls more. She's a determined little girl!

We started solids about 6.5 months and I can't tell you how great it is to have one kid in the house that actually eats! She loves food! Has yet to actually turn down a single bit of food. We run out of food before she runs out of appetite. Not a single shudder either or scrunched face until we busted out the puffs. I'll give her that they're banana flavor, which I find pretty gross, but what baby doesn't like puffs? They're baby crack! Gonna have to try another flavor, I guess!

She loves loves loves bathtime. She graduated to the ducky bath and couldn't be happier. Now she gets to splash around and gets so excited trying to catch her floaty toys. I have to watch her really carefully because she gets so aggressive, she dives for them!

She's figured out how to "blabble" her lips and mine with her fingers. It's her favorite thing to do when I'm attempting to rock her to sleep!

And boy, does she love her daddy! I love watching her face light up when she sees him! She'll stare him down until he looks at her and then flashes him the best smile. They have some pretty good rounds of peek-a-boo that are just too cute!

She stares strangers down for smiles too, just like Austin would. She makes friends everywhere! While shopping for Christmas presents with the girls in the stroller, I got more "Wow, that is happy baby!" comments. Love that she's got so much joy that it spills out on other people!

Happy 5 Months!

I actually wrote this on her month-day. Too bad it took me another week to take her pic and more than another week to get it onto the computer! Bleh!

Another month is gone already! It's a good thing she gets cuter and more fun by the day, otherwise I'd be lamenting the passing time much more! It is really fun to see her little personality bloom even more each day. She is just plain awesome! Oh I love this kid!








I hate to write it, for fear of jinxing myself, but each day I'm more and more amazed by what an easy, happy baby Bella is! She is almost always smiling or laughing, is incredibly flexible and patient and when she's fussy it takes very little to soothe her usually. She can definitely cry and do so loudly, but those times are few and far between. I really hit the jackpot with this one!

Her personality is just so fun already. She loves to giggle and laugh and be tickled. She already gives great hugs by burying herself into my shoulder. And she loves to attack me with kisses. And when I come in to re-binky her or get her up from a nap I get the best smiles, even if she was fussing. In fact, if you laugh at her when she's fussing, she'll just start laughing back with you. I've been trying to "document" her fussy face because it's really funny. She pouts both lips out like a duck and gives the fakest fuss! But every time I pull out my phone or camera to capture it, she just smiles for the camera!

Not really any new major accomplishments this month, just improving on the last ones. She scoots faster on her back when she tries, but really she doesn't try too much anymore. The moment you put her down, she flips over to her stomach. Which is sorta a bummer, since she still doesn't have the stomach control and usually ends up chunking before too long. So she actually doesn't get put down too often unless it's been awhile since she's eaten. She made some improvement on crawling, but very little. Every once in a while she'll make some good forward movement. But for the most part she was very content to stay put.

Her exploding love of toys is probably why she was happy staying put though. Boy, does she like her toys! We got the bouncer/activity center all set up for her and she is in heaven in there. Sunday I swear she tried to dive out of my arms to get into the one in the nursery at church. And she is just content as can be on a blanket on the floor surrounded by things she can whack at or hold in her hands and chew on. While I love playing with her, it's also so great that she does good by herself for a bit to allow me to make dinner or tend to the bigger kiddos.

While she's really not too much of a fusser, she does let you know very distinctly when she's done playing and wants to go to bed. She starts yelling and her shrieking eel impression gets very loud. She's started kicking her feet against each other somewhat frantically too when she's tired and so now she always has little cuts on her feet from her toenails scratching. I hope she drops that habit soon! It's hard to keep them short enough so she doesn't hurt herself.

Just like the rest of the family, she loves the TV! It was about this age too, that Austin would yell at us when we'd turn it off. She'd rather watch than eat, so I have to now nurse her with the TV off.

The hair poof is still going fairly strong. It stays down for longer and longer after a bath, but a good bedhead inducing nap brings it right back to life. The hair on the back of her head is curlier than the rest and gets into the worst dreadlocks from her rubbing her head back and forth when she sleeps. I've had to cut out some bad knots after trying my best to detangle them. Thankfully she has a lot of hair (still very dark!) to make up for it!

Still can't tell what color her eyes are going to be. I'm thinking they're going to be hazel like Austin's, cuz they remind me of his chrome eyes at this stage, but sometimes they are much bluer. Time will tell!

A Minnie Bowtique Birthday!

Somehow, despite all my protests, my baby girl turned 2 in March! She has given us 2 full years of joy and fun and I'm so thankful for her! I love this little girl so much!!


We, of course, had to have a Minnie Mouse birthday party. McKenna would shriek and bounce with joy everytime she saw anything Minnie Mouse related. And her Minnie Mouse plush is still by far her favorite toy, only trailing in preciousness to her blankie.

McKenna and I are pink girls! And since it takes a lot less food coloring to make pink frosting than it does to make red frosting, we went with pink Minnie decorations!






We had the usual entertainment for the kiddos to play with before games...







And happy guests...




For a fun craft for the kids to make, I cut out foam bows, put string through them to make either bowties for the boys or hair bows for the girls and then the kids decorated them with sticky foam stars, flowers and hearts. They were a bigger hit than I thought they would be!









And for a game, we played Pin Stickthe bow on Minnie.



Sammy was the big winner!



Austin decided to give Minnie Mouse a kiss. Really not sure where that came from!!





We had a Minnie Mouse pinata. It was too cute to pass up!



McKenna thoroughly enjoyed her cake and presents! She was a little shy about everyone singing to her at first, but once she realized she got to eat cake she was a happy camper. She has her momma's sweet tooth!




Thanks to everyone who came to help celebrate my sweet girl's birthday!! It was a wonderful day!!