Harper Grace: 6 Months

Harper turned 6 months old on Sunday.  It feels just like yesterday that I was home on maternity leave with her!  She has changed so much over the last month and is my little snuggle bug! We are all anticipating how much Christmas will be this year as a family of 4.

• She is wearing mostly 6 month clothes.  She can still fit into some of her 3-6 month clothes.
• I put her hair in her first pony yesterday.  She looked pretty cute, but Daddy thought differently.  Her hair is still brown.  It's really starting to grow in on the sides and bottom now and seems to be a bit lighter.
• She had her first bout of stomach flu Monday night.  We're not sure if it was something she ate, I ate, or a little bug.  She was back to normal yesterday.
• She is eating like a horse.  Literally overnight she started eating 5 (sometimes 7) ounces every 3 hours.  She is even waking up in the middle of the night to eat a full 5 ounces.  She hasn't been up in the middle of the night since she was a newborn.  It's been tough on us. :)
• We started solids with her again this week.  We decided to substitute oatmeal for rice cereal and that seems to be going really well. She's had butternut squash, pears, applesauce, and sweet potato.  She really isn't that interested in eating.  She will eat a few bites really well and then totally loses interest.  I'm not sure what's going on with it.  I tried to give her avocado and she hated it.  Next on the list to try is acorn squash.
• She is scooting around and rolling to get to whatever she wants.  We'll put her on a blanket and she'll be clear across the room 5 minutes later.  She'll use her feet to push her toward whatever she wants.
• She is very vocal, but really only cries when she's tired or hungry.  She will instantly calm down if Riley talks to her.  We are always saying, "Hey Riley, go talk to your sister."  Thankfully, Riley loves her sister.  She'll usually say "Hey Baby, don't cry."
• She has beautiful blue eyes, much like Riley's.
• She has been drooling like crazy and rubbing her tongue on her gums.  Teething has begun.  I think it will be a little while before a little tooth pops through, though.
• She has a nice first Thanksgiving and got to meet a lot of extended family for the first time. 
• She has full blown stranger anxiety now.  She really is such a happy baby that I thought maybe she wouldn't have this as bad as Riley, but she does.
• She likes playing with her toes (#1 favorite toy right now), anything that makes noise or sound, and her teething toys.  Funny story about toes (if there is such a thing):  Harper was on the floor one day and Riley was standing next to her.  All of a sudden I heard Riley say "eeww, don't do that baby."  Harper had Riley's toes in her mouth!  Yuck. :) 
• She hates getting into her car seat, but is pretty content once all strapped in.  She doesn't care to wear her hat or hood.
• She will take a 90 minute morning nap and a 30-60 minute afternoon nap.  She is tired at night and ready for her bedtime routine at 6.  Once she's had her bath she wants to be dressed and fed right away.
• She LOVES books.

Family Pictures 2011

I'm so excited to share our family pictures!  These are our first family pictures with both girls since our pictures taken in the hospital.  I decided to change things up a little bit this time around and scheduled a shoot with a local photographer: Diana's Photo Expressions.  I had seen her work on Facebook and was really excited to work with her.  I'm so glad that we did.  She did a fantastic job!  She has a small studio in her basement.  It was very laid back and inviting. She has a ton of excessories for little girls (and boys).  She really was wonderful to work with and I'm excited for her to take Harper's 9 month and 1 year pictures for us!  Here's a few of our favorites:

Howell's Tree Farm

We decided to get a real Christmas tree this year.  We haven't had a real tree since before we were married and lived in our townhouse.  That was a disaster so we've stuck with the fake tree since then.  We had some lights die on our tree last year and spent way too much time putting it all together that we decided to pick out a live tree this year.   Saturday morning we met my brother and his family at the tree farm to find the perfect tree.  Riley loved running between the rows of trees with her cousins, while Harper stayed bundled up in her stroller.  It was fun to see how much fun Riley was having.  We lucked out and found our tree within the first few minutes.  After we all found our tree we went inside to have some hot chocolate, look around a bit, pet with some cute puppies, and play with the Lego train.  It was just what I needed to get into the spirit this year!

 Our Tree

 Riley having so much fun.

 Riley with Addie and Kennedy in front of their tree. 

 Fun pinecone tree.

 Harper's serious face

Lego Train!

Life

Life has seemed to slow down a bit now that we're in to November.  Something that we've welcomed with open arms.  We've actually been able to watch the last two Iowa football games in entirety.  Just don't talk to Brett about last weeks game.  Here's what we've been up to this November...

• Riley started gymnastics at the Urbandale Dance Studio and Gymnastics Club.  Parents aren't allowed in her class.  We can only watch through a viewing window.  Despite showing up 45 minutes late on the first day, it seems to be a perfect fit for Riley.  She LOVES gymnastics.  It may have been helpful to be late that first day because we were able to go to the parent/child class and it seemed to ease the typical first time apprehension.  She is always so excited to go every morning.  She loves her black, pink, and blue leotard.  Her favorite thing is to do the bars and the bear crawl.  She even lets me put her hair in a ponytail, which hardly happens these days.
• Riley is in a clippy and "soft pants" phase.  We started with sweat pants only, then added in some cotton pants, and now she's even letting me add in some leggings and jeggings.
• We've stopped all solids with Harper.  She doesn't seem to handle them the greatest at this time.  The only food that she's really shown interest in is squash.  She's also tried rice cereal, banana (can we say diarrhea!), sweet potato, and apples. We noticed that she's been more irritable and seems to have an upset tummy a lot. So, we'll wait.
• We started a new incentive program for Riley a couple weeks ago (that sounds terrible, but it's the truth).  We were struggling to get her to go to bed at night.  Every night she would cry, get out of bed, and put up a fight for sometimes an hour each night.  So, we started telling her that if she stayed in bed and didn't cry we would do something special on the weekends.  It worked instantly.  So far we've been to see Puss in Boots and bowling.  Both were new to her and were "so much fun!" Next up on the list is Monkey Joe's and Disney on Ice.
• Riley has been telling us that she loves us nonstop.  It's really sweet.  At least 4 times a night she will come up to us, hug us, and say "I love you Mommy" and "I love you Daddy."
• Our basement is virtually complete.  We have all of the basics in place.  We are in the process of putting in a cabinet at the end of the stairs.  It needs a counter and to be painted.  We have a little corner electric fireplace with a new TV, couches, and way too many toys.  We have a few little things to finish up like some trim that needs to be painted. We actually spend a lot of time down there.  Riley loves it and is always going down there with or without us.
• We finalized the purchase of new windows for 75% of the house.  Hopefully they will be installed before Christmas.  I haven't been this excited for something new in a long time.  No more leaky windows and most importantly new blinds!  We've been holding on to the original blinds until we replaced the windows - which wouldn't be that big of a deal except they are rose colored.
• We're getting family pictures taken on Thursday.  I'm so excited.  I have only been searching for the perfect outfit combinations for two weeks now. :)

Here are a few pictures:

 Fun in her exercauser

 Go Hawks!

 So excited after her first gymnastics class.

 Aaannndd...

 Harper loves her Daddy.

Sweetie!

Harper's High Chair

Look how cute this little girl is in her BIG high chair!  Now that we've started solids we broke out Riley's old high chair.  She is fascinated by the buckles on it.  So far we've tried rice cereal, rice cereal with apple sauce, sweet potatoes, and squash.  She really was not a fan of rice cereal or rice cereal with apple sauce so we've quit those all together.  Dr. Fred has her on a multivitamin with fluoride since she is breastfed so really there isn't much need for the rice cereal.  She didn't care much for the sweet potato so we moved on to squash.  So far, after one night, she loves the squash.  I had decided that if she didn't like the squash we were going to hold off on any more solids until she was 6 months old.  

Riley's Jack-O-Lanterns

Trick Or Treating 2011

This was Harper's first Trick or Treating and Riley's first to actually go trick or treating.  The last few years she was either too small or too scared to go.  This year was completely different!  Riley had so much fun.  It was really fun to see her run up to every door (screaming!), tell her joke right away (Knock, Knock. Who's There? Boo. Boo who?  Don't cry it's just a joke!), take her candy and run back to us.  She was a rock star at remembering her joke.  She didn't forget it once.  If there were a group of kids at the door she budged her way up the steps and told her joke whether someone was listening to her, or not.  I'm not sure when she decided to break out of her shyness, but she sure was miss independent that night.  I carried Harper (our little ladybug) in the sleepytime wrap and she lasted a good hour without any complaints.  That things is a lifesaver!  Here's some pictures.

Riley's Preschool Halloween Party

I was lucky enough to go to Riley's Preschool Halloween Party.  It was so fun to see Riley interact with her classmates, listen to the teacher, and sing her songs.  They paraded into the room in their costumes, stood in their spots, and sang all of the songs that they've learned over the last couple months.  Ms. Megan had some cookies and milk afterwards.  I got to see some cute pictures of Ms. Megan's little Harper.  Turns out she has a 10 month old Harper at home.  She said that whenever she mentions her Riley will always say, "that's my baby sister!" 

 I love this one of Carter looking for his Daddy.

 Giant Whale, Giant Whale!!