7 Months Old!

Brody is 7 months old! He's such a huge part of our family, now, that it really feels as if he has always been with us. We can't imagine our lives without him and are so glad that he gets to be a part of our family.

(sadly, I seem to have misplaced his 7 and 8 month ties so the next two months will be without)

This month Brody:

- Started trying to pull himself up to standing. He can get about halfway there most of the time. He's gotten all the way up a couple of times. However, if you just stand him up, he'll happily hold on to whatever and stand and play. He especially loves to do this in Logan's kitchen

Love seeing them interact like this. Such sweet siblings.

(here's Logan at nine months when she first started standing up and Brody just shy of 7 months. She looks so petite!)

- He tries to crawl. He'll rock back and forth on all fours but never seems to get the forward motion. He's pretty content just sitting and observing life, right now. We're ok with it because he clearly likes to get into things and so having him contained is absolutely ok.

- Started eating more solid meals. He eats about 2 solid meals a day and nurses the rest of the time. His favorite food, hands down, is an avocado/banana mixture. He could eat several bowls of that at a time if I had enough of it. He also loves carrots, peas, plain bananas, mangos, pears, peaches, apples and sweet potatoes. So far he's eaten and enjoyed everything he's been given.

- Had his first little bout of separation anxiety. He's pretty good about being passed around and does just fine in the nursery on Sundays but had a really hard time when I left him for my first MOPS meeting. They said he cried on and off the entire 2 hours. He also will not stay with the babysitters we have on Monday nights for our small group. I have a feeling that's because it's bedtime, though, and he's not used to being awake that late. Last week we went early and put him to bed in another room and I was finally able to sit and participate.

- Took his first sippy cup! I pumped and put the milk in a sippy cup for the MOPS meeting and he took it just fine.

- Really has started interacting with Logan. They actually play together sometimes, now. She likes to sit and build block towers for him to knock down. He really loves it when I put her in his crib with him after he's just woken up and let them snuggle. Both of our kids are little snuggle monsters and we LOVE IT.

- Got his first two teeth!

- Is wearing 6-9 month clothes.

- Wears a size 2 shoe.

- Weighs 17lbs.

(another case of sibling abuse in our household...though, she promises that it's because he's a king, not a princess)

- Is still such a great sleeper! He's sleeping 10-12 hour stretches every night.

- Is on a great schedule. He wakes up at 7:30am, eats then plays until 9:30, naps until 11-11:30, eats lunch at 12, goes back down for a nap at 1 and usually sleeps until 4, plays, eats at 6, takes a bath, gets a story, nurses and then goes to bed at 7. It's so nice that things are so predictable with him.

- He seriously is the happiest baby ever. If he fusses or whines he needs something, is tired, or has a dirty diaper. Otherwise he's content and just smiles away.

Here's Logan vs. Brody at 7 months. He's definitely starting to get a more distinctive look, though, some pictures we look at and if Logan wasn't in pink with a bow we'd have trouble figuring out which was which.

All 7 months:

Ballet

Today Logan had her first ballet class.

I've been looking for months for a 2 year old ballet classes, but almost every place starts at age 3.

I finally found one and registered her and then they couldn't get enough girls to fill the class. Thankfully, since she'll be 3 in January, the owner of the studio went ahead and put her in the class with the 3 year olds. Otherwise, I'd have a lot of explaining and consoling to do with a certain 2 year old who has been crazy excited since learning she'd be in a ballet class.

She did such a great job! She followed instructions very well and only went off on her own two or three times the entire class.

She even gets to be in the end of the year recital since she's in the older class! (she's on the far left in the next picture--the only one with the skirt) She also needs to get the class uniform... the 2 year old class didn't have one so we just got whatever. We'll order it so she can have it next week.

The girls did a lot of dancing to praise music, which really pleased me. We've been learning about praising God with our dancing. She learned the verse, "Praise His name with dancing!" a couple of weeks ago and recites it now when she's twirling around. It did this mama's heart good to watch and hear her.

(p.s. I realize that I haven't done a 7 month update on Brody...I'll get it up! I'm trying to get some special 7 month pictures done but the weather hasn't been very nice. As soon as it is we'll get them up!)

Carving

You know...I'm not actually sure I've ever carved a pumpkin. I can't say that after this afternoon, though. Logan got a pumpkin a couple of weeks ago at a birthday party and it's just been sitting on our porch. I knew I wanted to do something with it, but couldn't decide if we should paint, glitter or carve. This afternoon was so wonderfully cool that I had to do some kind of outdoor, fall activity with Logan and since we didn't have paint or glitter, carving it was!

Here's the experience via Logan quotes. Not even kidding.

"I don't think I can get that duff out mommy. It's a little slimery (slimy + slippery in loganese)"

"This is really is-dusting (disgusting) I need a bigger spoon."

"Actually, I'll sit with Brody and just watch you. Yeah, that's better for me."

"Mommy look at what we did!" Uh-huh, all the credit and none of the work.

Logan chose Tink when I showed her our options. We'll be getting another one in a few days and we'll do McQueen "for Brody." Or Logan.

MOPS

I've wanted to join a local MOPS group since Logan was born but because of one thing or another (being a full time babysitter for two years-ish) I haven't been able to go full time. This year, though, I'm not babysitting anyone so we have the ability to go! We got up and got ready to go this morning and I'm so glad we did. It's SUCH an encouragement to be around other mom's who are in the same stage of life I'm in right now. I love what I do, it's such a blessing and is the best job in the entire world, but sometimes I just need to know I'm not alone.

Logan constantly surprises me with how old she looks and acts but I had to hold back small tears today when she walked to the car like she was ready for school. I can't believe that she's almost THREE!

She's a little obsessed with this princess water bottle we got from the dollar section at Target. It's a great way to get her to chug tons of water. Back to topic at hand, though. When we got to the meeting we dropped Logan off at her class, first. Now, I didn't expect tears from her but I certainly didn't expect her to let go of my hand, run in and start playing without so much as a "goodbye, mom, I love you!" Sigh. I guess we've entered this phase of life.

Brody, on the other hand, was not so pleasant. I left him screaming and picked him up screaming. Though, they did say he was happy in between. I'm not sure if that was for my benefit, though. He usually does well in the church nursery and pretty much anyone he stays with, so I'm hoping maybe this will pass?

I tried to get a good one of the three of us this morning, but I think until the kids are old enough to fake happiness for pictures, this may be as good as it gets. :)

In other news, Brody cut his first tooth today. I discovered it tonight when trying to figure out why he was so snotty and grumpy this afternoon.

Saturday

Yesterday, I tried my hand at newborn photography. I played around a lot when Brody was born, but since then have been really studying and figuring out how to edit, what angles to shoot and have been looking through newborn photos like crazy. All of this because I knew that I'd be doing a line of photography head props for my new website and wanted to make sure I made them look right.

So, yesterday the kids and I spent the morning taking pictures of little Miss Claira-lynn and then we edited them in the afternoon. I say we because Brody sat on my lap while I edited and Logan looked at the screen and told me what she liked and didn't like.

Here's a preview (these were my favorites), you can see the rest on the blog.

Logan "helped" with the pictures by making sure the backdrop was straight and then sitting on it after it was, thereby undoing her work and making her start it all over again. Brody sat like a champ. Here's his "are we done yet" face.

I'll be doing a couple of catch up posts tomorrow, so watch for them!

Tickled Pink!

First of all, I snapped this picture of Logan while she was sleeping the other day. She had dressed herself up for bed. She really is SUCH a princess!

Next, I wanted to let everyone know that I've re-launched my clothing/bow website! I know, I feel like I do this once a year, but I've taken down my etsy site and am only doing bows/clothes through this website and my facebook page. This way I don't have to pay the added cost of listing on etsy and giving them any kickback when I sell things. So--head over to www.tickledpinkhairbows.com and check it out! Bookmark it, share it with friends, place some orders. Just kidding, you really don't have to place orders. Also, would you do me a favor? If you have a facebook page, would you LIKE the business facebook page? It just gives it more credibility with outside buyers if there are a good amount of people who like it. Thanks!!

Preschool In Review: Weeks 5-9

We've moved away from the letter/number/color routine and have started doing different themed units every week that incorporate everything. It's been a fun change and we're both really enjoying it. Our first theme was Veggie Tales because it's a new favorite in our home. She colored each of the vegetables in their proper colors and then we labeled the colors, stapled them together and put them in the book. She colored veggies with different numerical values, counted them, labeled each page with the correct number. She spelled out her name that week and we made fun letter cards that she has in a pocket in the book and can pull out and put it in order. Just to give you a taste of what she's doing in her units. :) We've done a Handy Manny unit and part of a princess unit and tomorrow we'll start Ballerinas.

I've tried to be really intentional about our playtimes, too. I found these fantastic colored counting blocks in the dollar section at Target and we use them for so many different things.

I picked up three packs and I put a letter of the alphabet on each one (upper and lower case).

She plays match the upper to the lower case.We play "find me letter......" with them. She sorts them into color piles. She counts them. We put letters together to make words (well, I put the words together and she identifies the letters once together). She stacks them and lines them up in color patterns. They've been great. Well worth the $3.

Logan continues to impress me with how much she's learning! She knows the letters by sight. She knows about 1/3 of the sounds in the alphabet and can recognize when they are used in words (example: when eating popcorn she said "p-p-p popcorn starts with P!"). She knows how to count to 20 and recognizes numbers 1-10 (usually). She knows most of her shapes (circle, star, heart, diamond, rectangle, square, triangle). She knows all of the colors. She can sort colors into groups (great for laundry). She can tell stories by looking at pictures. She's just a little smart cookie and it's so much fun to watch my own little one learn!