Nature Center Family Outing

Several months ago I purchased a Groupon for the local Nature Center knowing that we wouldn't get around to using it until the spring. Nate hadn't been there since he was a kid, and I'd never been there, so we weren't exactly sure what to expect but it turned out to be a fun family afternoon.

It was nice weather, but since it's still early in the spring we hardly saw another soul the whole time we were there. We started out at the visitors' center where Bridget saw her highlight of the trip - a tiny owl named Gidget. Not only was Gidget the cutest little owl, but Bridget took a special liking to her simply because their names rhyme.

The rest of our time was spent walking the trails. The only wildlife we saw were the several birds they have in a caged area (eagles, pelican, owls, etc.) and a couple of turkeys that roam the grounds. Felicity didn't seem to mind the bumpy stroller ride too much until the last few minutes which worked out well since Bridget decided she was too tired to walk anymore. So Bridget squeezed into the stroller while Felicity road back on Nate's shoulders. It was nice to get a little exercise, get out and enjoy the weather and nature, and do something memorable as a family.

11 Months

I cannot believe my baby is almost one. I feel like I just gave birth to her. Sometimes I wish time would slow down just a little. Instead I have to savor each moment, including this one:
This girl will not leave anything in our kitchen alone, especially this cabinet. Sadly, I was standing right next to her making some cookies when it happened. I knew she was up to something when she was really quiet for a few minutes, and I couldn't help but shriek when I looked down and saw the mess she made. Then I decided it was better to laugh and grab the camera. My laughter continued even when she started to cry because she decided cake flour didn't taste that great...

Here's some highlight's from the past month:

• Her walking has improved even more, so she's speedy even with shoes on now.
• She learned to climb onto our brick fireplace hearth, much to my dismay. Several times every day she'll start to do it, and I'll tell her no. She'll get a huge grin on her face and keep her leg in position while I tell her no a few more times. Then she'll smile and put it down. I love how she thinks she's funny as she tests her boundaries.
• She got 2 more teeth on the bottom for a grand total of eight.
• She learned to blow kisses and almost always blows them (without being asked) while getting her diaper changed.
• She continues to love playing with Bridget, and Bridget loves playing with her. Yea!
• Her hair is continuing to fill in and is getting curlier every day. She's definitely going to have an afro just like Bridget did as a toddler.
• She's currently battling her millionth cold...okay, maybe it's more like her 8th or 9th, but it feels like her millionth. Poor girl, between teething and colds, she only sleeps completely through the night once in a while. She still tends to wake up once most nights, and we usually give her a bottle simply because it's hard to get her to drink enough formula during the day.

I love this video. Miraculously, she waved and blew kisses on command. She certainly is a sweetheart!

Field Trip to the Fun Center

For this month's field trip, Bridget got to go with her preschool class to a nearby Fun Center. At first I was a little skeptical about how educational this trip would actually be, but it ended up being a good mix of learning and fun.

The kids started off learning a little about bowling. Each child bowled a couple of frames, and then they got to go behind the lanes to see how the machines work. I even learned something new. Did you know bowling balls come without the finger holes in them? They drill the holes into them themselves. The also got to hold a bowling pin to check out its size and weight.

The next part of our tour was going into the kitchen to see how they make their pizzas.

While they waited for the pizzas to bake, each child got to sample a flavor of ice cream. Bridget chose birthday cake and seemed happy with her choice.
I didn't take any pictures of the next part of the tour - walking through the glow-in-the-dark mini-golf.

At this point, the kids finally got to eat their pizza before heading to what probably ended up being the favorite activities for everyone - the bounce house and trampolines. Thankfully, they didn't eat too much beforehand.

Bridget had a blast and can hardly wait to go back as a family.

Valentine's Day

We certainly don't go all out when it comes to Valentine's Day at our house. In fact, Nate and I never have and probably never will go fight the crowds to go out to eat for the occasion. And I've made him promise to never waste the money to pay the outrageous prices they charge for flowers. We don't even exchange gifts. BUT...I do like to do some simple things as a family and make it fun for our kids.

We started off the day with some heart-shaped raspberry pancakes. Nothing fancy really. I just blended up some raspberries and mixed them in with the pancake mix and some water. I had visions of doing something a little fancier, but Bridget had preschool that morning so we kept it quick and easy. We all thought they were delicious - even Felicity.
Bridget was also pretty excited to give Nate the Valentine we made for him the day before. I found this idea on Pinterest and loved how cute and easy it was:
Bridget was also excited for her Valentine's party at preschool. I found a bunch of cute ideas on Pinterest yet again and let her choose what she wanted to give out to her classmates. This cute dinosaur valentine filled with conversation hearts and white chocolate covered pretzels was her final pick:
For dinner that night, I also didn't do anything fancy - just some heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches with a copy-cat recipe of Zupa's Wisconsin Cauliflower Cheese Soup:
I had plans of making a fun treat, but we had too many other treats around so I opted not to. Maybe next year.

10 Months

Little Miss Felicity is quite the busy girl these days toddling from room to room and making messes faster than a tornado. She gets into cupboards and drawers that Bridget never even touched as a baby or toddler. So even though I have to watch her like a hawk and am grateful for a second pair of eyes (a.k.a. Bridget) to help me, she continues to be a very good baby - just really, really curious.

I love her expression as I caught her getting into that cupboard for the millionth time. It's like she just wanted to say, "What? I just need that bottle of corn syrup again." And I've just completely given up on the plastic containers. That drawer will remain a mess, and all containers and lids have to be washed prior to use.

She's definitely improving on her walking skills and holds her arms up for balance a little less. Falls are still frequent though because she likes to go faster than her little legs are ready for at times. At least she's now able to get to a standing position by herself without pulling up on anything. I've put shoes on her a few times, and at first she just cried and refused to move in them. She still doesn't like them much and falls a lot more in them, so hopefully that will improve soon. Here's a video of some recent walking action and standing up on her own:

In the past month, Felicity's also acquired 2 more teeth (one on each side of her top front teeth) for a grand total of 6 now. And she also survived another cold. After the cold ended and the teeth popped through, she finally started sleeping through the night again. Wahoo! She generally goes to bed around 7:30pm and sleeps for 12-13 hours. If she does wake up, it's only once after she's been sleeping for at least 8 hours, and she goes right back to sleep after a diaper change and a bottle.

As we continue to see more of her personality emerge, I have to laugh at how she is so much like me and Bridget is so much like Nate. For example, Bridget is a total morning person like her dad. If Felicity wakes up for the day before 8am, she's going to be crabby most of the day. I'm also not a morning person and am in a much better mood when I get to sleep in until 8:00 as well.

She's also starting to like books and will actually sit still and listen to a board book for a minute or two. She has a particular favorite:

She loves looking at all the animals and feeling them. We call this her puppy book. I was shocked and amazed a few days ago when I was finishing up with Bridget in the bathtub and told Felicity to go get her puppy book in an effort to keep her away from the tub. She toddled off to her bedroom and returned a couple of minutes later with it in hand, ready for me to read it to her.

Another cute thing she does at nap time or bed time, is wave bye-bye. She doesn't always do it on command, but if she's really ready to go to sleep and you ask her if she's ready for a nap or to go night-night, she'll start waving and/or put her head on your shoulder.

We are so blessed to have this cute, smart girl in our family.

Fire Station Field Trip

When I met with Bridget's preschool teacher last spring before I decided to enroll her, I asked how many field trips the kids go on, and she said about one a month. Sadly, that has not been the case. Here it is January, and this is only the 2nd field trip they've gone on this year. Anyway, I was happy to be able to go with her on this one as we toured our city's fire department.

Her teacher actually has 3 different classes, so there were about 24 kids there. Here's a picture of her class together sitting on the front of the ladder truck.
The kids had the opportunity to walk through part of the ladder truck, walk through an ambulance (Bridget thought that was pretty cool), see the inside of the fire station where the firemen sleep, eat, and hangout, and see, hear, and touch the fireman while he had all of his gear on.
I also really appreciated the lessons in fire safety - not playing with matches, having a meeting place outside for your family, stop, drop, and roll, etc. - since that's not something we've ever really discussed with Bridget.

It was also kind of cool because while we were there all of the firemen had to leave on a call with the pump truck and ambulance leaving the fire chief to do some of the instruction.

At the end, all of the kids got little plastic fireman hats, and Bridget looked pretty darn cute in hers.
Although this was not her first time in a fire truck (thanks to Grandpa being a fire chief), she had a pretty good time.

First Snowman of the Winter

Here it is January, and we finally got our first really decent snowfall of the season (as in 4-5 inches overnight). I'm by no means complaining about this because Nate and I are not snow people, but Bridget always looks forward to a chance to bundle up in her snow gear and play. She and Nate built this snowman together, but sadly it warmed up enough during the day that it toppled over by the end of it.

9 Months

I didn't think it was possible, but Felicity gets cuter every day. Her little personality is really starting to come out, and it makes me look forward to the coming months ahead. Overall, she's still pretty mellow but she's started laughing and giggling a lot more lately - especially when she's getting into mischief.

This past month has been a busy one for her as far as developmental milestones. On Dec. 22, she learned to crawl up the stairs herself. On Christmas Day she walked more than she had up to that point (5-6 steps). In the week and a half since then she's been walking more and more. She lets go of things all the time and walks anywhere from 1-6 feet. My guess is she'll be walking proficiently by the end of January. Can someone please tell her to stop growing up so fast?

Right around New Year's her top two front teeth popped through. It hasn't seemed to bother her too much...yet. I'm just grateful that another accomplishment occurred before those teeth came through - I successfully weened her about a week before Christmas. It took a lot of patience and effort to get this girl to take bottles, but I'm glad to be to that point. The timing really worked out in a lot of ways because giving her a bottle really helped on both airplane flights at Christmas, and with as sick as I got with the stomach flu, it would have been really hard for me to try and nurse her.

She still continues to do a lot of exploring around the house, and especially loves to open and play in all of the kitchen cupboards. She's also recently discovered how fun it is to play with the computer mouse and keyboard and continues to pull DVDs and books off all bookshelves. Playing with toilet paper and curtains also continues to be a favorite activity. She also LOVES taking baths and doesn't mind getting splashed or having water dumped on her head at all.

One of my favorite things lately is hearing her say "Mama" or "Mom." At first she definitely wasn't attaching it to me, but I think she's starting to, and I love it!

Her 9 month stats kind of surprised me. Her increased mobility has certainly helped her slim down, and I'm pretty sure the height measurement is a little off because she wouldn't lay down on the table very well at all to get measured.

Height: 28 in. (66th percentile)...she's probably longer than that though

Weight: 20 lbs. 6 oz. (77th percentile)

Head: 17.5 in. (64th percentile)

I love this girl! (Photo taken by Bridget)

Christmas in Portland

Coming from a big family, I'm used to having lots of people around at Christmas. Since Bridget was born, we've spent 3 Christmases right at home with our little family which was nice in some ways but made me miss my family a little. So last Christmas we decided we would plan and save so we could fly to Portland to spend Christmas with several of my family members this year. Matt, Jessica, and Colin joined us from Oklahoma, Megan came from Utah, and Mark and Mark had the pleasure of hosting everyone at their awesome house. Everyone is pictured below except for Nate and me.
It was certainly a memorable Christmas, although I'd have to say it ranks right up there as one of my worst ones ever (that's not to say it was all bad). Over the 4.5 days we were there, all 10 of us managed to get the stomach flu at various times. Poor Colin started out by throwing up on both flights on the way there. Then it passed to Jessica and Matt the next night, Megan, Mark, and Felicity on Christmas Eve day, me, Nate, and Bridget on Christmas Day, and finally Other Mark on the day after Christmas. It was kind of sad too because Megan and Jessica spent most of the 23rd making all sorts of yummy treats for us to enjoy while we were there, and then everybody lost their appetite to eat them.

Luckily, Felicity's illness was the most mild but mine was the worst. From 2am-7am Christmas morning I lived on the bathroom floor freezing and in misery. At that point I was able to move to the carpeted floor just outside the bathroom while I was waiting to try and feel well enough to make it up the stairs to open presents (everyone was kind enough to wait for me - even Bridget and that's tough for a 4-year-old). I really don't remember much after that. I was so tired from only getting a couple of hours of sleep and felt horrible. I tried my best to pay attention to Bridget as she opened her gifts. I'm just glad Bridget still felt okay at this point so she could enjoy it. Nate took pictures, and Jessica was kind enough to take care of Felicity for me during the gift opening. Here's some of what Nate took:

Just prior to the present opening, Nate started to not feel so great so the two of us spent the day laying around and napping. I think other people stepped in to take care of our kids, but I honestly don't really remember. By the afternoon, Bridget joined us and ended up throwing up almost as many times as me, so that night ended up being a rough one as well. The day after Christmas, we were feeling better but not quite right yet. Then finally the next day, we ventured out of the house to the outlet mall. That was our only excursion the whole trip (unless you count my going to the grocery store the night we got there).

We didn't take many pictures other than Christmas morning, but here's one Bridget probably took of our stockings.

We had to take a picture of Felicity and Colin in their monkey pajamas. Jessica and Nate were actually color coordinated with their jeans and brown shirts too.
Like I said, the whole trip wasn't bad. It was great to see some of my family. And as a nice end to a pretty terrible Christmas day, Felicity decided to start walking more than she ever had before. Here's a video of it:

Since we flew to Portland, we left some of our bigger Christmas presents at home to open when we got back. I loved this more than I thought I would since I ended up not enjoying much of the present opening on Christmas Day. Bridget helped Felicity open a new dress from Grandma and Grandpa.
And Bridget shrieked with delight when she opened this art desk from Grandma and Grandpa too. This girl loves to color and draw, so it was perfect.

It was certainly not the merriest of Christmases for us, but it is one we'll never forget.

It's Christmastime

Here's just a few things from our December. I'll do a separate post about Christmas later.

Since Bridget loved playing with my nativity set last year and broke a couple of the pieces, I decided it was time to get a kid-friendly one that she and Felicity could play with all they want. The Fisher Price Little People set was a hit. Felicity thought all the pieces tasted great and loved listening to the music. Bridget was funny because she arranged everything exactly how it was pictured on the box and made sure it stayed that way. If Felicity messed it up, she would promptly put everything back in its proper place. Since Bridget loves to take pictures, she even took this picture of her arrangement herself.

We attended Nate's family Christmas party as usual where the girls each had a chance to sit on Santa's lap. Bridget liked it just like she always does and got a new book and some gloves from Santa.
Felicity, on the other hand, cried just as I thought she would. What surprised me was that she only cried for a minute. When I first handed her over she just stared at him, but the tears came a few seconds later. Santa gave her some yogurt melts...yum!

One of the highlights for Bridget at preschool this month was getting to make a gingerbread house. She was so proud of it, she took this picture herself.

8 Months

Another month has flown by, and our little girl is continuing to learn lots of new things.

Here she is enjoying some Cheerios while mastering that pincer grip. She gets better at it every day with fewer of them ending up in her lap or on the floor. The Gerber cereal puffs are also a bit hit with her.
She's also getting pretty good with her sippy cup. She actually does get some water in her mouth by herself, although there's also a lot that ends up going down her chin and sometimes she ends up pretty wet. Notice she's not wearing a bib in these pictures because she's also figured out how to pull her bib off, and it's hard to get her to keep it on sometimes.
Felicity is also VERY mobile these days. She's a super speedy crawler, pulls up on everything, and in the last week is able to cruise along the furniture. One of her favorite toys to play with is this walker, and she's pretty good at using it. Sometimes it gets away from her if she's going too fast, and she's a bit of a crazy driver. But she's doing a great job for only being 8 months.

She definitely gets into a lot of mischief such as playing with shower curtains or regular curtains, "helping" anytime the dishwasher is open, trying to eat kitchen or bathroom rugs (yuck!), removing and tasting her nightlight multiple times a day, and just last week she discovered the food storage container and dishtowel drawers in the kitchen. What I don't understand is why she leaves the Christmas tree completely alone (not that I'm complaining). And all shoes absolutely cannot be left out because they are also one of her favorites.

On a not so positive note, this poor girl has been sick for the past 2 weeks. She's had two colds in a row thanks to her older sister sharing a little more than I'd like her to share. It definitely made her more cranky, and she's had a harder time sleeping well at night. With her not feeling well, trying to get her to take a bottle has actually gotten worse and not better much to my dismay. Once she's well again, I may just have to start to be more hard core in the weening process.

Bridget's Birthday

With Bridget's birthday on a Sunday this year, she got to celebrate all weekend. On Saturday, we went bowling with Aunt Megan, Aunt Jessica, Uncle Matt, and cousin Colin.

We also had a little pizza and pop while we bowled.

On her actual birthday, we celebrated with a chocolate princess cake (her choice). I must admit I was very rushed on time, so it's not as beautifully made as I would have liked, but she thought it was great so I guess that's all that really matters.
We even made her wait all day to open her presents. She got a doll house complete with the family and furniture, a Barbie corvette, a doll size pack-n-play, a book, and a new jacket. That panda mask she's wearing in the picture was actually a birthday card. Notice in the pictures she's wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was by no means warm that day, but she dressed herself after we got home from church and that's what she wanted to wear.
As kind of a sad side note, I had planned to take her to a local restaurant/tea room that does princess tea parties where the kids can dress up and eat and drink all sorts of yummy stuff. So Monday, after her checkup at the pediatrician we headed there only to find that it was closed. After some investigating, I learned that it had closed about a week earlier due to some financial and health reasons of the owner. We were both so bummed.

A couple of days after her birthday, Grandma and Grandpa came for a very, very quick visit. She loved the Rapunzel doll they gave her.

Happy birthday to the sweetest 4-year-old! We love you, Bridget, and are so lucky to have you in our family.

Her 4-year-old stats:

Height: 43.5 inches (98th percentile)

Weight: 45.8 lbs. (96th percentile)

Nate's Birthday

That's right. Nate turned the big 35 and was so excited about it. (Okay, not really. But I always enjoy celebrating a birthday - even when it's not my own).

With his birthday falling on a Sunday this year, we got to celebrate for a couple of days. On Saturday night we headed to one of his favorite restaurants (Pepperbelly's) for dinner. Megan, Brant, & Kirstin even joined us. We were having so much fun, we forgot to take any pictures.

On Sunday, my Aunt Jennine had us over for dinner and we brought the birthday cake and homemade ice cream for dessert.

Happy Birthday, Nate!

This may sound weird but Nate didn't get to open any actual presents on his birthday. We decided to get the new Kindle Fire as a birthday present to both of us since we ended up returning the TV I got for my birthday and the monthly date nights only seem to have happened once. Since the Kindle Fire doesn't come out until mid November, we'll both have to wait just a little longer for a "birthday" present.

7 Months

This past month has been full of several new things - trying lots of new foods, learning to get to a sitting position by herself, learning to crawl, getting her first tooth, and dressing up for her 1st Halloween.

For the first few days she was crawling she didn't crawl very far and wasn't particularly fast, but that sure changed within about 5 days. Now she's pretty speedy, goes from room to room, and gets into everything.
One of the funny things about Felicity is that once she reaches a milestone, she immediately wants to learn to do what's next. Within about a day of her crawling, she started pulling up to things (i.e. the fireplace, the couch, or anything else that's just the right height). Most of the time she just gets to her knees, but she's been successful at getting all the way to standing by herself a couple of times.

Feeding has been quite a different experience from what I remember with Bridget. Felicity doesn't open her mouth very wide and doesn't seem as eager to eat most of the time. She also likes to blow raspberries a lot which makes for a messy and sometimes frustrating experience. Her favorite food so far seems to be sweet potatoes, and she doesn't care much for green beans or bananas. Weird, I know. What baby doesn't like bananas?

She's definitely a busy girl these days which keeps all of us busy too. She's still growing like a weed and wearing mostly size 12 month clothes. I'm still working on getting her to take a bottle, but the progress is very slow. Hopefully that will be a big accomplishment for me to report on next month.

The Best and Worst Part of Autumn

With 4 large trees in our yard, every fall we do A LOT of raking. I know some people prefer to wait until all of their leaves have fallen to rake them up, but not me. I don't mind raking too much (at least the first few weeks of fall), and I hate the mess they make in the yard as well as having them get tracked into my house creating an even larger mess so we (mainly me) do a lot of raking. It's my goal every week to make sure our garbage dumpsters are packed completely full. The other day I was outside mowing up as many as I could and Bridget wanted to help so I let her use the rake. When I went to empty the mower bag, this is what I discovered:

She'd raked up a nice pile of leaves for herself to play in.

I love this girl and the good helper she is! Too bad we still have 3 of the 4 trees left to clean up after.

Happy Halloween

Trying to get Bridget to decide on a Halloween costume this year was much more difficult than last year. Since there were so many things she wanted to dress up as and changed her mind nearly every day for weeks, I finally just picked one of her options and made this super cute pirate costume for her. She's been into pirates lately thanks to a show on the Disney Channel called Jake and the Neverland Pirates that she watches quite frequently.

I'd planned to make a matching pirate costume for Felicity with the leftover fabric I had from Bridget's costume, but in the end I didn't have the time and lost motivation. I also decided that there was no way she would hold still for me to ever get a head scarf on her, and it was a critical component of the costume. As a quick last minute costume, I purchased this cute toddler-sized jack-o-lantern shirt and modified it slightly (cut off and hemmed the sleeves to the correct length, took the shoulders up a little, and added some elastic to the bottom so I could stuff her shirt with batting). Then I made her headband with some orange ribbon and a green headband I already had. I think she turned out to be the cutest pumpkin, if I say so myself.

Happy Halloween!

Side Note: It was during the photo shoot on our lawn that I discovered Felicity had her first tooth. She kept trying to eat the leaves, and I felt it while fishing a leaf out of her mouth. It looked like it had been there for a few days too. I hope the rest of her teething goes this smoothly.

Felicity Learns to Crawl

This girl has been wanting to crawl for at least a month now, and today it finally happened.

Another Sitting Milestone for Felicity

Learning to get to a sitting position without assistance is a big deal. Now when she falls over or is rolling around, she can help herself rather than fussing to get help from someone else. As luck would have it, she figured it out in the 10 minutes I was gone running Bridget to preschool, but at least Nate got it on video for me.

Fall Trip to West Yellowstone

I love West Yellowstone in the fall. Town and the lake are much quieter, and the colors are gorgeous.
This is the second year in a row we've gone to visit Nate's parents in October, and I'm pretty sure it will have to be an annual tradition to go this time of year.

My sister, Megan, joined us on our trip this time which was also fun. The weather was a little chilly, but at least there wasn't any snow - just some rain on Sunday. We didn't get there until around 7pm Friday night. Saturday we just hung out around the house while Nate and his dad worked on a home improvement project. Then Saturday night we headed into town for dinner at a restaurant called Bullwinkle's. For various reasons we didn't make it there during our June and July trips, so I'd been waiting to go back to this restaurant for a year. When we went last October, I ordered their buffalo burger and had been dreaming about it ever since. I can easily say it was the best burger I've EVER had. And I really mean that. And I was not disappointed the second time around either.

Another great thing about West Yellowstone in October is that if you want to buy any souvenir type stuff, several of the shops have good deals going on to try to get rid of merchandise before winter. Megan and I both bought some nice hoodies for about $12, and Bridget and Megan got matching moose t-shirts for about $5.

Sunday we went to church and then hoped the rain would stop long enough for us to be able to do a campfire and make s'mores. And we got lucky! Here's we are enjoying the fire waiting for the perfect coals for s'more making.
It was a nice, relaxing trip and probably our last one until the long West Yellowstone winter ends some time in late spring. Thanks, Scott & Alice, for letting us come visit again.

Nate's 1st Full Marathon

It's only been 1.5 years since Nate started running regularly and training for races, and he's now accomplished a full marathon! I must admit I was a little worried about how he would do because he didn't stick to his training plan as religiously as I think he should have and didn't do much cross-training. His goal was just to finish, and he did it in 5:31:47.

This is only the 2nd year of the Layton Marathon, so there were only about 300 runners and not great support from volunteers and aid stations compared to other marathons. By the time Nate got to the finish line all they had was water. Lame!

I had some obligations that morning, so he was a lot farther into the race than I would have liked before we were able to find him and cheer him on along the way. My sister Megan came to cheer him on along with me, Bridget, and Felicity (okay, Felicity didn't do much cheering but I'm sure she would have if she could).

The picture on the top left is where we first saw him around mile 23. He was in great need of encouragement at that point, so I'm glad we were able to be there with our signs to cheer him on. The picture on the bottom left is Bridget joining him the last little bit before the finish line. She's been begging to run a "Kids K" for months now, so we hoped this would make her happy until we can get her signed up for one at some point in the future. And the large picture is, of course, after it was finally over.
He said his biggest issue during the race was that the arches in his feet cramped up - something he'd never experienced before and didn't know what to do about it.

I'm proud of him for finishing, although I wish he'd keep his promise that it was his first and last. Oddly enough, he started talking about doing another one in the future less than 24 hours after finishing this one. So much for that promise! Then he changed his promise to not doing another one while we have little kids.

Way to go Nate!

6 Months

Happy half-birthday to Felicity!

For the past couple of weeks she's been enjoying eating rice cereal and oatmeal at dinnertime and getting better at it all the time. The first few times she felt the need to help hold the spoon with each bite which made for big messes, but now she's learned to let Mom or Dad do it.

Sadly my favorite stage of infant life is almost over - her sitting up by herself and not being able to go anywhere. She's been sitting alone for almost a month now, and for the past week or so she's decided to get up on her hands and knees and reach for those toys that are just out of reach (resulting in her flopping on her belly and then rolling all over the place). I love this picture because it looks like she's about to lunge for the camera and get me.

Bridget and Felicity are still best friends and enjoy playing together more and more. The interactions between the two of them are so sweet to see.

We celebrated her half-birthday with a trip to the pediatrician for a check-up. She didn't like it at all this time (I've made a mental note not to schedule appointments anywhere close to nap time after this visit). It's amazing how close she is in size to Bridget's size at this age (she's only 1/4" taller and weighs 1 oz. less).

Height: 27.25 inches (94th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs. 7 oz. (96th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (72nd percentile)