Napping

Piper is so cute when she naps now. She is always flipping over to her stomach or side. She moves all around the crib while she sleeps. When she wakes up and you walk in to get her so slaps the mattress and pops her head up. It is so fun to go get her up. The not fun part, although it's a good thing, is that she really doesn't like to be rocked to sleep anymore. She fights you like she's a baby alligator, twisting and turning, arching her head and back, moaning and squirming, until you lay her down and then she rolls over, settles herself and falls asleep.

Favorite Fall Activity

Watching football on a Saturday afternoon!These two love to hang out on the couch and root for their favorite teams ( Texas Tech and Notre Dame). If the teams are playing badly (which happens most weekends - at least for Tech) then they take a nap together.

6 months old

Piper is 6 months old, actually 6 and 1/2 months as I type this, but it doesn't matter. At her appt. she was 15 lbs. 1.5 oz (25%) for weight, 25 and 3/4 inches for length (45%), and 42.25 cm head circumference (40%). She's moving out of the 25% in some categories, but people always comment on what a petite little girl she is. She is so much fun these days, rolling everywhere, scooting on her belly to get whatever she wants, rocking and trying real hard to crawl, loving paper and ripping it to pieces, laughing and giggling, playing peek-a-boo, making the B sound and blowing spit/food all over the place, settling herself down and going to sleep, trying to wave to people, and just being all around super cute. She has gotten her first fever. This past week at daycare they had a picnic on Monday and Piper was sneezing really bad so we thought maybe it was allergies. The sneezing lead to runny nose and congestion and a 99.3 fever on Tuesday which we thought might still be allergies or teething. Wed. morning was the same story, but Wed. night the fever spiked to 102. I gave her two doses of tylenol that night and when we went to the doctor on Thursday the fever was all gone. He ran a flu test just to be sure, but it came back negative. Each day Piper had very little appetite, was super fussy, and very clingy for me. On Saturday I noticed a sharp little corner of her bottom left front tooth has poked through. So who knows what the reason was for the fever, but we're all better. Our pictures with the lamb chair weren't that great this month as Piper really wanted to look at the lamb not the camera.

She's definitely our sweet little pumpkin!

Pumpkin Carving Party

We hosted a Pumpkin Carving Party with our small group the first weekend in October. It was a perfect fall night and we had so much fun with everyone. The guys with their pumpkins

Then the girls
It was dark when we lit the candles so all the pumpkins looked so cool in the yard, but the camera flash ruined it.

Jarod helping Chris remove the stem from our pumpkin. It was about 3 inches thick so Chris had a really hard time carving it. Guess that's what we get for buying a green pumpkin, but Chris turned it into an alien complete with golf tees for nostrils. Of course Chris would find some way to incorporate golf. Also we thought our carved pumpkin would last longer being out side (because our school has a pumpkin carving contest for students and the halls smell like rotting pumpkins for three days which I thought was because of the heating system), but it had flies after three days on the front porch.

Doug adding some bling to his pumpkin

Lena working on her mini pumpkin

Tamar and Burt

Emily the artist

Everyone busy at work

Joaquin and Jennifer F.

Chris and Melody

All the girls

Piper's Favorite Food

It is NOT sweet potatoes. We heard that all babies love sweet potatoes so we tried them first, but as you can see, Piper's reaction to them was not love. She is better at eating them, but only because I believe it involved the spoon. She will let the food in her mouth, but she does not gobble it up. Although she has never gobbled her food which may be why she's petite thing. I am just praying that this does not lead to being a picky eater.

Here she is getting some rice cereal and it obviously tastes better than those orange sweet potatoes.

We've also tried peas, but got the same reaction as the sweet potatoes. I think I read that it takes 15-18 tries of a new food before acquiring a taste for it. I've made some baby food and Piper definitely has enough for 15 tries of sweet potatoes. The recipe I followed in the baby cookbook made a ton. We now have a freezer full of sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini, pears, apples, and peaches. Also my thoughts on making baby food - it's fun and if you are a stay at home mom probably enjoyable, but for me I've decided that as a working mom it isn't really worth my time and money especially when I can buy organic jarred baby food that has all the same ingredients as what I do at home. Plus Chris thinks it makes a mess in the kitchen and not worth my time cleaning up.

Sept. Update

So I'm going to try and update the blog more than once a month, but life is really busy right now. Here's the latest in our family - Piper really enjoys sitting up and is practicing to do it all on her own, but we're not quite there yet.
Hanging out with Uncle Alwyne, he was kind enough to babysit one day for the entire day because our babysitter had a funeral to go to. He kept Piper right on schedule and she was exhausted the next day at daycare from all the fun they'd had.

We get this face a lot now - it's her old man face, she's gumming it and drooling a ton, so we officially believe teething season has begun.

These next few shots are from her five month photo session with her lamb chair. She turned 5 months on Sept. 2. She can't really fit in the chair anymore.

She was standing here all by herself, well she was leaning on the lamb and her crib.

This is the modeling shot. As you can see she's getting so big.

So she does these crunches to work on those abs. Actually she does this to see what Chris and I are doing in the kitchen.

Her new beanie hat - so cute - thanks Gramma (mom)

a new addition to her room

Chris also hung this shelf finally. And he finished staining Bash's bookcase which has been in our garage since Dec. 2 points for him because I have not finished taking down the border in the kitchen.

Watching a preseason football game with dad on the couch. I'm sure this will be their usual Sat. position.

Her new trick - grabbing both feet!

Her new toy from Ellie and Tilly - an exersaucer! Although she really enjoyed it more the first day when her friends showed her how to use it. Too bad they're not at our house all the time to help Piper play with it.

She's rolling around all the time now, sometimes she'll roll over twice or three times in a row. She's also reaching for things.

After bath time

HER FIRST FEEDING OF CEREAL!

She didn't understand why Chris was taking so many pictures.

So she stuck her tongue out at him

She did a good job and ate all the cereal although I think she's more interested in the spoon and the food her parents eat rather than the cereal.

Mmmmm! Can't wait until veggies, especially if they add to the number of dirty diapers like cereal has.