Halloween Birthday

Another birthday for Wes! This year that means....

Festive decor!

Costumes galore!

Games and fun!

 Pumpkins all done!

That's enough of my sad attempt at rhyming. Happy Birthday Wes! More pics here!

iPhone Photo Dump - October

Here's some of our October...

A gift from Mona.

New headband from Auntie Jenn.

Playing with her feet while mommy shops.

Tricks with Daddy.

Jumping!

More fun with feet.

Trying out some toast.

Carpooling with Noah.

Exploring.

Great Grandparents in October

Great Grandpa Carlos and Great Grandma Diane came to visit me again in October.

I got to jump with Great Grandpa!

And they brought me a ducky!

They make me happy!

Seven months

Happy 7 months Emeline! They say after 6 months, life with a baby is a roller coaster. It has already felt like one, but I'm beginning to understand the saying. This has been a month of movement! Emeline mastered the double roll and can now transport herself by rolling. She can also bounce in a sitting position and move slowly toward an object. Watch out, scooting here we come! She's also lunging for objects from a sitting position, then landing on her tummy, and then rolling around, which makes for me putting her down in one spot, and returning to find her in another.

She still loves to bounce, in arms, in a jumper, anywhere. Bounce bounce bounce! Voices are getting louder too. Happy sounds are louder and more expressive, and sad sounds can be ear piercing. But I think that's mostly due to the fact that we've got two front teeth poking through. Ouch!

Food has been a fun adventure also. Her favorites are avocado and oatmeal, not mixed, but we haven't tried that yet. Sweet potatoes were alright, while nectarines and bananas got the boot. We've been mixing oatmeal with bananas to disguise them, and so far so good, but we haven't reattempted the nectarines yet.

Here are some of our 7 month photos. I think Emeline is also understanding how to smile for the camera. :) At least she was today. You can see in the last photo how she loves to bounce in place :)

Seven months. 19 lbs 8 oz

We have a roller

Emeline almost did the second half of this trick just after she was 4 months old, but hasn't really done it much since. She's been doing the first half pretty regularly since just before turning 5 months, but now at almost 7 months she's finally put the two together!

She debuted her new trick today while I was on the phone with my mom. While multitasking, she almost rolled herself off the landing in our living room. I moved her down to the lower level so she wouldn't fall and she just did it again.

As I'm writing this post, she just showed off her skills to Dad by rolling her naked self over on the kitchen table while trying to get dried off after a bath. So I think it's official: We have a roller.

Here's a video where I tried to get her to do the full roll, and lucky me, she indulged me! It's a bit long, but you also get the bonus of seeing how she likes to explore different textures, here on her play mat. Happy rolling! I think my job is about to get a lot harder!

My favorite smile

Sour patch kid

If you recall, we let Emeline suck on a nectarine a while back. She seemed to be into it, so I was looking forward to letting her eat them once solid foods came around. We had nectarines from our tree that I froze to keep for later, so I thawed them, cooked them up, pureed them, and then strained them, all with love and excitement for Emeline to finally get to eat them.

Now before you rush down to see the pics, here's what she thought of other foods so far.

rice cereal - meh - edible, but not great
avocado - yum yum! - ate it all and then some
bananas - boo - ate some, but wouldn't open her mouth after a while, a little better results when mixed with the cereal
sweet potatoes - yum - seems to like it, and definitely eats it, but sometimes gags, a funny sight to behold!
nectarines - need I say more?

Those cheeks!

That's what people say when they see Emeline. "Those cheeks!" Wes and I L-O-V-E those cheeks also, but what really gets us is that her cheeks are parallel with her lips. Whenever we get that profile view where we can barely see her mouth, it just cracks us up. We love those cheeks! Here's our latest attempt to capture a good profile.

Wedding visits

We had a few quick family visits for my cousin's wedding this weekend. Congrats Nicole & Jesse! Sorry, we didn't take our camera to the wedding, so you'll have to check out pics on their blog when they get settled :)

Emeline got to meet some new family members. She met my dad's brother Uncle John and his wife Aunt Susan, unfortunately we forgot to get the camera out. The next day she met my dad's other brother Uncle Rick and cousin Katie. Emeline was all smiles and jumping!

And of course she loved her time seeing Grandpa David and Grandma Susan, though she did make our arms tired :)

Tongue and Cheek

Concentration

I love to watch the concentration with which Emeline plays with things. It's as if she's studying every nook and cranny of an object, exploring the textures with her fingers.

After dinner, we wipe her up with a washcloth, and she loves to play with it. She loves washcloths. She will carefully finger the terry cloth, tag, and edging. She'll hold it up put it down. I think her concentration is beautiful.

October Grandma Visit

Emeline had a visit from Grandma Chris last week. Grandma was super excited to see Emeline, and Emeline felt the same way. She took to her right away, all smiles and full of cooing and babbling for Grandma.

Grandma even got to witness the first avocado tasting, and we were very grateful for the extra hands with Emeline.

And it was Grandma who got the big smiles in the jumper :)

We had fun Grandma, come back soon!