6 months

6 months old - Now she's sitting up in the chair on her own!

Lena is now 6 months old, and we are finding this is such a fun age.  As always, she still has her sweet, silly, and happy personality.  I have so much to report!
At her 6 month checkup, Dr. McDavitt was once again impressed with how she is growing and developing.  Lena was so serious and really seemed to be taking it all in.  She kept watching Dr. McDavitt and looking around the room like she was trying to figure it all out.  She weighed 15 lbs and 2 oz. and measured 25 & 1/4 inches long.  She continues to grow along with her curve and is staying within the 25-50 percentile.  Poor girl had to get 4 shots, but she handled it like a big girl.  Her next appointment will be at 9 months.

Silly girl :)

After the appointment, we had something special to look forward to.  We went to visit Mimi and Poppa at their new house in Beaumont.  We were so excited!  It was so nice to be together, and we enjoyed getting to see all of our Beaumont family too.  Aunt Beth brought Sadie, and Lena wasn't too sure about her the first night (I guess she takes after me in that way).  But after being around her and getting used to the idea, she warmed up to her for the rest of the weekend.

Playing with Aunt Beth is so fun!

Hanging out with Joanie

 

Scotty, Grandma, and Crissy came to visit.  Luke did too.

We decided to have a little photo shoot

The weekend before was a big milestone for us.  Cory and I hosted a wedding shower for our friends Ronnie and Kelly.  We decided that it would be best to let Honey and Pappy keep Lena at their house for the night.  She was such a good girl and had lots of fun with them.  It was nice for us to be able to enjoy our time with our friends knowing she was in good hands too.  We look forward to doing that more often :)

Playing with all her toys at Honey and Pappy's

Lena is really sitting up so well now.  It's wonderful because she is so playful now too, so she can play with things while sitting up, laying on her back, or laying on her tummy.  She has been rolling around for months, and started turning on her tummy a few weeks ago.  She could pretty much turn around in the opposite direction, which helped her get to toys and things within her reach.  She has also been getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth.  When we saw her doing this, we knew she was starting to figure out how to crawl.  Then the other day, while Beth was watching her she started to do some belly crawling.  We couldn't believe it when we came home and Beth said she had scooted from the coffee table all the way under a chair about 5 feet away.  This morning, she has just been scooting all around the house.  I put her in the middle of the floor to play in our room, and before I knew it she was in the bathroom.  I put her down in the living room, turned around to fix her bottle, and she had scooted under the coffee table.  I guess we are going to have to start being more careful of what we leave within her reach.  Let the fun begin!  :)

She decided to explore instead of play with her toys

Playful girl

Last weekend my mom came into town and we took Lena to have her picture taken.  I wanted a professional job done while she could sit up but before she started crawling.  Looks like we did it just in time.  We went to Picture People at the Galleria Mall.  I wanted a traditional picture with Lena in a pretty pink dress and soft white leather shoes, and then I also wanted a more cutesy and trendy picture of her in only ruffled bloomers and a big flower bow.  She was so serious at first - like she has been lately in new places.  It took a lot of effort on our part to get her to smile.  Thank goodness my mom and Beth were there to provide additional entertainment.  We ended up getting some really cute pictures - serious, sweet, and silly.   

Lena has expanded her taste buds since my last posting.  She now eats rice cereal with either green beans or sweet potatoes at night.  She is a bigger fan of the sweet potatoes, but she will eat some of the green beans.  Our next vegetable that we're going to try is peas.  Hopefully she'll like them.  She has also been eating oatmeal in the mornings on the weekends for the past few weeks.  This past weekend I also gave her some apples with her oatmeal.  She liked them, but not as much as I would have expected.  We have been using sign language to teach her "milk" and "eat", and I really think she understands them.  It's so cute to see her raise her eyebrows or when she smiles when we say/sign "milk" and "eat".  Lena has still been getting a mixture of breastmilk and formula.  Lately it has been mostly formula though.  A few weeks ago, I stopped nursing her at night because I didn't think she was getting enough.  And since then it seems like I need to supplement more and more with my frozen supply or with formula.  I was a little sad at first, but I just had to remind myself to be thankful that she and I had such a pleasant experience starting from the day she was born.  So I'm not sure how much longer we'll be doing a mixture.  The good news is, she has gotten the "good stuff" for 6 months and she likes the formula just as much.  So she'll be happy regardless.

Silly girl in the morning before leaving for school

Lena is still loving daycare.  Her teachers are soooo sweet, and we can tell that they love her and she loves them.  They sing songs, play with toys in developmental ways, do art projects, and all kinds of other fun activities.  They always tell us how happy, loving, alert, and active she is.  I think she is the only baby in her class that is sitting up on her own and now she's the only one that is scooting around.  They said she was all over the place today.  It definitely helps to know she is in a wonderful environment with such caring people.

Playing at day care

Sitting up in the tub - such a big girl

All clean

Cheering for Sally at the Volleyball game

Little Ladybird with Travis