Holy Moly!

Holy moly, our little girl is growing up!

"I've got two secrets...keep reading and you'll find out what they are!"

Secret #1:
This weekend Gloria started getting not one, but two teeth! They are her front, bottom two teeth. One is really starting to poke through. The other one hasn't really poked through the gum yet, but you can see where it is.

"I'm not ready to show you my teeth yet, but I will gladly show off my tongue!"

Secret #2:

And, Gloria started crawling/scootching forward! She hasn't mastered getting up on her knees and using them in conjunction with her arms quite yet, but she does get where she wants to. She's quite fast too!

Helping with the laundry

"Just checkin' my email! Did you send me anything?"

As you can see from these pictures, Gloria can stand up if she's leaning against the couch or ottoman. The other night she was standing for almost 10 minutes. I put a little toy on the ottoman and she would reach for it and grab it. Then she decided that she was going to help me re-fold my already folded laundry. I thanked her but told her that I didn't need her help, that she could just keep playing.

Gloria's menu

"Stop taking pictures and feed me more!"

On the 24th, Gloria tried papaya. She loved it! Rob tried it, made a face, and said if Gloria was his daughter she was going to make the same face and not like it either. He was wrong. It seems to be one of her favorite foods! She makes loud "mmm" sounds after she gets a papaya bite.

On the 27th, Gloria had acorn squash. She loved it too! She makes the same loud "mmm" for the squash as she does the papaya.

Tonight we introduced pears. Wouldn't you know - she loves pears too!!! Of course! She's been having some problems going to the bathroom and pears are supposed to be very helpful. Now I'll be able to put some pears or pear juice in her oatmeal and mix some pear juice with her water.

The next food on the menu is butternut squash. We'll probably do that on Thursday or Friday.

So far, just to keep it straight, Gloria has had:
rice cereal
banana
avocado
oatmeal
peaches
sweet potato
carrots
papaya
acorn squash
pears
(I think that's it.)

Quack, quack

"Whatchu lookin' at?"

Rob took the day off on Wednesday to spend with me and Gloria. We went out to breakfast as a family and fed Gloria her breakfast while we were there. She does so wonderful when we're at restaurants. I'm sure people see us coming in a with a baby and hope we don't sit by them, but Gloria surprises them all by being super content and happy.

Later in the afternoon, we took Gloria to feed the ducks at a pond by the zoo. There are always a lot of ducks and geese there in the summer. They are constantly getting fed by people so they are very friendly and a lot of the geese will even take a piece of bread from your hand.

"Look at all of the ducks!"

"This is FUN!"

Gloria was in great spirits the whole time. She kept sticking her tongue out and talking, watching the ducks and geese walk around.

See how close they come!

On Monday, Gloria was introduced to carrots. They were a hit! She ate them up - no problem. Just another food to add to her list of things she likes to eat.

"Mmm. Something new!"

"I'm a good eater."

Sweet potato face

"Hey there!"

Here are a few pictures from our 4th of July celebration (held on July 5). We ate dinner outside and set off some fireworks. Gloria really liked looking at the pretty colors, until they started popping. We didn't know that they were going to be loud. But, as soon as she started crying, the sound stopped and she was fine. I held her ears for the remaining noisy ones.

Gloria and (newly engaged) Auntie April

Trying to get the sparklers going


The man in charge of the fire(works)


"What's going on? Dinner outside and pretty fireworks!"

We did introduce sweet potatoes to Gloria last Thursday (the 17th). She enjoyed them thoroughly. We've given them to her many times since, and each time she eats them with as much enthusiasm as she did originally.

"Yum yum!"


"Will someone please clean my face off?"

The next day, the 18th, I made another batch of peach babyfood. Gloria is starting to tolerate bites of just peach, but enjoys them much better if they are mixed into her avocado. The peaches I used for this batch were so ripe and juicy that Rob and I couldn't stop eating slices of them. We wanted to see what Gloria would do with a slice of fresh peach, so we put one into her mesh feeder and let her go at it. She decided that it was delicious! She sucked on it and gnawed on it until all that was left was the pulp. Rob was holding her while she was eating the peach and they both got covered in peach juice.

"Hi. Just eatin' a peach."

"Gotta get out the last few drops of juice."

Since Gloria had enjoyed that slice of peach so well, I decided to freeze a few slices. Yesterday I put her in her highchair and gave her a frozen slice of peach in the mesh feeder. It took a minute for her to figure it out, but once she did she went wild. One minute there was a whole peach slice in the feeder, the next it was just a bit of pulp. As we continue to introduce other fruits, we'll make sure to offer her some fresh pieces and some frozen ones.

Gloria is really into reading books. She loves looking at the ones that have pictures of babies as well as the ladybug book that caught her attention when she was just a few months old. Rob used to walk her into our library where the ladybug book was sitting on the shelf. She always would turn her head to look at it when they were in there.

"I love reading books!"

Bob

"Who's that good-lookin' baby in the mirror?"

On Friday Gloria started telling me a story about her friend, Bob. Or at least that's what it sounded like to me. She's been saying "babababa." Sometimes she says it loud and sometimes she almost whispers it. She also started doing raspberries again - this time they are huge raspberries complete with lots of spit bubbles :) I have a video that I'll post later.

Firsts!

"Tub time!"

Gloria tried out her bath seat for the first time on Saturday! She seemed to enjoy it, even though she couldn't kick like she does when she's lying in the tub.

"I'm six months old and very silly!"
That's how I found her when I went in after her nap!

On Gloria's half birthday (aka 6 month birthday), she and I went to Meijer to pick up some groceries. She's been sitting very well on her own, so I decided it was time to try having Gloria sit in the shopping cart for the first time. I figured it was worth a shot - it would make shopping trips easier if I didn't have to carry her in a front or hip carrier. Well, what do you know?! Gloria did great. She was sleepy though. I'm sure if I had put her in a carrier, or just put her carseat in the cart, she would've fallen asleep.

"Shopping in style!"

I have a cart cover that I found at a thrift store, so I put that down, set her in the cart, and buckled her up. She had a good time looking at me and playing with her toys while I pushed her around getting what we needed.

Here's Gloria's 6 month birthday treat! Check it out!

It's half of a birthday cake!

I actually made a whole cake and gave half of it to my friend Susie who was hanging out with us on Monday. Rob and I don't need to eat an entire birthday cake by ourselves :)

Here's the entire cake.

The half that I gave to Susie.

On Monday, Rob and I whipped up a batch of peach babyfood. It was our first attempt at making our own babyfood that we had to cook first. Bananas and avocados don't have to be cooked before feeding them to Gloria. We cut the peaches up, boiled them until they were soft, and then ran them through a fruit strainer that attaches to our mixer. They turned out so well! We tasted them and wanted to eat them all ourselves, but of course we have to share with Gloria. She didn't mind them too much when she first tried them. But since Monday when we try to give her peaches, she will take one bite, make an icky face, and will not open her mouth for them again. She does, however, enjoy her peaches mixed with avocado but not with oatmeal.

Monday was also the day that Gloria figured out that she can scream very loud! Her first screams came while she was sitting in her high chair waiting for us to make some food for her dinner. It's not a hurt/scared/sad scream, but a fun scream that comes in the middle of her talking or playing.

Tonight I made a batch of sweet potato puree for Gloria. We'll introduce them to her tomorrow. I'm sure we'll get some good orange-faced pictures of her. And, if I have time, I'll make up a batch of carrot puree tomorrow so we can introduce those this weekend.


Since Gloria's been eating solid foods, Rob's noticed that her face is filling out - and that her thighs barely fit in the Bumbo seat! We go to the doctor on the 31st for her 6 month check-up - I'm predicting about 19 pounds!

"My two favorite people - Gloria and Rob!"

6 months

These last 6 months have flown by. Many of the days seemed like they'd never end and others ended when it seemed like they had just begun. Gloria has brought so much joy and laughter to our lives already. Every day we smile in awe at the wonderful baby she is. We couldn't ask for anything better than what we already have in Gloria.

January 15

January 23

February 15

February 23

March 13

March 28

April 11

April 23

May 13

June 2

June 17

July 4

July 12