A Little Monkey Business

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Little Miss {six months}

My sweet daughter... how is it possible that you are already HALF a year old? It really does just seem like yesterday that we brought you home. You have filled our home with even more happiness, more joy, more laughs and more smiles. We can't even remember what it was like before you were here. You were just what we needed, baby girl. We love you more than words can express!

You weigh 17lb 12oz! That is the 80% for weight. You are 27 1/4 in. long and that is in the 91%! You are tall, girlie! Maybe you will be a basketball player! You wear mostly 6-9 month clothes but you can definitely wear 12 month also. For summer I am already buying 18-24 month stuff! You need to slow down sweet girl! You're growing so fast. You have the biggest leg rolls I've ever seen and I love every single chubby roll you have! Your brother was so skinny, the two of you are so different!

This is you at your 6 month check up! You were so funny!

This photo shoot was next to impossible to do because you are grabbing at everything! You would not keep your hands off the bumper, your pillow, the crib rails, your dress...everything!

(This is how it mostly went! Ha!)

You have done some special things this month... one of them being sitting up on your own! You did it the day before Christmas Eve. I just plopped you down and you stayed put! You rarely fall backwards now... only if Andrew decides it's time for you to lay down and gives you a ~~shove~~ gentle nudge. Ha! You are getting closer to crawling. You try so hard! You push up as high as you can with your arms and pull your legs up, but that bottom just won't get off the floor at the same time! You are working on it though!

I had to bring your daddy in to help you smile because you were so distracted with other things! Ha! So here you were, looking at him. You love your daddy so much. Maybe it's because he holds you all weekend long! Ha!

You have teeth! TWO of them! We noticed your bottom right one coming in first. Within a day or so, we felt the one right next to it. Now we can really see them! They are the cutest little teeth I have ever seen! You smile just right so they show and I love it. The best part is, you have still just been so happy and sweet- we never would have known you were cutting teeth. They don't seem to bother you at all! Let's hope it stays that way with the rest of them!

Daddy is gloating around here because you said your first word: Da Da! I am not sure it's officially your first word though since you don't necessarily associate it with your daddy- you say it all the time! Ha! Although I use it to my advantage in the mornings when we hear you on the monitor just chatting away in your crib saying "Da da da da da da da" over and over again! Ha! You also make other sounds that sound like words: "Hieeee" and "yah yah yah." It is pretty darn cute.

You may say "da da" but you are definitely a mama's girl. Lately you will get whiny if you see me and I don't pick you up! You could be perfectly happy in your jumperoo or playing on the floor with daddy, but when I walk by, you start to cry! Silly girl. I love that you are my girl, but I'm not sure how many more meals I can eat one handed while trying to keep you from pulling my placemat off the table, or how much more I can carry you around while unloading the dishwasher or throwing in a load of laundry. Although you do love to watch me do these things. You watch so intently with those big blue eyes (yes they are still blue!) My favorite thing to do with you is hold you high in the air and bring you down to my forehead and make silly noises- you giggle so much every time! A silly little belly laugh. I just love it!

Love those big beautiful eyes!

This picture inspired your favorite Christmas present from Ga Ga and Papa. This is the jumperoo at your day care (this was taken about 2 months ago). You absolutely go crazy over it. You love the one you got for Christmas. You just jump your little heart out and squeal and smile the whole time! I just giggle every time because I love watching your little legs go! You are so funny. This picture also sums up how well you are doing at day care (but makes me sad because of all the fun mommy is missing!) You love the girls and you reach for them in the mornings when I drop you off. They love you and tell me every day how sweet, laid back, adorable, happy and easy you are. I am so proud of you baby girl!

Feeding is going sort of slowly. This could be partly our faults for not keeping you on a good schedule with solids, but you aren't that crazy about them yet. You mainly just taste, bite the spoon and sometimes you'll keep some in your mouth, but mostly you just spit everywhere!

We are still working on getting through the veggies before we start fruit. I am thinking once you eat fruit you will decide you love to eat.

You have had carrots and peas so far.

You love to grab things- you grabbed the spoon and wanted to feed yourself! Miss Independent!

I am trying to let you be more independent and make messes. This was so hard for me to do with your brother! You will learn this about mommy- I do not like messes! Ha! I like clean kids and a clean and organized house! I am thinking you are going to be my child that deviates from my plan! Ha!

Luckily, you love your bath time! You start squealing the minute we go into the bathroom and when I lay you down to take your clothes off you just go crazy. Your legs start kicking and you squeal and smile so big!

This is your "I'm such a big girl" face! You shake your arms and your little legs just go to town and you get this tough look on your face!

Smiley!

All snuggly in your towel! You are sucking your thumb here, and you do sometimes, but much to my delight- you will now take a paci and keep it in your mouth! That is my persistency, because you certainly wanted nothing to do with it! It's taken 6 months girlie, but mommy won the war! Ha!

Now you have to have your paci and bunny blankie up by your face and you will immediately go to sleep. You have gotten on such a great schedule at day care. Where I miss those days of sleeping in with you, cuddled in my bed and you eating at random times every day, I have to say I love that you wake up every day at the same time (6am), talk so sweetly in your crib, and eat 6oz every 3 hours like clockwork. You take a couple of mini morning naps, and a 2 hour nap in the afternoons.

(This was taken on New Years Eve- you weren't quite 6 months yet but I just love this picture soooo much. It depicts your personality perfectly.)

Kerigan, you are just a bright and shining star. You are our "dolly girl" (as Andrew calls you) and you just light up the room with that smile. You smile absolutely all the time- at everybody. You just have the best little personality and we couldn't be more proud of you.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

road trip

Thank you all so much for your sweet emails, comments and facebook messages on my last post. I promise to update the story if and when we meet Dennis' family. He was such a sweet man- I feel I succeeded in telling the story that glorified God, and gave Dennis the recognition he deserves. I hope Dennis and Andrew's story touched even just one person enough to cause them to stop and think about how they can touch someone's life today and always!

Now... on to our road trip! The week after Christmas we were all still on break, so we decided it would be fun to take a little mini trip north once again to visit one of our favorite destinations! Minneapolis! My mom and I wanted to check out the after Christmas sales and my mom had a few more gifts to purchase which we thought would be fun to do afterwards and hit the sales!

Andrew was especially excited to ride the fly boat this time, since he has really gotten into the Wonder Pets since our last visit.

He had the time of his life! This was the first thing we had to do when we got there! The next stop was the Disney store! Andrew got one more gift from Ga Ga- a Cars 2 launch set that was on sale. Score!

Little miss isn't old enough yet to hit us up for toys! But she will be soon enough! The clothes are cute enough that we could spend our entire life savings just on clothes for her! Dangerous!

The most fun part for Andrew was staying in a hotel and getting to go swimming! We just wanted to have a relaxing time, so after we hit the Mall of America and IKEA, we headed to dinner and then back to the hotel to swim.

Even Kerigan got in the pool and enjoyed it! She wasn't too sure (it was a little colder than her bath water!) but it was actually heated pretty well so she could stay in for a bit.

Andrew's favorite thing- after his bath we all made hot chocolate in our hotel room- with extra marshmallows!

Andrew's new thing is acting silly when I try to take pictures of him. He thinks it is so funny! I usually laugh, until I get tired of telling him to say cheese, act nice, behave...over and over! Ha!

After a delicious breakfast at the hotel in the morning (we made our own waffles! Andrew loved it!) We went swimming some more...

You can see more of his silly antics! Ha! Seriously- this is what he does every time I tell him to say cheese!

I finally got a half-blurry shot of him in the whirlpool!

After we relaxed that morning, and packed up our things, we headed back to the MOA to catch the "train" (aka "light rail!") to downtown Minneapolis! This is something Ga Ga and Papa had been wanting to do with Andrew for a long time- they knew he'd love it! And he certainly did!

The light rail is just a tram type thing that goes on a little track across the city and stops periodically to pick up and drop off. Andrew thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. Ha!

Thanks for taking me on the train Ga Ga and Papa!

Craig insisted I take this picture! Ha!

Getting off the train and heading to Macy's!

There is Macy's on the corner!

The first stop at Macy's had to be the 8th floor display. This is one of my favorite things to do at holiday time. I have said this in previous posts, but when I was a little girl, we went to Minneapolis every year at Christmas time and my parents took me to the 8th floor. Every year they have a different theme, and then at the end is Santa! (Since we were after Christmas, Santa wasn't here... the ladies told us he went back to the North Pole!) But it was so funny because when I was little the REAL Santa was always here- in Minneapolis on the 8th floor. All the other Santa's were just his elves (my parents totally brainwashed me!) Ha!

This year's display (they've done the same for a few years now) was "A Day in the Life of an Elf," which I thought was quite appropriate since Andrew just really got into his Elf this year. He just loved the displays!

So much, that we went through it twice! The best part- it was after Christmas so there were hardly any people! In the past we've waited in 2 hour long lines all through the store to get up here! This was great!

And I could take all the pictures I wanted because no one was waiting for me!

The displays are so detailed... this is the Elf toy making room

I know... I have no words, either! Isn't she just a doll? She looks like she belongs in the elf toy factory!

My camera did something weird to Andrew's face here, but I still liked the picture!

This was Andrew's favorite scene- the barn with the reindeer! He was all concerned about where Rudolph was and he was not happy with my picture taking. He kept saying "No more pictures!"