Avery's Adventures: 7 months

Happy 7 months baby girl!!

I finally got her official 6 month stats:

Weight: 19.2 oz. 

Height: 27 1/2 inches (98%!!)

LOVES her big brother!!

I thought maybe the flower wouldn't look so big now that she is older ... nope, still big! But it's so cute on her!! 

New developments:

• She has 2 teeth! Her 2 bottom teeth came in at the same time. She was a little fussy for a couple of days, but it wasn't too bad.

• Getting so close to crawling! She gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. She then reaches forward and falls flat. Then she gets mad and screams. She does kind of move around a little bit, kind of scooting/pushing herself. She will be crawling any day now!

• She eats food and she loves it! We didn't start right at 6 months because we were on vacation and I didn't wan to deal with it while we weren't home. We started about 2 weeks ago and she has absolutely loved it. So far she has had rice cereal, squash, sweet potatoes, prunes and bananas. She has loved it all, except bananas.

• She is STILL eating TWO times in the middle of the night. It is not every night, but it is most nights. I am very frustrated and not sure what to do about it. I was hoping that starting solids would have helped, but it doesn't seem to.

• She has also started waking up between 4:30-5:30am and wants to stay awake. Not cool.

• Naps are going pretty good. We put her down and she will sometimes cry for about 2-5 minutes, but then fall asleep. Most of the time she will nap between 1-2 hours. Sometimes she wakes up in 30 minutes and that's frustrating. She takes 3 naps a day.

• The stranger anxiety is starting to get worse. If I walk in a room and don't go directly to her, she starts screaming. She will also cry if other people pick her up. I hope it stops.

• I now can say that she tolerates her car seat. She doesn't always scream when she is in it. If she is well rested and happy then she will usually sit pretty contently. But when she screams ... she really screams!

• Her hair is becoming a lot more thick. I also feel like it is coming in a little darker than it is. I wonder if it will go dark.

• Her eyes still seem to be changing color. I think they will be hazel.

• She pinches really hard! She is always grabbing whatever skin she can and she won't let go. 

• She loves Gavin! She wants to be wherever he is. She loves when he pays any attention to her and wishes he would do it more often!!

Some of you have asked about the onesie in the picture. Yes, it is the same one in all of the pictures. I wanted it to be the same so I picked one that I had in a 12 month size, thinking it would fit her all year. But it is quickly becoming too small, so we will see if it lasts! The headband will definitely not fit the whole year, so that will be changing for sure next month! I feel like she looks a lot different this month?

Santa Barbara 2012

Each year the swim team attends a swim meet in Santa Barbara over the 4th of July weekend. Luckily Andrew and the kids are able to tag along with me and it ends up being a pretty fun weekend! 

Because I need to have Avery close to me, the team puts us in a hotel just across the street from the pool. It makes it really nice that Andrew can stay at the hotel with the kids and I can just run across the street, feed Avery, and then go back to the meet. 

Santa Barbara has a cute little zoo that Andrew took Gavin to last year, so he decided to go back there again this year. 

The zoo added two new little animals, named Katniss and Peeta.

Gavin had a great time running around and looking at the animals.

By far the best part of the zoo is feeding the giraffes! Gavin did this last year and loved it. We knew that we had to let him do it again this year.

He was very disappointed when it was time to leave.

Avery had a fun time hanging out in the room.

Later that night, after the meet was over, we went on a walk down to the Santa Barbara pier. We stopped at  this little park area where they had a pond with fish and turtles and ducks.

We had some bread and thought we would let Gavin feed the fish. We thought they would like it, but they actually didn't seem to care at all. We also looked for a sign to make sure we could feed them and couldn't find anything. Once we were done, we found the sign that said no feeding the fish! Oops!

We then walked out to the pier. It really is gorgeous.

The fog was rolling in and it looked so cool.

Every year that we have gone to Santa Barbara I have wanted to get the ice cream on the pier. This year we finally did! It was delicious!

Gavin and Andrew hamming it up for the camera.

While we were hanging out in the team area by the pool Gavin asked me to take a picture of him with his cookie.

After the meet was over we headed down to Laguna to meet up with the Jarvises again. I made Andrew stop in Ventura at the most delicious fish and chips place, Andrias. YUM!!  While waiting in line we saw a fire truck and Gavin and I had to go inspect. The firemen were so nice and let Gavin sit on the truck. He loved it!

YUM!

Another fun Santa Barbara trip!

Avery's Adventures: Month 6

This was a really fun month with Avery! She really is developing her own unique personality and it is so much fun! 

Gavin just can't let a photo shoot go on without him!

New Developments:

• Sitting up. She is really unstable when she sits up, but she is starting to be able to sit on her own.

• She has started making a lot of noise. She loves to hear her voice and will just babble to herself.

• She is the grabbiest baby. If you are holding her then you can't have anything in your hands or she will grab it. So it's impossible to do anything while holding her.

• She is really busy. She always has to be doing something. She doesn't ever just sit there.

• She can now sit in her high chair which  makes meal times a lot better. We are constantly having to pick up her toys for her, but it's easier than having to hold her.

• She is still eating two times in the night!! I am definitely ready to be done with the night feedings. I'm just not sure how to convince her that she is. Luckily she will go back to sleep pretty quickly (most of the time).

• Naps are not awesome. She cries until she finally falls asleep and then won't sleep very long. It's very frustrating.

• She is starting to develop a little bit of stranger anxiety. I really hope that it doesn't get worse. 

• Still hates the car seat.

• She started swim lessons and she loves the water!! 

• I don't have her official stats yet. I will post after her next appointment.

6 month progress:

The lost birthday video

I was downloading pictures and videos from my phone to the computer and realized I had forgotten this awesome video on Andrew's birthday blog post.  I took this video while we were waiting for Andrew to get home. Gavin was very excited to give him his balloons and to tell him "Happy Birthday!" I thought I would video him being super cute and I ended up with this surprising video!!

What you get when your 2 year old takes your camera

Gavin took my camera from me while we were waiting in line at Disneyland. I tried to teach him how to properly use the camera, but it didn't work out so well. This is what we got:

Cars Land!

On July 5th we went to Disneyland with Annette, Margaret, Josh, Hillary and JJ! It was a pretty warm day and it was very crowded, but we still had a great time!

Our first stop was to go check our the new Cars Land! Gavin was in absolute heaven! He had this look on his face like "hey! I've seen this place before!"

The tractors (or dump trucks, as Gavin calls them) are definitely the favorite.

Disney did a great job, as expected. You definitely felt like you were walking right through Radiator Springs.

We took a little break from Cars Land and went in to A Bugs Life to ride some of the less crowded rides.

While Gavin and I were waiting in line for the bumper cars, we had fun posing for the camera.

Gavin found a friend in line that had some great sunglasses. He then wanted to try mine on.

Margaret took Gavin on the train there.

Avery had a fun time and did pretty well just hanging out in her stroller.

Margaret took good care of Avery and helped us out all day by holding her.

Gavin joined Hillary and JJ for Luigi's tire ride. I think they had a fun time!

The definite highlight of Cars Land is the Mater/Tractor ride.

I wasn't on the ride with him, but it looks like Gavin had an amazing time!

Annette had double hip surgery in May so she rented a wheel chair for the day. It helped us to bypass some of the lines on the rides.

Hillary was also a big help with Avery throughout the day. It is so nice when there are others around to help us watch the kids!

After stopping for a delicious dinner at the Penguin cafe, we called it a night. We were all exhausted and had a really fun day!