6 Months

Happy 1/2 Birthday Juliet!

 Juliet is now 6 months old! 

At her well check she weighed in at 15lb 11oz (50%)

(Laila was 14lb 4 oz - 25%)

and is 27 inches (95%)

(Laila was 26.5 inches - 75%)

She is sitting up (getting stronger and more sturdy every day), rolling all over the place and spinning on her tummy to get to the things she wants, grabbing at EVERYTHING and bringing it to her mouth, squawking, cooing and babbling. She still doesn't have any teeth but is drooling a lot and her doctor said her gums are definitely swollen, so it's only a matter of time before those bottom 2 teeth cut through. She LOVES walking around in circles in her entertainer and would much rather spend time in that than her jumperoo these days. She has gotten on her knees a few times so crawling could be around the corner. Mommy is not looking forward to that quite yet! 

Her sleeping habits have continued to be very inconsistent and she is once again waking at least 2x a night to eat. We have been much less diligent/strict about sleep training with her because when we let her CIO it wakes up Laila across the hall which we hate! It's been much easier to nurse her back to sleep when she wakes up than to let her fuss herself back to sleep. Hopefully once her teeth pop through she will start sleeping longer stretches again but we will see. 

Juliet is wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes now and 6-12 month sleepers. She is still in size 2 diapers but will probably be moved up to 3s after I get through all of the 2s I have left. Her hair is getting lighter by the day (she is also sporting a major mullet in the back), and has very light and bright blue eyes. Her smile is contagious and she is smiling all of the time! 

The song she likes most is "hokey pokey". She loves listening to Laila sing it and you can almost always distract her from crying with this song. Laila also loves to do the hokey pokey with her. She loves to be held, especially by Mommy, but is starting to reach out for Daddy sometimes too, which he loves! My favorite time with her is in the morning when she wakes up, I bring her into bed with me to nurse her and we snuggle for a while before I go to get Laila up. She is always super content in the morning and so fun to just snuggle with and love on.

She is still nursing and eating solids 2x a day. She has tried a number of fruits and vegetables now and also loves eating puffs and drinking water from her sippy cup. 

Videos

Here's a video of Laila that just melts my heart and a video (I am assuming mostly for grandmas) of Juliet moving and shaking. Enjoy. Or ignore. Whichever you please.

Beans and Cheerios

I have been trying to come up with some new ideas to keep Laila's attention and start teaching her a little bit as she's getting closer to pre-school age. I decided to do a sensory box with some uncooked black beans and she has had a ball playing with it over the last few days. She fills the ice cube trays with the beans, we count with them, she touches/feels them and pours them from cup to cup. She likes "teaching" Juliet what she is learning too. Juliet is learning how to eat Cheerios and can occasionally pick them up and get them to her mouth. It's kind of just an accident when she actually accomplishes it at this point, but she's staying occupied none the less! 

Princess Phase

Thanks to Laila's introduction to her first Disney movie (Cinderella) a few months ago, we have officially entered the Disney Princess phase of toddler-hood.  Laila now has a Cinderella dress, a Minnie Mouse dress, a pink princess dress and plenty of tutus which are in full and constant rotation here at Casa Vataha. Add a headband and jewelry and she's good to go. A typical morning looks like this (excuse the still-fat lip):

it's hard being a parent...

About a week ago Laila stubbed her toe and got a little cut. She has continued to bump it a few times since then and Collin noticed yesterday that it looked a little infected. We decided it looked worse today and she should probably been seen, so since it was Sunday I took her to urgent care. We walked into the waiting room, I was grabbing the paperwork to fill out and asked Laila to go sit on the couch. The next thing I knew I heard a crash and she was screaming. She had somehow tripped, smashed her face into the wooden armrest of the couch and blood was pouring out of her mouth. I didn't panic because I knew that would frighten her more, but inside was thinking "oh my gosh, she probably just knocked out 4 teeth, or bit through her tongue...".

I picked her up, ran into the bathroom, catching the blood in my hand trying to assess the severity of the situation. At this point she is crying so hard that she is spurting blood out everywhere and half the bathroom is covered in it. Thankfully, the nurse there came to our aid with some gauze for her to bite down on and we were slowly able to clean her up and the bleeding stopped relatively quickly. We finally ascertained that she had split the inside of her lip and nothing worse. Thankfully she did not need stitches!

This is her first big, real injury so I figured it should be documented.  As the day has gone on it has gotten more swollen but she's been such a champ! She is one tough little cookie...and I guess, if something like this is going to happen, no better place than in the waiting area at an urgent care clinic!

(picture is after she was cleaned up by me and the nurse...)

sitting up and smiles!

some randoms...catching up

We've been really busy around here and due to a baby who is choosing not to nap much right now, I haven't had much free time to keep up with the blog! She seemed to turn a corner today (or at least chose to nap today), so here we go...time to catch up!

precious girl in yellow.

she just never stops smiling.

sweet girl and her ever-present "purple babies"

my girls. juliet loves her jumperoo.

she's "striking a pose"

sucking her thumb!

teaching juliet how to use the iPad.

silly faces. she is very expressive!

kisses from chloe.

princess laila. she LOVES dressing up.

snuggly sisters. 

painting with water colors.

being a goofball.

Juliet is 5.5 months and Laila is 26 months. Laila keeps us entertained daily with pretty much everything that comes out of her mouth. She amazes us with her vocabulary and understanding of words. She is now often asking what certain words or phrases mean (especially when we are reading books to her), has finally (for the most part) figured out how to use pronouns correctly, will correct us if we say something incorrect, and just doesn't miss a beat. You really can't get anything past her. For example, the other day she wanted to wear black socks and I wanted her to wear white ones. I told her the white ones were her special Disneyland socks and they said "Laila's Disneyland Socks" on them. She looked at them, looked at me, and said, "Mama, there's no words on these socks." Conversations like this happen on a daily, if not hourly, basis. I really wish I could walk around with a tape recorder and just take down everything she says.

Some favorites just from today:
-I suggested she go play in her playroom on her own for a while and she responded, "OK, that sounds like a great idea Mama!" and went running off to her playroom.
-Collin took her for a date for ice cream and while they were eating she said, "I'm just at ice cream place with Dada, it's a good day."

She often says, "I GOTTA have..." or "I REALLY want/need..."  We are working on learning the difference between needing and wanting things, and the reality of not always getting what you want.

We are working on learning what it means to have good vs bad manners. I will praise her for doing something good and tell her that was showing good manners, and she will say, "Mama, talk more about things that are good manners." So we start listing other things that are good vs bad things to do.

She can basically sing any song through that she knows. It only takes her a day or two and repeating a song a few times for her to learn it. She continues to LOVE to sing and seems to have a good sense of pitch and singing on key. She can "read" a number of books as well now (meaning: she has memorized them).

She goes to a play group on Wednesdays while I am at bible study, and every time before play group she recites the rules I have set for her: "no pushing, no hitting, no pinching, share toys and HAVE FUN!" When I ask her on Tuesday nights what we are doing tomorrow, she says, "going to play group while Mommy learns about Jesus!"

She is becoming very independent and wants to do most things on her own now. She can climb into her own car seat and can get in her buckles, she climbs in and out of her stroller herself, can get in her booster seat, uses a big girl cup a lot of the time, has an opinion about what she eats and drinks, gets undressed and takes off her diaper before her bath by herself, and basically just tells me what she wants/needs when she wants/needs it.

Juliet is STILL not giggling but lights up our world with her smile. She is basically always smiling and it's just contagious. She rolls all over the place to get where she wants to go, has started on solids (still very inconsistently), enjoys being on her tummy and pushing herself up and has recently starting sitting up (not sturdily at this point but getting better every day!)  She has not been super consistent with sleep at night or naps, but on average is only up once a night between 3-5 and then back down until 7 or 8. Napping has been very inconsistent at this point.  I keep blaming it on teething but it's been weeks and still no teeth (which I am in no way upset about!).

She still loves her mama and is usually found in her favorite place - on my hip.  

California Adventure

On Tuesday, while my mom was in town visiting, we left Juliet at home with her and took Laila on a date to Disney. She was so excited so spend some "special mommy and daddy time" with us. We ended up just spending a few hours at California Adventure, going on a few rides and then watching the "world of color" show. We had such a great time spending some quality time with our big girl!

Mommy's 'Lil Pumpkins at the Harvest Farm