Sunday, July 12, 2015

I can't believe my baby girl is already 6 months old!!  I feel like the first 6 months of her life went by much faster than Brooklynn's first 6 months, and I thought hers went by really quickly.  It must be because I am constantly busy with two kids now, that the time just seems to fly by at lightning speed.

Madison started eating baby food just about a week after she turned 6 months old.  We fed her rice cereal for about a day, then just started giving her veggies, then introduced fruit about a week later. She gagged when I gave her peas or green beans, and I still haven't gone back to those, but she seems to like everything else.  Watching her eat from a spoon made me laugh almost every time I gave her a bite.  It was all so new and unfamiliar to her.  She would stick her tongue out after every bite I gave her, and basically spit out all the food too.   It took a long time to get through those first few feedings, but it was so fun to watch her learn a new skill.  Her little hand would rest on my hand that was holding the spoon, and she would basically try and control my hand.  So funny!  She went from sticking out her tongue, to biting on the spoon after every bite.  I think it felt really good on her gums to just chomp down on that rubber spoon.  Now she's a pro at eating from a spoon.  Still no teeth yet, but I can feel a couple that just haven't broken through the gum yet.

She also learned how to roll over from her back to her belly, but would always have one arm stuck under her.  I'll admit that I probably don't lay her down on the floor as much as I should.  With every roll, she would start fussing once she got to her belly, because one arm was still stuck, and I end up having to go save her every 2 minutes or so.  She's gotten a lot better at sitting up in the grocery carts, or on the floor.  I still have to be right there in case she starts to topple over, but she's getting better at it!

She absolutely loves the water, loves when I sing "Ring Around the Rosie"(I can pretty much get her to stop whining whenever I start singing that.  She will look at me, and get the biggest smile.  Don't know what caused her love for that song.)  She loves to suck on the rag in the bathtub, loves being tickled, she kicks her little feet around all the time.  She's started pulling my hair(Awesome for me!)  and if Brooklynn lays her head on Madison's belly when she's laying down, it's only a matter of time before Madison pulls her hair too.  She loves being outside.  Sometimes right around 4pm she starts getting really whiny and I can just open the back door and stick her outside on the patio in her high chair, and she calms right down and will be content just sitting there for a while.

She'll only go to sleep for me these days.  I have to plan things around her nap/bedtime so that I make sure I am always there to be able to put her down for a nap, or the night.  Just last week I had to run home from a Relief Society Activity because every time Joe would try to lay her in her bassinet she would wake up.  Thankfully she had fallen asleep in his arms again and all I had to do was take her from him and lay her in her bassinet.

She has learned how to scream and sometimes she does it just for entertainment.  She really is one of the happiest babies I have ever been around.  When she gets tired she gets in this kind of hyper mood, and it's so easy to make her laugh.  She really has the cutest little laugh.  Brooklynn makes her laugh more than anyone else, and when those two get going, I just have to sit back and watch them and laugh myself.  I really hope with all my heart that they have a close, strong friendship throughout their lives and that they are always there for each other the way my sister and I are.

Everyone says she looks just like Joe, and people now think Brooklynn looks more like me since they've seen how much Madison looks like Joe.   She definitely has his genes because she can go off of little sleep, at least during the day, and she's also pretty regular when it comes to going #2.  I swear her dad goes like clockwork at the same time every morning, and she does too.  Pretty much every morning after she wakes up, she's got a nice surprise for me.  At least we get it out of the way at the beginning of the day=)

Brooklynn is such a little sweetheart too, and I am just in awe sometimes when she's playing or when we are in the car and she's rambling, and I tune in to what she's saying, she really is picking things up quickly and learning a lot.  She loves counting, and she's pretty good at saying the numbers, and now points to things and counts them pretty well for the most part.  She's also just taken an interest in holding the right number of fingers up sometimes when she counts.  She's really good at 1 and 5.  ha ha! When I put her down for her nap or bed, I sing to her, and one of the songs is "Five Little Ducks Went Out To Play" and as I sing I hold up my fingers and count down.  She sticks her little hand up too and will say "Mommy, help me!" and wants me to help her get the right number of fingers up.

She's such an incredible sister to Madison, and I really couldn't be more grateful for how much they love each other.  They both get SO happy in the morning when they see each other after a long night of being apart.  Madison will squeal and kick her feet when she see's Brooklynn.  Brooklynn loves helping take Madison's jammies off in the morning(ripping the buttons open), choosing her baby food, getting her toys when they fall off of her tray, trying to entertain her when she's fussy, and so much more.  She'll play peek-a-boo with her, and she tickles her all the time, and then she'll say "Madison, you like that?" and just giggle.  It really is super cute.  

She's working on her colors, and I think it's finally starting to sink in a bit.  At first she would just say "green" to everything I would ask the color of.  She LOVES m&ms(M&Mies) so I started giving her an m&m if she could tell me what color it was.  If she got it right she got to eat it, if she got it wrong, I did!=)  I got to eat a lot of m&ms in the beginning, but she's gotten a lot better and now I rarely do!  We've also been doing flash cards, and I think her Mickey Mouse show is teaching her some colors too.  I just love watching her learn new things.  

She'll say cute things like "Mom, you done?" or "Mom, what are you doin'?" She still says "I do it!" to almost everything.  She loves to do her make up, and will take my little blender sponge or my brushes and rub them all over her face.  She loves putting on lipgloss too and will say "lips mom?"  and that's her asking if she can put my lipgloss on.  She's very obedient for the most part, and she also has some ocd for cleanliness like her dad.  I can't really complain though.  She doesn't like to be messy, but she seriously is one of the messiest eaters.  She's gotten a little bit better, but thank heavens the girl wears a bib.

  She's obsessed with Mickey Mouse.  I ordered her a Mickey and Mini Shirt, and she was absolutely thrilled when she and Joe opened it.  She was SO excited and couldn't wait until morning to wear it.

She's a wonderful eater.  There isn't much she won't try or eat.  She LOVES greek yogurt, eggs, tuna, most fruits, pasta, beans of any kind, and so much more.  She'll usually eat whatever we eat, which is so nice.  I have learned to just put a bite of things she hasn't been fond of, on her plate whenever I eat it, and she's actually learned to like things she didn't used to like, such as tomatoes, avocado, broccoli, rice, and I'm sure there's more.  She actually wasn't a big fan of white rice until I put some Ketchup on it, like Uncle Loa and Aunt Vicki gave us growing up.  Joe said his mom was rolling over in her grave.  ha ha!

She loves church so much, and it really makes Joe and me so happy!  Even just seeing the building whenever we drive by, she yells out "Church!!!"  She mentioned Sister Staples, who is one of her Nursery Teachers, during the week this week.  She's never done that before.  Sister Staples and Sister West are her nursery leaders now and they both love her so much.  I took her to nursery today and Sister West said "I have missed you all so much!" and Brooklynn ran and gave her a great big hug.  When the closing hymn starts during sacrament meeting, Brooklynn gets so excited and yells out "all done!" and can't wait to go to nursery.  We went and helped clean the church yesterday as a family, with some other families in the ward, and Brooklynn stayed right by my side and helped me clean all the glass doors.  She sprayed the cleaner, helped wipe it off, and then she collected all the used paper towels and put them in a trash bag.  She's such a good helper.  She helps me unload the dishwasher, clean bathrooms, get dinner ready, helps pick weeds or rake, helps wash the car, helps me with Madison, and so much more.  I'm so grateful that she's so eager and willing to work.  I am really grateful that my parents instilled a good worth ethic in me and my siblings, and I really want to make sure that I pass that on to my kids.