6 months!

While we were gone Gwen turned six months old! Hard to believe I have been a mother that long. When traveling with Gwen it is amazing how many people stop to talk to us. I mean so many people tell us that Gwen is a beautiful baby. Gwen revels in all the attention. She might not understand what is being said, but she knows when people coo and smile at her and she LOVES it! Anyway, the changes this month seem pretty monumental. We definitely know how to sit up (and we have no problems letting you know if that is not what we want, right Terry!)

Gwen also does push-ups and pushes herself backwards. She is also starting to put her butt under her. She can really get herself around the room backwards.

She really gets irritated though because she always wants what's in front of her and can't reach it because she either pushes it away or goes away from it. She can now pass objects from one hand to another. She also just started twisting her wrist and staring at her hand like she is Miss America waving at a parade, but I don't think she knows that she is racing.
She still loves standing and just recently learned about jumping. She loves to jump/bounce. Usually I put her in her jumper in the mornings while I eat breakfast, she loves it. (Unfortunately I can't put a video of her squealing and giggling and carrying on like she does when she is in the jumper.)

Gwen is also taking a large interest in animals. She loves doggies. She just wants to touch the dogs, but unfortunately she only knows how to slap, fortunately she has only met three dogs and they all are good enough dogs that they don't care if she slaps them.

We also celebrated our first Christmas. Santa told me that whenever the camera lady and I turned away she would smile at him like 'ha ha they'll never catch me smiling'.Gwen seems to love men. Every time she sees one she does her fake cough and smiles and squeals or whatever she can do to get their attention. (Eric is already looking into shotguns!)
Sleeping is still a challenge, not at night, but during the day, but then again we haven't really been home to get her scheduling down. I guess that is a thing for us to update you on next month.
She is becoming a better and more even tempered everyday. She really only fusses is she is hungry or tired. But Eric and I can always get a giggle and smile out of her. She certainly does like to chat to us. And her latest thing is raspberries. Too cute.
Well, until next month or whether it is in a couple days when I update about our NM have a great day. Oh and our 6 month appointment is next week if you'd like to make estimates again, leave us a comment. As a reminder this is was our last appointment info from Nov 16th: Wt: 15lb 8 oz (75-90%) Ht: 25 in (75%)

We're back!

Hallelujah! We didn't think we would make it out but we did! Our flight out of El Paso was canceled. They put us on a 4pm flight getting into Reagan at 12:30am. I begged the man, what can you do for me, I have a baby and I don't want to be getting back that late. Our original flight was at 12:50p. We had already been on the road since 9am. UGH! So he got us standby for the 2:25 flight and we got on...we were so excited! We flew to Houston and our flight was to leave at 7p. As you all might now, Houston was/is having pretty bad weather, and the plane had to be deiced, the pilot said it would be 5 minutes. 4 hours later we were finally in the air. By the time we got home it was 4:30am. When we were walking down to pick up the luggage we heard that the flight they had booked us on if we didn't got on the standby flight would have gotten in at 5am, which probably would have meant that we would have gotten stuck in rush hour traffic. So, in a couple days we will probably have updates on the trip, with pictures. We had a great time. Gwen was calm and didn't cry, better than Eric and I, I think.

What a difference 6 months makes

Today we all went and saw Riley (and Brian and Reyna.) I finally got to hold Riley because this time she was awake and not eating! YEAH! I am still convinced that Gwen was never that small. Riley felt like a feather compared to our chunker. Gwen is still fascinated with Chloe, the dog. She touched Chloe as gently as a 6 month old can. Riley is so cute. Hard to believe she is 2 weeks old. Seems still like a newborn, so tiny and perfect. Gwen was so much larger I don't think she stayed in the newborn stage that long. Maybe it was because my Mom was here and Grandmas trump Moms for holding babies (unless the baby is crying of course!) Or, maybe I just don't remember that far back who knows.
Reyna trying to get a reaction from Gwen.

Look, its me holding the little feather! YEAH!
Many of you know we are starting Gwen on "solids". She is only getting tastes at this point, but these are the faces that we see when trying to feed little one "solids". She just doesn't seem to enjoy the foods yet.

How can I get continue to give foods to this child when she makes these faces at us!?
We are heading for New Mexico to see the Grandparents. We won't have internet connection so I won't be able to post. If I have time I will try and post tomorrow. But, I haven't started packing yet, so we will see. If not have a great week. We will most likely have many pictures when we get back, we got a new memory stick for the camera it now holds 200+ pictures. Now, if I ever had had more than 200 pictures on my camera one time I think that some of the readers of this website would be very upset, yes? I could take 45 minutes of video though.

Elusive baby

Miss Gwen is still struggling to crawl and still doing that crazy looking up/behind her.

I have been trying to get a picture of her look of determination, I don't think this picture shows it, but I am getting there. Once I get a larger memory stick for my camera, hopefully I'll be able to capture the elusive look of determination and butt in the air.
Gwen has some new toys. I think she likes all these new toys, plus it allows us variety during play time.
She holds these balls with her fingertips, pretty funny.
Here is our progress, pretty good, I think. We only have about 4 feet left in the dining room! Pretty soon we will be able to party! Tonight was pretty difficult, we had to work out that floor outlet, we have another to work out tomorrow night.
Oh, and as a clarification-Gwen does not respond to stink, stinkbutt or any other smelly nickname. She is still not responding to her name either.

Getting ready to crawl?

Well, maybe, but she is going to possibly start crawling backwards. I couldn't really get a good shoot, but she is starting to lift up her butt and get her knees under her, but so far she only goes backwards. And I think most of her movement comes from when she lifts up with her arms. She probably could have gotten pretty far as you see from these pictures except I had her pretty close to the flooring.

This is her latest thing, she is really starting to crane her neck around. At times, she almost looks like she is trying to touch her butt with her head. Silly girl.
So, for archival purposes, this is our progress on the hardwood floors. We possibly finished 3 feet today, (never really measured yesterday) after Eric finished work, gosh he is a hard worker! At this rate we might finish the dining room before this weekend. That would be awesome. It would be great if we could finish this project before Eric starts classes, that only leaves us 2 weekends.

I have to say I am SO excited about the flooring. The floor looks so great, I think we are both very happy with the color we picked out.

The meeting

Well, we FINALLY met baby Riley. Unfortunately, I didn't even get to hold her or anything, but I saw her. But, I am convinced that Miss Gwen was never that small. Actually, I know that she was, but she was in utero when she was that small, and I didn't get to hold at that age. Riley was sleeping when we got there, she woke up, ate and went back to sleep. Gwen entertained Brian and Reyna by being overtired from refusing to nap. What a pain! She took a long time to get to sleep tonight, was the banging from her parents working on the hardwood floor keeping her awake? But, anyway, here is a picture of Gwen with Chloe, she was very patient with Gwen. No pictures of Riley and Gwen yet, but maybe one day!

So now we have a third of the dining room done. This might possibly be the longest month, we'll see.
Today during bath time we tried to see if Gwen knows her name yet. She often turns when you say her name, is that because you say her name or because you are talking and she is interested in that. We tried to do that. Eric decided to do a control, he said 'Hey stinkbutt', she turned to Eric. I said 'hey stinkbutt', she turned to me, but she didn't necessarily turn when we said Gwen. The question is does she think her name is hey, because I am not convinced she knows her name is Gwen.

Please pardon our progress!

Yet again we have started working on the house we are going from this:

with all this:

to this:

Thanks to Uncle Bill and family for coming up today and helping us get started. Eric and I will be doing this for the rest of our life. They were joking that Eric might finish his degree before we finish the floor. I don't know, we'll see how it goes. I am slated to helping Eric in the evenings so if I don't get to posting while Gwen is sleeping will will probably be light reading this week.
Pictures from today:

So now you know what we are up to, hopefully life will become less hectic and we can visit baby Riley, now that we are back in town and off quarantine!

Visit to Great-great's house

The day after Christmas we drove in Mom's new car to Great-great 'Ant' & Uncle Jack's house. We had a lovely time. But Gwen, being a baby of her own freewill decided to sleep instead of visit with our cousins who came specifically to see her, but I enjoyed visiting with them. I mean when we were in FL Gwen decided to take 2 hour naps. We haven't had an opportunity to really test if that will continue on a regular basis.

Yes, we have a obsession with spoons, do you think we are ready to eat?

Karen (first cousin twice removed) and Gwen
No pictures of Gwen with Percy (the dog), but they definitely had a interest in each other.

So, after the visit to the great-great's house we drove back and Miss Gwen would NOT go to sleep. Took about 2 hours to get her to stop screaming, calmed down and eventually to sleep, seemed like forever though. The next day she was out of sorts, we thought it was because she had a lack of sleep. The next day, the day we were leaving, Gwen broke out into rash all over her body. She was acting normal though, we don't know if it was the bananas we had given her, but I gave her bananas yesterday and she has not broken out. So, I guess it was nothing, or something we will figure out in later. We had a good time in FL, lots of fun, we enjoyed seeing everyone, if we missed you, hope to see you next time.

Since we have been back, we have been pretty busy, unpacking and being in quarantine. New Year's Eve we visited Eric's grandma Edie.

We had a nice time, but Gwen was being herself and a little hard to visit with, she has become a little Mommy-centric.

More from Christmas Day

Well, I haven't finished posting about our Christmas trip, so now that I have a couple minutes. But, first things first, Happy New Year! I hope 2007 has more bright spots than 2006! Gwen sitting in my rocking chair, ok, well, I am probably to big for it now, but it was given to me on my second Christmas. If I am not mistaken, my Dad refinished it several years ago when some of the neighbors children were having children.

Here are some pictures with my new camera...yes I got a new digital camera for Christmas, what do you think, better pictures? Christmas day, Gwen entertaining us after dinner with a spoon.

Oh, if you would like to see the video (taken with the new digital camera) of Gwen eating drop me and email or leave a comment (to leave a comment click on the comment link, you can post under anonymously if you don't have a blogger account).

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas. Our Christmas was a success. As you can tell, Gwen seemed to enjoy opening presents. Oh, look it makes noise, perfect.

All done. Gwen liked the paper very much...red is her favorite color, at this point.
These are from our 'first Christmas' before we left MD and I hadn't posted them yet.
Every child should have a picture where their mean Daddy put a bow on their head, yes?
Wow! It is glittery and the pieces move.