7 months old!

I can't believe how fast time flies! My little girl is getting so big! She turned 7 months old last week! She is closer to her next birthday than she is to her original birthday! That seems so crazy to me!

Here are just a few things about my baby at 7 months:

Rachel weighs 22.3 pounds! (She lost .2 pounds this week, probably from all of her scooting!)

She is 28-ish inches long. ( I measured her myself and she is super wiggly)

She can pull herself to standing in her crib.

She is finally starting to get some hair! I am so excited about this that I had to take quite a few pictures of it!

I know I've already said this, but she is scooting! I love watching her scoot! It is so fun to see her starting to explore what ever room we are in. She hasn't ever quite left the room without me yet. She will sometimes start to go down the hall, but she never goes far enough that she can't see me.

She picks up everything she finds on the floor and puts it in her mouth. I can't even tell you how many times she gets something in her mouth and I don't even know about it until she starts choking on it. Also she gets mad when I try to get whatever is in her mouth out. She shakes her head and tries to keep me from getting in her mouth.

This is a little video I took a few weeks ago when she very first started scooting. My internet has been super slow and I haven't been able to upload it til now. She is a lot quicker and goes a lot farther now. I don't have to coax her to get her to scoot anymore either.

She loves to eat. . .big people food. She has taken to refusing any form of baby food (baby mum-mums not included, because they are a cracker which means they are big people food). I can't even get her to eat applesauce which she loved before!

She is now going to sleep in her crib and she spends the whole night in it, except for when she is nursing. She wakes up quite a few times to eat during the night and I don't know how to get her to sleep longer. I have tried upping the amount of calories she gets during the day to see if that will help, but so far it hasn't. She makes me tired.

She still loves to go outside. She doesn't even mind that it is so hot! The other day my mom was leaving the house and she opened the front door and Rachel bolted. I watched her to see how far she would go, and Rachel scooted all the way outside. She didn't go past the doormat onto the cement though, but it was pretty funny!

She loves to eat watermelon! Actually she likes pretty much any fruit, but she particularly likes watermelon because she can feed it to herself.

She just had her 1st Father's Day and unfortunately it was with out her Daddy. We got to see her Grandpa Bulloch the day before and her Grandpa Banks that day though. She has the best Grandpa's ever!

My little girl is growing so fast and discovering new things every day and I love it! I'm sure there are many more things that are new this month, but I'm a tired mommy and my brain doesn't want to think anymore. If only I could just get this girl to sleep through the night! I love being Rachel's mom! She keeps me busy and tired, but it is totally worth the work! I love this little girl!

Eating

Rachel loves loves loves to eat! She eats just about anything she can get her hands on, or that she can coax someone else into feeding her, unless she thinks it is baby food. If she thinks you are feeding her baby food she will absolutely refuse to eat it!

Here she is sucking on a chicken bone my dad gave her! She loved it and wasn't too happy with me when I took it away from her. What a funny girl.

This video is an example of what she does when she doesn't want to eat something. I love this little girl, even if she is a little naughty sometimes!

An Artist?

I often find myself wondering what Rachel will be like when she is older. What types of things will she like to do? Will she like to play the piano or will she like to play soccer? Will she want to dance or will she want to do karate? Will she be a singer or will she want to play softball? There are so many different things she could do. The other day she showed interest in being an artist. Well she showed an interest in the markers at least. She just wanted to eat them at the time, but maybe it is a sign of things to come?

Bed time is for squares

So as you know, I've been working on getting Rachel on a routine and on getting her to sleep in her crib. Ever since she started being more mobile she has been getting wigglier and wigglier. She has a hard time sitting still for any length of time. She doesn't cry as soon as I put her in her crib anymore because she knows that if she doesn't want to lay down and go to sleep, she doesn't have to. Here is an example of how our going to sleep routine goes almost every night. This is after we have wound down by reading stories and singing songs.

Eventually after a while she does stop doing that and then she starts doing this:

My baby girl is just so funny! It is exasperating to have to keep laying her back down so many times every night, but I can't help but love this little wiggly girl. It is all I can do to keep from cracking up as I'm trying to get her to sleep. (On good days that is.) She is so cute! I just love my baby girl

Happy Father's Day

This last Sunday was Father's Day. It was Rachel's first Father's Day and Jacob's first Father's Day as a dad. I had a really hard and emotional week that week leading up to it and I think the main reason was because I knew we weren't going to be with Jacob for Father's Day. I was feeling really lonely for him, and I was really sad that we couldn't be there to spoil him, or make him breakfast in bed, or at least hug him.

This last separation has been really hard for me. I think it might be because we got to visit him for so long and we got to see what it would have been like if we had moved out to Texas with him. It was so nice to be there for a week and a half. It was so fun to see Jacob playing with Rachel and being a dad. It was so nice for me to have someone else to share the responsibility of having a child with. It was fun to go places with Jacob but it was also fun to stay home and just be our little family. It was fun to go to church with him on Sunday and it was so nice to be able to hand Rachel to him so he could have a turn taking our noisy baby out! It was fun to make dinner for my husband. It was even fun being there during the day while he was in class just knowing that he would be able to come home to me soon. The rest of this can't go by fast enough. I am really grateful to my parents for letting Rachel and I come invade their home, but I really miss living with my husband. It is crazy to think that we are more than 2 months into this separation, but we still aren't even quite halfway yet! I see all of the new things Rachel is doing and learning and it makes me happy that I can be there to see her doing them, but it makes me so sad that Jacob can't be. I try to keep him updated over the phone, but it isn't quite the same. I miss my husband so much! I miss snuggling with him and I miss holding his hand. I miss talking to him with out the use of a phone. I miss seeing his cute face and the cute expression he makes when he is about to say something he thinks is funny. I miss being able to hug or kiss him when ever I want to, or even just touching his arm or tickling him! I miss being there when he comes home from work and hearing about his day. There are so many things I miss and love about my husband. He really is the best husband a girl could ask for. Rachel and I are so very blessed to have him in our family. Happy be-lated Father's Day my love! We love you so much are are so excited to get to come see you next week!