Brooklyn 6 Months

Oh my goodness! How has it been half a year since this little girl came into our lives!!!??? Everybody warns you when you are going to have a baby that it goes by too fast and they are so very very right.  On Brooklyn's 6 month birthday I was feeling super nostalgic so I put on the no slip grip socks I had gotten at the hospital and I looked through the blog book pages of when she was born.



Some noteworthy things about Brooklyn at 6 months:

1) This little girl just babbles and babbles and smiles away.

 2) I love catching her looking at me and then the BIG smile I get.

3) She is getting so good at sitting on her own.  I still need to be close-by cause she is a little wobbly.
4) Stats: 14.62lbs (18th percentile), 24.75 inches (7th percentile), 16 inch head circumference (15th percentile)
5) Brooklyn is VERY attached to Mama.  If I leave her sight she starts crying the saddest little cry.  We were at the grocery store the other day  and I was pushing her stroller and stopped for a minute and she couldn't feel me pushing so she thought I had left her and the tears just welled up in her eyes and as soon as she saw me she was fine.  It's really hard for me to leave her because I know it's hard for her and whoever is watching her cause she will cry for a good 45 minutes straight :( What can you do? They say that good or bad everything is a stage so we'll just go with that.
6) Brooklyn loves our neighbor girl Maha.  Whenever Maha comes over she is all smiles.


7) She has FINALLY slept through the night!! And it's been all my fault that she hasn't been sooner.  I had been feeding her about every 2 hours cause I would get nervous that she was hungry and didn't know any better.  I was reading some online forums at babycenter.com about getting your baby to sleep through the night and somebody suggested that if your baby is snacking throughout the day they will do the same at night. So I decided to try feeding her every 3 hours and keeping her up for two hours at a time rather than only one.  And lo and behold that very same night she only woke up once to eat.  Then I switched to every four hours and she slept for eleven hours straight!!!!!!!!! Two days after I had read that comment and implemented those things I got from the library per recommendation of my sister and aunt the book "The Baby Sleep Solution". And it says the same thing get your baby to eat every four hours during the day and they will sleep through the night. WHY didn't somebody tell me this!?!?! It was the easiest fix ever.  Oh well sometimes we just learn through trial and error (and google searches).
8) Her bottom two teeth came in! I didn't even really notice she was teething.  But one day she grabbed my hand and stuck my fingers in my mouth as if to say "Feel these mom!" And there were to little teeth popping through her gums.
9) Wearing 6 month clothes and size 1-2 diapers.  
10) Eats rice cereal, peas, and carrots.

Oh Christmas Tree!

This past Saturday there was a Christmas tree lighting downtown at an outdoor plaza called The Grove.  We took Brooklyn all bundled up and in the baby jogger.  There were a ton of people but it felt very small community'ish.  When we first got to the plaza we were handed candles and asked someone to "give us a light" haha.  There was a really great band singing and playing Christmas carols that we sang and danced along with. At 6:30pm they lit the huge tree in the middle. It felt so festive. When we got home we all got in our Christmas pajamas. We decided that rather than open Christmas pj's Christmas Eve we would open them right after Thanksgiving so we could enjoy them the whole Christmas season. Brooklyn's were the only Christmas themed ones. We put Brooky Bear to bed and got out the Christmas decorations and started decorating the tree to the sound of Michael Buble's Christmas CD. Each year I have gotten a few more decorations to our tree but stuck to the same theme. Our tree has gotten more and more full of decorations and I love it. My two favorite ornaments this year are the Baby's First Christmas ornament I made for Brooklyn and the Orphanage Support Services Organization ornament I ordered to help support one of the orphanages down in Ecuador. My husband always knows how to make me laugh Brooklyn's First Christmas tree ornament The final product. The next morning I sat Brooklyn in front of the tree to get her reaction. I'm actually surprised she isn't more mesmerized by the lights and sparkly ornaments.

Our Lil' Fam's Thanksgiving Meal Together

I was a little bummed that Thomas and I didn't have a chance to sit down and really enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together.  To remedy the situation I decided to make our own Thanksgiving meal the following weekend.  I had been wanting to try out some recipes anyway so it gave me a good excuse.  We got a small Butterball turkey, made homemade cranberry sauce, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, and then poppped some pre-made frozen rolls in the oven.

 I know I have had candied yams and cranberry sauce that I like but I wasn't a huge fan of the ones I made this year. The sauce was a little too sour (probably because I made a healthified version that didn't have any sugar) and the yams too sweet. But the rest of the meals was oh so yummy and it came together pretty quick. I love having Thomas around to help prepare food because he doesn't mind doing the slicing and dicing which is the part I hate. We make a good team. Brooklyn sat next to us in her chair and was happy as a clam so we all were able to enjoy a nice meal together.

Brooklyn's First Thanksgiving

Saturday before Thanksgiving we headed to Yakima to help my mom paint.  Brooklyn had some good Nana and Pops time.

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That Tuesday we did a mock Thanksgiving feast at Old Country Buffet with Thomas' parents, my parents, Grandpa Clement, and niece Lexi.




Afterwards my parents and I continued the tradition of seeing a movie after the Thanksgiving meal and went to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2. Loved it! It finished up the series so well.

On actual Thanksgiving Day we started off with a Turkey Trot I had planned. I made an event for it on Facebook and Thomas handed out fliers at work. And.... we were the only ones to show up. Haha.  Oh well.  Looking on the bright side of things, we were glad we had made the commitment to go out and get some exercise (and we didn't have to pay any money for it) and we want to make it a tradition on Thanksgiving morning.



We tagged along with our friends Dan and Lyndsay Howell to Dan's sister's house to celebrate with their family.  They were all so nice and inviting I totally felt at ease.  Thomas could only stay for about an hour before he had to leave for work.  Brooklyn and I stuck around.  She helped me not overindulge by keeping me on my toes and from eating much at all :) Poor baby was exhausted and couldn't sleep with all the action going on.