7 Months

At 7 months Brooklyn...
- Can sit up unassisted.
- Loves getting raspberries on her neck.
- Wakes up once per night to eat.
- Sleeps from 8am-8pm.
- Takes 2-3 naps per day.
- Wears 6 month clothes.
- Eats: rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, peas, butternut squash, apples, and bananas.
- Has been teething like CRAZY!!! Went through a couple weeks of her wanting to be held or to have me in her sight constantly, not going down easy for naps, and refusing to nurse for more than a couple minutes. Towards the end of the second week I discovered that if you read to her she will fall asleep with no fussing.  Fortunately we are now back to our happy content baby who goes to sleep easily, nurses well, and is content for a time playing by herself, but man those couple weeks were rough.
- Started eating in a highchair.
- Can pass an object from one hand to the other.

Smiley little teething baby.

When I was going through her 7 month pics we took I just laughed out loud at this sequence of picture.

Ugly Sweater Book Club

This month for book club we met at Carino's Italian restaurant and all wore ugly sweaters.  I could not for the life of me find a Christmas themed ugly sweater at Goodwill and was shocked at how high priced the hideous sweaters were there.  So basically I went for the cheapest one.  We did find a really cute ugly sweater in Brooklyn's size though so that made up for my lack of festivity.
I really enjoy book club a lot. It's a great group of ladies and it's fun to share a nerdy past time with people.

Loving the attention

Myself, Jillian, Eileen

This was the first time I had put Brooklyn in a highchair.  She loved being at the head of the table.

Eileen and Taryn.  Check out Taryn's headband!

Taryn, Elise, and Laria

Brooklyn has now been deemed the littlest book clubber. It's funny cause when I take her to book club she is just fine and dandy but if I take her to Bunko she is a mad little elf.  She hates it when anybody yells "BUNKO!" or "TRAVEL!". She's going to be our little librarian, she has a lot of books and the last time I came home with a book from the store for her Thomas was like "Another book?! She already has a TON!".  I just laughed and told him he'll thank me somebody when our daughter is a genius. 

Winter Garden Aglow

My parents came to Boise the second weekend in December and we were able to do some festive holiday activities.  Friday night they met Brooklyn and I at our church Christmas party.  It was decorated so cute with twinkly lights up above and the lights low with tables all red and green.  There was a girl sitting at the end of our table all by herself and the people we were sitting next to asked if I knew her and I didn't so everyone around her kept introducing themselves and asking who she was there with.  She was kind of vague and it was a little akward but as dinner got underway all of the sudden the piano started playing the Hallelujah chorus and people randomly started standing up and singing.  It was a flash mob! Whoever organized the party had gotten a choir from the community to come and perform. The dinner was kept simple but delish with  Costco lasagna, salad, and breadsticks from Olive Garden.  The little kids did the cutest nativity and even performed with bells.
 Saturday night we all went to the Idaho Botanical Gardens for their annual Winter Garden Aglow.  They had really unique lights around that dead branches of trees and bushes that made them look like they had flowers.  There were fire pits all over throughout so you could stop and get warm when needed, carolers, and Santa was there! It was Brooklyn's first time meeting Santa and we were sure she would cry  but she proved us all wrong and was totally fine, even giving a little smile.

The hand off

She kinda likes him!

Posing for pics

The whole family

With my padres

Somebody had had enough by this point but the view was awesome so had to snap a pic.

Good looking couple of old folks ;) Just kidding mom about the old part.

We finished the night off having hot chocolate and popcorn at home, giving Brooky Bear a Bath and having her open on of her 12 days of Christmas books.

Each of the 12 nights leading up to Christmas we would open a new book with Brooklyn.

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.