Nora 6 Months

6 months old already, oh my! 

This girl is just the sweetest thing, and we can't believe it's already been half a year since joining our family. Month 6 was a good one for Miss Nora. She was sick in the middle, but handled it all pretty well. She continued her cute baby talk, saying, "Ya-ya" and "da-da-da." The latter prompting Rich to pretend that his name was her first word. I'm not ready to count that milestone yet! She smiles the biggest for her brothers and for me. She loves me. I like reveling in the station of mother. 

I love watching Nora's reactions to Rich, but will admit I feel super blessed when she reaches out for me or cries for me. However, one area of her love is a struggle--she still won't take a bottle! She doesn't scream anymore when people try to give it to her, and she did take an ounce or so from Grandma Millett, but she still won't even try for Rich. 

This obviously makes things hard--and I had such high hopes there for awhile because of the fancy new bottle I bought--but we did start her on solids right at her 6-month mark, so hopefully that will give us some space moving forward. They boys still dote on her--Landon still needs frequent reminders to "love her softly!"--and I couldn't be more pleased about they way treat her.

Her sleep is slowly improving, though not much improved from 5 months. She started sitting up all on her own right before hitting 6 months, so she'll have the next month to really hammer down that skill before the next update! 

The doctor said she looks healthy and perfect, albeit tiny. Nora is, by far, the smallest baby thus far. She weighed in at 13.11 lbs (10th percentile) and measured 25.2 inches (25th percentile); her head was 16.6 inches (35th percentile). Just a petite little girl, whom we loves to pieces. I can't get enough of her big blue eyes, happy grins, and bird noises. 

She is settling into a better routine and is almost to a 4-hour schedule. She usually takes three naps through the day, though her morning one gets interrupted by exercise sometimes and sometimes she fights the night one! 

She still loves the swing and will relax in there anytime she won't sleep in her crib.  She's still rolling around and moving herself forward a bit by pushing with her toes or rolling herself to the side and pushing. 

Pretty mobile for a non-crawling child! This has settled us firmly back into baby-proofing mode, a need made clear the day she rolled across the rug and got a hold of a card game the boys had left out. The Fire King card is no more!

 

She loves doing the happy baby pose and can suck on her toes. 

She's pretty into her baby toys lately, though her favorite thing to suck on is the tablespoon from my kitchen drawer! She likes the exersaucer and the door jumper, getting more into both this past month.

Oh, how we love this girl. Nora Susan is our favorite 6 month old, and we are lucky to be around such a sweet, calming, and adorable little personality all day long. 

 Her big grin makes getting her up from naps the best part of my day. This girl is just so happy!

One morning I just lay in bed watching her sleep. I wanted to soak up this moment and keep it in my memory forever. I was hardly moving because I didn't want to wake her. I'm so lucky to be this girl's mom. When she woke up, the grin she gave me just made a perfect start to the day.

 

She Sits!

Nora can sit all by herself now! She hit the milestone right about her 6-month mark. I hadn't tried to sit her up at all, then the morning of April 22nd, I sat her on the rocking chair to take a picture and she surprised me by sitting up and balancing on her own. 

So I decided we better practice on the floor, and she succeeded! She sat for about 30 seconds to start, but by the time Rich came home from work she was all ready to show off her new skills. 

Being able to sit her up makes for leaving her alone a bit easier since she can see everything. She's pretty stable already, and will sit for a long time before falling over.

 Such a big girl!

 

 Mostly I loved these pictures from a few days after because the pictures were one right after the other but had such a big facial change. She's a keeper.

3rd Child Life

Nora gets taken all over being the third child. I never seemed to leave the house with the boys, but Nora gets naps interrupted all the time. She's a trooper about all this, which is a huge blessing. She usually ends up having some sort of morning disruption with exercise and being in childcare. One morning while I was in there covering my shift, I just couldn't get over these cute faces and poses she was giving me. Sure love this gal. She makes even the most boring days all right!

Brianne's Birthday

I never enjoy the getting older. I'm not sure why. It's really not a big deal, and my birthday this year was so good. I just need to not think about the lines around my eyes or the aches in my knees!!

Just as for Rich's bday, my main present was going to Brian Regan, so on my big day I only had a few gifts to unwrap, but they were wonderful. Sue gifted me a book that looks like it's sure to be a favorite, and I got a wonderful family heirloom from my parents. Mom and Dad had told me when I was going through the temple that I could have my Grandma Millett's temple clothing, but then we could never find them. Then a miracle occurred and they were discovered in Wendi's crawl space (along with my missing red vase!), and Mom and Dad gifted them to me for my birthday. This brought tears to my eyes. Oh, how I love my Grandma and Grandpa Millett and how much I miss them. So happy to have these clothes as a remembrance of the good woman my grandma was.

And you would think the clothes was the best gift ever (and it was!), but Devin's gift was pretty awesome too. Thanks to his substitute teacher and the rain, Devin came home from school boasting, "I learned dances from other languages today!" He then promised that he would perform said dance as a present to me. THIS.WAS.HUGE. This child gets all embarrassed when I ask him to head bop in the car! Yet, he kept reminding me that he hadn't done his dance. So we cranked up the "Macarena," and Devin showed me his stuff. What a wonderful gift this was to my mothering heart!

My other gifts were a Tri-tip dinner cooked to perfection by Rich, and an ice cream outing to Leatherby's. Man I'm a lucky lady! It really was a great day with all the love I felt from family and friends. Getting old isn't too bad :)

Conference Fun

We had a nice conference weekend together (mostly I'm blogging about conference because I needed to save these pictures). 

We didn't sit down for all of Saturday, as we had projects to do, but we did watch most of it. Nora was adorably entertained by the speakers, and the boys were just happy to have another place to spread out their Legos. 

 

 

Sunday morning we had our traditional pigs in a blanket and scrambled egg breakfast, then settled in for the sessions. The day was beautiful, so in between sessions we headed outside to soak up some sun. We even got a walk in later that night. Conference weekend is always such fun!

So.Many.Legos

Landon got so many Legos for his birthday. We spent the whole next day putting together all his sets. Then broke them all apart and started making his own "sets." I just love when these boys use their imaginations to make their own creations. Landon has really improved since his birthday and getting more bricks to build with. He worked hard to follow the directions on his birthday sets, but he works just as hard on his own creations. Legos are good for the brains.

Devin continues to blow my mind as well. He built these dinosaurs--the one on the right is basically from a Lego book, but he added his own touches that he was quite proud of (toe claws, etc.)--all from his own brain, which is just crazy to me. I just love these boys and their amazing brains. I'm imagining many, many more hours of Lego building in our future.