7 months

Sarah Avery turned seven months old yesterday.    I know it is trite to say so, but time seems to be picking up more speed as each week and month progresses.    And I vacillate between celebrating and mourning each day passed.   There are no remarkable milestones to note this month.    Our little baby girl is starting to lean forward into crawling position, but I think I have at least a few more weeks before she takes off and starts putting her fingers into light sockets.   No words yet, but she does make her little "ooh and ahh" sounds pretty often.  She has started sucking her thumb regularly and is still slowly but surely learning to eat solids.    She still adores watching Susannah and laughs more for her than anybody else.   I didn't get around to taking official seven month pictures, but here are our pictures from the week.  

We still have playtime on Mommy's bed most mornings before school.

This crazy face is Susannah's "I love you so much I'm going to give you the biggest, tightest hug ever" face.   So even though this picture looks like she has SA in a headlock, it is actually sweet.   

Wild ones.

A little afternoon hair styling session.

"That's fun, but playing with my feet is even better!"

Sweetest.   Thing.  Ever.   (Even though I know it will probably cost thousands in braces.)  

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Playing with Daddy's nose.

She smiles so big every afternoon when her Daddy comes home from work.   

Peter was out of town for a couple of nights last week, which meant that they girls and I spent the after dinner hour having a dance party.    (I'm embarrassed to admit that said dance party may have been too much for this 33 year old......my back is still sore.)

Peter took them on a wagon ride around the apartment this weekend. 

I know this is blurry, but Sarah Avery's expression cracks me up.......she looks scared for her life.

Susannah was all about it though.

The best part of this new thumb sucking habit is that she puts herself to sleep so easily now.   A great big HOORAY for that!!!

Her two favorite things......the jumperoo and her big sister.  

She also really likes playing with noses.   (And pulling hair.)

That is it for this week.    We are bracing for a crazy week because our oldest and best Navy friends are coming to visit all the way from Japan.   The girls will have two playmates, ages 2 and 4, and I will get to catch up with one of my most treasured friends.   We are so excited, but also curious to see how we all manage with only one bathroom.   ;)     Love and miss you all!!

Baby Food and The Wizard of Oz

I know I have been sounding like a broken record lately, but this past week was another happily uneventful and relaxing one.   Susannah recovered pretty quickly from her cold and enjoyed her week at school.   Sarah Avery has become such a big girl about napping and eating.   She is finally napping well in her crib and even started really eating some baby food this week.   

Here are this week's photos:   

Look at all that hair!!    She still loves her jumperoo.   Especially when Susannah jumps with her.  

One of Susannah's favorite things to play is school.   She takes attendance and we sing songs and read stories.   It is so cute, even though I have no idea what is going on because she does the entire thing in German.   

This one is usually pretty willing to be one of Susannah's students.   

Funny faces.

We think she may be trying to cut her first tooth, but we aren't sure yet.

We have friends who have a daughter that is a couple of years older than Susannah and each season they give us an entire wardrobe of clothes.   We picked up our newest stash this week and Susannah was so excited to find a Dorothy costume in the mix.   She had no idea who Dorothy was, so we let her watch a few parts of The Wizard of Oz.   

She loved it, but we know the witch would terrify her so we are waiting to show her the rest.   

Sarah Avery got in on the dress up clothes too.   

Can't even walk yet and she is already sporting princess high heels!!  

Today Susannah didn't have school because of a teacher planning day.   We spent the morning with friends and then had an afternoon tea party in the living room.  

Sarah Avery has been slowly but surely agreeing to the idea of solids.   

She insists on holding the spoon herself though, which results in a great big mess of course.  

Today we tried bananas and squash and she was a big fan.   Definitely liked it better than the spinach and apples.   

That is it for this week.    The weather forecast is sunny and warm which means we have lots of after school playground time and ice cream in our future!   Hope you guys are enjoying a beautiful spring wherever you are!    We love and miss you all!

Spring is coming!

Well, another happily uneventful week has passed.   The highlights were Susannah's first time back at ballet class, the re-opening of our favorite neighborhood ice cream shop, the first sixty degree temperature of the year, and a tiny little bit of progress with Sarah Avery's refusal to eat solids.     Here are some photos.....

Susannah has been looking forward to going back to ballet for weeks now.   

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When did she get so tall????    She and Miss Helen were very excited to see each other.  

This week, I abandoned fruits and veggies and tried rice cereal instead.   

While we didn't have great success,

she did eat several bites in a row before pitching her usual fit.   Baby steps of progress.  ;)

In other news, she is sitting up really well now and doesn't topple over any more.   

This is where she spends a lot of her time.   

Friday morning Susannah woke with a cold, so we stayed home from school in our pjs.   I had already packed her lunch when we decided to keep her home, so she had a little picnic in the living room.   

We decided to use her afternoon energy boost and the over-ripe bananas in our fruit bowl for some yummy banana bread.  

When Daddy got home, he decided to take the girls to the wine store for a little field trip.  

Sarah Avery had never ridden in the baby bjorn.   New perspective on the world for her.  

Silly Daddy

This is a great illustration of parts of our weekend.   Among Susannah's cold symptoms of runny nose and cough and fatigue, she also experienced occasional bouts of dramatic tears and emotional fits.   

But we still managed to have lots of fun family playtime all weekend. 

And by Saturday afternoon, Susannah was in need of some fresh air.   She and Peter went for a walk and discovered that our favorite ice cream shop has reopened for spring!!!   

Sunday we skipped church as to not share Susannah's germs, but we had to venture out into the sixty degree sunshine in the afternoon.   It was one of those spring days when the temperature feels perfect and the sun's warmth reassures you that winter is almost finished.

Remember how excited we were about our ice cream shop's reopening?   So were all these other people.   Yes, this is a line for ice cream.   People are hungry for spring.

This is how we felt about the line, so we opted to head home instead.  

Susannah is feeling better this morning, as evidenced by before school story-time with her little sis.   

Hope all of you are well and are enjoying some nice spring weather wherever you are.   We love and miss you all!

New Glasses

This week was wonderful.   Completely routine and uneventful which is just the way I like it these days.    The highlights were as follows:

I got new glasses.   This was a bigger deal than it sounds because my glasses have been held together by scotch tape for the past month and are five years old.

Peter and I went on our first date since Sarah Avery was born.   It was awesome!!!  Definitely more of those in our future.

Sarah Avery is still refusing to eat any solid food.   We are taking a break for a few days before trying again.

Susannah had a great week at school, asking to stay until the latest pick-up time everyday.   She also has been talking about her imaginary friends more often than usual.   She has had these two friends for a while now, probably close to a year.   Their names are.....wait for it.....Cha-Cha and Nini.   Cha-Cha is a boy and Nini is a girl.   Sometimes they are her siblings, sometimes her friends.   But they have seemed to be around more often this past week.   I wanted to be sure and record it on the blog so that we can laugh with her about it in ten years.

Here are the very few pictures I took this week.  

In a last ditch effort to get SA to eat, I let Susannah give feeding her a whirl.   It wasn't a success.  

Our new glasses.   Susannah's are actually 3D glasses from when we went to see Frozen at the theater last year.   

We went to the zoo Saturday morning and baked brownies in the afternoon.

Perfect day.

And perfect night!!    Peter and I were so happy to have a nice dinner with uninterrupted adult conversation.   It was just what we needed!!

This morning, I tried to take some pics of the girls.   Trying to get them to both look without wiggling is close to impossible.  

We tried though.

Mornings/
 with these two are so sweet.   (Sometimes.   And other times, sweet isn't the word I would use.)  ;)

 Well, that's it for this week.   Hope all of you are doing well.   Ready for spring like us??  

 We love you and miss you all!