A change of grades...

Gabriella has had peas for 3 nights now. The 1st night was described below, but then last night and tonight she mowed.them.down. No joke I couldn't get them in her mouth fast enough! We have one more night and then onto carrots, and after that I think we'll go with a fruit before we try the green beans. I think we'll give the peas a B+ :)

This is Gabriella and squash (yes, I made her a bit messy on purpose. Usually she stays relatively clean):

Baby Food - a review

Thus far we have been on veggies for a week. Here are the grades thus far:

Squash - A
Sweet Potatoes - A
Peas - D

We started with squash, then went to sweet potatoes, both of which she ate no problem. I was debating what to go with after the sweet potatoes. My options were start a fruit, or try carrots and/or peas. Well we chose peas since we were kinda sick of orange poo. Last night for her dinner Gabriella had peas. She was enthusiastically eating the peas. I mean, she looked like she really liked them. Then, 2/3 of the way through the container I get the locked mouth....hmm, this is interesting. After I coerced her into opening her mouth again, a spoonful of peas got the look of disgust and shudder. OMG I could not stop laughing. Mean mommy, I know. I was like "kiddo, you've eaten almost the entire container and now you're gonna start not liking it?" I coerced her to open her mouth again, and again yucky face and shudder. So, I made her a little bit of oatmeal to make up for the few spoonfuls of peas she was missing out on.

I have to say I was truly perplexed at the chain of events. I would have surely thought that if she didn't like them, she would have never eaten then as gladly as she did initially. Oh well, silly baby...whatcha gonna do. I'll stick with the peas for 3 more days since we are switching every 4 days. Maybe I'll mix it with some rice or oatmeal tonight and see if it helps. I think we'll go with carrots for the next veggie. After that all we have left to try are green beans and I have a feeling that if she didn't like peas, she won't be particularly kind to green beans.

It is tons of fun though. I love seeing her making a mess and blow raspberries with a mouthful of veggies. Makes for a very clean baby.

Side note: 2 weeks till 6 month check up. O.M.G. where the eff is time going?!

5 months old!

Wow--my baby is 5 months old. She is getting so SO big!

My mom and sister were here for a visit this weekend and we had the best time. The weather was absolutely gorgeous both days so we were able to spend a good amount of time outside with Gabriella. She was adorable all weekend long and was a really good napper this weekend too. I was so happy about that; I was really worried she was going to get overtired and then be screaming like the past 2 weekends. She was giggling and smiling so much...it was so adorable. It was so hard for my mom and sister to leave, but we all knew we'd see each other in about 6 weeks for 11 glorious days. We can't wait!

We started our veggies (squash) this weekend. At first Gabriella made the most hilarious face of not necessarily disgust, but I guess of uncertainty. She warmed up to it pretty quickly though and ate almost the whole container. She made the same face on Sunday, but again warmed up to it and ate the whole container. We have 2 more days of squash and then we are moving onto sweet potatoes, then maybe carrots, or I might go to peas. Once we finish those we'll move into the fruits which I'm sure she'll love. I was so glad that my mom and sister got to be there for her first veggies!

Gabriella is now consistently rolling from tummy to back, but is still working on back to tummy. She can get to her side still, but really has no interest in going the other way for right now. She was doing the most adorable thing this weekend. I would tap my hand over my mouth and making that oh-oh-oh noise. Well, I tapped on her mouth and she would start doing the same thing. Now every time I tap my hand over her mouth she does it too. She stinkin cute! She was so much fun all weekend long that it made it really hard to leave her this morning. I totally almost cried....

But anyways, here are some pics of Miss G in all her cuteness:

Halloween and Smiles

Its been quite a while since I wrote a full update about our lives, but I've been super busy. Gabriella is doing wonderfully. She is so distracted by EVERYTHING. Everything is interesting--especially Leo. Unfortunately Leo is know not so curious about her! I know they will become great friends once Gabriella becomes a little more active, but for now she'll just have to be satisfied with staring at him intently. She is SO super smiley and laughs all the time. sometimes she smiles so wide that her eyes get really squinty. It just melts my heart. She is also attempting roll over again. She rolled from tummy to back 2 times about 2 months ago and hasn't done it since and now I think she is getting interested again. However, she is way more interested in trying to sit up and bouncing in anyone's lap than she is rolling.....

October was quite the interesting month. For me, I had a clogged duct that turned into mastitis (ouch). I developed another clogged duct this weekend and am determined to not let it get worse. I am actually going to stop pumping next month. I am looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. But, I have decided its time to stop and I am so thrilled that I will have EPed for half a year. Its WAY longer than I ever thought I would be able to do it. I was also sick 3 times this month--boo! On the health front, Chris had swine flu. He developed it last week. It was pretty much a bad flu but he's all better now and Gabriella and I are just fine. Thank you for all those that knew and kept us in your thoughts and prayers.

My mom and sister are coming to visit this weekend and I am so excited to seem them. My mom hasn't physically seen Gabriella since she was 6 weeks old (she sees her on Skype once or twice a week) and my sister was here about 6 weeks ago. I purposely waited to start fruits and veggies till this weekend so that they could be here for that. I can't believe my little baby will be 5 months old on Saturday. Time is just flying!

Sleep wise--Gabriella is doing great. She was waking up a lot and fussing overnight and I just was at wit's end about 2 weeks ago. I was against doing any type of sleep training more than anything b/c I felt that I didn't know which route to go since there are so many different methods. The book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child" came very highly recommended so I decided I might as well give it a shot. The book is wonderful and taught me SO much about infant sleep and I am so delighted to say that Gabriella has STTN ever since I started following this system. Its pretty much a CIO approach coupled with putting a baby to sleep before they get overtired (as soon as you start seeing certain signs of sleepiness). Every since we started Gabriella wakes up super happy and chipper in the morning and has become a superb napper at daycare. She went from getting about 12-13 hours of sleep per day to getting 14-16 and it has made a huge difference in her temperament. Her naps at home are still a battle, but we are working on it. I'm glad that she's at least getting good sleep at night.

For Halloween, Gabriella was a pumpkin--behold the cuteness of last weekend :)