Ten months

Penny's tenth month included Christmas and New Year's. A busy month! We took Christmas pictures with Katie:


Had lots of fun in the bath!


Chewed on everything possible:


Went to visit our Louisiana family:


Smiled! A lot!


Woke up Christmas morning with a new lovey in her stocking!


Took lots of snuggly naps. :-)


All in all, a great month! She didn't even freak out too much when Daddy chopped off all his hair. :-)

Nine months

Penny's ninth month was a lot of fun. Lots of smiles every day!


She went to her first concert with me, Aunt Kim and Katie - Yo Gabba Gabba! During which she may have taken a nap. :-)


Still standing up and crawling at every opportunity.


She loves looking out the window, especially when Daddy's raking the leaves!


I know I'm totally biased, but I think she's the prettiest baby ever. Look at those doe eyes!


She's still sucking her thumb at night and loves her lovey.


Happy nine month old girl! Sixteen pounds, ten ounces of sweetness!

Eight months

Penny is moving right along!


We made a trip to Louisiana for her cousin Steve's birthday, and she even snuck in one time standing up without help! She's so close to trying to walk - we think it will be soon. At the birthday party, she got to try playing in an inflatable bounce house - less fun when you're crawling, but she seemed to enjoy it enough. (It was just her and mommy in there.) We also had our first trip to the zoo!


She and her daddy are best friends. I love them so much!


She's really mastered pulling up, and stands up (holding on) whenever she gets the chance. She loves to explore and get into things.


She's eating well, and we're trying to give her gradually chunkier foods and work more with picking up things to eat, like puffs. She likes them now! We're also letting her practice with a sippy cup.


This month was Penny's first Halloween! She was a strawberry. We went to our church's Halloween party and also visited our friend Shanna for her neighborhood block party!


We love you Penny! Happy eight months!

Seven months

Penny has been up to so much in the past month! It's official: she can't be stopped. She's crawling all over the place, even out of the room! Whenever she gets a chance, she stops to try to chew on something (the rug, Buster, our feet, a TV tray) or pull up on something. She can pull herself to a standing position now. Look out!


Eating continues to go well, and she's trying a few new foods every time we make a batch of food for her. I've even started giving her tiny mushed up bites of other foods we eat that I don't make just for her (like chicken or potatoes).


She's right at the end of 6 month clothing, and ready to start getting into some 9 month sizes! She's still happy all the time, and her little two-tooth grin always makes us smile.


She's now closer to a year than her birth day! Big girl!

Six months

Penny has accomplished so much this month! She has started to crawl, is starting to sit up, and is eating a big variety of foods!


This month, we got into all kinds of vegetables, fruits, rice crackers, and puffs. She's really good at holding things, and often when we're feeding her she tries to grab the spoon or hold the bottle herself.


She's totally on the move now! She went from scooting and rolling to really moving several feet in one direction, crawling. Big girl!


She's also noticing everything around her. She pays attention to anything and everything, and has taken a special interest in Buster. She's grabbed him a few times, and he's attempted to give her kisses more than once. :-) She also totally notices if you have a bottle nearby, so we have to be a little stealthy about it to make sure she eats plenty of food, too!


Six month stats: 25 inches, 16 pounds 0.5 ounces

Happy Friday...

From a six month old girl!

Baby snacks

We've been trying out some baby snacks with Penny. First, we tried the rice crackers (I think they look like little surfboards), and she does pretty well with them. She can even grip them to hold on to them and eat them by herself!

Then we tried the cereal puffs. We sat her in the Bumbo chair and let her try to eat them. Here's how that turned out:



Not a fan! She'll eat them but they're definitely not her favorite. We'll keep trying new foods!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Sittin' up!

Baby giggles

Here's something to make you smile on a Monday. This is Penny and Aunt Kim having a laugh at Nana and Papa's house!

Long weekend in Baton Rouge

We spent a lovely long weekend in Louisiana last week. We hadn't been to visit Cory's family since Memorial Day weekend, so I took a few vacation days and we loaded up the car and hit the road. We drove down on a Thursday night so we would have the whole weekend ahead of us.


Friday morning, we woke up at our leisure and enjoyed the morning. We had lunch at home, and then I went out with Cory's mom and sister and Penny for a little shopping! We didn't go overboard, but we did take a picture since it was Penny's first trip to the mall. :-) We also went to Target and I picked up the ingredients to make Smitten Kitchen's icebox cake. Side note: the wafer cookies called for in the recipe have tiny bits of coconut which are only noticeable after the cookies soften. It doesn't bother me, but it does bother some people so I substituted the cookie part of Oreos.


We made it home in time to feed the baby and get everyone together to go out for dinner. We went to La Fonda's for Mexican food (a tradition). When we got home, we put Penny to bed and Cory's mom and I put together the cake, which involved taking apart a lot of Oreos. Some icing may have been consumed during the demolition - I'm not telling how much!


Saturday was another lazy morning. For lunch, we got sandwiches to go from a place called Fat Daddy's, which, it turns out, has an excellent muffaletta. Penny's cousin Steve came back from his dad's house and we spent the afternoon playing. Penny worked on her crawling skills and took a turn in the walker.


Saturday night was Cory's grandmother's birthday party at La Carreta, another Mexican restaurant and family favorite. We brought the icebox cake and it was a big hit! It was really great to see everyone. Penny wore a smocked bubble suit that Katie wore when she was littler.


After dinner Cory's parents brought Penny home so we could have a night out with friends (and I could have a daiquiri). We went to visit our friends Matt and Amanda, and Cory got to spend a little quality time with their crazy dog Rolo. He would bark and bark until Cory picked him up.


Sunday, I slept in and then Christy came over to play with Penny and go have a girls' lunch. We ate at BJ's, home of the Pazookie (a big, warm cookie in a skillet with ice cream scooped on top). It was delicious. We checked out the closing sale at Borders, where I picked up a book on making gelato and sorbet. Looking forward to trying that out! I met up with the family to have dinner at the Mellow Mushroom, and after that, plus dessert at Yogurtland, we called it a night.


Monday was the last full day in Louisiana. Cory and I brought Penny to Izzo's to meet Matt for lunch. On the way back to the house, we stopped at the Whole Foods in Baton Rouge. It's so much bigger than the one in Memphis, and it sells wine! Cory got some snack mix, and I picked up some baking chocolate, some pistachios (for the impending gelato, hopefully) and some wine. We carted it back to the house and didn't get out again that day. We grilled out for dinner - burgers, hot dogs, sausages, the works. We always eat well with family, whether it's mine or Cory's!


Tuesday, we woke up, loaded up the car, and hit the road. Penny was a little cranky at first, but slept most of the time. After a particularly long nap, she was her super happy self again. When we were almost home, we made a stop at Nonie's work to visit and see everyone.


All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we hope to go again really soon!

Five months

Five months! Wow! Penny has started to do so many different things this month! For starters, she started to roll from back to front about a week after she turned four months. Now, she rolls so much she'll roll until she gets to the couch. :-) Bye bye, playmat - hello, queen size blankets!

Also, she has really started to take to the jumparoo. We keep it in the kitchen and she smiles and bounces while we cook dinner. Her feet can finally touch the floor so she's good to go!

We've been taking her for a couple of walks here and there. I think she really loves seeing the outdoors and looking around.

She's definitely teething. Still no teeth yet, but chewing on everything and everyone, including herself!

She's started scooting around. She's been pretty strong at this already, but now we can really see how close she is to crawling. Nonie estimates she is 99% there. :-) She just needs to coordinate arms and legs.

We started solid foods right at the end of this month. First try was green beans made by her mommy! She definitely likes veggies better than rice cereal. Her first veggie was at Nonie's house with me, Cory, Aunt Kimmie and Katie!

I still love her smiles in the mornings. Happy happy all the time!

She's also getting more flexible. Nom nom nom on baby toes.

We've started letting her play with Katie's activity table. Most of the time she needs help but sometimes she can stand and play solo!

Also, we are definitely done with pacifiers. I guess she's just going to suck her thumb like mommy did. Oh well, can't throw those on the floor, anyway!

Big girl in her five months old picture!