We hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!! We had a quiet and very nice first Thanksgiving with Brianna. Instead of out-of-town visitors, we had a couple friends over for dinner. We split the cooking and came up with a very nice feast (turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, asparagus, homemade rolls, cranberry jello salad, and pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting). Brianna was an absolute angel all day — lots of long naps to help us get things done, and lots of happy faces and sounds while awake. She slept through our dinner, which enabled us to focus on our friends. We of course gave her lots of attention before and after dinner! Here she is in an absolutely adorable outfit one of my friends gave her. I love the red bows on the jacket and the embroidery on the jacket and pants!
As for her latest “tricks,” she loves to spin around and push herself backwards on her belly, and she loves banging things (measuring cups, spoons, lids, plastic blocks, whatever). She also loves when we clap her hands for her, but she hasn’t quite decided to do this herself yet. I am beginning to wonder if my baby girl is like her grandfather or my grandfathers — they all loved food and different kinds of food and so far she is just like them. She gets very excited when she sees a bottle or sees me making her some food. I often have Jason take her out of the room while I prepare her meal because she is very impatient with the whole process. She eats every bite and seems to love it all (so far, that includes cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, pumpkin, acorn squash, applesauce, and bananas). Next up: pears and peas… Here she is doing her favorite post-meal activity: gnaw on bib, throw bib on the floor, wait for Mommy or Daddy to pick it up, repeat…
Sunday, Jason and I went to the mall and saw a new shop/boutique full of baby stuff. So, we checked it out (of course!). We found an adorable piggy bank (white ceramic with blue, green, and brown polka dots) very similar to one we saw months ago. We regretted not buying it then, so this time, we went ahead and bought it. It is very cute! They also had lots and lots of hair bows. I am partial to the “clothes-pin” type as opposed to the “snap” type since they are so much easier to put in Brianna’s hair. But, I couldn’t pass up this purple, pink, and green one (snap type). Once you get it in her hair, she doesn’t seem to mind it a bit. I think it just goes great with this outfit!
As for this picture, well, don’t you just feel like she is talking to you? She is, and it is very important stuff, so listen up!
Apparently, they take school pictures even at daycare these days. Brianna was, of course, adorable as always. She needed a little help sitting up at the time, but we managed. These are all the low res versions, so please excuse the artifacts. I just love the hat in this one:
This one shows off her beautiful blue eyes and her curious little face to perfection:
And this one, well it is just a perfect example of the face that greets me everyday!
This past weekend, Brianna’s Grandma and Grandpa came to visit all the way from Texas. She has now had visiting grandparents two weekends in a row — what a lucky baby! She was her normal sweet self and seemed to delight everyone with her coos, smiles, and general animated activity. She loved all the attention. Now she is going to have to get used to just Mommy and Daddy again.
She has a new sound these days — I think she is trying to imitate her Poppa. While her Poppa was here, he kept clicking his tongue. Brianna is nowhere near that skilled, but she keeps smacking her lips to make a similar sound. She cracks herself up! Grandma and Grandpa got a kick out of it too… Other accomplishments to date include banging together two objects after watching Jason or I do it, and eating bananas. She still is not too sure about this sweet stuff. While she eats them, she scrunches up her face when she eats applesauce and bananas. Vegetables, on the other hand, are currently not a problem at all. Hmmmmm…
The past couple of days it has been quite cold so when we went out, we bundled her up in her Pooh snowsuit. Isn’t she adorable! She hasn’t quite figured out that she can actually move while in this thing. Instead she just hangs out and occasionally flaps a “paw.”
Jason’s brother, Matt, gave us this adorable onesie for Christmas last year and Brianna is just now fitting into it (still with room to spare). What this picture doesn’t show you is how she leans as far as she can go whenever she is near the computer keyboard — she wants that keyboard so badly!! She is definitely Daddy’s girl, don’t you think?
This past weekend, Nana and Poppa (Jason’s folks) came for a visit. Brianna’s “power” is so amazing, she can entice her grandparents to drive all the way from Tallahassee, FL just for the weekend! We had a great time watching football and visiting. I can’t say I rooted for Bama to beat LSU (especially since I strongly dislike both teams), but for Poppa’s sake and for the good of the Gators, I didn’t actively root against them either. Besides, this debate will be resolved in Atlanta at the SEC championship game. May the best team win!
Brianna spent her first baby playdate this past Thursday with with William, Miss Marty’s little boy. I used to work with Marty at C&B. William turned one this past Thursday, so we went to their house to celebrate. It is amazing how big he has gotten!
Brianna has visited her buddies Corinne and Jack before, but they are quite a bit older (5 and 3, respectively), so I don’t really count them as playdates for Brianna — more like playdates for me. 
Anyway, Brianna had a great time playing with William’s exersaucer and blocks. William was very sweet and even tried to share a block or two.
A 5 months age difference is quite a lot, but I think they did pretty good. I am sure they will be great play buddies when they get a bit older. We had a great time and can’t wait to get together with them again.
Our little munchkin is seven months old today — hard to believe! She is quite the wiggly one these days and practically oozes personality. Hearing her laugh is one of my favorite things.
Based on home measurements, Brianna weighs ~15 lbs. and is ~26.75″ long. She seems to more or less follow the sizing applied to baby clothes, which is interesting since everyone kept telling me she would be in 12 month clothes by now. Not my sweet pea! She can even still wear some 3 month clothes.
Accomplishments to date include:
*rolling from her back to her tummy – this rarely occurs and mostly only happens in her crib at night (no, she is not playing in this picture, she is asleep);
*spinning/rotating while on her tummy – she will wiggle until she moves in circles (I am told this is a precursor to crawling);
*starting to reach and try to move towards objects that are out of reach;
*eating solid food while sitting (more or less) in her chair – rice cereal, whole grain cereal, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin to date, no complaints so far;
*increased talking – lots of da-da-da-da, with the ocassional ba and ma thrown in for good measure;
*sitting up right – I would say she is 90% stable (she rarely pitches herself backwards anymore);
*longer daycare naps – lately she has one nap about an hour long and a couple other naps between 25 and 45 minutes, so she is getting there;
*when home with me she naps three times – lately that includes a short (~50 min.) nap in the morning, a long (~2 hrs) nap in the afternoon, and a medium nap in the late afternoon;
*she goes to bed with little to no fuss and generally sleeps from 8PM to 7 or 8 AM – this is rarely straight through, but hopefully the trend of the last couple of nights will continue;
*amusing herself for relatively long periods of time – if well rested and fed, she can go 20-30 minutes in her exersaucer or her pack-n-play with little interaction from us;
*starting to turn book pages on purpose;
*has a serious fascination with my keyboard – she wants to “type” too;
*just starting to sit in her stroller without the car seat;
*loves to beep the horn and move the zippy widgets on her exersaucer;
*fascinated by patty-cake and peek-a-boo
*would really rather you not wipe her face or change her clothes;
*loves to splash in the bathtub, but shows little interest in bath toys;
*has pet both kitties, although Leia might argue it was more of a fur grabbing event;
*gnaws/sucks on everything, particularly her fingers – showing a stronger preference for her thumb these days
*blows raspberries
