Life's Little Souvenirs: Seven Months Old

Avalyn turned seven months old on March 16th!

Age: seven months, nine days

Weight: 13 pounds

Height: 25 inches

Favorite food: Vanilla teether biscuits and mommy's home made pear puree!

Loves: Sophie the Giraffe toys, her exersaucer, and being outside.

Dislikes: green beans and peas and anything cold.

Our little darling is seven months old and that means that we are only five months away from celebrating her first birthday! I have started the planning already and I get so excited every time I add ideas to my (secret) board on Pinterest. I can't wait to see what Brian and I are able to come up with! We have been putting money back every paycheck so we can give Ava the perfect first birthday. After all, you only turn a year old once!

Our princess has had quite the month so far!

She has started teething and that alone has been both a nightmare and an adventure.

We have slowly started introducing her to stage two foods; I started using my Baby Bullet and have been making her food and so far I think we both love it. I find it to be very relaxing to be honest and I can't wait to start trying different food combinations. The food even tastes better than yucky jar food! Yes, I do try everything that I give to her because that just makes sense to me.

I have also introduced her to the sippy cup and was stunned when she was able to drink out of it without any issues at all.

Grandma and Grandpa Felda got Ava a high chair and she absolutely loves "sitting" with us and it has made feeding her so much easier. Before the high chair I was using her bouncy chair or Bumbo seat and that was beginning to become very difficult. Plus she really loves sitting in her chair with us while we have dinner! It really is one of my favorite times of the day, particularly because it is when the whole family is together.

She has also started sitting up on her own! I nearly lost it when I sat her up in the sitting position and she STAYED there! I could not believe that she was able to just sit there on her own. Occasionally she takes a little tumble over but she tries so hard to pull herself up and back into her sitting position. She is not quite strong enough to pull herself up yet, so we have to help her out. I was devastated that Brian was out in the field when all of this happened and had missed her sitting for the first time, but luckily I was able to snap a quick photo of her sitting and send it to him. The photo was insanely blurry, but I was so happy that he was able to at least somewhat share in the experience.

Ava has also gotten rolling over from her belly to her back mastered and has almost rolled from her back to her belly. It won't be long now! She manages to move herself around somehow though! We think that she may not crawl and just go straight to walking with how often she loves to try to stand/pull herself up. As crazy it may sound, I hope she crawls first...I am not ready to have a walking baby yet!

We have such a big girl on our hands...I almost can't stand it! I am not ready for her to be older...I want her to stay a tiny little babe FOREVER!

She is sleeping in her crib throughout the entire night; she no longer wakes us up in the middle of a night for a bottle. She is in bed by 10:00pm and gets up when Brian gets up for work around 4 or 5 in the morning; in which I give her a bottle and then we snuggle in bed and sleep until about 9 or 10. She loves being in her crib...I don't know how many times I have gone in there to get her up from a nap or something and she is just laying there playing or watching her Baby Einstein's mobile.

She has finally completely grown out of her 0-3 month and almost all of her 3 month clothes...I started crying when I had to pull out all of the 6 month sized clothes to get washed and ready for her to wear. I can guarantee that when I take that big box of clothes in to Once Upon a Child to trade in for bigger clothes I will have to walk out when they start going through them. Sometimes being a mom is rough. ;)

I have also started bringing Ava along with me outside to help me with the flowers. I can thank the Baby K'tan for that! She is now big enough to be in the "adventure position". So her and I will now go outside and water the plants, bring in the garbage cans, check the mail, play with Bandit, check on the bird feeders, and then end it with a nice long push on her swing (out of the sling, of course). She absolutely loves being outside! She is so fascinated by the water can and gets a kick out of it all...quite literally! She will sit there on my chest and flail her little arms and legs and make little baby sounds. I am so glad she loves it! She is quite the little helper too...she loves trying to reach out for everything. I am sure my neighbors think that I am crazy...if they happen to be watching me from behind and hear me talking I am sure they must think I am talking to myself. Ha! I never understood why I get so many looks while I am wearing little miss though...is it really that unusual to practice attachment parenting?

Well, anyways, I can not believe how much Ava has grown both mentally and physically this month! I know that I say this EVERY time, but she blows my mind. I still can't believe that seven months ago our little one was in the NICU and only weighed in at about 3 pounds!

Brian and I will be taking a trip back down to Georgia to pick up Mr. Cody Cat (yes! Almost two months later, our Cody was found!!!!)...perhaps we should drive a little further to Jacksonville and visit the NICU? I still can't thank those nurses and doctors enough for what they have done for Bug.

Until next time...

...enjoy some of our favorite photos from Avalyn's first Easter!