7 Months

 Steele reached the 7 month mark today and is still as cute as a button. He still has very little interest in crawling but does like to be on his tummy quite a bit more now. He can pivot with the best of them and will try to get toys as long as they are in arms reach. He can roll over but doesn't really like to very much. He got his first tooth and is probably going to get another one (or three) soon. He was pretty irritable with teething: whining most of the day and waking up several times at night. If you look close, you can see his pearly white in this one.

 He is loving his solids lately. He loves everything I give him and just laps it right up. He is moving on to fairly thick foods pretty well and rarely has a problem mashing most things in his gums. He loves to eat.

He is starting to complain when you take things away from him and has toys that he likes and those he doesn't. Some of his favorites are Ember's bead necklaces from her dress-ups. He loves to chew on those. He also loves his toy pianos, his jumper, fabric books, and some stuffed and plastic animals. He is our cute little man and we love having him in our home.

Happy Haunting

This was the first year that Ember really understand what Halloween was about and it was a lot of fun to see her face light up with excitement. She decided that she wanted to be Thomas the train for Halloween and she couldn't have been happier with her costume. I wanted her to choose a costume that was a little more girly but as she reminds me, "I am NOT a princess". So I didn't force it on her. I did have her dress up in a different costume for dance class since I can't imagine her trying to do ballet in her Thomas costume.
 Steele was hard to convince, but I did finally win in the end. He was Sully from Monsters Inc. and was happy to chew on his monster hands and grab at his monster feet. We had a good time trick-or-treating. Ember is not a sugar girl, which I am so glad about. She will only eat two or three pieces of candy a day and then she is done. It is great. Anyway, here are the pictures.

 

 

6 months

Steele is now 6 months old. He is growing so much. He can pivot around in circles on his belly and sits up nice and tall by himself but hasn't figured out how to move forward. He hates laying down and will lift his head the entire time I am changing his diaper. He is very ticklish and will give a chuckle almost every time I dress him. He doesn't have a very loud laugh, but he does laugh often. It is almost as if he is laughing so hard he doesn't make a noise. I think he must be teething since he is drooling like a faucet and is extra fussy. Even extra fussy though, he is still an easy kid. Ember came running into the room today yelling, "Mommy, he's crawling". Steele was laying on his belly pivoting and Ember was sure he was crawling. She was beaming with pride. He is a lucky boy to have an older sister who loves him so much. He adores her too. He watches her and wants to do what she is doing. She can usually get him to laugh if she is laughing. They are so fun together.

3 Years Old

Ember turned three last month and was so excited about it. Her animals have been having birthdays about every day for the month before and the two weeks since. Since Josh had to work, Ember, Steele, and I went to the zoo for the day. We had a lot of fun seeing all the animals and even got to ride the train. She loves the zoo but absolutely adores trains! That evening when Josh got home from work we had dinner then opened presents and had cake and ice cream. The cake was kind of a flop. I was trying to make a Percy the train cake, but I didn't end up having the time I wanted to do it, so Ember helped me decorate it. It was a fun day and she is so excited to be 3 years old.

The real birthday party was a few weeks ago, when we visited the happiest place on earth! We went with some of my family and my brother-in-law's family and almost never saw any of them. Not that we weren't looking or were trying to avoid them, but it just didn't work out that way. Ember had the time of her life and LOVED all the characters, especially Minnie Mouse. I think there were tears when she met her. It was the highlight of the trip and by far made it worth every penny. She was a little afraid of Captain Hook but not until after she met him, then she wanted to make sure that he didn't come near her. She loved seeing Mater and Nemo and meeting Goofy, Donald Duck, and Mickey Mouse. Her favorite rides were Pirates of the Caribbean (she wasn't afraid at all and sand a pirates life for me all the way home), the tractors in Cars Land, the caterpillar and the boxes in Bugs Land, and the roller coaster in Toon Town.

5 months

Steele turned 5 months old last week and I barely remembered. He is getting so big and developing so fast. He has rolled over from his back to his stomach once but that was two weeks ago and he doesn't really show signs of wanting to do it again. He can sort of wiggle to move a little on his belly and often turns around or moves forward a little but it isn't really intentional yet and he probably won't crawl for awhile yet. He is a wonderful baby most of the time although he does like to be held quite a bit. Luckily I have time for that right now. He is grabbing for toys regularly and anything else that is within arms reach including Ember's hair. We gave him his first rice cereal the other day and he seemed to do pretty well with eating it. He will swallow some of it which is all I expect for now. His hair seems to be thinning some and his eyes look like they are going to stay blue. We think he sure is cute.