Happy Half-Year Birthday Emmy!!

I can't believe I'm actually writing a post about Emmy turning 6 months old!! I have no idea where the last 6 months have gone!! But we wouldn't trade them for anything in the world! We are so in love with our big girl, and feel so unbelievably blessed to have such an amazing, healthy, happy daughter!

Emmy at 6 months...
...is so much fun! She laughs, giggles, and snorts when she likes things or thinks things are funny. She's very attentive & notices everything. She is SO smart!! She's learning new things everyday, and its so amazing to watch her learn. She's getting really good with her hands, and tries to grab everything she can, especially food or drinks and our faces! She plays really well with her toys, and loves putting things in her mouth! She can roll both ways, and is even starting to "army crawl"! It's funny to watch, she focuses really hard, buries her face in her hands, and she pushes her butt way up in the air! She can get herself forward a few inches, but mostly she pushes herself backwards! Even though she's good at rolling now, she prefers to play with her toys sitting up! She's not quite an independent sitter yet, but she does really well sitting up in between our legs, or with the boppy pillow around her. She still falls from time to time, but she's starting to roll to the ground instead of falling flat on her face like she used to! Emmy loves playing in her jumper too! Her legs are a little short and don't quite touch the ground when she's in it, so we put a box underneath it for her to stand on, and she has a lot of fun playing (i.e. eating) with all the different toys.

Emmy is super social! She LOVES when we have people over, particularly little people! Unfortunately not all little people are as in to her as she is them! Emmy is also very social with adults, and easily gives smiles, and we think she's even starting to say "hi"! She says it with more of a silent h, but it really appears that her intention is to greet someone or to get someone's attention! We're also working on waving "hi" and "byebye"! When we model it for her she really watches us & smiles, and a couple of times now she's raised her arm to imitate us! Emmy has 2 teeth now (bottom front), and has started to eat rice cereal! She's doing really well with the cereal, and keeps most of it in! I'm doing some research & planning this week, and intend to start her on some baby foods next week, after we check in with the pediatrition on Monday!!

Emmy's biggest accomplishment as a new 6 month old is sleeping through the night, in her crib!! We thought we'd never get there! (In case you didn't know, she's been sleeping in her "rock & play" sleeper up until now, waking up multiple times a night.) That being said, we've only had 3 nights of it so far, but we're really hopeful that we've turned a corner with her sleeping habits! We decided to try a waiting/soothing method where we put her to bed just a tiny bit awake still, so she learns to associate sleeping w/her crib. Then we leave the room. If she fusses we wait before going back in, first for 3 minutes, then 5, 7 and 10 minutes as needed. At each time interval, if she's not sleeping we go in to soothe & calm her, without picking her up if possible, then when she's calm we leave again. It's hard to hear her cry & fuss while we're in between check ins, but it's worked for 3 nights now, and it's just been amazing to sit back & watch her (on the monitor) go to sleep by herself!!! We are so proud of her, and are so thankful to be getting a full night's sleep again!!!

I feel like there is so much more to say, but nap time is over, and it's time to go play with my 6 month old!!


Here's some pictures I took today for an "at home" photo shoot. It didn't go quite as well as some of our previous ones, but I'm scheduling a professional for some 6 month shots as well, and I know those will turn out great!!

What do you mean you don't want my fingers in my mouth?

Maybe I'll just watch a little TV instead...

Mamma why you pointing that silly thing at me?

Hmm I've never sat in this chair before...

Hey what's this on my shirt?

It tastes funny...

Oh there's that TV again!

Are you STILL taking pictures??

Ok fine, here's a cute one!!