Gracie- 7 Months!

Miss Gracie celebrated her 7 month birthday today- eek! That one year birthday will be approaching much more quickly than I would like. 

Here is our little missy on her six month day, upon returning home from Florida! She was quite intrigued by the paper this time around, so we had to work quickly before she grabbed and ate the paper. Grace had her 6 month check up this month, and all looked great with that. She is almost exactly the same as Bella was at 6 months- 17 lbs 1 oz (whereas Bella was 17 even) and 26 1/2" long (same as Bella!), and was 70th percentile for both. It's pretty funny how Grace caught up to her, despite being quite a bit smaller in the beginning months. She packed on the pounds later on. :)

Grace just started to jabber in some syllables the past few days to add to her vocal repertoire- ba ba ba, ya ya ya, and da da da. She still loves to talk! She also razzes her lips about 100 times a day and blows spit bubbles. :) On vacation, she also started to do a fake cough/laugh- heh heh heh. It was pretty funny, and she knew it!

And there is the razzing/spitting face we see oh so often! 

In terms of mobility, Grace continues to turn herself around in circles and has started to scootch herself forward. She has gotten up on her knees somewhat to attempt crawling, but hasn't been too interested yet. However, I think it will probably be happening this month- she is pretty persistent in getting what she wants, so she's going to have to figure it out!

When laying on her belly, Grace has been kicking her legs up and down wildly- maybe she thinks this is how she will be able to crawl? :) She also loves to wave her arms up and down when being held or sitting up. 

Grace was introduced to a wide variety of foods this month. Here she had her first tasting of green beans- and surprisingly enough, she really liked them right from the start! They are definitely a favorite now. Bella liked her green veggies too though, so that wasn't too crazy for us. She has also had peas, prunes, carrots, applesauce, pears, and bananas. And she has liked them all! As Daddy says, put it in front of her mouth and she'll eat it. :) However, she still is not a big fan of her cereal.

Upon eating all her new foods, Grace did get a little constipated. It was apparently a tough switch for her body to go from easy digested breastmilk to solid foods. And it was definitely no fun seeing her crying when trying to go! But after eating some fruits, she got loosened up. :) 

Loves watching big sister wherever she is- Bella is in the bath here; Grace  isn't just sitting in front of the tub by herself. :)

Gracie is definitely a little rolly polly girl- and the most delightful part of her is definitely those chubby legs. She packs a lot of weight in those thighs! I don't think I want her to crawl so she can keep them! :) 

Once Grace was solidified in her sitting up skills, we decided to move her to the big girl bath- which was good because she was definitely getting a little too big for the baby bath! Despite her ticked off expression here, she did really like it. I think she dropped something and was showing her feelings about it. :) 

 

Grace's current favorite things include chewing on anything she can get her hands on- (especially big sister's dolls when she is not around!), grabbing hair, giving kisses, being tickled, being talked to, her laugh and learn puppy (she has the biggest smile when we take it out to play!), and being carried around with her facing forward. :)

Gracie with her cousin Chayse, who is not quite 2 months younger than her! They didn't even really notice each other laying here- but I'm sure they will have oodles of fun once they get older. :) 

Florida- Part III!

Our final day in Florida started of a little chillier, so we spent some time relaxing in our room before heading out for the day. 

Gracie continues to grab and chew on everything she can find!

We attempted to do some pictures out on the balcony. Mommy and Gracie first-

Then Mommy with both the girls. Love Bella's tongue sticking out, stinker!

Daddy with the girls- again, Bella has just a lovely expression.

We attempted another family picture, but as you can see, that did not fare well. Grace was much too busy staring at the crazy faces her sister was making. Oh well!

Once it warmed up, Bella and Mommy headed down to the beach again while Daddy stayed in the room with sleeping Grace.

Beautiful blue skies. :)

Grace and Daddy came down after she woke up!

And we all enjoyed a little family time on the beach. Thankfully we were able to keep Grace out of the sand so she didn't eat it. :)

It was a little bright for missy; she had a continual squint on her face!

Bella and Mommy did some big jumps and throws in the pool.

Practicing her reach and pull in prep for swimming lessons!

Outside of the pool that day, there was a guy who was doing balloon hats. Bella is sporting her kitty hat here. :) She then snuggled on the bed to watch Dora and promptly conked out! We didn't have her take naps the other days, but she was very tired by the last day.

That night, we just relaxed in the room and packed up since we had to leave early the next morning. Bella "helped" with packing- aka wearing my shoes and taking everything out of the suitcases. She was packing up a bag for her kitty Chester if I recall. :)

Gracie. :)
We had a wonderful few days spent down in Florida! It was so nice to be with our girls and enjoy some sun and swim time. Both the girls were soooo good the entire time as well, which definitely made it easy. Our only mishap happened the night before we came home. Bella threw up a couple times in the night (bleck, only her 2nd time of throwing up!) so it was a rough night with that. We think it was something she ate though as I was sick a little the next day. We were definitely quite exhausted after not sleeping much that night, but we made it home without any further problems. And Bella even fell asleep on the plane since she was so tired! But it was still a great vacation!

Florida- Part II!

We had beautiful weather again on Friday- low 80s the entire time we were there, not too bad! :)

Daddy and Gracie before heading out in the morning. 

We walked down to the park by the pier again so Bella could play before heading out on a boat ride. 

Note a little friend traveled with her this time- she of course wanted to pick out a dolphin as her souvenir from the aquarium. I think she named it Pinky due to its pink color- so creative! 

Gracie was full of big smiles while at the park! 

Love those big eyes. :) 

And love her pigtails! 

We then went on the boat "Little Toot" to go on a dolphin excursion! 

A nice lady sitting next to ask volunteered to take our picture- our one family picture of the whole vacation! Grace was staring at Bella's hair, but it's still cute. :) 

Such beautiful green and blue water! 

Daddy got nap duty for Gracie, who enjoyed a nice nap almost the entire ride. He unfortunately didn't get the close up view then of the....

dolphins! We saw lots of dolphins while out on the ride. Bella loved it, especially when they were jumping in and out of the water. 

I didn't get any good pictures because I was holding Bella so she could see- and it is definitely impossible to take a picture while holding a little girl. But she got to see them, so that was the main thing! 

Afterwards, we ate lunch at a restaurant by the Marina. Bella loved all our eating out because she go to have fries at pretty much every meal. :) We then headed back to our hotel for Grace to take an actual long nap! 

Bella and Mommy headed down to the pool when Grace was sleeping. Here she is displaying her wide variety of faces- Mad....

Surprised....

Cheesy....

Excited? 

And normal. :) 

Bella is still very much a little water rat. She spent lots and lots of time swimming, jumping, and splashing around! 

Bella enjoyed seeing all the seagulls on the beach- I think she was a little scared here that they were going to fly right by her head! 

After swim time, we headed down to the beach to go make sand castles. Bella made a pit stop to creative a sand angel- pretty clever! 

Not sure if she realized she would then be covered entirely in sand however. :) 

Heading down to the ocean to collect some seashells! 

However, Daddy had to later collect actual ones for us to take home as Bella dumped all the shells we picked up into her sand creations. :) 

She decided to chase some seagulls as well! Definitely never caught any! 

I loved watching her play in the sand as she was very much in her own little world of creative play. I think she built a kitty house, food for the seagulls to eat, among various other crazy ideas! 

A few flowers may have been plucked from around our hotel. :) 

Our little Gracie- so nice to have a baby that actually sits in her stroller without freaking out! 

The views of the sunset were also amazing, even though it was often cloud covered. 

Rather than eat out at night, Derek often went to get food at a restaurant and brought it back to our room to eat there. Much easier for Bella to eat and Grace to have freedom in moving around! Bella especially loved eating on the bed. :)  

Smily. :) 

Giving some big sister hugs!