Avery is learning new tricks!

Hey, Everyone. Well, first things first: Avery is crawling!!! She's getting good at it and is quite brave. She often combines crawling with climbing, which definitely keeps me on my toes. Trying to keep her from hurting herself while falling has become part of my daily routine now. Let's see... yesterday she threw herself over from her crawling position and busted my lip (I didn't say anything about keeping her from hurting me, although I'd like to start doing that, too). She also managed to somehow go over one leg of her play gym and bump her little head on the carpeted floor, which she didn't like so much.

Here are two photos of her while she was supposed to be going down for a nap. She was more interested in climbing the crib then taking a snooze though. Fortunately, we have Nana in town, who wasted no time in urging us to move down the mattress (she just learned this trick at her last nap the day before), so we don't have to worry about her tumbling out just yet.

Right after we took these two pictures, she fell backwards, and we could hear her little head bump each bar on her way down. She paused momentarily upon landing, but decided that it didn't bother her enough to cry (just make a puzzled face). We have a picture of that, too.

The day before she learned to crawl, Avery decided that she was willing to sit without me supporting her. She doesn't do it for long (she'd rather be leaning against me), but she will do it for brief moments at a time. Avery and I were visiting Kelly at her work when she decided to debut this new talent, and we got a couple photos of it.

I just think she looks so cute in this shot from the side.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd fill you all in on what's been happening in the Reagin household lately. We're all great here. My mom will be in town until Saturday (Avery is having a fabulous time with her Nana), so I don't want to spend a lot of time blogging. I'll post another update sometime after she leaves. Have a great rest of the week!

PS - We're all fine here. The floods weren't by our town.

Six Months Old!

Can you believe it!?! I am in shock that six months have already gone by since Avery was born. Where did all that time go? I have to admit that it already feels like a really long time ago that Ed and I made our way to the Women's Center at Northside-Forsyth to meet our baby girl. It still makes me sad (as pathetic as that may be) to think about all those days since then that were passing by so fast when all I wanted to do was slow down time so I could savor those moments just a little longer.

There is a Kodak deal right now for 10 cent prints and I've been busily uploading photos (once again) this evening. I've been going through all of our pictures and I can still feel all those moments like they just happened. And yet, I can't pinpoint when my sweet pea went from being that newborn baby girl to this beautiful, busy baby that wants to touch and learn about everything. When did we shift from taking tons of photos of a sleeping tiny baby on our chests to this amazing little one, often too busy to sit still for a photo? (I'm not sure how we're going to accomplish 6 months photos in all honesty.)

On that note though, I tried to take a bunch of pictures today to commemorate the occasion. I happen to love the one above of her on our bed. I tried really hard to get her to sit up for the picture, but all she wants to do now is twist onto her tummy and scoot around. So that's what I got.

It was bath day today, too. I haven't taken pictures of her in the bath in a very long time (there's no way I can keep up with a camera while I'm trying to wash a squirmy baby!). Anyhow, I got some really cute shots. You'll notice in this one that her back hand is behind the tub. That's because for the first ten minutes of the bath, it was nearly impossible to get her away from the faucet and spray nozzle. Nothing is more exciting than those two things right now.

This is Avery in her portacrib. She's not as big of a fan of it anymore - she'd rather be on the floor or held, frankly. But I needed to load the dishwasher and it was early, so she was in a pretty good mood, as you can see. She happily played in it the entire time.

And then... this happened. Practically for her first mode of business as a six month old, Avery decided to climb the side of her portacrib. She wanted to get as close to the camera as possible, and that's the way she decided to do it. This half delighted me, to see her learn something new (and to actually catch it on camera for the first time). Likewise, it half bummed me out - looks like I'm going to have to suck it up and take the bassinet portion of the portacrib out. I've been holding back, clinging to the notion that Avery's still my "little baby" as long as I don't have to do things like remove the bassinet. So much for that.

Anyhow, must get back to uploading pics now. Got a big week ahead of us. Nana is coming to visit from Saturday to Saturday and we are very excited. Just need to get the house ready...

Have a great rest of the week and keep posted for another update soon.

Video: Avery Scooting

I got the camera out to try and get Avery wiggling her flowered behind in the air tonight. While I never quite got that shot, I did attract her attention and she began diving towards me. By the time I got the camera into video mode, she had made it across the quilt and was grabbing the camera.

This video is me on the other end of the quilt with Avery making her way towards the camera. I had to move the camera back a few times to stay out reach, but still in the "ooh! I want to go to that and put my mouth on it" zone.



Oh, and is the video very dark for everyone? I think its just our "special" monitor, it looked fine on the camera.

Have a great week everyone!
-Ed

Yay, an update!

So I'm finally getting better about updating (this week, that is). In all honesty, I'm only posting right now because I'm waiting for the last of my photos to upload to Walgreens. I have until 1am to get the 10 cents per photo discount and I don't want to miss out.

As you can see, Avery is getting bigger and bigger every day. Although as Kelly pointed out today, the bigger she gets, the smaller she gets - she's been slimming down a bit as she's grown longer. Speaking of Kelly... she, Dusty and Liam came to visit us today. It was the first time we've seen them since Ave and Liam were four months old (they're about to turn 6 months this week - can you believe it!?!). We had such a good time, we must do it more often.

Avery learned a couple new tricks this week. I really wish I knew how to post videos (or had the patience for it) because Avery was doing the cutest thing last night. The best way I can describe it is that she was smacking her lips, only she had part of the right side of her upper lip curled in at the same time. I'm probably not describing it well (you may have just had to be there), but it was really cute and she kept doing it. More importantly, she figured out how to lift herself onto her hip from being on her hands and knees. It's her own personal way of sitting. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she figures out how to actually sit up on her own now.

Besides those things and her constant evolution with working out crawling (she's so close), that's about it for this week. Oh, and for those of you who've seen it on Facebook - we FINALLY finished our bedroom. (We started painting it last weekend, which took a few days because we painted both the walls and the ceiling including using two colors on the tray. I managed to find the perfect bedding to match it all yesterday and we put it on this morning.) It looks so good! All we have left is to accessorize it a little more and then it will be the perfect respite. Thanks again, Amy and Griff for the bedding gift for my birthday.

Anyhow, I'm going to bed now. Avery will be waking me up in about three hours, so I need to get some sleep while I can. (I haven't been up this late in a while.) Enjoy the other photos and have a great Sunday!

Avery playing with her Daddy

I can't believe this dress still fits her. She's looking so big now.

We haven't posted any of her in her swing for a while. She's about to outgrow it, so we're trying to enjoy it while we still can.

This is Avery and Liam playing together today. Aren't they so sweet?

A Whole Month in One Blog?

So much to catch you all up on, I hardly know where to start. I can't believe so much time has passed since I did a real posting. (In my defense though, we didn't have access to the Internet for over two weeks at one point.)

The picture below is Ave's 5 month shot. I'm not sure if we've talked about it, but we take the same photos every month in that chair with that bear so we can track her growth over the year. She's changed so much. We started with a baby that was barely propped up in the corner and now have an animated little person in all sorts of positions every month. We get so many good shots now that it's nearly impossible to narrow them down to a reasonable number for keeping. I liked this one of her leaning forward. It gives you a good idea of how close she is to sitting up on her own.


















This next one is Avery posing in one of her many adorable overall dresses. We love her in the color blue, so this is my favorite one. She's such a happy baby, it's really easy to get her to smile.














As you can see, there are a lot of photos of Ave on her belly now. This is because at some point a couple weeks ago, she figured out how to roll from her back to her belly. I think it was that same day that she officially decided she enjoys sleeping on her belly. I was shocked she picked up her new skill so fast that she was already able to flip over in her sleep within such a short time-frame. Now, she's so good at maneuvering that she hardly has to work to get over. She didn't even use her hands to help her earlier today when she was playing.













I took this picture the same day as the one before it. Nana gave her this outfit and I just love it. We haven't had any pieces with headbands before, and she just looks too cute in them. Nana gave her two outfits like this (you'll see the other one shortly). Anyhow, I just love all the shots I got of her on her changing pad that day. You can tell how sweet she is in this one.

Speaking of Nana. Avery and I got a chance to visit with her last Friday when she passed through town on a long layover (that's why we were wearing the outfit she gave her that day). We were lucky enough to spend a good few hours with her at the airport. I tried to put a picture of the three of us up, but it wouldn't boot any more for some reason.

Another new thing in the Reagin household is the ExerSaucer. Ed decided to get it out and build it last weekend, and it's a real hit. Avery just loves it! She even likes the toys on it that don't make noise just as well as the ones that do. It seems like she's figured out that when one of them sings that I'll do a silly dance, too, because I just caught her looking at me and waiting when the music started to play. With this new form of entertainment, we're bound to get just as many pictures of smiles as we are to get ones with a look of deep concentration on her face. In fact, the first day we put her in it, we had to work really hard just to get her attention to take a face-front picture. She was not interested in interacting with us, that's for sure! This is her playing in it the next day.

Here's the other big thing going on right now: Avery is mobile! She's not crawling yet, but she's getting quite good at scooting. It's still slow, but sure, but she can get decent distance now. Yesterday when I put her down to play, she spent so much time off the mat and on the carpet that I spent the entire time cleaning up little spit-up spots. (By the way, she doesn't suffer from acid reflux anymore - she's finally past that stage! Now it's just your standard spit up... when laying on her belly or after she eats particularly more than usual [she does have a bit of lactose intolerance though, too, so she'll spit up if I have too much dairy].)

I thought this was a cute picture of her enjoying her fingers while pondering her next move.

Other key events in our world as of late? Well, I can finally drive again without a screaming baby holding her breath. Let's have a moment of silence in honor of this blessed occurrence. She's only held her breath once in the past month and a half and it was because she woke up disoriented in her car seat and didn't know where she was. Fortunately, I had just pulled into the garage and was able to get her out and calm her down right away.

And now that we're able to drive without too much incidence, I've started going to a nursing support group once a week. I can't tell you all how nice it is to regularly have somewhere to go and to meet with other mommies and babies. I'm sure it will help Avery learn to crawl, too. And not that I'm in a hurry, but she's started to get really frustrated by not being able to move, so it'll be good for her.

The only other thing of note is that I was briefly tempted to start working from home part time. My old company was trying to woo me into this set-up, but I decided that it's more important for me and our family to remain completely focused on Avery. So that was that.

That should catch you all up pretty well now. I think I hear Ed in the garage, so better go and get the weekend started. Have a good one!