7 months

Nora girl is oh so close to crawling as of reaching her big 7 month milestone.  She rocks back and forth and back and forth revving her engine.  I know when she finally starts moving she's going to fly!  She's already doing this sort of semi scoot to get where she wants.  And we can no longer leave her in one spot and return to find her there moments later.  Now we often wonder - "How did she get there?"

She's pretty regular with her self-imposed 9:30 bedtime and is still taking a good long afternoon nap with brother from 1-3 or 2-4.  She always seems to sleep longer and better if I nap with her which is an added bonus for me twice over.

She's eating some solids.  She's not to fond of much yet.  Except she will eat bananas and avocados.  I've tried a little bit of lots of jarred baby food with her like carrots, squash, etc since we're moving this month I've not been as on top of making her baby food like I was with Elijah.  But I'm hoping to return to that once we get settled.  We're pretty big on baby-led weaning and table foods anyway as opposed to billions of baby food jars.  Another thing that is different with her is that I am not to concerned with introducing x before y or only 1 new food every few days.  Eli never had a problem with any foods and food allergies don't really run in our family - we've been doing just fine with this new laid back approach.

We've got 2 new games - she loves playing peek a boo with her brother.  And, she is quite the vocalizer (still screetching and screaming to my chagrin) so to encourage her to lower her octave I will cover her mouth so that she makes a babbling sound.  She loves this and will root for my hand if I stop our game too soon.

We've had a fun couple months and attended two weddings; one with/ one without kids.  Childcare was a hassle to work out, but I must say attending a wedding without kids is way easier and will be my preference in the future!  We also spent a good part of this month vacationing with Rob's parents in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge and also packing up our lives and house in Knoxville, TN.  Poor girl,  I know we moved a lot when Eli was little, but I'd love to be giving her more attention than we've been able to lately.  The good news is she's always close to us.  Even though we may not be playing with her as much as I want to, she still stays quite attached to us as she pretty much spends her waking hours in the Ergo with either me or Rob toting her around.

This is a very late 7 month pic after we moved into the new house.  She's in her farmer overalls and pictured with the jams and preserves that my mom brought me and my 2 boxes of tomatoes that we canned later that day.

Eli at Two and a Half

This little boy is amazing.

All in all he had a stellar transition into our new home and surroundings.  We worked hard to talk often about the new house and Lexington.  When we first started talking about the new house, he thought we were saying "blue" house.  So we began talking about life in the "red" house and leaving the "yellow" house.

He did grab onto the concept of new eventually, however.  Now whenever he sees kids he doesn't know he'll look at me and say, "mom, new friends?"  He also has talks about "new big house" - our new church and "new baby book" - our new library.

We left some great friends of his in Knoxville.  The ones he talked most about seemed to be Ruyi, Jordona, Ellie, and Granny & Pop.

The evolution of my name over the past year or so has gone something like - Ma, Ma -ie, Ma- My, and currently I am MomMom.

He did not really talk much at all before this summer.  But now I hear, MomMom followed by whatever happens to be on his mind at the time all. day. long.  Friends said that's how it would go with a late talker.  Overnight changing from maybe a word here or there when prompted to 4-5 word sentences. He concentrates very hard and deliberately chooses each word as he forms it.  If we decipher his tonal language correctly - he smiles and gives an adorable half nod.

For awhile it's been a tradition that when we go grocery shopping Eli will get a free cookie and milk.  These are affectionately known to him as "Moo-Na" (drink with a cow on it) and "Dobie" I have no idea where the name dobie came from, but it refers to all cookies.

I've tried to be the type of mom that does not limit sugar.  Seriously, we don't have a lot of sugary snacks in our house anyway and I never wanted it to be an issue or fight.  So when people ask if he can have a cookie or candy or whatever, I always say yes and get Eli to say Thank you. But I've had to start monitoring sugar intake and he has become addicted  to chocolate milk since a recent visit from a certain Grand ma (you know who you are mom)  and I've had to start denying poor pathetic pleas at bedtime for  "ya-co-lat milt"

He plays great with sister and they are good buddies. Though when she first started learning to sit up Eli's cry of "baby down" sometimes wasn't entirely by accident....

Elijah loves, dinosaurs, diego & dora, Hops (rabbits) of all kinds.  Rides in the stroller.  ADORES stuffed animals and insists on sleeping with ALL of them (20ish) in his bed.  Sometimes I check on him and he is completely covered in stuffed animals.  He HAS to be ouside or "Outyide in the Yard" as much as possible.  Loves to "wing" in the "bu wing" or "geen wing" at his new house.  He's not big on coloring - but loves to read books.  He gets REALLY excited when he watches TV and shouts out the names of all the characters and jumps as they pop up in the opening credits.  This is especially fun when he's watching Sesame Street or Dora.

He calls his carseat the Black seat.While we drive he points out "ers" (cars) and "yucks" (trucks).  And tries to describe them by whatever his vocab will allow - mostly color or animal pictured.  My favorite combo was shouted with glee a few weeks ago, "nack yuck" a little debbie truck went wizzing by.

He knows his colors and shapes really well.  Can identify lots of letters and can count pretty well, though it goes something like 2, 3, 1.

He knows right feet from wrong feet most of the time and is very pleased to announce to me.  "Mommom- Mee shoes on wight feet".  Mee shoes being of course his Mickey Crocs.

He has now learned how to talk about his first emotion which is cool.  he'll ask, "Mom? Happy?"  yes, mom happy - I'll reply.  "Me, Happy!" he'll exclaim often.

He pretty much refuses to say his name or age .... to anyone.  If you ask his name you'll receive the answer, "ME!"

He's about to start preschool 2 days a week. Tues/Thurs from 9:30 -2.  He's very excited to "do stool day" - Go to school today.  Especially since he knows that Daddy goes to school everyday. And now asks me frequently, "mom, Daddy stool day?"

He still loves being loved on.  My boy will let me give him tons of kisses as he fake protests.  He loves to snuggle and be hugged.

I would say he has 3 favorite places - the library (story time), church (playing with kids in the nursery) and the play ground.  My guy can run, jump, belly swing ("MomMom, I'm flying yike Ming Ming"), slide, crawl back up the slide, scale the spiderweb rope thing, and climb up the toddler equivalent of monkey bars - which makes my heart race and my head light.

I'm going to give potty training a go next week since we are settled in our new "red" house and we'll see what comes of it.... I think he could have been ready long ago but I was lazy and feared regression with an upcoming new baby and impending move.  With that out of the way we're ready!