Andromeda's 9 Month Update

Apparently I'm just going to consistently be about a month behind on these...  Welcome to Andromeda's 9 month update!  This happy, chubby, active little girl has been loving life now that she is mobile.  She has even realized that she can now move around in her crib and so she has finally developed the ability to roll over in order to scoot her cute little butt all over while she sleeps.  Her naps have been fairly consistent now (i.e. we actually have somewhat of a schedule), which is nice for planning our days out.

Andi's favorite game this month was drop something on the other side of Mommy's leg and then climb over it to pick up said toy.  This new game provided HOURS of endless entertainment for her and the best part is, all I had to do was lay on the floor and smile at and encourage her.  WIN!  Our other fun activity this month was yogurt finger/body painting for some sensory play.  I laid out a large white tablecloth on our floor, added food coloring to some plain yogurt and then let Andromeda go to town.  At first all she wanted to do was eat the "paint", and that's pretty much all she used her fingers for.  She had much more fun kicking her legs back and forth through the yogurt instead.  Luckily it was bath night...

We also ventured into town to meet up with friends.  We discovered that if we time our trip into town with Andromeda's morning nap and come back during her afternoon nap that it works out pretty well.  So we actually managed to fit in one Houston Restaurant Week's brunch with our friends N&H, followed by a walk through Discovery Green Park and playing in a fountain, and ending with a trip to Trader Joe's where Andi and S stayed in the car and slept while I stocked up on our TJ's favorites.  We had a great day!

A few other fun things we did this month were going to a book, craft, and beer event at Bakfish Brewery  with  friends, continuing swim lessons, and going to another brunch in town at St. Arnold's Brewery's new beer garden.  We're finally getting out of the house more!  Here are a few more random pictures from month 9:

Andi find the vacuum cleaner fascinating!

She LOVES crawling around with mommy and daddy, especially races from her bedroom to the game room!

Future percussionist (or not, she really just like gnawing on the sticks...)

Morning selfie with mommy!

Andromeda has been getting MUCH steadier on her feet and loves to stand up and sit down all day!

Getting ready for a big trip!

St. Arnold's Beer Garden with friends.

Hopefully I'll be more timely with month 10, which we're already almost a week into...

8 Month Update for Andromeda

Sorry this is so late, we've been busy around here!  This post was actually done 2 weeks after Andi’s 8 month milestone but for some reason it didn’t publish at the time, so here we are a month late...  Anyway, Andromeda continues to be a constant delight at 8 months!  She is still as happy and as chatty as ever.  Her big update this month is that now she is crawling!!!  She'd been on the verge of doing so for a while and one night we had her down on the floor with us for some play time and she just took off!  She's still not really into everything yet, she mainly crawls with intent to get to a toy or to pull herself up on some furniture (another new skill), but we've started baby proofing anyway just so it's not a last minute scramble when she does start to realize she now has access to cabinets and shelves.  So far we've tackled kitchen cabinets and outlets, but we still have a bunch of stuff to safe.

She crawls!!!

We had a very busy month between work, play, and travel.  We've been trying to get out of the house more, especially on the weekend, even if it's just a trip to the store.  But there have definitely been some quality destinations as well such as Andi's first trip to the public library and our weekly swim lessons (she's starting to love the water more!).

Smiles at swim lessons!

Books + toys + library = happy and engaged baby!

Showing Andi all of the geography books about places we'll go visit someday!

A number of people plus one new furry friend came to visit us at the house as well.  S's parents came to visit, we love when Uncle K stops by (and brings yummy homemade jerky that Andromeda will devour whole if we don't watch closely!), and we were watching a sweet kitty for friends of ours that were on travel.

Showing grandma how we move and play!

Andromeda (and Penny) love Uncle K's jerky!

A sweet furry friend came to visit for a week

 The biggest event this month, though, was our trip to Florida to visit my parents, brother D, and future sister-in-law E.  My sister-in-law J also came down with Andi's cousin G and it was so fun to watch the two baby cousins together!  They are only 4 months apart in age, but Andromeda was only 2 weeks old when they first met last December, so I think the connection was a bit lost on her at the time.  This visit they could both interact and sort of play with each other.  We also went on a couple of trips to the pool and splash pad.  The photo ops were numerous and adorable.

Florida bound!

Andi watching the plane land in Ft. Lauderdale

Big family dinner the first night we arrived

4 Generations!

Twinning with some ridiculously adorable shoulder ruffles

A VERY happy grandma!

 

A great family photo while twinning again in some adorable lobster rompers

Water babies!

Andromeda was a champ on the airplane for the flight to Florida but struggled a little bit on the way home due a combination of a stuffy nose, teething, and a couple nights of rough sleep.  But we made it back home and jumped right back into the swing of things.  Andi has made the executive decision to cut herself down to only 2 naps/day, which was rough when we were coming off of this somewhat sleep deprived trip.  But once we got home to familiar surroundings and a normal schedule, things have gotten better.  During the day, her afternoon nap has grown from a 30 minute crappy nap to be longer than an hour, so that's been pretty magical!  I leave you with a few random cute pictures from month 8:

Weekend morning brunch with mommy and daddy

Andromeda loved to put things into the farm silo and then pull them back out again!

Mmmmm, broccoli!

Helping mommy with laundry

Andi is fascinated with her moon nightlight

 

Andi's 7 Month Update!

I said it last month and I'll say it again this month, this is such a fun age!  Andromeda is still the queen of crappy  naps, but when she is awake she is the happiest little kiddo, constantly babbling, laughing, moving, and wanting to try new things.  We had a lot of big stuff happen this month!  We'll start off with motor skills - Andi is now semi-mobile.  She can scoot on her booty.  We'll set her on the floor and turn around for 2 minutes and turn back to find her 4 feet from where she started, likely trying to get one of the dog toys.  At daycare they said that she scooted all the way over to the cabinets when they weren't looking and she was opening drawers!  She is on the verge of crawling, so things are about to get a lot more real and we definitely need to crack down on our baby proofing real soon.  She will get on her hands and knees and rock, but she hasn't figured out what to do once she gets there.  She usually just falls to her belly and get frustrated right now.  But she's SO CLOSE!  We've also started teaching her some ways to communicate with us - arms in the air means "up" and she will occasionally wave "goodbye".

Happy kiddo with all the toys!

Almost crawling!!

Seeing if Grandma can tempt her to move further

Up!

Andi has moved past "G" sounds and is now also starting to incorporate some "B" sounds.  Occasionally she'll look up at me, give me a huge smile, and just start babbling "bababababa".  I love it.  In other mouth news, she also now has 2 teeth!!!  The first one popped through last week and didn't seem to bother her much, but the second one came through this past weekend and started to affect her sleep a bit (still the same happy baby during the day, though).  We gave her some acetaminophen and lots of snuggles and I think we're over the first hump now.  We're putting those new teeth to use though on all of the new foods that Andromeda is eating!  She has become a food lover and wants to try everything that anyone else is eating (including the kids at daycare, which the teachers there find super amusing).  In addition to last month's foods, Andi is now also eating broccoli, toast (she'll basically eat anything as long as you put it on bread...), hummus, eggs, cheese, apples, oatmeal, salami, homemade jerky, dried pear, a tuna sandwich (like I said, anything on bread), hamburgers, sweet potatoes (in tater tot form) and rice crackers.  Some of it she just gums and doesn't really "eat", like the apples and jerky.  Other stuff she gnaws at enough to actually make a dent, like the salami, broccoli and dried pear.  And other things she is full on eating as much as she can get, like the toast, hummus, avocado, nectarines (her favorite!), watermelon, and rice crackers.  She's not totally a fan of the eggs or oatmeal yet, but she was game to try.  It is endlessly entertaining.

First broccoli encounter.  If we eat it and pretend like she can't have any, it's a guaranteed way to at least get her to try it...

Avocado toast and scrambled eggs.

Gnawing on an apple and some salami.

Hummus toast, eggs, and cheese.  The hummus toast is one of her new favorites.

Finally a sweet potato victory thanks to some tater tots!

My parents came to visit us at the end of June and Andromeda had a lot of fun hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa!  It had been 4 months since they'd last seen her and so Andi got to show off all of her new skills and eating habits.  My mom and dad have a surprisingly large number of friends in Houston, so we spent the weekend with a revolving door of visitors and Andromeda charmed them all.  We get to see Grandma and Grandpa again this coming month and we're really excited!

Happy kiddo with Grandma and Grandpa Weeds!

Some quick grandma snuggles before Andi was on the go again!

The other fun event from this past month was Andi's first swim lessons!  We have a lot of friends with pools, not to mention all of our family in Florida, so we want to start Andromeda on pool safety and learning to swim now.  We had an orientation class this past weekend and Andi was a champ.  No tears.  She doesn't LOVE the water, but I think she's curious about it, so it's a good start.

First swim lesson!

 Here are a few other fun pictures from the last month:

Wiggly little snuggle bug!

Using her endless cuteness to advertise for Uncle K

Puzzle fun

Just, you know, chilling in the laundry basket...

Obviously S's influence...

Baby's first beer??  She didn't actually get any, but like I said, she wants to try EVERYTHING we have

And mommy's influence...

And now that she's getting more mobile, this month's staged photo with the 7 Month sign was a bit more challenging.  Here are a few entertaining outtakes...

Very first shot she grabbed the paper and tried to eat it.  Also for shots 2-7...

And trying for a repeat on shot 8.

Seriously... now you know why the paper was a bit crumbled

Her new thing is clasping her hands together.  I'll take it as it means she couldn't grab the paper AGAIN