On the Brink of a Revolution

Skip that rolling around to get places stage - Addelyn is well on her way to go straight to crawling.  She's started to get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth and now the race has begun.  Who will win?  Will mommy get the basement play room baby-proofed first, or will Addelyn start cruising around before all of the outlets are properly covered and the power cords hidden?

Other than that, life has been pretty exciting the last couple of weeks.  Here's some highlights:

Addelyn has been saying "mama" a LOT recently.  I think she might be starting to make a connection.  Another new thing - she pulled herself to standing for the first time today.  I had her in her bathtub without any water in it (she wanted to play in it) and she just grabbed the end and pulled herself up.  When she realized what she had done she looked right at me and smiled - soooo proud of herself!

It's fall!!  I LOVE to be outside in the fall, so I'm trying to get Addelyn outside at least a couple of times a week to play in the leaves and get some fresh air.

I just got done making Addelyn's costume for Halloween - she's going to be a bunny :-)  I also made her a giant carrot to hold, but when I took this picture I hadn't made it yet.  I even made a little carrot for a stuffed animal bunny to hold so they can match :-)  I'll post pictures of Addelyn and her bunny friend both holding their carrots after Halloween.

We should've done this long ago, but we got a swing for Addelyn and put it in the tree in the front yard.  She loves to swing!  She has fun playing peekaboo and kick mommy, and then she falls asleep.  It's the perfect way to get her to go down for a nap.  Too bad the weather is getting cold.  We'll have to use the swing as much as we can before it gets too cold out!

Addelyn is starting to get into a sleeping routine.  I can now get her to sleep from 9pm to 6 am almost every night and her naps are getting more regular - one 2-hour nap in the morning a couple of hours after she wakes up, maybe a short one in the early afternoon, and another 1-2 hour nap in the evening.  It's so nice to be able to plan chores around these naps, and Addelyn is in a much better mood now that she has a routine...

Last but not least, Addelyn got her first drumming lesson from daddy :-)

Stats:
Age:  6 1/4 months
Weight:  17 lbs, 10 oz
Length:  26.5 inches
Drinks:  about 5 7oz bottles of milk per day (4 oz of which is formula)
Eats:  4 teaspoons of rice cereal mixed with baby food at bedtime, & rice cereal mixed with baby food at lunch time.  She's had almost all of the veggies at this point.  Her favorite is carrots and her least favorite is peas.
Sleeps: 11 hours/night - 9pm-8am  (usually wakes up around 6am for a bottle)
Naps: 2 hours in the late morning (10-12), a short one in the afternoon (sometimes) and 2 hours in the evening (5-7)
Awake for: 1.5-5 hours at a time during the day.
Clothes size:  mainly 6-9 month and some 3-6 month
Motor skills:  sitting up almost unattended, rolling over tummy-to-back and back-to-tummy, rocking on hands and knees, and standing while holding on to something.
other skills:  babbling, going backwards in her walker, shaking a rattle
words:  no words yet...unless you count mama, but I don't think she knows what it means.
signs:  she understands "milk" and we're working on "change diaper", "help", "out", "up", "fall down", "play", "tired", "night night", "book", "bye bye", and "eat"