Happy 1/2 Birthday!

On Saturday Allison celebrated her 1/2 birthday. Our little baby is 6 months old already.

As you can see by her picture she still has the rosy cheeks. We think that she may finally be teething. You can feel the ridge at the top of her gums. However, I don't think the teething has anything to do with the rosy cheeks since she had them for two months now.

She had her six month appointment on Tuesday. She weighed in a 16.4 pounds, 25 inches long and her head is 44.5 cm. We are happy to report that she is a happy and healthy baby. She did much better at this appointment than her 4 month one. She was happy until the shots and even then she only cried for a few minutes.

After her appointment we went to lunch at Applebees where she kept herself amused by blowing raspberries.

I know that we mention this each month, but we are continuously amazed at how much she is changing. She is now rolling like crazy. I never know what position I am going to find her in. We are practicing sitting. She still quite doesn't have the hang of it. Hopefully it will happen soon so we can get her six month photos taken.

She also likes to kick her legs on the floor. She is currently keeping herself amused by kicking the activity mat. She also giggles a lot. I love when she is in the back seat of the car by herself and will start to giggle. We always wonder what she is thinking about. She also bounces back and forth when sitting on our lap or in her walker. It is as though she is dancing to music in her head. Speaking of music, we have started playing a kids CD for her. Her favorite song by far is Alice the Camel, which we have appropriately changed to Allison the Camel. As soon as I start to sing it, she gets a big grin on her face.

I am writing on behalf of Brian, but I think it is safe to say that the highlight of his day is coming home from work and seeing her with a big grin on her face when she sees Dad. When I volunteer or have to work, they will often go to the mall and walk around. They have become mall buddies.

Even though I have short hair it is too enticing for her. She can't help but pull it. She has a good grip on her. She still loves kisses. She is actually becoming more cuddly at bedtime. I can actually rock her a few minutes before I put her down. In the past she didn't want to be bothered with it.

In all, these past six months have been excellent. She is a true joy in our lives. We are looking forward to these next six months. Keep in touch with us.

Who needs activity mats?

Allison has discovered just because I place her on her activity mat or blanket, doesn't mean she has to stay there. She also realized that we don't have to put her next to Ozzie in order to be up close to him. The last two days I have walked out of the room for a minute to come back and find her cuddling with Ozzie.

Poor Ozzie, his days of peace and quiet are over. He has been very good about it all. He will wait until I come back to the room before he gets up and moves. While he does like Allison, he needs his space.

I'm Here, I'm Here!

Lately when Allison wakes up from her nap and if she is fussy, I will call out to her as I am walking up the stairs to get her "Where is Allison, Is there a baby up? Is Allison behind this door." As soon as I start doing that she stops fussing. When I open the bedroom door she is sitting in her swing all excited like I found her. She always has a big grin on her face.

What a great way to wrap up an afternoon.

Quick Update

Allison after eating sweet potatoes. As you can see by her arm rolls she likes her food.

Nana and Papa came for a visit. Allison likes rubbing the "whiskers" on her dad's and papa's face.

Allison when she doesn't take a nap.

Nothing too exciting on this end. We are fully recovered from the holidays. Everything is packed away (by the way we decided to keep the tree up a few extra days.) Allison got back on schedule, although she must be sympathizing with the Hollywood writers because she went on a little bit of a strike -- a nap strike that is. She went four days in a row where she refused to take her afternoon nap. She was not a happy camper by 6 pm, neither was mom or dad. She took a good nap today though.

Allison is a champion eater! She now has had squash, bananas, carrots, and sweet potatoes. She really hasn't shown any kind of reaction to the food. We keep expecting some weird face when she tries something new, but she acts like she has been eating that item for months. The other day I gave her a little bit of water in a bottle and I fully expected her to be mad because it wasn't formula. She just gulped it down. She does love her sweet potatoes though. I think that is the best reaction we have gotten out of her yet. There was a lot of lip smacking going on.

Brian is working on the basement. Allison and I will be heading to Nana and Papa's house this weekend so he can paint the rafters. It is a stinky job, so I figured it would be a good idea to get Allison out of the house. Plus I know the family won't mind spending some time with her.

We are looking forward to a visit from Joie, Kurt, and Avari the following week. They will be coming in from California. Avari is a month older than Allison. It is exciting that Joie and I had babies at the same time. I can't wait to get a picture of the two girls together.

Five Months (and one week)

Our baby turned five months old last week. This past month has been so much fun. She really has started to become active and more aware of things. We get such a kick out of her.

A few week ago she was in a silly mood all weekend and kept Brian and I laughing. She developed a new laugh that sounds like "hee hee hee." All you would have to do is look at her and she would go "heee heee heee." It is funny how she develops news sounds all the time and all of sudden you realize that she stopped making one certain sound and is on to another. When she was only a few weeks old and would have her meltdowns she would make a mawaaa sound (its hard to type out.) Then she was on to "Mum." Everything was mum. Lately she has been grunting, especially when she is trapped in her car seat or bouncy seat. She also loves making raspberries sounds. She makes a funny face with it now. Through it all though, she has kept up with her squealing and yelling.

She likes playing with her toys and loves being read to. She can sit on my lap for the longest time while we look through her books. For Christmas we got a book with the correct versions of nursery rhymes and baby songs. This is a nice change from the "Hush little baby, don't you cry, Momma is going to buy you a Barbie Doll." I could pretty much only remember a mocking bird and a diamond ring and that was about it. I had to get creative in the things that momma was going to buy her.

Allison can be easily entertained by kisses. She loves getting kisses and tries to kiss you back. The other night when putting her to sleep, I was suddenly surprised when she had my nose in her mouth. She kept trying to eat my nose the rest of the night. So much for trying to get her to sleep because I was laughing so hard that I was crying and she was also laughing.

She is pretty much done with pacifiers already. She stopped taking it during the day a while back, and then didn't want it at night. She would sometimes take it at nap time but really doesn't even want that anymore. I think we will pack those up this week.

And since, I'm doing this blog in part for Allison when she gets older, I have to brag and talk about how we get so many compliments on how cute she is. She hear that she looks like the Gerber baby a lot. People also comments on her rosy cheeks. The other day when I brought her to the Meijer Gardens a volunteer said "You hear the term adorable baby, but really that is one adorable baby."

Besides rolling over, Allison also discovered her thumb. Luckily she doesn't seem too attached to it (well, besides it being attached to her hand.) Hopefully it doesn't turn into a bad habit. Right now she does it enough just to be cute.

We are looking forward to month five and all the milestones she will reach.

For some more pictures check out www.moreofallison.shutterfly.com

Password is allison.