Thank you!

Zalebaby, thank you for your service to our country. I'm proud of you. You are a great father.

Feeding Little Bit.

Alice.com is having a Gerber Baby Food Giveaway. Alice.com is a Mother's dream. They are a non-perishable online grocery store.....With FREE Shipping. Their prices are about the same as a normal grocery store and it has this awesome instant coupon feature.

For the giveaway, Alice has asked us to blog about the question:

What’s your best baby mealtime advice or feeding tip?

My best tip is keep distractions away during feeding.

Easier said than done, I know. At 8 months, Little Bit is far more interested in everything around her than in eating. The dogs, Daddy, even the ceiling fan is more compelling than Momma and the spoon....unless she gets to hold the spoon, of course. She's really good at getting the spoon into her mouth, but getting it there with food on it, not so good. I like to give her a couple of banana puffs to work on while I'm heating up her baby food. It keeps her busy and works on her fine motor skills. The puffs are great because they dissolve fast. She is still toothless, but she is oh-so-eager for real food.

I don't have a current picture of her eating, so this one a 5 months will have to do!

Uh Oh, We're in trouble now!

It all started with this:

The bouncy chair. We introduced her to it at the end of August. Liv loves to bounce. She will try to bounce when you are holding her, loves to bounce on mama's squishy belly.

The Wiggle came next:

I love that wiggle. She still gives me that happy wiggle first thing every morning when I get her up.

Here is where she figured out how to get up on her hands and knees, she's so proud of herself. Rightly so! (September 9th)

I recorded this Wednesday 23:

She had it down pat by the weekend. I spent the whole weekend chasing her around the house. It was so much fun, but, Oh Boy, do I need to baby proof!

Zalebaby sent me this one Monday morning:

She is doing her best to get to a sitting position. It's been so exciting to see her learn and grow. She'll be 8 months on the 4th, I wonder how long it will be before she starts walking? Zalebaby thinks it will be by Halloween. I doubt it, but I'll let him dream. Me, I'm still looking for her first tooth.

R.I.P. IV

It's that time of year again. It's time for Carl's R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge. I love being part of it. I've stretched into a new genre of stories by being part of this group.

This year I'm going to do:

Peril the First:

Read Four books of any length, from any sub-genre of scary stories that you choose.

The Challenge is from September 1st to October 31st. I think I can manage to read 4 vampire/supernatural books by then, baby or no baby.

My pool of books include:

The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine, (currently on my nightstand) a vampire story
Spectre by Phaedra Weldon, (also on my nightstand) a supernatural story
Strange brew, edited by P.N. Elrod. (on my nightstand---ok, so it seems I have been gravitating in this direction lately) Witchy short stories
Pride and prejudice and zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.by Grahame-Smith, Seth (sigh, also on my nightstand and the one I'm going to read first, as it is due back to the library on the 2nd) Zombie story
City of bones by Cassandra Clare (in my library queue) Supernatural/demonology story
Dates from hell by Harrison, Kim (also in my library queue) Supernatural short stories.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other people are reading in the challenge, so I can find some new scary books to read.

My girl is stubborn

Liv was so funny on Sunday. She refused to take a nap that morning. I tried to put her down for her 10 am nap, she screamed like I was poking her with a pin. She fussed and cried all morning. I gave up fed her early, at 11:30, She fell asleep as I was trying to feed her the baby food. Watching her nod off, then jerk awake to eat another bite was hysterical. When she'd truly fallen asleep, I got her out of the high chair, which woke her up and she screamed at me for waking her. I couldn't do anything but laugh at her as I put her down for her nap. She even pouted at me and whimpered in her sleep when I laid her down. too cute.

6 months

Dear Olivia,

I can't believe you are 6 months old already. I still find it hard to believe you are ours. It is so wonderful to have you in our lives. Mummy and Daddy love you to pieces. You can roll from you back to your belly. Most nights you sleep on your belly, Marty McFly style, with your butt in the air.

You can hold your bottle and feed yourself, mostly. You've been eating baby food for a month and the only thing you don't seem to like is Peaches. You love sweet potatoes, carrots and heaven help me, peas (you take after your dad that way) Applesauce gets a thumbs up, bananas are ok.You can almost sit by yourself. You tend to lean forward and prop yourself up on your hands, rather than sitting up, you are almost there. You sleep though the night now, mostly, and you can put yourself back to sleep. That is so wonderful.

We took you to your cousin Sascha's 1st birthday party: Daddy gave you a pretzel.This is what you thought of it:I can't wait to see what is next.

I missed it.....

Zalebaby just called. Liv rolled over, all on her own today. Yay Liv! The only thing that makes me feel better about missing it, is that Zalebaby missed it too. ;-) He left her on her back on the floor, playing with her gym. When he came back, she was fussing because she was laying on her belly. She hates belly time. Not only had she rolled over, she had wiggled herself around 180 degrees. It's time to start baby proofing......

It's so hard to believe she's 5 months old. Where did the months go?