Fall love

In honor of today being the official day of autumn...my favorite season might I add... I wanted to share our...okay maybe more like my, fall to do list! Steven will enjoy these things, too, but I want to make sure they happen!

- walk one of the college campuses/greenbelt to see the leaves their beautiful fall colors
- collect different fall leaves
- visit a pumpkin patch dressed in plaid
- carve/decorate pumpkins
- build a fire pit and make s'mores in our backyard
- go to a Boise State football game, and finally see the smurf turf ; )
- bake an apple pie, all from scratch (never done one before-wish me luck)
- make caramel apples
- drink hot apple cider
- make chocolate chip pumpkin bread
- go to a corn maze
- watch Hocus Pocus
- and drink lots of pumpkin spice lattes of course!

As you may have noticed, several of those entail eating and drinking. But that's what crisp temperatures and warmer clothing calls for. Bundling up with cozy clothes and blankets with warm eats and drinks sounds fabulous to me. Happy fall ya'll!

7 months

(Ellie kept wanting to roll over to her tummy every time I put her on her back. Hence those two shots of her on her side, she was mid roll and super happy!)

Size: This one hasn't changed at all with what she's wearing; size 2 diapers, and clothes ranging from size 3-9 month. Weighs 13.81 lbs and is 25" long as of September 17th. 

Eyes: I would say they are a deep blue/grey/green. And in different lighting one color seems more bold than the other making it hard to figure out their true color! 

Hair: Still has the golden brown color! It is getting so long! And finally her bald spot is filling in a little. Yay! She's not even on her back a ton, but I guess when she is, she moves her head back and forth often, and that would wear the hair down each time. It just looks pretty funny because the rest of it is long. I put her in high pig tails the other day and we had a good laugh, because it sticks out so long and pretty straight. I want to try doing anything different/fun because it's long enough to do several things with, but she moves her head a lot - she's wondering what you're trying to do to her. 

Sleeping: Praise the Lord Ellie is continuing to sleep superb! Same schedule as the last few months. However, there are some days where her afternoon nap is difficult for her and results in some crying. But all together she still does really well. The 10+ hours of sleep at night is so wonderful. However, since she goes to bed so early (7pm), she wakes early and if we had a late night, the morning after is a bit rough and throws me off...but that's our fault, not hers! And at least her naps are on average 2 hours long, so if need be, I can nap as well!

Eating: We have started solids! So far we do oatmeal cereal in the morning and avocado in the afternoon. I have given her sweet potato once. Her doctor recommends just feeding her the oatmeal and avocado (both mixed with breast milk) right now due to her weight. Focus on the higher calorie food (avocado) to help and not have her fill up on several low calorie foods. She does still nurse 6 times during the day as well and she loves every opportunity to eat indeed. If she didn't spit up so much (reflux/GERD issue, not over eating issue) or move around so much, she would have rolls on rolls for sure. I'll just give the few rolls she has some love! ; )

Milestones:

• Solids
• Sitting up on own for longer periods of time
• Grabbing toys behind her or by her side without needing to look (she's been able to do this for awhile)
• Army crawl

Likes:

• Food! She will open her mouth great for every bite. She also makes this 'umm' sound with a lot of bites, like yum! Not saying she is trying to talk, but just saying she makes that noise by coincidence
• Sweater strings; she'll pull on them and try to yank them out (I feel she's thinking. 'what's up with this "never" ending string that won't come out??') and then of course she has to chew on them
• Having you wave at her while you say 'hi'
• Getting more interested in stuffed animals
• Squealing in all sorts of ways.  A lot of the time it sounds like a dinosaur; like a pterodactyl - it's funny and weird at the same time! She has squealed for several months, but now she's experimenting with all the sounds/ways she can make noise! She reaches some awesome low and high decibels/pitches!
• Holding onto your hands while you clap
• Will like pretty much anything new you give her to play with, she's a curious girl

Dislikes (and thank fully there's still not a lot):

• You being slow with her next bite of food. She's ready man and you need to be also!
• Touching grass with her hands 
• Loud/sudden noises; startles easy just like her mama