Finally!!

I am the proud mother of a little almost 6 month old who can finally roll over!!!! She rolls from tummy to back almost as soon as I put her on her belly. I am so excited because we have really been working hard on tummy time and it has paid off. I don't think it will be too much longer before she can roll from back to tummy as we have been working on that too.

Going on 9 months...

Well, that is only in clothing. Yes, Rachel fits very well into a Carter's 9 month outfit. Some of her other brands are still fitting at 6 months. In general, I think she will be ahead one size. She is still cute as can be. Nothing too much is going on here with us. Matt is going back to the Plant City yard he was working from before Rachel was born. He will also be back on his normal 7:30 - 4:00 shift 5 days a week. That should work out good for us right now because he will be home in time to watch Rachel so I won't be having to drop her off. (Don't take that as a guarantee Lauren). I have been practicing with her a lot lately on her tummy and rolling over. What reward do I get for all of my hard work? Nothing on the rolling over front. She is getting stronger in her upper body and torso. If she is on her back and I roll her leg over for her and hold it, she can get her upper body flipped by herself. As far as tummy to back, I seriously thought she was going to do it today. She had her arm under her and was leaning the right way. If she had given a little push off, it would have happened. She tempted me like this about 10 times, but never rolled over. She is just going to take her sweet little time. Rachel got peas for the first time this week. Yummy or not? She ate them, maybe not as readily as some of her other foods, but she ate them. She is still swaddler free (yea) and I am washing up the last one to give back to Lauren. Have I mentioned that she can drink from a sippy cup? Well, she can take a few sips. I have water in it and I think the cold water kind of takes her by surprise when it comes out so most of the time it dribbles down her chin, along with everything else. She is starting to decrease the amount she eats in the morning bottle. I put about 7 oz in there and she ends up drinking only about 5.5 or 6 oz. I know this is supposed to happen because of the increase of solids, so I am not worried. She is growing so fast, but wears the chub well. My brother, Michael, is going back home to Chicago this week and boy are we bummed. However, it is for the best for him so Matt, Rachel, and I will sadly say good-bye and thank him for all of the times he has watched Rachel for us. We have loved spending so much time with you over the past few months.

Mika just had to get right by her on the nice, soft blanket.

Have I mentioned that she likes her feet now and has realized they exist? She really gets a kick out of them on the changing table. I don't know if she has the flexibility to get them in her mouth because she hasn't really tried to get them up there by her mouth at all.

We have been practicing sitting up too, but still really needs support. She does much better sitting on our bed than on the floor.

Happy Rachel!

We have been rather busy lately. What's new? Matt has been continuing to work overtime while it is there because it soon won't be. I am okay with him being going because we have a goal of working towards. This weekend I went to the Deeper Still women's conference featuring Beth Moore, Kay Arthur, and Priscilla Shirer. It was in Orlando so we had some great conversation during drive time with some awesome friends and my Mom. Us ladies had some time away from the husbands and kids. Unfortunately, there was no time to just chill out by a pool somewhere because they pack these women's conferences full of stuff. The speakers were fantastic and encouraged me to be in the Word of God everyday. I needed that. We hung out at Downtown Disney for a few hours on Saturday night and then came home. Sunday was spent hanging out with the family and just being lazy. HCC is still awesome! Rachel is about the same as always: pretty happy with a few crabby moments in between. She is actually working on her two bottom teeth, although the one on her right is broken through more. She is also fascinated with Baby Van Gogh. I always knew she liked to watch TV because she typically will turn towards it if it is on in the room she is in. So, I decided that every now and then, a little Baby Einstein video wouldn't kill her. It is only 20 or so minutes and there is nothing fast or crazy going on. She sits back from the TV and I usually give her a teething ring to play with. She won't make a sound for the entire video. She is in love with Baby Van Gogh. She rolled from her tummy to back twice this past week, although I think she just lost her balance. Whatever, we count it. I am still working on tummy time with her everyday. She loves her solids. So far she has eaten carrots, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, avocado, mango, strawberry, banana, peaches, applesauce, oatmeal, rice cereal, butternut and acorn squash, kiwi and maybe some pineapple. She really likes everything except doesn't seem to crazy about the rice and oatmeal. I mix them with her fruits and veggies now, but doesn't open as wide for them. I think she will be a good eater. I need to make some green beans and peas this week.

I watched Hannah while Kate went to the doctor. They didn't play together too much.

Rachel thinks it is funny to cover her face up.

She spent some time in a jumpy thing. I don't know what these are called, but seemed to like it okay.

Always up to give a smile

Just hanging around in a diaper. What a life!

Guess Who...

has been sleeping without a swaddler for the last 75 minutes and is cutting a tooth? As Matt said last night when we realized she was getting her first tooth, "She might as well be 18." My baby is not as babyish anymore and it makes me a little sad.

Mama has been busy!

Whew! I have be incredibly busy lately with school, church, working out, life. School is still going great. I am giving my first test tonight, so I have my first dose of grading this weekend. Matt has been working eight hour shifts the past two weeks, so Lauren hasn't had much babysitting to do. He has also been taking care of her when I tutor on Wednesdays and will usually go visit my brother Michael during that time. We then head off to church to eat dinner and go to our class, Growing Kids God's Way. I have been so busy this week that I haven't worked out at the gym at all. Matt and I were supposed to go for a bike ride on Tuesday, but he decided to go in to work. Michael was going to watch Rachel for us, but I decided that Michael and I would just go together. I loaded up Rachel and our bikes in the truck and we drove to my parent's house to drop her off. We rode around town for an hour and had a great time! Wednesday (yesterday) I spent the majority of the day with my friend Katie making baby food. I went to a fruit stand and spent $18. Rachel has some great foods headed her way. We made bananas, kiwi, strawberries, mango, pineapple and some mixtures of those foods. She also will be getting peaches at some point. For veggies, we made sweet potatoes, acorn and butternut squash, regular potatos mixed with the sweet ones, and carrots. I have some avocado that weren't quite ripe yet, but I will be making that in a few days. We made a lot of food and I am currently working on freezing them in ice cube trays and them transferring them to ziploc bags. We made a huge mess, saved me a lot of money, and had a good time together! So far, Rachel has tried bananas, butternut squash, rice cereal, and applesauce. She can say Mama, which of course was so sweet but I know it means nothing other than she can make her m sounds. I have always heard her make the d and g sounds too. I expect her to babble sometime in the near future. Now if I could just get her to roll over... Everyone says to enjoy her being stationary. She gets heavier and heavier, but I have no idea just how heavy she is. That carseat is becoming more cumbersome to carry with her in it.

On a really victorious note: About 1.5 years ago, I read the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and loved it and all he had to say. I really wanted to do it, but Matt wouldn't read the book so he didn't completely understand everything I wanted to do. We did it halfway, which is better than nothing. For whatever reason, he actually read it a few weeks ago, and we have really been using his strategies and sticking more and more to our budget. We have paid off all of our loans including cars and owe nobody any money except our mortgage. How awesome is that! I totally recommend this book and it is such an easy and practical read. We have more to go on our money makeover, but I am so excited to see where we end up!


What a gorgeous girl! If she has to be on her tummy, she seems somewhat entertained by the beeping sound of the camera. She is doing much better with tummy time. I started putting a timer in front of her for 5 minutes. It beeps and then I help her roll over. I am trying to get her to learn that the beep of the timer, not her crying, signals that tummy time is over. She went 5 minutes this morning with no crying. She has yet to roll over either way. She just doesn't seem to care.

These next two pictures are her the second time around eating the squash. She wouldn't keep her hands away from her face. She normally does well, but that day she kept rubbing by her nose and made a huge, huge mess. She went straight to the tub after this one.

Can these cheeks/face get much rounder?

What an adorable picture. Matt was in charge while I was at work and she took her catnap on our bed. She doesn't always suck her thumb, espcially while sleeping. How precious!

This next grouping of pictures are all chronologically backwards, but oh well. I don't have the time to fix it. This was Rachel's first taste of butternut squash. She seemed to like it better the second time, but didn't mind it.

She has really started putting mostly everything in her mouth. If you try to get her to wrap her hand around one of your fingers, she takes it up to her mouth because she wants to now suck on your finger.

She is becoming very adept in holding her bottle. She notices a bottle and if it is coming closer or further away from her. This helps me out a lot in the morning because she can feed herself and I can do other things. She is now finally helping me get to the gym on time.

We found these overalls in a bag of clothes from Lauren. I thought they were too cute and we had better wear them before she outgrew them. Well, she had outgrown them already because the snaps wouldn't stay snapped. Oh well. She looked so darn cute that I took her to church in them anyways.