6 months

I cannot believe that it has already been 6 months...that is half a year!!  Time has just flown by with Hallie, even mores than it did with hudson.  Hallie is truly a dream and we love her to pieces.  The live we had without Hallie is already slipping away from me.  She is so part of her family and I can't imagine our family without her.  She is a joy to be around and brings smiles to faces wherever we go.

We had Hallie's 6 month pediatrican appointment, on her 6 month mark, and she did great.  The most difficult part of her appointments is trying to figure out how to manage 2 kids while there.  I guess that is just my new life now. Ha! Hallie is developing and growing well.  Our concerns leading into her appointment were her weight gain, how to feed a baby solids! (didn't I just do this 2 years ago?!?), getting her out of her swaddle and sleep training at night.  Weight gain is looking great, solids should be a breeze since we started a week shy of 6 months and we can practically go right into 3 meals a day and introduce new foods relatively quickly, the swaddle needs to go, and sleep training at night should wait until she's 17 pounds per the doctor.

Here are her stats:
Height: 26 1/4 inches (75 percentile)
Weight: 14 lbs 3 oz (25 percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 3/4 inches

While her weight percentile is still much lower than her height, the gap is narrowing and she is, as the doctor and nurse say, just following her own little curve.  I anticipate her weight to jump now that she's on solids, but I still am blown away that her percentile isn't higher when I see the chub on that girl's face.  she is seriously rocking it these days.

this past month Hallie...

• rolls from her back to her stomach.  She first started trying to do this while in the tub, and would sometimes drink a little water and get scared--and I would a little too!  The first time I noticed her doing it on the ground was in relief society.  She was on the floor on a blanket and I was semi-watching her and semi-listening to the lesson.  She was trying to roll over and kept getting stuck on her arm.  I didn't think much of it other than thinking she was having a touch time because she was in a small space between chairs.  A few attempts later, it dawned on me she was rolling the other way.  She had only gone from her stomach to back and was now going this other way.  By the end of RS, she was a rollin' (3/1).
• Has become so much more independent during her awake time.  She is better at entertaining herself and does better with a lot of our "play stations."  She loves the floor play mat and will swat at the toys and grab some.  Like Hudson did, she loves the crinkly star.  She also does great in the jungle jumper toy we have as well as the door frame jumper.  She really picked up on it right before she turned 5months and just loves it.  We often put her in it during dinner time, right after her last nap.
• Since learning to roll and learning to love her toys, she just rolls all around the living room rug from end to end, often rollin right off the rug onto the wood floor and whining until I come and put her back on our soft rug.  Since our entire house is wood flooring, she really only rolls out on the front room rug.  I used to put her down on a blanket, but seeing as she is of it in seconds, it's kind of pointless now.  She has started being able to turn and roll to whatever toy she wants.  She also uses her control to get as close to Hudson and she can. 
• As mentioned, we started her on rice cereal a week before her 6 month mark.  She loved it and could not get enough.  She would reach for the bowl and pull it closer to her in an effort to get more food more quickly.  We will slowly add fruits and vegetables to her diet and I see her loving them as well.  
• She shows more interest in toys now, and I have only recently realized that "Hallie toys" are now on my list whenever we "leave the house." It used to be something that if I grabbed, I would sometimes give to her, but now its a staple as she loves playing with her small tocsin her stroller and carseat.  She enjoys having toys hanging from her carseat handle and occasionally will pull the toy, sending it into a rattling noise as it ascends back up.  It makes my heart happy and reminds me so much of when Hudson would do this. 
• We have started propping her up to sit, but she just basically falls forward trying to get a toy.  I think it is good that she goes forward naturally rather than back, and I think she will pick up on the skill pretty soon.  How's that for an optimistic mama. 
• She is taking 3 naps a day, one morning nap, (around 9:30 for 2 hours) one afternoon nap (1:30 for 1.5-2 hrs) and almost always has an evening catnap.  Some days when she has taken longer daytime naps, the evening nap doesn't happen, but for mow it is still pretty consistent.  It's the perfect little nap to hold her through till her 8:00 bedtime and gives me the freedom I need to get dinner ready. 
• She loves her feet, especially when they are free of socks!  As she lays on her changing pad after her bath, I can almost guarantee that she will stick her feet in her mouth as I am trying to put a diaper on--as is true with most of her diaper changes.  The flexiblity that these babies have is amazing!
• She is on and off with sleeping through the night.  She is getting better, but is often waking at 5-5:30, which is too early for me to consider time to start the day.  I try and get her back to sleep with her pacifier, but if she won't go back quickly, I do nurse her, then she goes right back to sleep for about 3 hours. our battle with sleeping lately has been the swaddle. I must admit I can throw down a mean swaddle, which has been a blessing and a curse.  Hallie will literally fall to sleep within minutes if she's swaddled, but if she wakes and tries to get out and succeeds (which has been mores lately) she won't go back to sleep.  she has become dependent on the swaddle.  Something that has been so great is now turing into a problem.  She won't fall to sleep easily in her carseat at all, because she isn't swaddled, and won't get through multiple sleep cycles easily because she breaks out of her swaddle.  I think most babies breakout out of the swaddle around 3-4 months and parents go with it, but me being the determined individual that I am, just figured out "better" ways to swaddle.  Looking back, I wish I just let her naturally wean herself from the swaddle.  Now that she's rolling and waking out of her swaddle, we have to wean her.  I am kind of terrified as we haven't had to do much "crying it out" as she's been a great sleeper, but I can see that's where we are heading. 
• We have suspected teeth and keep checking, but no teeth as of yet!
• She is still easily fitting into size 3-6 month, and is even wearing a few size 3 month onesies as layered items. She is wearing size 1 diapers, but has started wetting through them at night.  She has one more sleeve of size 1, and after that is gone, we will move her into size 2. 
• She, like Hudson at this age, is deep into her "discovery" mode.  She loves looking at things around her and is noticing more and more.  She recently just started playing with the grass at the edge of the blanket while at the park and other fun things of the sort.  I love watching my babies discover these simple things in life.