I think I skipped a 7 month update… oops, sorry guys, life was a bit out of control there for a bit.  I’m slowly but surely getting a grip on my life and getting things put back into order.  I’ll write a whole blog post about that, but we have a different topic today… Taylor! I can’t believe my little nugget is over 8 months old!! (technically she was 8 months last week… but again… just getting life back together, so I’m late… again.)

I think I probably say this every time, but this is SUCH a fun age! She is laughing and smiling all the time, just on the cusp of crawling across the room, and interested in everything.  She recognizes the people she has spent time with and LOVES both myself and my husband, squealing every time she sees us.

(ps… photographing with the blocks is harder now that she can pick the blocks up and turn them over!)

We like to play a game with her: Which one do you want? The toy… or whatever is not the toy.  And she picks the Not-a-toy EVERY time.  Lay 2-3 things in front of her… one thing that is not a toy, like cell phone, wipes, marker, calculator, tupperware, etc, and then one to two toys.  She picks something other than her toy every.single.time, without fail.   She is almost always happy, although she is definitely going through a stage of separation anxiety where she cries whenever I leave the room (or walk behind a tall piece of furniture).

She has 3, almost 4 teeth, and has a cute little toothy grin she gives you all the time.  She can scoot a bit, roll over multiple times, and go from laying to sitting to laying down again. I feel like any day now she will just start crawling across the room.  She loves food, and eats almost everything we give her (except for blueberries… she HATES blueberries).  She loves to try to drink out of a glass, but ends up mostly spilling it all down her front.  

She has been at a school that is not my favorite right now, but starts at a better one next week, so I’m excited for her to get back to her permanent routine too!

She has started sleeping well again, which was a struggle during the move and transition.  And she graduated out of her Magic Sleep suit, so she sleeps just in her pajamas and typically on her stomach with her little bum in the air, which is pretty cute.

She also got to watch her dad graduate which was pretty fun!

And we added Georgia to her list of states visited, since she accompanied me to a work conference.  But its not a bad gig… she got a stuffed dinosaur out of the deal. So that makes 8 states she has visited: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Virginia, Georgia, and the District of Columbia (and if you count a stopover in Chicago O’Hare-9).  She is one well traveled little girl!

She celebrated her first Valentine’s day, which is a fun tradition in my family.  So we went over to Nanny and Papa’s house, exchanged home made valentines cards and had coffee cake.

We are trying to soak up every minute of this age because it is going by SO FAST!

You guys. I feel like the phrase that keeps coming out of my mouth these days is an exasperated #mylife.  I use it to describe how our belongings are in 3 different places right now because our house is on the market, so some of our things are already moved to Wichita to give the appearance that we are the cleanest people on the planet. And because we aren’t anywhere close to being the cleanest people on the planet, Taylor and I are spending a lot of time at my brother’s house so that we don’t mess up our own… because have you ever tried to get a dog, a 6 month old, and yourself out of the house with all of your mess. IMPOSSIBLE.

And what that really means? Is that whatever I need at that moment is most likely wherever I am not.  But lest I sound like all I do is complain (which feels altogether too close to the truth for my own liking) I am so grateful to have family to spend time with, people who will put up with all of my stuff, and go out of their way to help us out.  My saint of a dad drove a uhaul trailer through severe thunderstorms the day of the tornadoes in Dallas so that we could get my house ready to show.  So I know that I am unbelievably lucky to have people who love us and are taking care of us during this crazy phase of life.

But this post isn’t really about that. But all of that is my excuse for not posting Taylor’s 6 month update.  And for not having a cute picture of her at 6 months in her crib #maybenextweek?

I do still want to track her updates… so you’ll have to just suffice with candids from the last month. 

Milestones: She can sit up all by herself all the time… and she loves it! She has very little tolerance for laying down now; she wants to be up and looking around.  She is eating solid foods now.  She has had sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, pears and avocado.  She loves all of them except for pears, which she HATES… she makes disgusted faces, gagging noises…the whole shebang.  I’m sure she won’t be over-dramatic like her mother AT ALL. She LOVES to eat… she got so excited for avocados, she was waving her arms around, making lots of noise, and then ate half an avocado.  DE-LICIOUS.  She is also getting really good at moving around and reaching for things.  She still can’t roll over from back to front (and i’m not complaining… having an immobile child is a lot easier than one who can roll around!) but she can twist and turn and somehow manages to get things in her hands that I am SURE are out of her reach.  She also weighed in at 16 lbs at her last doctors appointment. 

Likes: to eat–she has loved trying foods, scarfing all the veggies down as fast as possible. I’m sure I’ll be missing those days when she is a picky toddler, but for now it is fun to watch. She likes funny noises and still loves classical music.  She is starting to smile at herself in the mirror or on facetime, she loves when my mom sings to her and she loves to facetime with her dad! She’s a pretty easy going kid… so there isn’t much she doesn’t like, but she also rocks her serious face a lot of the time! She loves looking at dogs–both Lexie and Match are fun to look at and pet! 

Dislikes: She dislikes being laid down right after she gets up from sleeping… which makes changing her diaper a bit challenging.  She dislikes Pears pretty strongly.  Her skin also dislikes everything.  Poor girl, she has excema, drool rash, and had an allergic reaction after getting licked by one of the dogs! So she and aquaphor are BFFs.  She also dislikes falling over.  A few times while sitting up she has fallen backwards and even though it is carpeted and she doesn’t seem any worse for the wear, it either scares her or hurts her and she cries pretty emphatically.  My bad parent moment is that I think she is really cute when she cries because she scrunches up her whole face… so I can’t help but to laugh a little bit when she cries (and I know she isn’t really hurt).  Bad mom. 

It was her first Christmas and she was a travelling fool.  We spent the days of Christmas at home and my husband was here for several days with us, then Taylor and I went with my parents to both of my extended family Christmases, so as of now, Taylor has visited Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, DC and Virginia… multiple times for each place! She has completed many road trips and several flights and is an excellent traveler!