Emily is 6 Months

Emily is 6 months old!  At the doctor today she was in the 75th percentile for weight (15 lbs 6 oz) and 90th for height – 27 inches.  She is about the weight Tucker was at 4 months. 

At six months Emily gets up on her hands and knees and rocks but doesn’t crawl yet.  She can push herself backward and make her way across a room, as well as rolling every which way.  Not sure she gets to where she wants that way, but she sure loves to move.

Like before, she continues to love solid food and jumping.  (She even went on a nursing strike last week and only wanted to eat real food.)  When she does nurse, she is so distractible, and continually crunches up so she can sit up and look around.  She loves to be outside on a blanket, and she loves books and read-aloud time.  She tries to plank when we put her in her car seat, and she would rather be on her tummy than sitting up. 

She doesn’t eat at night but she is not as deep a sleeper as the older kids were.  She is often up in the middle of the night, just because.

She continues to have blue eyes… the doctor guessed today that they may turn out hazel or green rather than brown like her big brother and sister.

She also continues to prefer Austin and I… and make life kinda miserable for anyone else who watches her.

Most of all, she’s so much fun.  She really is.  She’s delighted to lunge at the food on our plates, delighted to try to eat a spatula, delighted to see us, delighted to see the sights at the grocery store, delighted to roll on her back underneath the sky, delighted to find a good carpet to move backward on,  delighted to put her toes in her mouth, delighted to try to catch the cup at communion, delighted to sing along with the songs at church… just delighted.  (Which of course, is delightful.)  We love you, Emily, and are having so much fun being with you!

     

Quote of the Day

“Maybe she is crying for joy!” Molly said as we looked at Emily screaming on the baby monitor.  (She had woken herself up early with a dirty diaper and was so miserable up that I put her back down, which made her equally upset.)

Shark’s Teeth and a Family Picture

 

We made it through vacation without one picture of all five of us so we had the waitress at breakfast take one. 

And here are the fossils we found!

Westmoreland State Park 2015

Virginia state parks are the best.  Once again, we have had a fabulous time at our week-long cabin stay.  I was thinking this trip that state park cabins are a true gem, but they would be a big disappointment if you’re looking for a luxurious retreat with the amenities of home and more.  State park cabins are for the people who would almost be willing to camp… and are thus delighted with a rustic cabin’s infrastructure.

We did a lot this trip: the pool, the beach, hunting for fossilized shark’s teeth, enjoying great breakfasts out, lots of biking, some (relatively short) hiking, lots of ranger programs, lots of campfires, fishing, boating, visiting George Washington’s Birth Place, two family movie nights, and lots of time to play and just be together.  I even finished two fun novels, and managed not to neglect anyone too badly while I was engrossed.

One of the highlights for me was finding 11 fossil sharks teeth and 3 ray teeth (the pictures are of my favorite minions looking for the teeth with a sieve, aka a colander)… I’ll add pictures of the actual shark’s teeth later.

Another big highlight was eating out four times all week… at the same place each time.  The Art of Coffee in Montross makes a mean breakfast.  We all loved it, but the person who liked the breakfast best there might possibly have been Emily.  She is an eating machine and pulled Austin’s plate of food onto his lap in her excitement to partake one morning.  Egg, hash browns, biscuit, bacon… not bad fare for a five month-old.  Here are all the kids waiting for food….

Another food highlight for the kids were salt water taffy in the camp store, local root beer and gingerale, as well as marshmallows over the campfire almost every night…

…except for the night that some coals fell out of the grill on the way to the fire pit and managed to burn both big kids.  That night we abandoned the campfire in favor of our second family movie night (Swiss Family Robinson, and An American Tale).

We did some boating and fishing…

 

And lots of biking.  This was maybe Tucker’s favorite thing about the trip.  He got a taste of freedom because we let him bike to most of our destinations around the park.  Because I have a bum foot that is taking forever to heal, I drove from our cabin to the beach, the trail heads etc… and Tucker would just bike on his own.  What a taste of glory for a seven year-old.  Molly has had no interest in biking at home, ever.  But she caught the biking bug too and really pedaled for the first time ever.  She did three bike rides of a mile each, which is a lot considering she had never even pedaled before.

We took day trips to Belle Isle State Park (our destination for next summer) and to George Washington’s Birth Place.  Belle Isle was a neat surprise, and Emily was an amazingly flexible little girl who didn’t take a single nap in her crib that day without complaint.  She was actually amazing the whole trip and napped in the stroller, the front pack, and the car seat when necessary.  

We also enjoyed some fun ranger programs, including seining for fish, making ice cream by hand, making shark’s tooth necklaces, making survival necklaces, and going on a night hike.

We had lots of beach time and pool time, of course:

And took short hikes everywhere around the park…

And enjoyed bumming around the cabin…

The kids even got some practice in photography and took some good pictures too:

Thank you, Westmoreland!