Stella is Six Months!!!

I can not believe how the time just flies right by. My little chunker is six months.

Can you believe she used to look like this:

and before long, she looked like this:

and now she looks like this:

I thought I would just do a not so quick update on Stella and her personality and developments. Just so you know, this is a collection of picture and videos of the past two months or so. So in some she may look younger than in others.

Stella has started eating solids:

Her first food was avocado. She also loves sweet potatoes, green beans, oatmeal baby cereal, carrots, and watermelon (Benj and I were eating it and she was opening her mouth like a baby robin, so we gave her some and her eyes got all big and she was so excited. So I threw a few chunks in the blender for her. After eating a whole bunch, we ended up just mixing it with her oatmeal cereal so she would at least get something besides watermelon before her stomach was full). She tried peas and didn’t like them at all. But she also got a rash from them, so I guess its ok if she wont eat her peas. She didn’t really love pureed zucchini either, but I am going to try again. This video is of Stella trying peas for the first time. She doesn’t like them, but she can’t stop smiling because Benjamin is smiling at her from behind the camera.

I let her play with her bowl and spoon after she is done eating:

The high chair above is our neighbors. We were testing it out to see if we wanted to make a trip to IKEA to get one of their high chairs. We ended up buying the one in the picture below from Once Upon A Child (a second hand baby store). I love it! It straps to a chair and it has a soft cushion that can wipe right off.

I made the mistake once of letting her play with a glass bowl and she was obsessed with biting it with her little teeth (yes, she has two teeth!). It didn’t last long because the sound of the little tooth scraping the glass gave me the shivers. She was kind of mad when I took it away.

I make most of Stella’s baby food. She still eats from a jar occasionally and I do have quite a stash of baby food jars, but I found it really easy to just chop up a few extra veggies while I’m cooking dinner and steam them or roast them. Then all I have to do is throw them in the blender or food processor, spoon it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. I put tin foil over the tray and the next morning I throw it in a ziploc, write the date and the food name on the bag, and stick it in the freezer. Frozen baby food lasts for 3 months and I think it tastes so much better than from a jar. I will eat both homemade and store bought, but she seems to like the homeade better. She will only eat 2 or 3 bites of store bought peaches, but she really likes homemade peaches. I don’t blame her one bit. I tasted those jarred peaches yesterday and they are nasty! Part of the reason I make some of my own baby food is because I find the variety of flavors of pureed baby food to be limiting. There are so many great foods that can be pureed for a baby that aren’t even made in a in a jar. I also don’t waste as much, because sometimes she can’t eat a whole jar of baby food in the 48 hours they are good for in the fridge. Anyway, you don’t have to watch this video because it could be really long and boring, but she really loves her sweet potatoes. We took this video not too long after she started eating baby food (a couple weeks ago) and I realize how much she has improved at eating from a spoon.

Stella LOVES her toys. Her favorite toys are her keys:

Her stuffed Eeyore (she sleeps with him and hugs him close. A med student in Benj’s class gave her an Eeyore, piglet, and Winnie the Pooh shoes. Wasn’t that nice?):

her board books (she loves to chew on them):

and random things like chocolate chip bags, paper plates, and the bag her wipes come in:

She really like the little neighborhood tree swing outside. It totally relaxes her:

She likes her swing inside, too, but usually only for a short time. She learned how to rock herself in the swing if it is turned off. It kind of scares me when she does this. I always make sure she is buckled in tight. This video doesn’t really even do it justice. She can really get going by leaning forward, then back.

She also really really loves her jumper. She gets really crazy in that jumper.

Stella can sit up, now. She is still pretty tipsy though.

She LOVES riding in the cart at the grocery store:

Have you also noticed that I can put her hair in little ponies and pig tails? So cute!

Sorry to those of you who may have already seen some of these pics on instagram.

She is a smiley little thing and lately she has been adding a funny little sound to her big smiles:

She gets in these little giggly moods and its so cute. Its usually when she is kind of tired and all it takes is something simple like me shaking my head and smiling.

This one is my favorite. She was so over tired that day. Watch for the part when I say “I’m gonna get ya”. It scared her pretty bad, but I was laughing so hard that she recovered pretty quickly,

Stella is very vocal. She is always babbling something. Her most common sounds are “hi”, “hey”, and “ha”. I show her a picture of Benjamin every day and point to it and say “daddy” to see if she will say “dada” first. She really loves her dad. She lights up when he is around. The following video is her reactions to a picture of Benjamin.

If you bounce her on your knee, she makes a sound so she can hear it vibrating:

She loves her dad to play the guitar for her, she loves to play out side, and she loves attention. She is a sweet little one and we are so happy that she is a part of our lives. She is going to be crawling and walking around before we know it.