8 months

Life has been so busy! I can't believe you are already 8 months old. (June 14th, I'm posting this late). You are getting so big and changing everyday. There is no question that you know people now and have your own thoughts and opinions. You are now crawling full force! You follow us around the house and climb all us! Not only are you crawling, but you are now able to stand for about 2 seconds by yourself. I know you will be walking before we know it. You play more and more with your toys everyday. You have started to investigate your toys. You pick them up, twist them around and just watch them move. You have also been consistently saying "mmmm". I can't wait to hear you say "ma ma".

You are eating 3 meals a day and eating them with mom and dad. Although you eat more food now, you still prefer to nurse over eating "real" food. We have finally gotten you on a nap and bed schedule! Most of the time you will go to sleep in your crib right after we nurse without any problems. Occasionally you will cry when we put you to bed but not for very long. You always cry when you wake up. Most of the time you cry for a few seconds and when I come to get you, you are standing in your crib waiting for me. One of your favorite things to do is to lay in bed with mommy and daddy. Most mornings you get to come lay in bed and play for an hour or so before we all get up.

Peek a Bo is a HUGE hit around here these days. As well as playing and petting Wallace. Now that you are crawling so good, you chase Wallace around the house. You two have so much fun chasing each other around the house. I can't wait to see how much you and Wallace will become friends in the future!  Happy 8 Months!!!

Mama!!

Mama mama mama! I have been waiting my entire life to hear that word come from my child and the day has finally come. Alethea now says "mama"!!!!

She has said "mmmm" for a long time but didn't put the syllables together until last week. On July 4th she said "mama". We were in the car driving to Michigan and while Jacob was filling up the car I hear "mama" from our little girl. I thought I heard wrong at first and made Jacob come over to listen and confirm that she was saying. "mama". She hasn't stopped saying it yet. Not only is she saying "mama but she has started calling for me. (saying mama as she looks for me then crawls and lifts her arms up to be held). Hearing those words and knowing she is referring to me is one of the best feelings in the world!!

Now to work on dada.....

Crawling?

Friday June 1st. Alethea was 7 1/2 months old. The day it all began... (sorry this is late in posting)Check it out here...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8jOGvvyGDs&feature=youtu.be

Father's Day!

Happy Father's day to the best Dad!!

Jacob,
I always knew you would be the best dad ever! Ever since I saw how you much you love the family of 7, and loved taking care of their children. I always dreamed of what type of father you would be, and you have lived up to and exceeded those dreams. You love to be with Alethea and have done such a great job at being her daddy. I can't wait to see your relationship grow and for Alethea to become a true "daddy's girl". Enjoy these great Daddy-daughter moments!!

Park

One of our favorite family activities to do (when its not too hot) is to walk down to the local park. When we first moved to St. Louis, Jacob and I always talked about pushing our children on the swings at this park. We love that we are now able to live that dream!!  We try to take Alethea to the park once a week (again depending on the weather) and she LOVES IT! She loves to sing and go down the slides!  Here are some pictures from our various trips to the park.

7 Months!

*I know that you are almost 8 months old now, but between school ending, work starting, and a trip to Michigan we have just been enjoying time together as a family!

Happy 7th Months Alethea!!
The time has come and our darling baby is 7th months old and already standing! Standing is one of your favorite things to do! As soon as you started spending time with the older girls, you are moving all over! You grab my fingers and pull yourself up to a standing positiong; you grab the storage ottoman and stand on that and you love to stand at your leap frog table and play. Not only are you standing, but you have gotten a lot better at moving around on your belly. You have not started crawling yet but are doing a great job scooting to where you want to go. (everywhere but forward). Your personality is showing more then ever now that you are moving and grooving! You are a go with the flow type of baby, but do need your mommy time to cuddle and get away from it all. My favorite time with you is bed time. I love spending so time starring at you, singing, and nursing you to sleep.  I love that we have that cuddle time together, just the 2 of us with no interruptions.  You love to grab my face while we lay next to each other and just stare into my eyes. You also love to play with me hair. Whenever you are fussy I can usually just let you play with me hair and your instantly calm down. You are growing up to be such a big girl and we love you so much!!

Science Center

We finally made our first trip to the science center. Jacob had been wanting to go for a long time to see the Star Trek exhibit that was there. We decided in the fall to wait until Alethea was born so she could experience it with us. We had been waiting and waiting until she got older to go, and got lucky enough to find a Groupon for the exhibit! We were able to get buy 1 get 1 free and had a great time.

The science center is FREE so we spent some time exploring the entire place before heading to the Star Trek exhibit. The St. Louis science center is AWESOME! Anyone who has kids should defiantly go check it out for a day of FREE fun. It is a fun place for all ages, from toddlers to adults! There are lots of different areas to explore and lots of fun things to do. Anyways, back to the Star Trek Exhibit.  I am not a Star Trek fan, and was just going to the exhibit for Jacob, but I ended up enjoying it. They didn't have as much "stuff" as Jacob would have liked, but it was really neat to see different items from the movie. Needless to say, I got an entire lesson on Star Trek movies in about an hour. Crash Course to say the least.  We had a ton of fun at the exhibit. Some of the things they had were: cast scripts from the movies, actual clothing used, telecommunication devices and models of the ships. It was a great time spent as a family. We were unfortunately not able to take pictures due to copyright but have some other pictures from the science center.

The awesome "mouse trap" thing in the main entrance

These were posted all over the Science Center- this was posted especially for my sisters! 

The Star Trek Movie Film (they were showing this at night)

Tired from the long day

The Omni-Max movie reel