My Helper

Hallee really likes socks. Her own socks, my socks, her Daddy's socks, it doesn't matter to her. I was folding the laundry the other day (I always save socks for last) and I couldn't keep Hallee out of the laundry basket. She kept tipping it over! I finally gave in and let her play.

Little Girl, Big Mess!

I guess kids have a natural ability to drag toys all over the house. Hallee can barely crawl and she made this mess all by herself!

8 Months Old

Hallee turned eight months old on Saturday! I can't believe how fast she is growing up!

• She army-crawls all over the house. She doesn't push up onto her hands and knees, yet, but she's pretty quick dragging her tummy!
• She can push herself up to sit after she's been laying down.
• She can no longer take baths in the kitchen sink. Not because she's too big, but because she has figured out how to splash... a lot!
• She eats solid foods twice a day, but she still hasn't figured out that it is supposed to fill her tummy. She eats food when it is something she really likes, but she would much rather nurse.
• We've started letting Hallee cry herself to sleep at night. She started waking up during the night just so I would rock her back to sleep. We decided enough was enough and it was time she learn to fall asleep by herself. Some nights are better than others, but its best in the long run (or at least that's what I keep telling myself!!)
• I'm kind of proud that she's 8 months old and has never had a drop of formula. I feel blessed that I have been able to breastfeed her this whole time.

Go Bears!

Their season is over, but we have a family of Chicago Bears fans through it all. Even in their 'less good' years, like this one.

Only her Daddy can make her face light up like that!

The Tables Have Turned

Time for some more pictures of Hallee and Diesel. He really puts up with a lot!!

Santa

We took Hallee to see Santa! She's terrified of strangers so we knew it wasn't going to go well, but we thought it would be fun!

Seconds after Daddy put her on Santa's lap:

a few seconds later:

I wonder what the older kids waiting in line were thinking!!

7 Months Old

Hallee is 7 months old today. She has changed a lot in the last month. She can't crawl yet, but she rolls and scoots to get all over the place. A couple of weeks after starting solid foods, her tummy decided it wasn't quite ready! She got a little backed up and was up all night for several nights. We decided to give her a break from solid foods, and start them back up very slowly. Her tummy recovered, but her sleeping has not. Her naps have finally gotten on a schedule. She has taken a few naps in her crib, but she sometimes will not sleep unless she's in Mommy or Daddy's arms.

We took a little trip to Dallas at the beginning of the month. Hallee got to take her first airplane ride (outside of Mom's belly!) and she was a little trooper. She traveled like an expert! Even when we hit bad weather on the way home and had to spend the night in Minneapolis. She slept pretty well away from home, but it definitely didn't help the sleep recovery. The reason for our trip to Dallas was to see Andy's dad and step-mom and their kids! We had a great time and Hallee had a lot of fun with her aunts and uncles. She even let everyone hold her, as long as mom or dad was close by! We brought home some bad colds, that we're still trying to recover from. Andy and I decided it was definitely easier to travel before Hallee came around, but we had fun anyways!

Hallee and Daddy looking at our airplane.

Hallee looking out the window of our airplane, in the air.

Hallee with Alex, Avery and Aleighna.

Hallee sleeping waiting for our delayed flight.

Carrots

Hallee got a taste of my homemade carrots. She didn't really like them as much as this picture leads you to believe!

Baby Food

Hallee had her six month check up this week. She is up to 19 lbs 8 oz, which is the 95th percentile. She got another set of shots, including the first half of the seasonal flu shot. The clinic didn't have any more of the H1N1 shots. Her poor little legs were pretty sore after four shots. The pediatrician gave us the go ahead to start baby food. Hallee seemed to really like the bananas we started with. I decided I would try to make some of her baby food. Not because I think jarred food is bad, but because I think it could save us some money. It was really a lot easier than I thought it would be. Today I steamed some green beans and carrots for her. She hasn't gotten any yet because we were told to wait a few days between each new food. Should she be allergic to anything, we would know what it was. I made about the equivalent of 12 jars of baby food in less than an hour (it will go quicker next time, now that I know what I'm doing). The total cost was $1.18. The total cost for 12 jars of baby food would be $4.08. Plus, it was kind of fun!

Our Weekend

We had a fun weekend! Andy's schedule at work changed so now he has weekends off for the next six months! His first weekend off, we decided to go to Madison to stay. Saturday afternoon we hung out with Grandma Dorine and Grandpa Danny at the farm. Hallee got to see all sorts of fun animals. Her daddy even sat her on a horse all by herself. Thanks to Diesel dog, Grandpa and Grandma have one less kitten, but all in all we had a great afternoon!

Saturday evening, we went to visit Grandpa Tim and Grandma Darla to celebrate Grandma's birthday. Hallee got to play with her cousins Emmett and Selma. We stayed at Grandpa and Grandma's house Saturday night and went to church as a big family Sunday morning. My parents, my brother's family and our family doesn't even fit in one pew anymore! What a blessing!

Teeth

Hallee has two little teeth poking through on the bottom of her mouth! They weren't there Thursday night, but when she bit down on daddy's hand Friday morning, he found a surprise! Hallee has had what I thought was a cold since Monday, but maybe it was her teeth bothering her all along!

Funny Girl!

Significantly larger, but definately the same kid!

My Little Giraffe

Have you ever seen such a cute giraffe? Happy Halloween!

Cutie!

We took Hallee outside today for some autumn pictures. Our one very small tree in the front yard doesn't make very many leaves, so it is not very autumn-like, but we sure got some cute pictures!

Hallee has started sticking her tongue out after she smiles. I don't know why, but it sure is cute!

Five Months Old

Hallee turned five months old on Friday. She has changed so much just in the last couple of days. She rolls over all of the time. If I lay her down, she rolls over. I have to be careful where I lay her, so she doesn't roll into anything or off of anything. She can sit up by herself for quite a while. She still tips over after a minute or so, but she's getting stronger and more balanced everyday. Hallee has gotten pretty timid around people she doesn't recognize. It takes her a little bit to warm up to them. Every time I change her diaper, she whips her feet up into the air and chews on her toes! Here are some pictures from tonight, after her bath.

Mmmm, toes...

All About Hallee

Here is an update on Hallee's life.

• She is such a good sleeper. She goes to bed around 9:30pm. She usually falls asleep easily, but wakes up within 10 minutes. I go back in to rock her back to sleep, which takes a little longer the second time. She usually stays down for the night by 10:15 or so. She wakes up somewhere around 9:00am and greets me with a smile.
• She is not a very good napper. In my arms is about the only place she'll nap for more than a few minutes. (But, there are worse things in life than snuggling with my beautiful sleeping baby!)
• Hallee is still breastfed and eats about every two hours during the day. She loves eating rice cereal at night when Andy and I are eating supper. I added a spoonful of prunes once, and now she wont eat it without them.
• Before bed, she takes a bath in the kitchen sink or in the shower with her daddy.
• Diesel is her favorite entertainment and she'll stop everything to watch him walk around.
• She still fusses in her car seat, but usually a little Mozart calms her down. I don't know what it is about Mozart, but she really enjoys it.
• She rolls over both tummy-to-back and back-to-tummy, but only when she really wants to.

She is an amazing little person. I am so lucky she is a part of my life.

And They Call it Puppy Love...

I decided I wanted to get some pictures of Hallee and Diesel together. Hallee enjoys sticking her fingers in Diesel's ears, nose, and eyes and Diesel really likes the taste of Hallee's face. It made for an interesting photo shoot! We got a couple of cute ones...

But most of them turned out like these :)

Toe Sucker

Grandpa Tim has been showing Hallee how to suck on her toes for months. The other day when I saw this:

I knew Grandpa Tim would be proud!

Best Friends

My best friend has a little girl just two months younger than Hallee. They were in town yesterday so we got some cute pictures of them together.

Thinking about the Troops

I'm having a hard time thinking about anything but the activation of the 211th Engineer Company. They are leaving on Sunday for 45 days of training before spending a year in Afghanistan. Andy was a member of this Army National Guard unit until about 10 months ago. He really didn't want to get out of the guards when his time was up. I really pushed him to get out. I can admit that was by far the biggest disagreement we've ever had in our marriage.

This deployment has really brought back memories from more than 5 years ago when Andy was leaving for Iraq. It is hard thinking that these families are going through that again. I can't imagine what I would be feeling if Hallee had to go a whole year without her daddy. Thank you soldiers for doing what you do. Thank you God for letting Andy stay home this time around.