8 months old and a little of May

8 month stats:

Harper has become such a happy, giggly little girl in her 8th month. She loves to play with her sister, and giggles at almost anything Ava does. She is moving around like crazy (I wouldn't call it a full crawl its more like a crawl/scoot, but she is getting around pretty quickly and LOVES this new freedom. 

- She is still eating like crazy and nursing every 3 hours. 

- Sleep has been up and down. We were in a great habit of sleeping through the night at the beginning of April and then she got sick which took us 10 steps back with sleeping and she was up all night. Something had to be done once she was over her virus. We did a little (light and loving) sleep training and got her sleeping from 7:30 pm - 6:30 am with one dream feed around 10:30. With the exception of a few bad nights when she was getting her third tooth this has worked pretty well for us and i can finally say I am somewhat feeling rested. 

- She has 3 teeth!! (Third one came in this week)

- 17.9 pounds (this past month has been her slowest yet in weight gain). Probably because she was sick for most of the month. 

- Babbling - Although she is a lot quieter than her sister when she is alone with me and can actually get a word in she gets to talking! 

- Stranger danger has set in. Except it isn't just strangers with this one, it is everyone except mom. 

My smiley girl. This kid really pulls at my heart strings. <3 

Hard to get her to sit for a picture. I had to get creative. 

Whenever we get together for dinner with the Langsdales at the kids always take a bath together. This time we daringly attempted all 4 kids in the bath. There were some tears and a few falls, but they all came out clean and happy. 

Checking out the sharks at the aquarium

I guess it is time to start baby proofing. She is ON THE MOVE!

 Enjoying story time and a smoothie with her buddy at the aquarium.

 Lots of babies and sharks! I started a mommy and me class with these littles and their mommies when Harper was just 6 weeks old. I love watching them grow up alongside of Harper.

 Mother's Day lunch at the beach.

March and April…..a little late in posting. After

 March and April were busy months, as usual, every month seems to be going by in the flash of an eye these days! Time. Please. Slow. Down!!!!!!! 

Highlights from March:

Ava went on her first "date" with Asher. He took her to see a special family viewing of the movie, "Cinderella." Jenn chaperoned and from what I hear they were both on cloud 9 and sat through the entire movie! 

Waiting to meet Asher. She was so excited. She picked out her outfit and was ready to go about 7:30 am despite the fact that we didn't meet them until the afternoon. Asher brought her flowers and as you can see in the above picture she clung to them throughout the entire movie and continued to as we got home that night. Now every time we go over to Asher's house she asks him to pick her flowers. :) 

Birthday party fun at the farm. 

She loves pony rides. Is not scared at all, jumps right on and enjoys every second of it! 

Preschool 2015 school picture. I can't get over how grown up and beautiful she is. I just love every ounce of this little one! 

March was a big growing month for Harper. She started to sit in the running stroller without the infant carseat which made running so much easier and more peaceful. She would scream for most of the run and now she giggles, laughs, plays with her sister, and is all around happy. Big improvement from where we started with the carseat. 

This kid loves food! A month into BLW (baby led weaning) and she was already becoming a champion eater. I cannot say enough about how amazing BLW has been for Harper and for the whole family. It has forced us to eat together more often and to eat the same thing, which is a lot easier on me. Here she is eating an orange. I apologize in advance, but there will be a lot of food pictures of this kiddo to come on the blog. Her eating amazes me every day and I can't help but snap a picture! 

Celebrating St. Patty's Day with her baby crew. 

Our first pool party at our new place! 

These two are so sweet together. 

And we concluded March with this little bug turning 7 months old.

 7 month stats:

17.2 pounds
Eating 3 meals a day (eats everything you put in front of her)
Nursing every 3 hours
Down to one wake up a night! (Yay, too bad it didn't last long)
Loves to roll around the floor and play with her sister
army crawling
sitting unassisted for a few minutes



Highlights from April:

Easter bunny 2015. Again, just like last year Ava LOVED the easter bunny. Although I think he is way creeper than Santa she finds him cute and cuddly and has no problem sitting on his lap. In fact, she didn't want to get off his lap. Shockingly Harper enjoyed it as well. We were sure this would be a disaster with her since she pretty much only liked to be held by her momma at this time in her life and it had also been a day of little naps for her, but she put on a smile and enjoyed her first visit to the easter bunny. 

We started off the month with a Scifres/Concannon family vacation in San Diego. We had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. Next family vacation will include our Nephew who is due at the end of June. :)
Here we are at the San Diego Wildlife Park. 

San Diego Wildlife park 

Seeing how we measure up to an Ape. 

Easter morning. Heading out to Easter Mass. The girls both enjoyed the service and Ava actually did some singing too! She knew a few songs from singing them at preschool so she joined right in during mass. 

My little animal lover. This kid could spend every day at either a zoo, aquarium, or on a farm.

After San Diego Harper and I had a quick turn around, one night home and we were off to Chicago to surprise Mimi for her 60th birthday. It was an amazing surprise!! a HUGE thank you to my wonderful sister for helping pull off such an awesome surprise. We enjoyed the rest of the week just hanging out with Mimi, Papa, Auntie Beth, and a quick trip to Wisconsin to see some more family. 

G-Pa is the best with kids! Harper loved seeing her G-pa again and getting some play time with him! 

My fashionista loves to put on my shoes and walk around the house. Those heels have gotten more use from her in the last couple of months than they have from me in the last couple of years. She calls them her "Tip-Toe shoes" or her "Elsa Shoes." 

Harper loves the ERGO and she is in it often so Ava decided to get out her ERGO that Auntie Beth got her for Christmas. Chicago Monkey is visiting us for the month so he got to be carried around for the day. 

Yoga at Mommy and Me. Ava was the only kid participating and she knew all the moves. The instructor was impressed with her yoga knowledge and I was a very proud momma!

Some downward facing dog with the yoga instructor. 

For the month of April the girls were in a weekend music class together. It was nice to be able to go as a family to class and have the girls enjoy it together. Ava participated in EVERYTHING while Harper enjoyed watching her and singing along. 

Harper is not too sure about the parachute. 

Ava continues to attend My Gym once a week. She is now in a class that does not include mommy. 

Harper has been working on crawling for most of the month of April. She does a crawl/scoot/worm thing now but it gets her from point A to point B pretty quickly. Here is Ava giving her some words of encouragement. 

Munching on a tomato at lunch. 

Not only was April super busy but of course it was also the month that both girls (and me) got hit pretty hard with a bronchial infection. Poor Harper got hit the worst and had to go on her first round of antibiotics which did not settle well with her. It seems she inherited my sensitive tummy and allergies with medications. The first antibiotic she was on to clear some of the fluid in her chest did nothing but make her sick and uncomfortable. After she spiked a fever 3 days into the antibiotic we learned it was doing nothing for her and she had actually also come down with an ear infection. Finally on the right meds and tolerating them pretty well she developed a rash a few days into the new meds. Since it was mild and would go away by morning we kept her on it, but I will be watching her very closely the next time she has to go on antibiotics.

Due to the girls illnesses they were not able to come up to Oakland for Sandra's baby shower as planned, but fortunately I was still able to make a day trip up there to be there for this very special day! It was so nice to be able to celebrate baby Concannon. We cannot wait for his arrival in late June!!