Seventh Heaven

Looking back on Olivia's progress through the seventh month compared to the sixth month makes Amanda and me very happy. She is sleeping much better, she eats like a champ, her "movements" down below have become much more regular, and she has a great overall disposition. We've got a good routine with her now where she goes to be around 8 or 8:30 every evening and, barring any overnight soiling of the diaper (which will wake her up and make her rather upset), will sleep until around 6 or 6:30.
Olivia has been drooling more and has been a bit more cranky recently leading us to believe she's getting close to cutting that first tooth. Wouldn't you know it, just when she started sleeping through the night, she'll probably start teething. She really hasn't started trying to crawl yet though. I put Olivia on her belly and put a toy just out of her reach to entice her, but after a little struggling all she does is roll over to her back. That's okay. At this point right now, the less mobile she is, the better and easier on us.
Here are some pictures from the past week or so...and I'm sure I'll have a few more pictures to post from Olivia's first Halloween later this week.

Olivia playing peek-a-boo with Amanda

Flying baby!

Exploring the edge of the Pack-n-Play

Sitting on the back of the couch

Olivia Video

Amanda took a very cute video of Olivia playing with her new toy yesterday and I thought it would be great time to try Google's video upload feature. It's about a minute and a half long. Take a look and enjoy!

SSSSLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!!!!!!!!

Hallelujah!!! It has finally happened!!! Since Saturday night, Olivia has been sleeping nine hours straight! That's four nights in a row!! It's a miracle!! It's pretty funny actually...Amanda has so much extra energy, she can barely stand it. Ah, the joys of sleep! So, what finally did the trick? We're not 100% sure, but it seems establishing a routine combined with Olivia learning how to soothe herself back to sleep is what finally tipped the scale in our favor. We'll feed Olivia around 7:00 then she gets a bath around 7:30. Between 8 and 8:30, Amanda will just hold Olivia getting her calmed down and sleepy. By 8:45, Amanda has Olivia in her crib...usually not asleep, but very very close...and Olivia just puts herself to sleep. There was one night earlier this week in which Olivia was rather fussy and did not want to go to sleep, but Amanda stuck to the routine and put Olivia in the crib and closed the door. For five minutes, Olivia cried and screamed, but since we littered the crib with pacifiers (thanks for that tip, Jen!), she found one, and in no time, she had put herself to sleep. We're so happy, we can hardly stand it!!

Earlier this week, Amanda took Olivia to a nice little autumn scene outside one of the business here in Amarillo. Amanda put Olivia in her Halloween costume (a sweetpea!!) and snapped some very cute pictures.




Yesterday, Amanda and I took Olivia to Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. It was a bit breezy and didn't quite go as well as we had hoped. About half way through our outdoor excursion, Olivia started getting fussy. She may still be a bit too small for that large backpack system...so we just cut our losses and called it a day.

Stop for a little snack on the trail.

Backpack trek with dad.

She's got the lean going.

No more backpack ridin' for her until she grows a little more.

Here some other pictures from the past week.

Her first Halloween is coming up!

You guessed it! More crazy hair!!

You Mess With My Bottle, You Mess With Me!

There are only a couple new things to report this week. One, Olivia is starting to understand the concept of holding her own bottle. When Amanda is trying to catch a few extra winks in the morning and I'm responsible for feeding her a bottle, I just position her in the boppy and hand over the bottle. She grabs on and goes to town. It's really very cute and funny because she sees me coming with the bottle and she just gets all excited. Her eyes get as wide as quarters and she starts flopping around like a fish on land.

The other big step this week was to transition the bathing location from the sink to the bathtub...well, more like a bathtub within a bathtub. It's been working out pretty well so far.
We have Olivia more on a routine now and that seems to be helping her sleep a little more consistently. She still wakes up in the middle of the night...usually around 3 or 4. Amanda will briefly feed her (she's feeding her less and less to wean her off the overnight feedings) and put her back to bed. The problem is Amanda has trouble falling back to sleep...so if it's not one girl having trouble sleeping, it's the other. Everything else is going along pretty well. Here are few more pictures from the past week or so.

Too bad OU lost to Texas again this year

Playing in the bed

That cute wide-eyed look

Here doggie doggie doggie!

Stats Update

After Olivia's six-month check up, here are her current dimensions (and perctiles):

Weight - 15.6 pounds (75th percentile)
Length - 27 inches (90th percentile)

At the rate Olivia's growing right now, she'll be taller than her mom by the time she's 9 or 10 years old. How funny would that be??