Olive's doing great. I took her to her 6-month checkup today, and the NP said she's perfect.

 
We started her on vegetables a few days ago, and it's fun to watch her experience new tastes and textures.
The NP said her bottom teeth are about to poke through. I'm excited and a little scared for that. She's getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth, so we think she'll start crawling any second. Our camera got ruined in the Arizona heat a couple of weeks ago, but Craig is letting us use one of his cameras. It's waaaaay nicer than the one we were using before! So it's been fun taking pictures of Olive with a nice camera. Her personality cracks us up. We think she's pretty witty, but then again how couldn't she be with us as her parents?

6 months

I can't imagine what it's going to be like having 2 babies. Olive is the best thing in the world to me, and I can't imagine loving anyone as much as I love her! I'm sure there are a million tiny details I haven't written about because of my lapses in writing, but some of the bigger things lately are:

• She's sitting up really well. She loves to sit up and play with toys in front of her.
• She's starting to get up on her knees when she's on her belly. So I think crawling isn't too far away.
• She's eating more cereal and even these little dissolvable snack things. I'm going to start vegetables this week too. I have to start feeding more solids and less breast milk so as to get ready for the next baby.
• She's way more coordinated these days and can grab and hold things. She twirls her hands around and continues to be very dexterous with her hands. I love that about her.
• She chomps her mouth open and shut. And she purses her lips together and spits lots of tiny bubbles out.
• She's way vocal and laughs a ton. I think she's going to be a funny girl.
• She has started sitting in a high chair too. She's still a little small, but it's working alright. Rosemary gave us Anna's high chair so we didn't have to buy one. That was nice.
• I'm having a hard time figuring out the best way to put her to bed every night. I really feel at a loss on that one. But all in all she continues to be such a delight. She's the greatest thing ever. We seriously almost salivate over how great she is.

5 months

Olive is making lots of mmm and mumm sounds. Wonderful!

We took Olive to the doctor on Thursday for her 4-month checkup. She's just under 16 pounds (which is what Chris had guessed; he's so in tune) and 25 inches long. They kept saying how perfect she is, and that was really gratifying for me. She got 3 shots, after which she and I both cried. I hate that! But she definitely earned herself a chocolate shake.

In other news, the doctor said we could try out some rice cereal if we wanted to. My thought all along has been to just follow Olive's lead - if she seems interested in something I'll help her along, but if not I won't force it. We gave her some rice cereal the evening of her doctor appointment and she took to it really fast. She figured out the spoon right away, and she seems to really enjoy the cereal. Guess she was ready!

She's been reciprocating affection - puts her arms around my neck when I lay next to her, touches my face a lot, nuzzles her face in my neck.

We love our pretty girl!

4 months, with Josh