Alli & Jodie at Sushi Eye

A Round of Applause

Yesterday I was playing with Alli. She's getting more and more interactive, trying to copy what we do, especially making sounds with our mouths. Well, she did something as she was playing and I clapped for her and said "yay!". She couldn't take her eye off my hands making that sound. So I kept clapping. Then I grabbed her arms and made her hands (half-opened fists) touch each other a couple of times. Then I went back to clapping. Then she touched her hands together herself!!! Yay!! No sound of course, but she was able to imitate me, so we're still chalking it up to "she knows how to clap". :)

On other notes, holidays are hard because she gets SOOOO attached to us with the extended amount of time together. Now she won't nap again because she doesn't want to leave us. Today we are spending the morning listening to her cry, going in every 10 minutes to calm her down, and then trying it again. It's going to be a LONG morning!

Our plans for this week are to slowly move her into her own room. First we'll put her in her crib at night (because we rarely have a problem with her going to sleep at night). And then after she gets a little more comfortable going to sleep in her crib, we'll try all naps in there. We didn't feel like starting with naps since she clearly is having a problem with them already.

Alli has been hitting the Christmas parties hard this week, and since most are around dinner, we are constantly getting her to bed at different times. (I'm sure that's really helping the naps!) But she's doing great at maintaining her composure around company, even when super tired. And it doesn't matter whose house we're at, she is great at keeping a smile on her face, at least until we get into the car. ;) So she's doing a great job fooling everyone into thinking she never cries! Boy, if they could only hear her now.

Rasberry!

Tonight on the way home from Krista Care, I heard an odd sound from Alli. I turned around to look and swore she was giving me the rasberries, but yet different. It was without her tongue sticking out. When we got home, I confirmed it. She's sorta doing rasberries, just with her bottom lip, not her tongue. It's really cute!

She's growing and changing so fast. She sits by herself playing with her toys all the time. I could watch her for hours, wondering what she's thinking. I've found her exploring her hand too. That's something that just started recently too. It's usually after nursing, while she's still lying on me but looking towards the ceiling. She'll lift her right arm and start moving her hand, as though it were some mechanical device that she is figuring out how it works.

Her eyes are still blue. No teeth, but definite teething. We've had some problems the last couple of days with her going to sleep at night and found that giving her a teething toy eliminates most of the crying. (Don't worry, it's crying more like "don't leave me" rather than "OW that hurts".)

Pictures to come. With the holidays, we only took a couple, but we are not yet satisfied we've captured 7-month-old-Alli. :)

Some Cute Christmas Photos

These are our Christmas card photos taken by Wendy Amstutz and Daniel Zucker over Thanksgiving. It just dawned on me that I should share them. :) Alli's huge smile is courtesy of her cousins Claire and Branden who were entertaining her while we were posing.

Fa-La-La-La-La

Well, not quite. Alli did make a new sound at dinner tonight - la la la la la. What a cutie, with tongue sticking out as she did it. I just thought I would document this fun moment.

Sharing Toys

You would think sharing toys wouldn't be an issue in our house since we only have 1 child. But alas, we have Bagheera. And I think Bagheera is looking for someone to play with since we are spending all our time running around and doing other things. Granted, we go for family walks 1-3 times a week, but clearly that doesn't cut it. So Bagheera has decided that Alli's toys look like great things to...share. Although we wind up with doggy slobbered, tooth scratched toys. He's destroyed a couple of teething rings (punctured holes in them and the liquid started leaking), and another plastic toy as well. He really likes those stacking rings (you know, the colorful rings that stack on the base with the big round spindle?) So we are trying to teach Bagheera that Alli's toys are not to be shared. Difficult lesson. He just loves watching her though when she's playing because of all of those wonderful looking toys! It's cute to watch - til he nabs one... :(

Thanksgiving Family

This year, our family hosted Thanksgiving for the Zucker clan (Jen's family). We had Jen's brother Andy and his family, as well as Jen's cousin Daniel and his family. All together 9 people staying at our house, so lots of help with Alli.

Alli really enjoyed her cousins and second cousins. In fact, we took our Holiday pictures while everyone was here. You could always tell where Claire and Branden were because Alli was facing them and laughing!!

And Aunt Wendy taught Alli Peek-A-Boo. She got her pulling the burp cloth off her head in about 3 tries.

One of the activities for the weekend was to tie-dye some t-shirts and then have everyone sign them. Here are pictures of all the kids showing off their creations.

Jonathan Amstutz (12 years)
Claire Amstutz (10 years)
Branden Amstutz (7 years)
Lawrence Zucker (10 years)
Benjamin Zucker (7 years)
Allison Guerrette (6-1/2 months)

6 Month Photos

We did great at taking photos in a timely manner, but just didn't do very well getting them posted.

So finally, here are some 6 month photos of Alli. More on Flickr.

Alli's Sounds

Alli has become quite vocal over the last couple of weeks. It's interesting to hear some of the sounds she makes. Lots of coos and light sounds, like you would expect. We hear those mostly when she is "talking" to her friends which hang on the activity mat. But then sometimes her tone changes with her friends. She has this one sound that is accompanied by a funny face. It usually lasts a long time, like she's holding a note. But this is a more gutteral sound. Hard to explain (obviously). But, we have finally come up with a name for it. It's Alli-zilla!

She has also developed quite an interesting laugh. I swear it just started this past week, but hasn't gone away. It's a deep laugh, but instead of a deep ha ha ha, we get something more staccato, and sounds like she's upset. But then you go look at her face and there's this giant smile with tongue sticking out and you realize she's enjoying whatever it is quite a bit.

I've found that this laugh comes out easily when Bagheera is around. Boy does she just adore that dog! The other day we got home from work and Bagheera was wound up. We were in Alli's room and I was encouraging Bagheera to be excited, meanwhile holding Alli facing out so she could watch him run around the room. She thought it was just great, with her staccato laugh and tongue sticking out. She even got a kick out of getting whacked in the face with the tail. Who knew that would be fun!

Six Month Update

Alli went to the doctor today for her 6 month appointment. Here are her stats:

Eyes: Yep, still blue!
Weight: 14.7 lbs (25th percentile)
Height: 25.5 in (42nd percentile)
Head Circumference: 16.1 in (13th percentile)

She's doing fantastic sitting by herself, talking up a storm to her animal friends, and rolling over. Today she did something I hadn't seen before - she rolled from her belly to her back! And the milestones keep on coming!