The Grow Up Fast...

As I was uploading the 7 month pictures of James a few days ago, I could not help but stop and take a look at pictures from all the other months.  It is amazing to me to see how much he has grown and how he is turning into such a little man. 

Check out the progression...

Texas or Notre Dame??

Now that college football season has started... who will James root for?

OR

7 Months Old

As of this past Saturday... our little man is 7 months old!

James weighs in right around 20 pounds now and is about 26.5 inches tall.  He is still wearing size 3 diapers and is just starting to wear some of his 6-9 month size clothes.

While he is still not sleeping all the way through the night, he is getting better.  He normally falls asleep around 7pm or so and before we go to bed around 10pm/11pm we give him another bottle to help him sleep longer.  He then sleeps for a good 5-6 hours, gets a snack and then sleeps for a few more hours. He usually wakes up in the morning around 7am - but sometimes he wakes up at 5am in the morning and will be wide awake and ready to go!

James is still loving be able to sit up on his own.  He is pretty good now at scooting himself around on his play mat to get the toy he wants, although he does have the occasional face plant!  The past few days, he has begun kinda flopping himself over one-side of the boppy pillow so that he is in a semi-crawling position.  He will put his arms out in front of him and one leg will be in the right position to crawl and the other one will be stuck under him in the seated position.  I think he wants to crawl... just does not understand how to do it!  

Another new thing he has been doing is grabbing his feet.  He loves to lay down and grab his feet and try to suck on his toes.  It is so cute.  Makes me laugh every time!

 

Play Time

Now that James can sit up on his own - play time has become so much fun!

James just LOVES to sit up and play with all his toys. We usually lay out a blanket on the floor and surround him with his many toys. He will reach for his favorite toys and kick his legs to move the others around. He can lean over pretty far in an effort to get the toy he wants and he likes to make a grunting noise if he cannot reach far enough.

His favorite toys definitely have to be the stacking cups - he loves to suck on them and hold them and bang them together or on other toys. He also really loves to suck on his Texas football and the rings from his Rock-a-Stack.

Sweet Pea

It has been almost a month now since we introduced James to solid food in the form of rice cereal... and he still is not a fan.  Occasionally he will eat a few bites, other times he will spit out every bite or sometimes he does not even open his mouth.  One thing he has mastered though... making a mess! :)

Since we have not had such luck with rice cereal, we decided to give James some vegetables a few weeks ago.  When I first got pregnant, I knew that I wanted to try and make homemade baby food - so I broke out my new BabyCook and whipped James up some homemade sweet peas, zucchini and squash.  

We decided to start with the sweet peas, as I had read that this was a good starter vegetables for babies.  I was not to sure of how James was going to react to the peas - but he did surprisingly well!  He actually ate about half of what we gave him and despite making some funny faces, I think he may actually enjoy his vegetables!

Practice...

A few months ago, Brian and I decided to invest in a nice DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) Camera so that we could take some better photos of James.  While I still have pretty much no idea what I am doing as far as f-stops and shutter speeds, I do think that the photos we take with the new camera turn out far better than ones we take with our basic point-and-shoot camera.

While we usually use the camera for everyday activities, a few weekends ago I decided to try and stage a mini "photo-shoot" to get some good photos of James.  I opened up the window in the guest room to get some natural light and used the bed/comforter as my backdrop and put James in a red onesie to match.  Below are my favorite photos from our little session:

6 Months Old

Our little man is 6 months old!

James has become quite a little chunky monkey lately. At his checkup today, he weighed in at 18 pounds 14.5 ounces. This puts him in the 75th percentile - up from the 50% at his last appointment and at 10% when he was a month old!

James is currently 26 inches tall and his head circumference is 46 cm. He is still mostly wearing size 3-6 month clothes, although his shorts are size 6-12 months in order to fit around his belly! He is wearing size 3 diapers and will be in those for awhile as they go up to 28 pounds.

As far as his developmental skills - he is right on track. He can grab toys now with both hands and he actually has quite a strong grip! He LOVES to sit up. He is quite sturdy and rarely topples over. He still loves to stand. He has finally discovered that he can jump in his jumperoo. He will jump for a few minutes straight and always gets the biggest grin on his face.

James has also been much more vocal lately. He makes the "da" sound a lot and when he puts it together to say "da da" Brian gets very excited. It is pretty cute. He also squeals when he is excited and makes a noise that we think is him laughing.

And most of all - he still loves to smile. He ALWAYS smiles at the pretty ladies and at practically anyone else who gives him attention. That smile can just melt my heart.