7 Months

My sweet pea turned 7 months old today. After I took the monthly picture of her in the chair with her stuffed bunny,  was looking back on the pictures on my camera to make sure that I had gotten a good one of her and I noticed how much she really has changed in the last month. in the picture I noticed that she is now starting to get a neck and is kind of thinning out. I mean don't misunderstand me, she still has some baby chunk which I LOVE, but she really looks like an "infant" now and no longer a newborn. It's funny how it took me seeing a picture of her to really notice the difference. I guess because I see her every day that it's much more subtle to me as she changes compared to someone who sees her less often.

Before, most people thought that she looked just like Matt, but now most people are saying that she looks a little bit less like him and that they can definitely see both of us in her. In addition to her "new look," she is constantly surprising me with all of the new things that she is learning to do. She is now sitting very well by herself, and can transition from sitting to her tummy and chooses to do so quite frequently. I have to really watch her these days because she can go from sitting to her tummy in no time flat, even when I am changing her clothes or playing with her in my lap. Her favorite new thing to do when playing toys is to bang two toys together or bang one toy on something stationary nearby. Some of her favorite toys these days are her cookie jar which is really a shape sorter toy and a little tikes kitchen that my mom and dad gave her. The kitchen has a little oven door and a microwave door and Peyton has learned how to open them. She has also managed to turn on the aquarium in her a crib a few times during the middle of the night. She continues to love playing peek-a-boo and this seems to be a guaranteed way to make her laugh. This month she has also started reaching for us to pick her up (which I love) and occasionally crying when we walk out of the room (which I thought she was a little young to be doing.....). She is proficient with picking her paci up and putting it in her mouth, as well as playing with it by pulling it in and out of her mouth and chewing on it. She has been showing signs of teething for months but I haven't seen or felt any teeth yet. She seems to love her oatmeal in the mornings and her baby food but wants nothing to do with the baby food that I have made her, including chicken, apples, green beans, carrots, squash, and mashed up avocado. One of our biggest changes this month is that she has started napping in her crib. Although she has been sleeping through the night in her crib like a champ for several months now, the same has not been true for napping in her crib. In the last 1-2 weeks she has started taking at least one nap, sometimes 2 in her crib. I know that you are probably thinking that it is nuts that she is just now starting to do this, but she really wanted nothing to do with napping in her crib before. I tried and tried and tried and she cried and cried and cried. Then it's like all of the sudden one day it clicked and she was ready. She definitely knows what she wants and when she wants it. She continues to be a really sweet, happy baby.  In fact, a lot of the time when we are out, people comment to me on what a good baby she is and how happy she seems. She is very social and lights up when she sees her mommy and daddy.  Matt and I really are so blessed to have such a sweet baby.