Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving we drove to Prescott, Arizona. The drive was great and we had a wonderful weekend hanging out with Mom, Pat, Grandpa Grossi, Grandma and Grandpa Newman, Lauren, Mica, Marilyn and Garry, Connie and all the cats and dogs. Elena had sweet potatoes for dinner while we enjoyed delicious turkey and all the fixings.

Happy 7 Months, Elena!

We find it difficult to believe Elena is already 7 months old. To quote Carl from earlier this week, "she is amazing, absolutely amazing!" Elena is doing well developmentally and can sit on her own now. She is 28-1/2 inches tall and a whopping 22 pounds 4 ounces, exceeding the 95th percentile for height and weight! For the record, she is bigger than both Carl and I were at this age, well she is pretty close to Carl's height.



To celebrate her birthday, we went out to breakfast with Pop and Grandma Lorraine. Below are a couple of pictures of them playing. Elena is great out in public until about 5pm. She smiles and talks, and absorbs everything around her. She just started moving her bottom jaw to talk. I'm sure first words aren't too far in the future.



After breakfast, I plopped Elena down for some more pictures. And after she spit up milk down the front of the dress, I stripped her, put the hat on and snapped a few more pictures. She isn't too keen on wardrobe changes, so I take what I can get.

1st Veggie

Elena's first veggie encounter was squash and she loves it! She doesn't play around when squash is on the menu like she does with cereal. She demands squash by opening her mouth wide when I am feeding her and there is much less clean up in the end. I hope she loves all her veggies!

Photo Shoot--6 months, 3 weeks

Now more than ever, I love taking pictures of Elena. She is so cute when she is sitting up by herself. I just find myself plopping her down and snapping several dozen photos. Here are a few I snapped today with the hat Grandma Donna made her. What a doll!

Feeding Myself!

Elena has been eating cereal for about two weeks now. And for the past week, she has decided it was necessary to help mama feed her. The pictures below are the result of all my efforts to keep food in her mouth. After dinner, Elena was cleaned up and then snuggled on the couch with her monkey.

1st Swing in the Park

Now that Elena can sit unassisted, she can also swing at the park. She loves going to the park and watching the kids and this trip was no different. However, this was the first time she went in a swing. She seemed to enjoy the swing too. The swing has leg holes on the front and back, creating a bit of extra space behind her so I stayed close just in case. This was the first time Elena felt grass too :) You can tell at the end she is a bit sleepy, we took off from the park and Elena was sleeping by the time we left the parking lot.

Toes...Yummy!

Here is Elena's "I'm up to mischief" face. She flashed this grin right before she leaned forward to munch her toes. I guess it is the natural progression--rice cereal then your own toes! And quite content with herself in the last picture.

Hanging Out on the Patio (6-1/2 months)

Today was such a beautiful day, I couldn't pass up snapping a few photos of Elena and Cooper. The majority of pictures are of Elena, since Cooper isn't keen on sitting right next to her quite yet. Cooper likes to stand guard and give her kisses on her fingers and toes but he walks away when she reaches out too much. During this photo shoot, Elena figured out she could unhook her dress, crazy little girl!