6 month check-up.

When I arrived at Josephine's 6 month appointment at 8:25 (my appt time was 8:15) - I was accepting the fact my day was going to be bit off. I don't do late. Well...45 minutes of waiting in the lobby didn't help the situation, just got me more irritated. That wasn't the first time in this office, and guaranteed it won't be the last - but I love Dr. Fadrigo, so I put up with it. We meet w/the nurse first, she weighs Jos - 15.2 lbs...gaining 2 lbs. in 2 months. Doesn't seem like a lot, but she doesn't seem concerned. The nurse leaves, stating the doc will be right in...
I take this time to shoot pictures of her, because she looks so dang cute:

When the doc finally comes in, Jos is on the table, in her I'm-about-to-crawl position, and a "whooooaaaa" comes out of the doctor's mouth. She asks "how long has she been doing that?"
Dr. Fadrigo checks out Jos, and says she's doing really well. Yay! She's in the 30th percentile in weight, and advanced in her strength...saying "I bet she'll walk by 9 months." All that means to me is trouble, trouble, trouble. I already see signs of speed, urgency and determination. I'm pretty sure we'll be chasing her all over this place.
The appointment runs well past 10:00am, and that means well past Josephine's first nap of the day. Great. She starts to show her crankiness, when the nurse comes in w/3 needles. THREE!!!! Good grief. The nurse does her thing, 1,2,3, all while Jos is looking at me w/this terrible look in her eyes like why are you doing this to me? Kills. Me. She cries, I choke up. I pick her up immediately and squeeze her and love on her. I get her dressed, and we're out the door w/7 canisters of Enfamil formula - talk about spoiled!
My day was non-stop since...
Met w/Autumn to discuss a Fall party her & I are having when my friend Brooke comes into town (next week! Eeek!). And I introduced her to pinterest.com - which is actually super new to me, but we were ooooing and awwwwing at Fall decor and foods.
I made my way to Wegmans, purchased some fruits to puree up for Josephine, and got all the makings of 3 days worth of lunches for me...
Came home.
Had about 20 minutes of down time, where I watched some tv.
Fed Josephine.
Started laundry.
Made pears and peaches for Josephine.
Discovered I need veggies for her - and don't have any in the house...great. We all know I need to get her on veggies PRONTO!
Neil came home.
Neil hunted for Baby Wise on amazon.com for purchase. (We want to change up Jos's schedule, now that she's getting older and eating more solids - so want a bit of help w/that.)
Decided to just upload it onto my Kindle.
Then I hear "Um Dawna, I broke your case." Ugh. Monster!
(He was looking for the kindle's serial number - dont know why! He just needs to log onto my account. Goodness!)
He is such a monster w/stuff. If something doesn't give way, he pushes or pulls - forcing it, and it always breaks. Always.
I immediately call Amazon. My case is pretty amazing...it has a light that pulls out of the corner, which is wonderful for night time reading. (My kindle hooks up to the case, and the power from the kindle is what lights up the case - Neil pulled on the kindle to release it from the case, and snap, the metal hinge broke off...light doesn't work.) So. Amazon. Originally, I got my case through a promotion they were doing months back - and I was sort of hoping I could get the same deal - I mean, it was 50% off the price of $60. Did NOT expect this, just hoping. The customer service agent explained they didn't have any kindle case promotions at the moment, but basically said that since I'm such a good customer, having purchased a lot of ebooks recently, she will go ahead and credit my account $25, to go towards a new case. AMAZING! I love Amazon.

As I'm finishing this off, Neil is playing his guitar to Jos - see:

Precious.

6 Months

Wow.
Josephine will be 6 months old tomorrow. Where has the time gone? Last night, Neil and I were looking through photos to upload onto Cindy's birthday present of a digital frame (yeah, we were late on her gift...not happy about this lateness streak i've been on...and the month started out so well...) and we were just in disbelief that this much time has gone by. And yes, like everyone said, it has gotten better - and continues to get better each and every day.
She is one active little munchkin. Even in her small stature, she's a pistol. And once she starts to actually move - we're all in trouble. Comparing her height w/other babies - she's petite. (She was wearing size 3 month pants today, for example) It does run in both families. Not that you can tell these days, but I was once and always had been quite small. I remained under 5 feet tall until about high school...and even then, didn't surpass 110 lbs until I join competitive sports where I gained muscle. It wasn't until I got married that all the weight gain happened...but that's been in past posts, and we're not discussing that ridiculous issue right now. We're on Josephine talk....
She's been on cereal for awhile now, and eats wonderfully - shouldn't surprise anyone...
We did start her on apples a week ago. Which I made myself, thank you very much! But by the end of this week, she has broken out in a nasty rash on her bottoms - this is no bueno...especially during a diaper change. So, we continued on cereal, but stopped the apples - at least until we talk to her pediatrician, which she's scheduled for her 6 month check up on Monday. Good timing! It hurts every ounce of me when she starts to cry from the pain...(ugh, and I just felt them again as I typed that, thinking back on today - poor baby!) We stocked up on creams and lathered that cute tooshy all up! Hopefully by morning it will have subsided.
She is almost crawling. She gets on all fours:
See...

And shifts front to back, huffs and puffs - it's the cutest thing. Even when she loses control and goes splat, head first into the floor - she doesn't cry, she scrunches back together, butt in the air, and gets right back up. She does this caterpillar shift thing to get to where she wants to go. It's hilarious.

And she's sitting by herself (sort of...she falls over after awhile)

Cindy has been dying to buy her a walker. Now....we've read all the dangers, and are aware that she needs to be monitored at all times when in one...but we all know she's going to have a blast in that thing bolting from one end of the kitchen, to the other. I'm pretty sure we're going to regret this decision when are ankles are black & blue and scraped up....we just couldn't help ourselves. I had one as a baby, and so did Neil. And when my mother babysat, all the babies she watched were always rolling around the kitchen in one. She can't quite touch the floor yet, but take a look at this cuteness:

(In the background, you can see our gift to Cindy - it's a photo of us in San Diego on our 3rd anniversary.)

These last 6 months have been amazing. She is SO FUN!

Catchin' Up

August was a busy month! With family coming into town, weddings, a birthday party, festivals, extra hours at work...it was a good month - that's for sure. The month started off with the Kalvelage wedding, which I posted about already. A week later our friend Erin threw a surprise party for her husband Leroy. That was a good time! Neil was in charge of keeping Leroy busy all day and I went to the house to help set up. Josephine was totally content just playing w/her toys:

Didn't get any pictures of Leroy & the surprise because I was in charge of the video camera. And then just forgot all about it for the rest of the party....
A couple days later Grandma Campbell came in from Florida...Josephine's only great-grandparent. Neil's brother Nathan and his wife Linda came in a couple days after that. Having them all here was so amazing. Cindy hosted a dinner that same week...boy did she out do herself. No surprise though. Hartman Style. Even with the 13 in attendance, there were so many leftovers, we have dinner prepped and frozen for about 5 nights. Ridiculous.
I took some pictures:

4 Generations

Uncle Nathan

(None with Aunt Linda. How is that possible? So upset right now. Just noticed this!!!!)
The weekend they were in town, it was the weekend of Celebrate Erie, or as everyone who has lived here longer then 15 years or so, call it Erie Days...we've gone every summer since we moved to Erie, and it's always an interesting time. It's a good time, don't get me wrong...but always interesting. People watching, yummy fair foods, seeing friends...we look forward to it :) This year, we made our way downtown two nights in a row. Didn't see that coming! With family going one night, and then other family members going the next...we couldn't not go. The only picture I got of the festivities? The chalk drawing our friend Joel did:

14, my favorite number! And the drawing - awesome as always. Why I didn't aim the camera towards me, and my munchkin is so strange. She was such a trooper! Both nights, just hangin' out in the bjorn w/mommy. At one point, she even fell asleep in it. Precious. And also impressive because it was LOUD. It was a great couple of nights, running into friends - like Mr & Mrs. Q., always a pleasure to see them! It was their first time seeing Jos, so it was nice we were able to see them & spend time w/them.
We had such a good time w/Nate and Linda, we were so sad to see them leave. We did so much with them. Ate a LOT - I can't even admit to what we ate....ugh....
We've had some cooler nights these last couple of weeks (minus the last few days) - I was excited to put Josephine in some super cute pajamas. For example:

Last weekend started off with Joel Quiggle's Art Show, which was so great! We left baby Jos with Grandma, and spent a couple hours hanging out w/friends and seeing ridiculous good art. All done by Joel. Along w/his older brother Davey, these guys never disappoint.
The following morning, I went to a huge Indoor Yard Sale that my boss told me about. Whether I buy anything or not, I love going to these things. It's nice to get out of the house, and the chance of good finds for my house is always an added bonus. I brought Jos w/me, and she was amazing. I originally was just going to head to this sale by myself, but when I mentioned it to my friends Taiya and Carly, they were in. Since the warehouse was near where they live, I picked them up and we headed over. I came out of there with a couple kitchen items, and a pretty great chair...that Neil dislikes, but I don't care. He says that about every item I come home with. What does he know, right?
That same Saturday, we attended our friends Selena and Tony's wedding that was actually held at Saint George's Catholic church - where Neil went to grade school, so that was fun for me to check out. This church was breathtaking on the inside w/all the stained glass.

Neil and Josephine

This past weekend consisted of a lot of hanging out w/good friends....
Sean came over on Friday, and we talked and hung out all day. I loved that. It's been awhile since we've had good quality hang out time w/this man. He's had a busy summer! I left at one point to return a redbox movie, and came home to this:

Apparently he had her laughing while I was gone. Can't believe I missed that! Which then leads me to say, my daughter is pretty stinking amazing. She is always smiling and having a good time. Unless Leroy is around. For some reason, she cries when she sees him. So sad.

Well...The next morning, I had made plans to hang out with Autumn. I was there for hours and hours...which is always so awesome. We don't even do anything. I just go to her house, bring Josephine...we drink coffee, eat and chit-chat. I just love that. We've also been spending a lot of time with the Hamps, and that night, we had them over for dinner. With their new addition on its way, it's fun being able to pass on advice to them when asked. What I learned early on in my pregnancy was that everyone and anyone is going to give you advice, whether you ask for it or not. So I've learned to give advice, when asked.
The month of August just flew by...Constant on the go, and extra hours/days at work - I'm exhausted. Which is why I'm spending Labor Day at home, with zero plans - except to make burgers for us to enjoy :)


(Just had to make phone call to the Erie Police Department because a cat and her kittens have been discovered under our shed we don't use out back. Of course, the Animal Dept. wasn't open today, due to Labor Day. Annnnnd...it makes sense why Cali constantly wants to go outside.)