7 Months Old

Julia, my dear, a few days ago you turned 7 months old. And 7 months old is apparently the time of your life!

You're a beautiful growing girl. It's amazing that so quickly you've grown from this:

To This!

Both beauties, of course, but it's just incredible how far you've come!

So, what does a 7 month old Julia do?

Well, she smiles:

She laughs:

She's contemplative too!

She tries very very hard to crawl, even if it means crawling off of a couch (which you haven't done, but tried very, very hard to do during our photo shoot):

She clearly doesn't mind if her brother crashes her photo shoot either:

She doesn't quite have teeth yet, but there's two suckers that have almost popped out. You can feel them, and see the ridges if you're up close. But, as evidence, there's no real sign of chompers yet.

She loves her Mama, and gets very excited when she's in the room.

She plays, and her favorite game is "Up Down" in which she tries to climb up on everybody to get to standing.

In fact, she even hangs out by standing up in the pack n' play, and can chill there for a happy, proud, long time.

She plays ball with her Daddy:

She eats pears and mango (popsicles) and spinach and avocado.

And chews on just about everything she can get her hands on.

She loves her family. And is quite happy being with everyone, but would much rather be down on the ground, working out how to get around.

Overall, a 7-month old Julia is just...a perfect little Julia! Okay, maybe not perfect. You don't quite sleep through the night, but we're working on that. Aside from that, little, one, you lead quite a life and make everyone you meet very happy...especially yourself!

We're so glad you're here, and so glad you're enjoying your 7th month even more than the previous 6 months. 

You are beautiful inside and out, and I can't wait to get home to see you and giggle with you again!

Ramp Up to Month 8: Legend of the Crawl

So, you're officially 8 months old already!

But, your 7th month turned out to be very productive because...you learned how to crawl!

It didn't happen over night, that's for sure!

Remember how it looked when you "crawled" (or scootched) back in early October?

Well, you've gotten far better at it since then!

Here's you mid-month kinda perfecting that crawl but then kick your legs up under you technique, which is pretty useful, as you can tell:





And here's you just before your 8th birthday, really cruising!



You're Crawling!!!!


We're so super proud of you Aidan and would celebrate for real, but we're too busy scrambling to put little plastic plugs in all of the electrical outlets!

You're 8 months old and you can officially crawl!

Ramp Up to Month 8: The Baby Sitter

Leading up to your 8th month birthday you are really kicking it into high gear as far as becoming smarter and more mega-awesome!

On Saturday, your Mom and I put you down in your crib -which we had fortuitously already lowered down to the lowest setting because of you clunking your head while making your early-crawling moves- to play for a second while we were doing something.

So, you were playing in your crib, we did adult stuff like take out the garbage really quickly or something.

And then I walked back into your nursery and -low and behold- you were sitting up! Just sitting there in your crib!

I called to your Mom: "Holly! He's sitting up!"

We couldn't believe our eyes! "How did you get like that?" We asked. But you just smiled at us and then flopped back down on your side to keep playing.

Then a few moments later, I returned to your nursery and we saw something very similar to this staring back at us:

You did it again! You were just sitting there in your crib!

You've been able to prop yourself up on one arm like a kickstand for a couple of weeks now, and been able to stay in a sitting position when we put you in it for at least a month. But we never thought this monumental day would happen so quickly.

Finally we caught you in the act to see how you were getting into a seated position. And it was pretty awesome. You just got into your arm-as-kickstand position and then just slowly leveled out and balanced. And, voila, you were a baby sitter!

You love doing this now! Every time you're free to move around, you get into a seated position.

In fact, you love it so much that it sometimes gets you in trouble. On Sunday night you were trying to fall asleep in your crib. We heard you make some of the usual little cries and moans as you talk yourself to sleep-- but then the crying got louder and more intense. Something was wrong.

Your mother went to check on you and the sad-Aidan noises stopped a few seconds later.

She came back upstairs and told me that "It's hard to fall asleep when you're sitting up!"

She had laid you down and you fell asleep instantaneously! Apparently you'd gotten into a seated position and couldn't figure out how to sleep that way. So, sitting isn't always a plus. But it's definitely super cool!

We even have a hot-off-the-presses video of you doing it. Granted, you're a bit pissed in the video..but, as you can see, the urge to sit conquers all!

Sitting is definitely one major step forward for you, young Master Weinstein...but wait til you see what else you've been doing this week!

Pachyderms, Primates, Penguins, Pumpkins and...Giraffes! A Photo extravaganza!

It's fall...and that means we can finally do things outside again!
To celebrate that, and also to -mostly- celebrate your Mom's 29th birthday, we had a fun outdoorsy weekend!


First we took you to the Dallas Zoo!

We didn't expect you to go crazy, by any means, but your reaction was really quite good!

You noticed- and were captivated by the penguins:

You went face to face with a Mandrill Baboon:

You gandered at giraffes: You had fun with your Mama:
And posed for the camera:
We eyeballed some elephants:
And you even tried to imitate one too!

Then, the next day, Uncle BJ, Aunt Kari, Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Michelle (and almost-Brady) joined us on a visit to the Arboretum's Annual Pumpkin Patch to take pictures of you with flowers and pumpkins, because, what could be cuter? Mine and your Aunt Kari's cameras were clicking away all afternoon! The better pictures are Kari's; the decent-ish ones are mine! But you look super cute in all of them!
Don't worry: I caught you.

New fun: eating leaves!





The return of the stink eye!

We had such a fun weekend; but what's more you seemed to have fun too. Granted, you slept for a good portion of both activities, but when you were awake, you really seemed to like all the animals and pumpkins, despite the awesome stink eye picture!

It'll be so cool to take you back to these places next year when you'll really notice the animals and laugh at the elephants emptying their bowels and bladders right in front of us! You can even run like a mad man all over the pumpkin patch!

But, I'm in no rush: it was a serene afternoon helping you see knew things, sit on manicured Arboretum grass, watch the animals, hang out with your family and eat a few leaves. It's great being outside, isn't it?