Half a year old baby!

You read it right folks, Gavin is 6 months old and half way to that year old mark! Time sure is flying by. I feel like he's growing so fast and some days I just want to press the pause button so he'll slow down!

To start off this month's recap we'll defer to his 6 month stats via his well baby visit.
Height: 27 inches (75th percentile)
Weight 18 lbs 0 ounces (50th percentile)
Head circumference is in the 35th percentile
He's doing great growth wise. The pediatrician was impressed at how strong he is with holding himself up on his tummy. Though he's not a regular roller overer (technical term of course) he has done it twice so we know he can do it. Normally on his tummy he likes to stick his arms and legs in the air and looks like an airplane, so cute! Also if you've ever met Gavin you'd know he loves to squeal! He gets so excited and lets out these quite loud laugh/squeal/screams, especially when we pick him up in the morning. Talk about a great way to start the day.

Gavin also continues to love sticking everything in his mouth and manipulating things in his hands. Especially crinkly sounding things like paper or wax paper. He loves to read books and hit the pictures with his palms. He'll let our the periodic squeal while we're reading so we know he likes it. One of the best parts of this last month was Gavin's first official word: "MA"!!!!! I was burping him after his bedtime meal and he just let out a big MA! Tom heard it too so I had a witness. He hasn't replicated it but it sure was a sweet moment.

This month we also got Gavin's 6 month photos taken by a photographer that did a maternity photo shoot for us while I was pregnant, Alison Geier. She does fantastic work but she even exceeded our expectations with the photos she took of Gavin. I called her the baby whisperer when she left our house (where we had the photos taken) because in the hour and a half she was there Gavin was just beaming from ear to ear with smiles and she got SO MANY great shots. We can't wait to choose through them so we can get some framed. We realized that we don't have a single photo of Gavin framed in our house yet. I guess just being a parent has taken up too much time to think about printing out some of the hundreds of photos we've taken of him. But that will soon change of course now that we have such great professional shots.

Also this month we entered the world of solid food. When he was 5 1/2 months we started him on rice cereal and mixed it with some of his milk in hopes he would like it better. But that first try around he HATED It and gave us some pretty priceless grimace faces. And that trend continued for the next almost 2 1/2 weeks. We backed off for a bit since he really didn't like it. Then once he officially turned 6 months old we added in carrots, then sweet potatoes. At first he wasn't a fan of those either, but one night we had a breakthrough and he just started opening his mouth wide and downing the food! We now have ourselves a very happy, healthy eater on our hands.

The other new development this month has been Gavin slighty changing his normal (or should I say old normal) sleep schedule. He's been fighting off so many colds over the last couple of months which was causing him to wake up every so often in the middle of the night. Not fun for Tom and I but we made it through. He now goes to bed between 6:30-7:00 at night and wakes up about 6:00am. He was previously still taking 4 naps a day and this has started to cut down to 2-3 naps a day. And the naps even have gotten longer. Just the other day he pulled a whopping 3 hour nap-woo hoo!

Tom and I really can't get enough of this little boy and have thoroughly enjoyed seeing him grow and change everyday. And we're so excited for each day we look forward watching that continue!