New pictures!

I made three different posts with pictures today, so scroll down to see the various slideshows from the past two weeks. We still have lots of video to edit and will hopefully post some small snippets in the near future.

Willa is getting so big! I travelled for four days and I swear she looked different, and taller, when I got home. She laid in bed with us last night and we both commented on how small she once was, and how long she is now. I think she may grow to be a tall girl; when she outgrows her clothing, she outgrows the length. She never fills it out from the width/chubbiness perspective.

Feeding is going well. She likes cereal and bananas; we love watching her slurp off of the spoon. We tried avocado today, and she did well with that, too. I'll steam some pears later this weekend (after 3 days to make sure she doesn't have problems with the avocado), puree them with my hand blender, and see how she likes those. As someone who enjoys cooking, this is a whole new type of "cuisine" to try. I'm excited, and though I know we'll buy some jarred baby food, I'm hoping to make a lot of it myself. That way, we know what's in it and it'll be more nutritious for Willa. The cereal has also helped make her more regular, I think; we only had to wait 5 days instead of 2 weeks this time!

She's tried out her exersaucer to give her more practice with standing and weight-bearing. We have to put a phone book under it for her to stand on, since her feet can't reach the bottom yet. She loves to look at all the toys. She finally started batting at things, grabbing my hair, and is going to roll over any day now. And the laughs, oh the laughs! She has graduated from baby giggles to real laughs and huge grins. We love it! She's drooling a bunch, chewing on her fingers, and just in the last few days realized that her voice can be loud. So, we now have the pleasure of listening to baby screams of delight (hey, it beats screams of discomfort or unhappiness). We're really having a lot of fun, except the other night when she woke up every hour on the hour between 2 and 7. I was exhausted. We're still working on the sleep thing...

So that's about it. Oh, her Halloween costume arrived and Valerie put it on her the other day. It's adorable. I'll post pictures of that closer to the day - don't want to give it away before we have the chance to take her trick-or-treating! I ordered some soft blocks and beautiful wooden learning toys from a German toy company called Haba. The colors are so bright and vivid, I can't wait to see them in person. I'll take some pictures and post after they arrive.

I hear a screaming baby (not screams of delight this time) so I better go see if Daddy needs some relief.