Barrage of Photos and Videos

Since my last post, I've been busy making Q lots of baby food and filling up our freezer.  Here are the latest food stats:

• avocado (she tried this a little while ago and now seems to quite like it! She ate half of one the other day actually)
• cauliflower (not a fan and makes quite funny faces and gag noises occasionally...but mix it with one of our secret weapon foods [aka sweet potato or parsnip] and she'll eat it)
• broccoli (same deal as with cauliflower)
• plums (yum!)
• corn on the cob (big fan of this...must have gotten that from me!)
• green beans with mint (same deal as with the cauliflower and broccoli...although her breath smells delicious afterward!)
• ground turkey (mixed with either apple or pear and she's a happy camper!)
• turnip (tried this tonight and was a big fan!  We might have now added something else to the secret weapon list!)

I also have papaya, tomatoes, green beans (no mint) in the freezer to come!

Still not a lot to report on the crawling front.  Quinn is getting really good at scooting around backwards and in circles still...but is moving a lot faster!  Today we put her down on the foam mats and watched her as she made her way across the floor to the stools with ease.  She also seems to get herself stuck underneath the coaches or table in the living room...silly girl!

Here are a bunch of photos and videos! :) Enjoy!

Easter Bunny in Arizona

Q and Mama in Arizona

Trying Mum-Mums for the first time.  She loves them!

Bundled up

Sleeping on the couch past her bedtime

Happy baby!!!

Happy Easter + Vacation + New Foods!

So it's been a while since I've updated the blog, but we've been crazy busy!  We left for our annual Easter Arizona vacation on April 6 and just got back on Tuesday, so it's been nuts trying to get the house organized!

Quinn wasn't such a great traveler on the journey down to Phoenix, but it was a really long day for her.  She slept through the morning flight to Washington-Dulles, but then we had a 6 hour layover in Washington.  Through most of it she was pretty good - playing on the floor, napping a bit in her carrier...and then it all went downhill.  She started to fuss quite a bit before getting on the plane, so all I could think was "well, I'm pretty sure that the whole plane already hates us" (lol), and then on the plane, she did a lot more fussing before eventually falling asleep for the last 45 minutes of the 5 hour flight.  Didn't help that she was really backed up and that was definitely bothering her.  I thought that the guy sitting next to Steve was going to jump out of the plane.  Oh well!  We made it there safe and sound and Quinn slept through the night that night.  Truthfully, she slept through the night every night except for 1, which is nothing to complain about!  My Mom had bought a "sleep spa" that has music and a light projection on the ceiling that seemed to keep Q asleep as it played all night.  Golden!

Quinn's first Easter was a success!  The Easter Bunny found her all the way at Nanny and Pepere's house in Arizona and spoiled her rotten.  I'll post some photos soon once I get them downloaded from my camera.

Quinn had a lot of fun in Arizona!  It's so great to see her so interactive.  She met lots of new people and was good as gold for her babysitters when we had some different things going on later at night.  No troubles with her taking the bottle from them either!  We took Quinn in the pool and she is improving on her kicking skills, but only likes to paddle with one arm.  She also received 3 new bathing suits as gifts, including a bikini which is super cute! (Again, pictures to follow on my next post)  As usual, Quinn charmed everyone around her and is a big flirt!  I swear that if she had more hair that she'd actually flip it!  We were at this one restaurant and it was getting close to nap time, so Nanny was carrying Q around so that she'd fall asleep.  But every time that someone walked by, she'd pop her head up and give a great big gummy smile.  If it was a woman, they'd only get the smile...if it was a man, he'd get the smile and a happy sound to go with it.  What a nut! :)

Since we've been home, I've started making her some new foods to try.  We also started feeding her some oatmeal cereal in place of the rice, hoping that that will make a difference in her digestion.  Quinn's eating 3 meals of solids a day now that we're back and more on a schedule.  Here's the new food update:

• oatmeal cereal - loves it!!! Plus I love the smell of it in the morning.
• zucchini - big fan of this one too!  It's also so easy to make that I'm a big fan of it too.
• blueberry sauce - added this to her cereal this morning.  Quinn gobbled the purple cereal all up!
• cauliflower - going to try this one tonight for dinner.  Since she likes parsnips, I'm thinking that this one should be ok too!

The other foods that I'm going to be trying with her are apricots (already made and frozen) and turkey.  One of the baby food recipe books that I have recommends adding apples or pears to the turkey to help with the consistency and to add a familiar flavour.  Quinn's a huge fan of both apples and pears, so I'm suspecting that it should go OK!  There are so many recipes that I can't wait to try with her!

Bottle Progress Has Been Made!!!

There are definitely pros and cons to bottles and soothers as we've come to find out.  Quinn has historically not been a fan of either.  I'm very happy about the no soother thing because it means that we don't have to wean her off of it later...and that's less work for us!  She usually just chews on the soother anyway, so sometimes it does keep her occupied, she just doesn't suck on it.  And that's the same thing that she has been doing with bottle nipples and sippie cups.  She'll take the bottle nipple or the sippy cup spout in her mouth, slide it to the side, and just chew on it with her imaginary molars.

When we think back about Quinn's feeding history, it hasn't been the easiest road as I've outlined in earlier blog posts.  She fed well in the hospital and then when my milk came in, she couldn't feed very well and we actually had to feed her off of a syringe/feeding tube.  Then we hired a lactation consultant and she got me using a nipple shield, which helped Quinn actually eat.  The next part in the series is what gave us the big brain wave about bottle feeding - I did the "bait and switch" with the nipple shield and she actually started feeding without the shield.  So what I did this time, was start to nurse her and then stick the bottle in her mouth.  The first time that I did it (last week), the bottled milk had gotten a little too cold for the bait and switch to really work well, but she did suck a couple of times off of the bottle before pushing it away.  So we tried the bottle again yesterday...and success!!!  With the bait and switch method, Quinn actually ate the 2 oz of milk in the bottle.  It was so hard to contain my glee!  Today we tried it again with freshly pumped milk (about an ounce), and I didn't even have to do the switch.  We're currently trying to see if she'll take any more of some frozen milk that I thawed, but I think that she just might be too tired tonight to try again.  Oh well!  Progress has been made!

Happy 7 Months, Quinner!!!

Where have the past 7 months gone?  It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital!

Hmmm...what's new...well we had our first trip to CHEO on Sunday night.  Q had bumped her little noggin earlier in the day ("timbered" when sitting down to bonk her head on the floor) and when Steve went to get her around 11pm because she was awake, he noticed a red bite looking mark on her head on the side where she bonked it.  Needless to say, we didn't want to mess around with anything like that, so we took her to CHEO just to get everything checked out.  We finally were seen by the doctor at 6:30am and of course the little bump had disappeared and all that Quinn wanted to do was touch the doctor's face.  She was given a clean bill of health and home we went!

Last week Quinn managed to get herself up onto all fours a couple of times.  None of the times were for any particularly long time, but she did get up there!  Not too much progress on that front since that night, but she tries!  It's quite funny to watch her sleep now as she usually manages to sleep with her little bum up in the air!

I think that's all that there is to report...here are some pictures! :)

She was smiling before she saw the phone to take the picture...as always!

Wearing the veil for Auntie Linds' bachelorette...playing wedding already!

Chillin' in Auntie Linds' hat

Mesmerized by "Elmo's Ducks"

Supervising Mommy cleaning out the closet

I LOVE CARROTS!!!!!!!!

My sweet little carrot face

Happy Spring!!!

I swear that I have been meaning to blog for so long...and then I see today that it has been 2 weeks since my last post.  Whoops!!!  Let's see if I can remember all of the new news...forgive me if I repeat anything!

So far so good on the solid front.  Quinn's favourite is definitely parsnips!  I believe it to be a truly magical vegetable because you can hide squash with it.  Helps me to get through the giant ziploc bag of frozen squash in the freezer, that's for sure!  Carole and I had a baby food making party last week, which was quite fun!  Making your own baby food isn't hard at all, but it can take some time and doing it with another mom made it go by much faster! 

Here are the additions to Quinn's solid food roster:
- parsnip - her favourite!  Plus it's nice to feed her something that doesn't stain her bibs and that can successfully be paired with her lesser favourite veggies.
- mango - we tried a little bit in her mesh feeder-thingy and she liked that...so I pureed it and she was definitely a big fan!!!
- avocado - we tried this out tonight and she seemed to like it!  I think that the consistency was a little weird for her, so we added some milk to it and that helped a bit.  We'll see how her next try goes!

Today was Quinn's 6 month shot and visit to the doctor.  She weighs 14.9 lbs (50th percentile), measures 65 cm in length (50th percentile) and has a head circumference of 44 cm (75th percentile).  All of these measurements are right along the growth curve that she's been following since the beginning, so our doctor was very happy!  She also took the shot in her leg like a champ - didn't even cry!  The rest of the day was another story though....complete fuss bucket and she FINALLY had a decent nap at 4:30 tonight.

As I'm writing this blog, I'm watching Quinn have some tummy time on the hardwood floor.  She is able to turn herself around very efficiently to see everything all around her.  She also pushed up on her hands and knees in her crib today that both Steve and I (and Nanny!) got to see.  Mind you she was able to push off of the side of the crib, but she was up there!

Sleeping has been going better as well.  I'm usually not getting up in the night to feed her, which is a bonus for me.  She sometimes gets up around 4-5am for a feed, but then falls back asleep for another hour or 2.  It's definitely a wonderful thing when she lets us sleep until 7:30am...or anything later than 6am actually.

Quinn's also quite good at playing peek-a-boo.  You can put a blanket over her face, ask "Where's Quinn?", and watch her face light up with glee as she pulls the blanket down.  So cute!

Springtime is here!!! No more need for the winter blanket!

Peek-a-boo out of my pillow fort!

Tuckered out at Moxie's...she was fussing in her seat one second, then I turn and find this!

Fussy Eater

So, it seems like Quinn likes to be selective about her food even at 6 months!  Some days she seems to like something, and the next she doesn't.  Here's how we have bee doing so far in the order that we've tried the foods:

• rice cereal - big fan of this!
• rice cereal with pre-made fruit blend added - she also really liked this.  I had some samples of a fruit blend from Heinz (banana/grape/plum) and we added a spoonful to the cereal.
• sweet peas - she liked peas pretty well!  Always made for a very green face by the end of the meal.
• apple and pear with cinnamon - her favourite!  She just gobbles it right up!
• carrots with dill - not a big fan, but she choked it down
• butternut squash - she seemed to like it the first day, but has since decided that she hates it.  We've tried to trick her by mixing it with cereal or with peas, but nope!
• bananas - we just tried this one today and she's definitely a fan!

Banana face!

Playing With the Wrapping is More Fun!

I had a lovely birthday yesterday and was unpacking one of my gifts that had some tissue paper in it.  Well, even at 6 months old (even though there was no "official" 6 month birthday since February doesn't have enough days), Quinner loves to play with the wrappings:

And obviously the other video is of Q reacting to having air blown in her face.  Made us laugh!