7 months/Halloween

This last month has been kind of insane for AnnaBeth! She is just turning into a big girl by leaps and bounds! For starters, her new foods are broccoli, peas, blueberries, and chicken. She's not too fond of the broccoli and I think it gives her gas bubbles so she doesn't eat that very often. Chicken and peas are so-so but she'll eat them if we mix them together with carrots or sweet potatoes. Blueberries are a definite favorite though and they always make a huge mess on her face when I mix them in her oatmeal. She is also now feeding herself puffs, cheerios, and fruit pieces.

Not only is she eating lots of solids and doing well with them, she's also advancing physically. She now crawls with her tummy off the floor, and quite quickly I might add! She also pulls herself into a standing position with pretty much everything...couch, TV stand, crib, diaper box, etc. And speaking of the diaper box, she uses it as a walker around the living room. She usually stays on her knees as she pushes it around but has gotten on her feet a couple of times. AnnaBeth has also successfully held onto my hands and walked part way across the room a few times! At this rate, it feels like she will be walking at 9 months! She can now click her tongue (and LOVES it when we do it back to her) and voluntarily smiles for the camera now. As soon as she hears the little sounds that it makes when its focusing, she gets a HUGE grin on her face! And she gets super excited to see pictures of herself on my phone :) Last week she started giving me open mouthed kisses, or at least that what I think she's doing.

The week before Halloween, we took AnnaBeth to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin (and mostly for me to take a million pictures). She was completely fascinated with the stems of the pumpkins and we managed to get quite a few good pictures despite the fact that she was insanely tired. That weekend we also went to the harvest festival at Kent's parents church. AnnaBeth was dressed as a turtle and everyone thought she was the cutest thing! There wasn't much for her to do but she did play in the sand and yes, she put some in her mouth. Twice. We carved our pumpkin that weekend as well and I kept it the fridge all week so it wouldn't start to rot (I coated the flesh of the carved parts with vegetable oil to help slow the rotting process). On Halloween night, we took AnnaBeth trick or treating with her cousin Jacob and his cousins who live across the road from us. One lady thought she had the most adorable costume and asked if she could take her picture. Since she enjoys being outside so much, she didn't fuss even though it was WAY past her bedtime. When we got home, we sat her on the floor and dumped her candy in front of her so she could check it out. She enjoys the crinkle of the wrappers more than anything. And while she was checking out her stash, she decided that she didn't want Bondo to feel left out so she turned behind her, patted him on the head a couple of times and then went back to her candy :)

I have a TON of pictures for this month so once again, I've done a slideshow.

Demonstrating her crawling in her Halloween outfit.