Meg's Life: Charlotte Ann is eight months old!

Weighing in at 15.4 lbs. and measuring 25.25" long, Charlotte started this past month on the road for her first trip down to North Carolina. We enjoyed our time in the state where it all started for her dad and me! I loved being able to introduce Charlotte to Fr. Vince and other friends while were in town for the weekend.

Enjoying her first Halloween!

Other highlights were to spend more time with our the helpers through the Ministry to Moms organization that I helped to lead with some other mamas this semester, to explore and take in everything the environment has to offer, and to celebrate Halloween for the first time with Charlotte.

One of these does not belong....hmmm...

We enjoyed some beautiful scenery this past month.

Charlotte still loves the teddy bear Aunt Marie made for her!

This is how she likes to play with things....she waves the toy or bear back and forth and sometimes flings it out f her hand.

This photo captures Charlotte's rapt attention she gives to people or objects some times. She can be really silly at times and at other times, she will be super serious like in this photo.

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of our little girl. She's so sweet.

This has been her sleep pose since day one....I wonder when/if she will outgrow it. This is also about the extent of her "rolling" at the moment.

Everyone relaxing and napping while I worked on my Women of Grace weekly study one day this past month.

She has a habit of turning around at the last minute for pictures like this. She also likes looking at herself in the mirror as can be seen here.

Being silly!

Love this little one to pieces!

Hershey stole Charlotte's spot in the boppy...tsk, tsk.

Charlotte didn't seem to mind as she could play with my necklace sitting where she was anyhow.

She's so little in her Daddy's arms. <3

Love their smiles!!

This was our second family photo as a family of five (including he furry siblings)!

This was taken in the same area where last year's pregnancy announcement photo was taken but the ground was too wet to sit on this year. A friend suggested we try to recreate this photo each year!

The fact that this photo happened on the feast day of St. JP2 makes this picture even more sweet ~ ~ St. JP2 pray for us!

Celebrating the World Series win a bit early with our friend Carrie!

She loves the tag on EVERYTHING!

She didn't seem to mind when Dusty crawled up on her lap.

She fell asleep in the middle of reading her book - she takes after her Mama in that regard.

Adam brought Charlotte to come see me at work the other night so that we could to go to Fall Fest on campus. It was a fun event!

She even sat in on two advising meetings with me. The students didn't seem to mind! ; )

Love looking at her face in this series of photos...she was staring at her puppies and cooing at them.

She just realized we were taking a picture in this one..hehe!

Such a happy sweet baby girl!

Here are some other random shots from the past month!

Eating

Charlotte loves to eat and has expanded her appetite to try meat for the first time in the form of turkey and broth. She is getting a head start on enjoying my favorite holiday I suppose! We are still mixing baby oatmeal into the veggies and meats as she seems to prefer the taste/texture of it when compared to the food by itself. We typically go through one jar of baby food (sweet carrots, green beans, peas, squash, baby cereal, baby oatmeal, and now turkey and broth) a day and are still giving her bottles although we will probably soon start increasing the solids to two times a day and remove one bottle feeding.

Sleeping

Charlotte continues to be a fabulous sleeper. Her bedtime continues to be between 8:30 - 9:30pm and on most mornings, she will rise at 8:30am. She also happily coos to herself or plays with her pacifier or teething toy in her crib for up to an hour some mornings if she awakes earlier than when we are ready to start our days. She is pretty laidback when it comes to sleeping and for that we are so thankful!! Her naps are hit or miss though. There will be some days she will nap and then other days when she stays awake for hours on end. Her "sleep signs" are to rub her nose and eyes and to babble and talk to herself. When she engages in those behaviors, we put her down and before long, she is in dreamland.

Other Things I want to Remember about Charlotte Ann

She still has just the two bottom front teeth. There were lots of times this past month we thought she might be cutting a new tooth due to all the drool, slight fevers, and being fussy at bedtime but nothing new in the teeth department yet.

She is still content to sit where she is placed and is still working on keeping herself upright when sitting although today during an impromptu fall photo shoot she took a little tumble so we're still working on the whole sit and find your balance thing! She hasn't shown any interest in rolling or scooting yet but does inch herself backward or down when she's being held and wants to get out of the person's arms. She has increased in tummy time especially if she is looking at a book or her puppies.

Charlotte loves to laugh and giggle. She has been doing a lot of it these days and also grunts and talks via babbling and cooing. She is getting more and more vocal and likes to draw attention to herself through the squeals/squawks/giggles/smiles. In the last couple of weeks, she has taken a real interest in eye contact with others and will lean into and turn her head around to garner eye contact and hold that eye contact. She seems to really understand that aspect of communication. In the other direction, she whips her head around if she doesn't want her mouth wiped after mealtime and will not look you in the eye if she is not interested in what you have to say which is pretty amazing to see at such a young age!

Once this past month, it looked like she waved hello and it sounded like she said, "Mama", but both of these occurred once and may have been other gestures and sounds and merely seemed like they were communicating what we thought they meant.

She is still in some 3 - 6 month clothing in addition to the 6 month and 6 - 9 month old clothes size. We are thisclose to finishing the size two diapers and look forward to moving on to the next size of threes. Blowout diapers are not my favorite and we've washed the car seat liner three or four times this month due to leaky diapers. Pampers seem to work the best for us in terms of leakproof diapers.

I love love love how Charlotte now seems to enjoy snuggling and nuzzling into our necks or laying her head on our shoulders when we hold her. This is something other babies seemed to do from a young age when I babysat or nannied them so it took some getting used to on my end when Charlotte would push away or twist in our arms to try to face the other direction when I would try to snuggle with her while holding her. So I am relishing the extra snuggles and cuddling these days!

During conversations, Charlotte some times will get a very serious look on her face and stare at the speaker intensely as if she is trying to process what is being said. When she act this way, I wonder if it means she will be a shy or studious person.

She has also become quite grabby over the last several weeks. Glasses, earrings, hair, rings, bracelets, shirts, chins, beards, and necklaces are not safe from her grasp as she clutches on to these various things or body parts. She has already broken my necklace three times that thankfully has been repaired (free of charge) by a kind lady at the mall each time. Charlotte recently discovered her own ears and will at times, flick them, and other times she will rub her head and hair (usually just before drifting off to sleep). She also likes to play with the stickers of her diaper when changing her so we try to keep her hands busy with toys or Steubbie, her small stuffed teddy from Aunt Frances, while changing her.

Charlotte still loves her bath time! We sing, "Little Ducky Duddle", and she loves to watch the water drip out of her washcloth when I squeeze the water out above her and let is splash on to her belly or around her.

She uses her legs to play with or explore different toys and items. When holding her if she's really relaxed she will bounce her leg back and forth as she babbles. It's the cutest thing!

Charlotte and I get in some dancing at Zumba when I have to hold her as we dance. Gone are the days of her sleeping through Zumba in her carseat while I try to exercise. Perhaps this month I will try using the baby carrier and "wear" her to Zumba rather than hold her in my arms.

She still loves being read to and has shown an interest in the small board books she can turn around and over and over and over in her hands. She also LOVES her crinkly cloth books and recently started giggling at herself and staring at herself in the mirror of the book. She seems to think another baby is staring back at her or maybe she sees a beautiful little soul like we do. :) As her Uncle Pat said, "I don't blame her for staring" and I find myself doing the same to her...just staring at her with a goofy grin on my face.

I love going into her room every night before I go to bed and watching hler sleep. As I pray over her and watch her little chest rise and fall, she sometimes stirs in her sleep and other times just lays there in her slumber. I hope she can feel every itty bitty drop of love being poured out on her from her Dad and me and so many others who love her. There is just no other feeling like this one....the unbounding uncontainable love I feel for this sweet precious innocent child is so marvelous. I wish I could just bottle it all up and freeze time. I want to remember this forever and always be able to keep her safe from harm and pain. The thought of Charlotte's life no longer being so intricately intertwined with Adam's and my lives physically hurts to think about right now. Eight months...how did that time go by so quickly....?! Pretty soon, Charlotte will start to crawl and begin to expand her world pushing her boundaries out a bit more inch by inch and taking our love to another level as that, too, expands!

I also love how every morning, when we go into Charlotte's room, she bursts into a HUGE smile and acts so happy to see us. I love her little dimples and the silly expressions she makes when in a goofy mood.

This past month we experienced some Halloween fun as Adam carved Jack-o-lanterns and we passed out candy to trick or treaters.

We went to a couple game nights this past month. Charlotte enjoyed spending time with other puppies and playing with new (to her) toys.

She also takes after me when she does this with her blanket. I have a tendency to cover my face with the blanket when sleeping. I had to laugh when I saw that Charlotte Ann did the same thing with her blanket the other day.