Catherine is 6 Months Old!

Catherine turned 6 months old this week!  Here's what she's up to at 6 months:

-Looking cute with 2 bottom teeth.
-Sitting with support and toppling less and less each day.
-Getting her first tastes of food--so far, she's had peaches, peas, and sweet potatoes with sweet potatoes as the clear favorite at this point.  Oh...and just for the record, peaches were her first food.
-While she's not actually scooting yet, Catherine somehow manages to move around the floor to get what she wants.  She's pretty skilled at combining rolling and stretching to get places.  It still throws us off to peak around the corner to check on her and she's in a completely new spot!
-Usually taking 3 naps per day.  The poor thing gets woken so much, though.  I often have to take the boys places and feel horrible grabbing Catherine from her crib when she looks so peaceful.  I guess that just comes with the territory for the 3rd baby, but it makes me sad.
-Being so sweet, calm, and content 99% of the time.  She still rarely cries and just rolls with whatever craziness we have going on around here.
-Sleeping!  I've somehow been blessed with 3 great sleepers (as babies at least, we'll talk about Matthew in another post).  Catherine sleeps through the night (8pm til 6:30am) solidly these days.  I think she's woken me in the night only 2-3 times in the last 2 months.  I know-she's amazing and definitely a keeper.

Her 6th month, in pictures: 

Figuring out how toes taste.

Such a rare treat for her to fall asleep while I'm holding her--thank you, teething! 

Practicing some sitting.

Aunt Annie gave Catherine this onesie because she always dreamed of having a sailor dress as a kid. 

All ready for her first taste of food--Utah Peaches!

6 month old photo shoot:

More sitting practice and a typical Catherine expression. 

Garden Update

Good news! The blog has not jinxed the garden!  I have continued harvesting a few cherry tomatoes every day and I've made lots of batches of yellow zucchini muffins for the family.  I'm getting some beans every day, but we haven't cooked them yet because I only have 8-10 in the bag right now.  Hopefully more will be ready soon!  The bell peppers are getting close to pickable and I've had a couple cucumbers per week.

You should know that it's not all success stories in the garden.  I had trouble with the deer attacking my plants when they were young, some sort of bug is eating the cabbage like crazy, and bush bean plants keep falling over when they get a couple beans on them.  I'm also not having much luck with the carrots I'm trying to grow.  I've had them planted since the beginning, but they are still just the size of my pointer finger!  Any tips on growing carrots?  I'd love to have a huge crop of those! What I do have to say is that my zinnias are AMAZING!  I think they are quickly rising to the top of my list of favorite flowers.  They are so bright and beautiful.  I'll definitely be planting even more of them next year!

I did a little photo shoot in the garden today:

Garden on August 9, 2014

August 9, 2014

The Zinnias:

Baby Watermelon!

Fall Crop of Spinach starting to grow:

Cabbage with lots of holes from some sort of caterpillar, I think:

Cherry tomatoes--starting to turn red!

These guys were the size of the tip of my thumb in my last post.

 The first sunflower bloomed this week!

Cucumbers!  I'll definitely be planting more cucumber and less summer squash next year.  Yum!

My pumpkin plants are on the right.  They are blooming like crazy, but no baby pumpkins for pictures yet.

And, of course, the kids:

Growing Pains

We've got a lot of growing up going on around here!  Here's what's going on:

1) Andrew's preschool this year is in the afternoons, so getting him used to staying up all day is the goal of the month.  During naptime, Andrew now gets to hang out in the playroom instead of trying to nap.  We are on day 3 of this transition.  On day 1, he happily played during quiet time and then fell asleep instantly around 7:15 that night.  On day 2, he was super cranky all morning and then decided to put himself on the futon in the basement during quiet time and he napped.  Ooops.  We're currently on day 3, so we'll see how this goes.  

2) I decided to put Matthew in underwear on Saturday and decided we're just going to go for it and see how he does.  So far, he's doing ok.  He can go long stretches without an accident and goes when I set a timer and tell him it's "potty time."  But, he hasn't taken the reigns yet to tell me when he needs to go.  Wait, let me take that back.  He took the reigns for a full hour while we were at church yesterday.  The boy went FOUR TIMES in that hour.  He also takes the reigns when I'd like him to stay in bed for nap or bedtime.  Anyway, I'm giving it a few more days to see if it clicks.  He's excited about underwear for now, so we'll see.  Andrew's really hoping he succeeds because Matthew will get a trip to the toy store and Andrew's hoping Matthew will pick out something for him too!  

3) Catherine's 2nd tooth on the bottom arrived 2 days after her first one.  She's been a little fussy still, so I'm thinking the top 2 may be making an appearance soon.  I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat.  Stay tuned! 

So, this teething, potty training, and dropping a nap is leading to me upping my coffee intake and trying to get to bed earlier.  Seriously, I pass out an hour after the kids these days!  Pathetic!  Hopefully all the transitions will go smoothly and I'll get my energy back soon when we get to the other side.