Parker's 1st Camping Trip

We took Parker camping for the first time over the weekend and it was a smashing success!  Some friends own land in Greenwood, NY which is about an hour and a half south of Rochester.  We drove down Saturday late morning (naptime) and came home Sunday morning.  We got to use our new REI Kingdom tent which was a Christmas gift from my parents.  It's a whole new world camping in a tent that a person can stand up in! 

she looks like a grumpy toddler here, but she was actually quite happy

Otis & Daddy swimming in the pond

naptime by the pond

Greg caught a fish and was releasing back into pond after showing off to the Nudds crew

the pond

hippie chick in her Lilac Festival tye-die outfit



just playing with some friends

retrievers in action

On the Move

Parker is mobile!  Monday morning before we left to take my Mom to the airport, we saw glimpse of crawling.  Parker picked up her hands and knees and moved forward a step.  I knew she'd have all day to practice at school and sure enough she can officially move now.  This video is from last night and is not a very good representation of the crawling.  Later on, she was moving all over, from living room to dining room.  However, this video does demonstrate another new skill she picked up..."How big is Parker? So Big!".  She will do it on command but also throws her arms in the after every crawling session.  It reminds me of a gymnast after finishing her routine. 

Grandma Visit

My Mom flew in for a weekend visit and we had such a great time.  It was absolutely perfect weather, so we spent a lot of time just hanging out in the backyard.  We had dinner out at a greek restaurant Friday night and walked up to the Lilac Festival on Saturday.  Saturday night was Grandma/Parker time and a night out for Greg and I.  It was the first time we've had dinner out alone since Parker was born!  On Sunday we walked up to a check out a new neighborhood deli for lunch and Larry came over for a dinner of fish tacos that evening.  I didn't get very many pictures, but here are a few. 

Strawberry daiquiris for us

Water for Parker (sippy cup practice)

2nd time in hammock, 1st time was night before with Grandma

Otis was happy to spend all that time outside

Living apart from my family is hard but it makes us appreciate our visits and time together even more.  And it's always easier to say goodbye when the next visit is already planned...Parker and I are flying to St. Louis at the end of June!

Parker - 7 Months Old

Parker turned 7 months old this week!  She has become such a happy baby.  These days, if she is upset it is for a very obvious reason...such a nice change from those first 4 months of constant crying every single evening!  We are having a ball with her and she is learning new skills all the time. 

She is still doing great at the JCC. With the weather warming up, the teachers take the older babies in her class on walks almost every morning. They say she loves it and gets excited when they bring the stroller in the room.

After Parker turned 6 months old, I started adding formula to her bottles of breastmilk to start getting her used to the different flavor.  By this point she will take a whole bottle of formula without hesitation.  I have cut back my pumping at work and I am slowly fazing out the breastfeeding.  I plan to keep the morning feeding going as long as I can, but at this point, with less pumping sessions during the day, I am prepared for my supply to dwindle.  Parker gets three solid meals a day and will eat anything we give her now.  Some new foods in the last two months are: kiwi, banana, zucchini, yogurt, pears, apples, mango, and prunes.  The prunes were in attempt to battle a bout of constipation.  Turns out a little bit of apple juice did the trick!  Parker loves to feed herself and what used to be an exercise of futility is now turning into a useful skill.  Her pincher grip is getting better and she gets about 80% of the food into her mouth.  If we pick up a peice and hold it to her, she will grab it from our hand with her fingers rather than lean forward for us to put it in her mouth.  Already Miss Independent!

For the last month or so, Parker was pretty much sleeping from bedtime (7:30-8:00pm) until 4:00am or so, when I would get up and feed her.  Then she would go back to sleep until 7:00am.  We kept tossing the idea around of making her cry it out by refusing that early morning meal, but fortunately she figured it out on her own and has been sleeping straight through until 6:30-7:00am the last few days. 

Still no teeth!  Her teething symptoms have definitely diminished; she is rubbing her gums on things less and the drool factor has decreased.  Still no crawling!  Parker moves around more and more but has not figured out the crawling yet.  She has, however, learned to clap!  This is self-taught trick (I verified with her teachers that they didn't teach her this) and she suddenly started clapping one morning this week.  Of course, we got so excited that she does it all the time now.  Here is the video of her first clapping session:

The monthly photo shoot (with some examples of how little she sits still these days):

A few more pictures of her from the past couple weeks and a video of her playing: