Last time I checked, summer had just started.  Now it’s Labor Day and fall is slowly creeping in (although you wouldn’t be able to tell with the crazy LA heat wave recently).  Since a few months have flown by since my last post, this one’s going to be a combination of June and July, with August coming very soon.  I’m proud of myself for being diligent at documenting Averie’s first year for as long as I did…so I guess missing a few months isn’t too bad (right?)  Some milestones and events are already blurring together in my mind, so it’s best to write it all down ASAP before I forget!

Sleep: Nighttime sleep continues to be awesome, from 6:30-7:00pm – 7:00am the next day.  For the first few months of her life, the toughest part of the bedtime routine was actually trying to get both kids down at the same time when each had their own schedule.  Aaron was always in bed by 7:30pm, but Averie as a newborn was all over the place.  Until she was about 3 months, I think it was a struggle (it’s hard to recall exactly what I did those initial days).  I’ll have to write a post about bedtime routines with 2 young kids sometime soon to help jog those memories.  But I digress…these months were great and I definitely appreciated the consolidation of my own sleep too!  Naptimes also continued to be much more regular – morning nap ~9am for an hour or two (always the easiest) and an afternoon nap ~3pm for about an hour.

Eat: I’m so thankful that Averie is a great eater and so far, hasn’t had any allergies or problems with food.  She’s adventurous and so curious to try anything that we eat.  Starting around month 10, we started feeding her bits off our plates and she’s loved every single morsel.  This is great because Aaron isn’t so good with food.  While he’s not as picky as other kids I’ve seen, he definitely will refuse foods he doesn’t like (even if he loved something a week before) and is much more opinionated on what he wants/doesn’t want.  I’m sure it’s a stage he’ll eventually outgrow but for now it can be super frustrating

Milestones: Averie grew two more teeth in July, for a grand total of 4  by the end of the month.  While they’re really adorable, I do miss her toothless, gummy grins at times.  I was pretty lazy about assisting her with sitting up so she was a bit late on that front, but I think it was month 9 that she started crawling…and she’s never looked back.  This girl loves being mobile!  Although it’s wasn’t real crawling…more army crawling for a few months before being comfortable moving on her hands and knees.  Almost immediately after that, I found her struggling to stand in her crib one day, and so we lowered her mattress over July 4th weekend.  It was perfect timing because a few days later, she was standing up!

oooh, I can reach for toys unassisted.  Life is good.

contemplating jailbreak

First family vacation!  So we went on our first family of 4 vacation in early June – a 4 day trip to Palm Springs.  Hubs and I are still too chicken to take these kids anywhere on a plane, so all vacations have been strictly driving distance.  And actually, all vacations have been to the same place – Palm Springs.  Haha.  I guess we should be more adventurous, but our outings there have been so great that we’ve turned it into a tradition of sorts.

Since we wanted to stick to their routines as much as possible, we stayed at the Westin in Palm Desert, which is an all-suite hotel.  Having a separate bedroom, living room, and kitchen was awesome.  Aaron was so excited to sleep on the pullout sofa bed in the living room (he kicked us out each night, ordering us to go to our room so he can sleep haha).  We placed Averie’s pack-n-play in the living room a little ways from his bed; after I nursed her to sleep (back when she still fell asleep at the boob), we put her down, told Aaron to be quiet because the baby’s sleeping, and that was it – both kiddos slept through the night.  It was actually quite amazing…we were prepared for bedtime drama, multiple wakings, etc.  but in the end, it was quite…uneventful.

chillin poolside

The best group shot of the weekend

Writing these memories down and reliving the past few months made me realize just how fleeting these early years are.  So much happens in a such a short period of time but somehow we miss the enormity and significance of these changes when living through our normal, day-to-day lives and routines. It always reminds me of a line from one of my favorite 80’s movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day off –

“Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you can miss it.”