Harlow is 6 months old (1/2 year old!!!!!!)

Well, it's official. Harlow is 6 months. That's insane to Dax and I. We can't believe it. We have had so much fun with her in the last 6 months. She is growing and changing on a daily basis, and her personality is also emerging. She is doing reeeealy neat things like crawling backwards, making lots of sounds, reaching out for me to pick her up (this skill is emerging as she doesn't have awesome control of her limbs yet) and this weekend she surprised us by starting to pull on her vibe toy attached to her car seat. She looked at us like "What, that? That's nothing. Easy." We didn't even know she was aware it was attached! Now she pulls on everything, I guess she expects it all to vibrate! She squirms like crazy getting her diapey changed, she still loves her bumbo chair, she rolls all over the place, usually off her little tummy time mat too. She still laughs mostly at Leyla and rarely Dax or I! She LOVES being outside and is always happy to go for walks with me and Leyla. Her hair is growing slowly, her bald spot is less noticeable. I wonder how much longer she will allow me to put headbands on her?

Poor baby has been sick 2 times in the last month. The first time, she got a really high fever of 101.4 (at least to us who never had experienced ANY health issues with her) and was just not her normal self. Turns out she had some kind of virus. Then, a few days later, she broke out into a full body rash. After a visit to the doctors, we found out her virus was actually called Roseola. That was really hard to see her suffering and not feeling well. At the doctors, she had to get blood taken and she must have my veins (small) because the nurses couldn't get a sample and had to dig around quite a bit. It was horrible. Reminded me of the feeling I had when she was only 1 day old and the stupid blood tech lady came into our hospital room at like 5 AM to take her blood to check her levels for jaundice. The tech didn't say one word about what she was doing with my baby, just poked her heel and then started to squeeze it to get the blood out for the next 10 minutes. To this day, I have never heard Harlow scream so loud (or long). I really wanted to hurt that lady for hurting my baby like that. Anyway, the same week she had the virus, she cut not 1, but 2 bottom teeth! We thought we were in the clear from her virus and then a few days later she started vomiting! BTW, she likes to get sick after hours so mom and dad have to call the on-call doctor and visit the 24 hour peditricians....that's fun. This time, it just another virus and maybe a cold since she is really congested. But she got so dehydrated we had to syringe fluids into her every hour so she wouldn't have to go to the hospital. She is finally back to eating regular, but still is having difficulty breathing. I know it's all part of growing up, she has to fight those viruses to get antibodies built up. Still, it's very difficult to see your baby feeling poorly and not being able to do much. Plus I wasn't expecting her to get sick with me being home with her so much. But, it's life!

Tomorrow, we have our 6 month appointment! We are excited to see the doctor and find out what is going on with our little Harlow. I know she is hitting all her milestones (physical and social) right on target so I'm not worried at all. As you can tell from her pictures, she can give you a huge gummy smile that just lights up the world! We just did some family photos so I'm excited to get a few prints and hang them up in our house. That's all for now. I have been having a really hard time with some of my photos not loading onto the blog, etc. so that is why there has been so much time in between posts. I've been practicing editing on photoshop and it tends to make files larger and more complicated to upload. I'm going to be adding a bunch of pictures here today though!!

I had to get some of those messy face while eating pictures. Those cheeks are so adorable!


Here is her 6 month picture...I am working on a story board of months 2-6...


We went to the zoo the other night. It was seriously 99.999999999% humidity. I really hate this part of the year here. The little boy is Vincenzo, one of my clients. He loved Dax and only wanted to call him Daddy (I guess all men are Daddy). He also adores Harlow!
Harlow's first trip to the zoo. I think we are going to get a annual pass so we can go all the time! She loved it, and actually watched the tiger display...we were surprised to say the least!
Some more headbands and outfits. Mommy has been busy again!










I told you she had TWO teeth in there!


Don't forget to check out our YouTube channel by clicking here. I've uploaded some videos....

Click on the storyboard below to see it larger.

On my computer, if I click it twice, it gets even bigger. This literally took me all day to complete. Story boards are not as easy as they may look. And this was a pretty straightforward one. By the time Harlow is 5, I may have a degree in photo editing and web design, jeez, this is hard stuff!

COMPUTERS SUCK

Ok, so I am really getting annoyed with my computer lately. I can't upload any of my edited pictures for some reason, I suppose the files are too large, but I don't know how to re-size them correctly. I have this great picture of Harlow that I wanted to share, but just can't get it to work. And I am not a patient person. And Dax and I have the EXACT SAME amount of computer knowledge. There is nothing he can do that I can't. And vice versa. So, we can't help each other out and it is maddening. So sorry the blog is slipping. I'm doing my best. Hopefully, I will get things back in order soon.

The Connelly's Visit!

Josh, Tomi, Piper and Eden came to visit us last week! We had a great time with them, spending some time with Chad and Ria on the boat, going to the beach, visiting Gumbo Limbo and just hanging out. Our house was filled with the sounds of little girls. Piper and Eden adore Harlow and spent as much time as they could holding her, giving her the paci, picking out her outfits, giving her baths, and playing with her. Harlow slept very soundly each night as she was so stimulated each day. Leyla was equally as stimulated, not knowing what to do with all the people in her house. I think she gained about 5 pounds from stealing food from the girls all week so she was sad to see them go too. Eden has been asking her mom and dad for a dog, but I think she is going to reconsider after her visit ;-)

Josh and I took a ton of pictures and here are a few:

Believe it or not, this was the best one I got of all three of them. Maybe Josh got a better one? We wanted it for Grandma Connelly, all her girls....Eden actually is cooperating and looking perfect (only time all day she would look directly into the camera), Piper has reached her limit of smiling by this time and looks kind of annoyed, and Harlow, well, she is just trying not to get tossed onto the ground.

Big girl sitting up by herself (Uncle Josh an arms reach away)
Harlow and Daddy at the beach

Piper on top of the observation deck at Gumbo Limbo

Piper and Eden on top of the sea turtles, we have a picture of Piper like this somewhere (Josh try and find it so we can compare!!)
Josh teaching me how to up my ISO in dark to get a better shot without the flash...

BEFORE
AFTER



And the last one, just for Poppa K....

5 months...(a tiny bit late)

Here is LoLo's 5 month pictures taken when she was exactly 5 months old, lol. Now she is 5.5 months old! I have been trying not to round UP her age anymore. It always makes me panic (how is it possible that she is (wait I almost did it again and typed "6 months old" but that would be rounding up!!) as old as she is??).

She is not looking too different to me, at least from the pictures, but she is definitely growing bigger, stronger and taller! Grammie and Papa K were present when we took these pictures, I took about 25 and this was the first one, go figure.

New things Harlow is doing....sitting up almost by herself, and most certainly with a little help! She is also sitting in her highchair some nights and we are actually eating like a family around the table! I just have to time her bites of food to coincide with my plate otherwise we have an unhappy baby when the food is all gone but Mommy and Daddy still get to eat! I totally understand! She is still sleeping through the night, around 10-12 hours. We are very lucky! She is eating solids which as been interesting but she loves it and is getting so much better! She is going to be crawling soon, she wants to be more mobile and seems frustrated that her body doesn't cooperate. That is all for now, more pictures of our fun weekend with my family are coming soon!