Working Hard

Hannah has been working really hard this past week to learn lots of new stuff. On Friday alone she managed to learn several new tricks and kept me hopping the entire day. First off, she's turning into quite the eater. She's now had sweet potatoes and carrots and loves them both. Tomorrow she starts squash and then I think we are done with the orange vegetables and will probably move onto the green ones. Those won't be quite as sweet so I'm curious to see if she will still like them. I figure pretty much anything has got to be better than her cereal so they probably won't be a problem.

Hannah has gotten much steadier standing over the last week and really enjoys standing holding onto the couch. I was using the coffee table, but she almost cracked her head on it the other day so now I'm sticking with the couch which is much softer until she is just a tab bit more stable. Going along with standing, she's learned that she can pull herself up from either a laying or sitting position using my thumbs as something to grab a hold of. She needs absolutely no help from me at all to get up either. I was absolutely shocked the first time she did it. Of course I then tried to get her to pull up on the couch or coffee table, but she just can't quite do that yet. I think the difference is that if I offer her my hands to use, my hands are at the same level as her hands as opposed to the coffee table which is above her head and she has to reach her hands way up to grab it.

Now that she's a pretty stable sitter she's been playing lots and lots with her toys in the sitting position and doesn't like to be on her back playing as much. Yesterday while sitting she learned how to point at something she wants me to look at and look at something that I point at! She also started raising her hands up above her head as I walk by when she wants to be picked up. I nearly cried the first time she did it! She's been reaching for Kyle when I am holding her for quite some time now, but this was the first time she ever reached for me! She's really been getting some mileage out of that new trick. She's definitely learned that she can manipulate mommy to do what she wants if she does that. Along with the reaching to be held, she's also started to give hugs. That of course melts my heart as well.

She got a rock-n-stack for Christmas from Uncle Kevin and she's really been enjoying playing with it. Lately she's been running experiments with the rings. She's testing them out to see if they sound different when she bangs different ones together. Also, she's quite confused by them because one ring has balls in it that roll around and make noise when you shake it, but the others are just plain plastic. She can't quite figure out why it makes noise, but those other stupid rings don't do anything when she shakes them. It's funny to see her test them all out and get disgusted as one by one she tries them each and throws them to the side until she finds the one ring that does make noise. She hasn't quite figured out that it's always the same ring and which one that is yet, but I'm sure that will come.

Today she was running experiments on some balls that she got for Christmas from one of Kyle's aunts. They all make different noises when they are shook, dropped, or twisted and she loves to do side by side comparisons of them. She'll have a different ball in each hand and shake the right one first. Listen to it and think about it. Then shake the left one. Listen to it and think about it. And finally shake the right one again to make sure that it really was different! Then she drops them both, and picks up two different ones and starts the process all over again.

She's also been looking quite cute in her new Christmas clothes. Once again our friends and family really came through for us and managed to set Hannah up with a whole new wardrobe just in time. She was on the verge of out growing pretty much her last set of clothes that she had received from her multiple showers and then Christmas came around and she got lots of 12 month and 12 -18 month outfits. So, now pretty much everything she wears is size 12 months except for onesies which are nice and stretchy and 9 month ones still fit. It's so hard for me to believe that she's only 6 months old (today actually is her half birthday!) and already wearing 12 month clothes. At Clod Christmas we stood her up next to her cousin Makinley and she was already taller than her and Makinley is a year old. If she's this big now I can only wonder what size she will actually be wearing when she does turn a year old, 2T maybe!

PS. I just want to be sure that if you are reading this Becky that you notice that I finally got that picture up of you and Hannah playing on the floor!