6-Month Check-Up (Belated)

I took Rachel for her 6-month Dr. Appt. last Tuesday and she did a great job! She got three shots, which she didn't really appreciate, but she was a very brave little girl. Here are Rachel's latest stats:

• She weighed in at 14 lbs even, which is only 6 ounces more than she weighed 2 months ago. It puts her in the 10th-25th percentile, which is a bit of a drop from last visit. But the doctor says she is perfectly healthy, so I will just keep feeding her all those yummy foods!


• She gained a half-inch over 2 months, even though she seems so long to me! I can't believe how big she is getting.


• The doctor gave the okay to start the sippy cup, though he said she would probably reject it at first. I went out and bought a couple and some juice to put in them. I diluted the juice with water and gave her one. She seems to like it, but doesn't understand that she has to tilt the cup to get the juice out!

• The doctor also gave the okay to start cereal at 8 months, which makes mommy VERY nervous. My sister says she cut the cereal up for the boys, so I may try that, or I will try using the dissolving puffs that Gerber makes.



• Rachel is REALLLLLY close to crawling. She has started pulling herself up on her hands and knees, and she lunged forward once the other night. Looks like we need to babyproof the house!

Merry Christmas

Here are a couple pictures of Christmas Eve at the Wood household. We were all very blessed to get a lot of gifts, the most special of which was Rachel's cousin, Caden Phillip. Then she woke up Christmas morning to lots of presents under the tree, just for her!

Merry Christmas everyone!

New Camera from D-Wayne Claus!

I was getting kind of frustrated with my old camera, because all of my pictures seemed orange, and when I would turn he flash off, they were too dark or blurry. And I want to take good pictures of my daughter, but it didn't seem like anything helped. I didn't know whether it was my poor photography skills, my camera, or the weird lighting in our house. So D-Wayne Claus came a little early, and we picked out a nice new digital camera for our Christmas gift.

I am still a little uneasy. I suffer from big-time buyer's remorse after almost every big purchase, so I have been questioning whether or not this camera is for me. It is a heavy-duty deal...lots of gidgets and gadgets that I probably don't need or won't understand. And looking at the pictures on my LCD screens on the cameras, they didn't look that different from my other camera.

But I fiddled with it a lot tonight (all the different modes and lighting options), and when I loaded them onto the computer, I could see a difference in the clarity and lighting.

Duane said I should sign up for an online photography class, so I think I am going to try that. There are some that teach about my new camera specifically, so I may use any money I get from my next freelance project to do that. I used to be a fairly decent photographer, but if you don't use it, you lose it, I guess!

Let me know what you think about the pictures. The top two are from my old camera, and the bottom few are from my new camera.

p.s. I am selling my old 35-mm Canon Rebel. Everything is digital now, but if anyone knows someone who could use it, let me know and I will make them a good deal.

Christmas Pictures!

So, we had a fun Sunday in the Wood Family. I really wanted to get Rachel's Christmas pictures done so I could put them on our Christmas cards, and I figured we could just do her 6-month pictures at the same time. Foolishly, I neglected to think that everyone else in the city of Columbus would be scheduling Christmas pictures too. I told Duane it would only take an hour or two and he agreed to come with me to the photo studio.

So off we went. It took 20-30 minutes to take the actual pictures, and Rachel was very tired, so she wasn't too cooperative. We managed to get a couple happy-ish pictures and a very nice Christmas photo for the cards. I would have loved to have a few more options on the Christmas photo, but she was just too tired at that point. Every time I put her down, she burst into tears. I can't blame her...there were strange adults with cameras and little kids and parents running around everywhere.

So, the photographer said it might take 5-10 minutes to get to view our pictures. Over an HOUR later, I went to check the status and there were still 2 groups ahead of us. So an hour and a half passed and I was finally able to see my little angel and deliberate over the best poses. I didn't take long -- I narrowed 45 poses to 4 and then just had to wait another 15 minutes for everything to print.

Needless to say, at this point, Rachel was very cranky. She slept most of our wait to view the pictures, but once she woke up, she was both hungry and confused...and probably sick of sitting in her carseat! The whole ordeal took about 4 hours from when we left the house to when we got home, 3 of which was spent at the studio.

I am really hoping D-Wayne Claus will get me a magical camera for Christmas so perhaps we can avoid this in the future and stick to yearly portraits...in June...when nobody is around.

But there is no knocking the pictures -- they are gorgeous!

Expansion!!

I got an e-mail from my sister-in-law yesterday and she has progressed to almost 3 centimeters and 80% effacement, so baby Caden could arrive any day!! He isn't due until the 21st, and the doctor was going to induce her on the 20th for medical reasons, but the doctor thinks he will come sooner anyway. Here's hoping!!
I also found out that a friend from work who is due with a boy on the 22nd is also 3 centimeters and she just lost her plug, so her baby boy could also arrive any day!
BABIES EVERYWHERE!!

Here Comes Santa Claus!

The last few days have been fairly uneventful in the Wood household, but I can say that we have our Christmas tree up. It isn't decorated, but all in due time. Our babysitter, however, has a beautifully tall tree that is perfectly decorated with giant bulbs and pretty lights, complete with tinsel and a big red star on top. Rachel loves to stare at it, and I am excited to get ours finished so she will have yet another distraction in our house.

It is getting more and more difficult to keep the child entertained, and I really fear that she is growing smarter than I am. Her sense of humor is so well-developed, and she just has to watch us do something once and she immediately attempts to do it herself. She is very independent and very strong-willed, which makes me both proud and frustrated.

I am really excited for the holidays this year, and I am hoping my attempt to take the days around Christmas off of work will be successful. Last year I was close, but then I snagged the ticket to the National Championship game in New Orleans, so I had to switch my vacation days because I was too busy at work to do both. This year I am only planning on working the Monday before Christmas and possibly New Years Eve. We never really do anything for NYE anyway, and I can't see that changing with the little one around. Maybe we will pop open the bottle of champagne that has been in the fridge since last NYE.

But the main reason I am excited for the holidays is sharing them with Rachel and Duane. I am excited to see what Santa brings her, excited to watch her reaction to things, and I am just really excited that I have her in my life to enhance the holidays for me. Tonight we watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as we went through our nightly ritual, and I haven't been so interested in that show in years. Everything that I have forgotten about from childhood holidays make me very excited to relive things through my daughter. And we are getting pictures with Santa soon too!!