Clara Jane at 6 months old

I cannot believe how much she has grown in these last six months.  She is still our petite little miss but goodness gracious is she ever looking like a little girl with her hair that touches her shoulders and just generally being so much bigger than when I first held her in my arms!  Clara has been sleeping soundly through the night for almost a month now.  Usually she goes to sleep between 7:30 and 8:30 and doesn't wake up until about 6:30 to 7:00 the next morning.  Every now and then she will wake up at 4:00 a.m. and think it is time to play, but I just bring her into bed with me and Paul groggily throws his arm over both of us and we all fall back asleep together.  She always wakes up happy, whether it if from her night's sleep or any one of her daytime naps.  She goes to sleep happy too - I never have to let her cry herself to sleep because she when she starts rubbing her bleary eyes I know that she is ready even if she has been laughing like a maniac a couple seconds before. 

And speaking of her laughing - Clara-girl has decided that her parents are hilarious.  We get the best laughs out of her when we either blow raspberries on her tummy or when I do a humiliating Maori war dance for her while she is sitting in her high chair.  Her laugh is usually a kind of a bark or a chortle - like a burst of a "hah!" or "heh-heh" rather than a rolling continuous laugh. 

Clara kicks her feet like crazy when we get her ready for her bath or take her on walks outside.  She swats at her bottle, our faces and shoulders, or at spoonfuls of food.  She is a wonderful eater and likes pretty much everything except for beets.  I feed her solids two to three times per day and her favorite flavors seem to be the savory ones, especially the meat blends like Vegetable Beef or Chicken with Squash. 

Clara will do anything to watch the television if it is on.  She will arch her back and contort her body and watch upside down if she has to - as long as the tv is on and she is in the room, it is her number one priority in life to see what is on the screen.  It exasperates me because I am still maintaining my "no television for babies" stance.  Usually Paul and I just never turn the tv on until after she goes to bed, so it is not a huge deal though.

Clara's favorite toys are Dolly, ribbons or cords (if it even remotely resembles a cord she wants to put it in her mouth), her musical turtle, and her stacking cups.  She seems to enjoy being read to, but her favorite books seem to be the peek-a-boo type books, particularly a Thanksgiving peek-a-boo book about the first Thanksgiving.

Clara started crawling the day after she turned six months old officially.  She had been army crawling for a while before then, but now she is up on her hands and knees.  She is getting more and more adventurous each day and has followed me into the kitchen and ventured out into the hallway from one of the bedrooms when she got bored of playing with toys in there while I was curling my hair the other day. 

We just love her so much.