Friday, August 20, 2010

24 Weeks Old

Pepper seems to be trying to learn everything at once so every day is pretty exciting.

We actually have some official stats on her this week: she is 12 lbs 5 oz. and 23.5 inches long. So she's gotten a lot bigger since she was born! But she is still a little under the 5th percentile for height and weight. But apparently her height, weight, and head size are perfectly proportional, according to whoever it is that decides what normal is.


Her favorite thing to do is practice walking, which is really cute but back-breaking for us. She usually gets really upset if we put her down to practice crawling. If we try to sit her down, she will keep her legs straight because she wants to stand up so badly. She is always trying to grab your hand or finger to pull herself up to standing.

She is getting so good with her hands. She can now grab and hold things like phones. If she doesn't want to eat anymore of something she will push the spoon away with her hands.

She is a great eater and will eat anything, although you can tell how much she likes it by how widely and frequently she opens her mouth. She likes all fruits and vegetables, even the nasty ones like peas. She especially loves carrots and sweet potatoes. She's really good about opening her mouth for the nasty meats too, although she makes a face as she chews and swallows. She especially hates chicken.

She sleeps through the night pretty consistently now! I can't believe this day has finally come. She will frequently sleep from 10pm to 8am.

She fell off our big bed yesterday... oops. You'd think I'd learn by now not to put her on the bed by herself. But it's so tempting because she takes such long naps on our bed. Don't worry, she's just fine. I need to be more careful though.

She LOVES trees. She loves to be outside and spends most of the time looking up at the leaves. She also likes being in the grass.

Oh yeah, last week her newest trick was pushing against the back of the couch from sitting-down position and standing up by herself. She was very excited to discover this. Basically she is the best little girl ever.

22 Weeks Old

Here are some of Pepper's 22 week pictures from two weeks ago. Sorry I haven't posted in a while... we've been taking care of moving in to our new place and other business that goes along with that, and we just barely got the internet connected yesterday.

I missed her 23 week mark, but I'm working on getting her 24 week pictures up right now so bear with me while I try to catch up!!!



Friday, July 30, 2010

Random Reunion Photos

Here are some random photos I took with my camera while everyone was here this weekend. I tend to capture weird moments, but those are my favorites.

I was asking Cai to show me his super saian powers (Dragon Ball Z, anyone?) but he got distracted by the TV in this one.


This is Misti chopping up the pineapple with her tomahawk.


A lot of the kids got super sunburned. Here is Eli being treated with some kind of home remedy that Anna concocted. Apparently it worked really well.


Lia holding Pepper.


The pineapple went fast. Here is Veronica licking up the juice from the cutting board.


Ian playing with his tractor.


The Henderson brothers having a jam session. In the video they are just singing random words they're making up on the spot at the end of a Jack Johnson song.





Pepper had fun playing the congas.




Summer helping Pepper kick Josh's butt.





Heather making cute little notebooks with the girls.


Random shot of Pepper.


Here Cai is demonstrating his super saian powers. My favorite part of the video is Ian trying to join in.




Cute sisters Heather and Ivy showing me their notebooks.


I love Ivy's face in this picture.




Ian again.


More notebook making


Cambrie climbing the steps.


Dishing up some rice and stew that Anna made.


Pepper on the dining room table.


She loves to suck on hard surfaces.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Henderson Family Reunion!

As most of you already know, Caleb and Cassandra got to come back to the states for a visit in the middle of their Peace Corps service in Uganda, so everyone took this opportunity to get together and hang out with them. This was pretty much our last chance to see them before they come home around November of 2011. Even Heather and Majed and their kids drove up from Arizona to see them (despite a lot of adversity on the trip.)

This was the first time the entire Henderson clan has been together in the same place since Aaron and Amanda's wed
ding (I think... I wasn't even in the picture yet then.) So of course we had to take some pictures.

The chaos of having so many people in the same living room...

Starting to get situated for the group picture...

Almost there...

Success! This is the complete family, minus Mike, Billy, Kiysa, and Bubba. Pretty good.

And for fun, here's one of just Marti and her eight kids.

Lots more pictures to come, when I have time!!!

21 Weeks Old

I can't believe our baby is 21 already! (nyuk nyuk nyuk.)

She's been a little bit more fussy this week, I'm not really sure what's going on. I think she's just frustrated because she wants to crawl so badly but still hasn't figured it out.

Pepper and Tako-chan are good friends by now. She loves it when I make Tako-chan sing and dance for her.

(I've been wondering... do you think those two dots on Tako-chan are eyes or nostrils? I can't decide.)

She is a champion eater of baby food. She is so good at opening her mouth wide, chomping down, and swallowing. We're so proud of her.

We've almost completely switched her from 0-3 month clothes to 3-6 month clothes. It's really fun to dress her up in new outfits.

One of her favorite games is sticking her hand in one of our mouths and watching us make a fool of ourselves chomping on it. She does it over and over and watches in fascination.

She loves people-watching and does really well in a noisy room full of people... which is pretty much how it was all weekend! She especially likes to watch people's mouths as they talk. Also loves watching other little kids.

She is such an angel when she's sleeping. Aww.

She always grabs the spoon with her hand when I'm feeding her, so I usually let her hold it and suck on it for a while after each feeding. She's really good at putting it in her mouth.

Josh loves Pepper.

Friday, July 23, 2010

20 Weeks Old

I'm sorry about the lack of video in the previous post. I tried uploading it at least 6 times, which took like 6 hours each time, and Google wouldn't let me upload it. I have no idea why. But I'm trying a different approach now (uploading to YouTube first, then embedding it on the blog) so check back on the "rolling over" post later because I haven't given up on that video. It's really cute.

Update: video has been posted!


Pepper is definitely not an "infant" anymore. She's a "baby." She has really good control of her head and hands and legs. She'll grab anything and stick it into her mouth. I think she likes to see how many fingers she can fit in her mouth at one time.

These pictures are from when I went to the park with Amanda and Cambrie and Ian. It was Pepper's second time on this swing. The last time she was on it she could hardly see over the rim. She's gotten a lot bigger. She gets really calm when she swings. But you can tell she likes it because every once in a while you'll see a little smile.

One of the bigger events to report this week is that she's started eating baby food. She didn't really like the mashed food very much, but Misti gave us some boxes of Gerber baby cereal and Pepper loves that stuff. She's gotten really good at opening her mouth and sucking everything off of the spoon. It is so cute. I've realized that we don't have enough bibs. Like, at all.

Her rolling over and scooting around is another milestone, I think. She's been rolling over randomly for a while now but now you can tell she does it deliberately. And she's gotten a lot faster at it. I think she'll be crawling really soon because she can get up into crawling position, on her hands and knees. She just needs to work out some kinks in her coordination.

Everything she does is so adorable. She has huge eyes, a huge mouth (especially when she smiles), a double chin, big fat rolls on her thighs, and a mohawk. I've never seen a cuter baby in my life.