*Ava Rees* 6 Months

Can't believe my girl is 6 months! Time really does go by so quickly. 

So far this age has been so much fun. She's developing more of her personality, and she really is a very sweet girl. She loves her toys. Her mirror is her favorite, followed by her rubber giraffe. 

She sits up, rolls everywhere, and gets up on all fours and will just rock back and forth. She's been rocking for a few weeks now- she just rocks and smiles and then crashes to her stomach and rolls to wherever she wants to go. I think she's teasing me since I thought once she started rocking she'd be crawling soon... but I guess not. 

These pictures were taken just a couple days ago- on her actual 6 month birthday she was still recovering from a nasty stomach bug. Jeff was in Florida for five days and while he was gone the poor girl got really sick. Thankfully she's feeling much better, but it was rough for a while.

 Ava still has no teeth, but does have lots of drool. She has no interest in eating solids, and actually really hates eating them. Ava is still super cuddly and affectionate- she must get that from her daddy :) She recently started laying her head on my chest when I go to pick her up from a nap or in the morning. She just likes to nestle in. She's started to show a preference for me and can get upset if she sees me come into a room without picking her up to give her some love. She also gets upset now if I take away a toy or something she's playing with. She gets very upset when I don't let her play with my water bottle. 

Ava has gotten a lot better with her sleeping- but only because I made her cry-it-out the first night Jeff went out of town. It was something we both thought needed to be done, but I decided it would be easiest with him gone- he's kind of a softie :) I've tried every other sleep method out there- but this girl just does not like sleeping. Hates it. Crying-it-out sucks and it's hard, but Ava's been waking up 7 times a night every. single. night. since she was born. I did a lot of research on it and decided that 6 months was best for us. The first night was awful and I felt like it didn't even work, but then the next day she went down with ZERO crying for all of her naps and went to sleep at night without a peep- and stayed asleep for most of the night. It was awesome. She was happier and I was happier, so it was a  win-win. However, she got sick a couple days later and so that of course messed up her sleep, but I'm waiting until I'm 100% sure she's back to feeling like her old self before having her cry-it-out again. 

on all fours rocking......

.....and now she's about to roll away

Ava also likes to roll under our table and chairs and hang out. She scoots backwards and then looks out at me and Jeff. This cracks us up because it feels like she's keeping an eye on us to make sure we behave ourselves. 

gosh, we just love that girl. Ava's just my favorite. 

Love you girlie <3 p="">