Gemma is 7 months old

Weight: I'd guess around 19 lbs.
 
Height: Around 27-28 inches
 
Clothing Size: 6-9 month clothes for the most part.

Daily Schedule: Wakes up between 7 and 8:30am. She's working on transitioning between two and three naps a day, so that changes the schedule each day. Aside from that, she's pretty predictable. Awake for 2.5-3.5 hours between naps. Goes to bed between 8 and 9 depending on how many naps she took that day. She's then up about once a night.

She has successfully dropped her swaddle and is doing better with naps and nighttime sleeping.

Special Outings: I can't recall anything specific. But I'm sure she did something cool.

Firsts: Tried lots of foods this past month but still isn't very interested. She sucks on food but then spits it out once she's done mushing it around in her mouth. She does like straw cups with water.

Heart Update: Check up is next month. Can't wait to find out more.

Monthly Pictures:

She's a good sport when the big kids want to help.

Her favorite play activity is to dump the toys out of the clear bin and then play with the bin.

Gnawing on tortillas at the grocery store.

Enjoys sitting in the grass watching the big kids ride bikes.

She gets to her hands and knees and then just hangs out there.

Examining the broccoli

Ashton's Birthday

We celebrated Ashton's birthday over the course of a weekend. Her birthday was on a Thursday but we tricked her and told her it was really on Friday. I wanted her to be surprised on her birthday. This was the last year that she won't know how to follow the calendar and know what day is what. So we did it and I loved it! I surprised her with balloons and everything that morning. She got to plan the entire day from start to finish.

Her breakfast request was to go to IHOP but with three kids (one being Tanner) that's a no-go. So we made sprinkle pancakes at home. Much easier for everyone. Tanner and Ashton loved them. I have a feeling that will become a new birthday tradition.

For the morning, we went to an open gym at a gymnastics place in town. I wanted to do this in Lake Jackson but the gymnastics places didn't offer it. I'd rather pay $10 every few months for Ashton to practice gymnastics than $75/month for classes. The kids loved it and I know we'll be back every few months. They ran around a lot and they had two instructors helping teach basic skills. Ashton worked with one for a while on cartwheels. That's her newest goal in life.

Lunch was at Sam's Club (her pick) because it's cheap and I let them get ice cream and walk around for samples. We spent nap time working on crafts and then had beef stroganoff for dinner. We opened gifts and had butterfly cake that evening once Joseph got home.

They got the little square scooter things like I had in gym class growing up. I love them. I imagine we'll have some pinched fingers along the way but I like active toys like this.

This describes their relationship so well. Always telling him what's what.

Stamping supplies from my parents. That's been keeping her busy most days now.

And this describes Tanner so well. Always jealous of what sister gets. Her birthday was rough for him as he has a better understanding of birthdays now. I look forward to his birthday and what he wants to do next year.

Then, on Saturday, we drove back to Lake Jackson for a birthday party. We weren't sure if we would do this but Ashton hasn't made a ton of friends in Clear Lake yet. The few that she has made go to school now so she can't have playdates with them. So we invited some close friends and had a party at the church building (the bugs/rain made it impossible to have it at the splash pad as planned). The party's theme was all of Ashton's favorite things. So she picked the cake on Pinterest, picked a Little Mermaid pinata, picked the games, food, etc. I enjoyed letting her plan the details so she would love it. All our friends were able to make it and I enjoyed seeing them too.

Best friends together again.

The Spanish branch was hosting an activity later that day so kindly let us use the gym. Plus they're the best at pinatas so helped us set it up and play music for us.

Ashton cried the night of her birthday because she was sad it was over. When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, she said, "spending so much time with my family." I'm grateful we don't do formal gifts for our kids for birthdays and rather just spend extra time with them on their favorite activities.

August Events

August was busy with our vacation in the middle of it plus Joseph starting his new position at Dow. School also started for Ashton.

Our new furniture arrived and I really love it. I spent a lot of time (probably too much time) planning this room. I finished painting it and now I'm working on the open shelves.

Since moving so close to NASA, the kids have really taken a liking to rockets and space. We read books after books on rockets and we visited part of NASA that is free. It has an old space shuttle/replica thing in a warehouse building plus some smaller ones outside to walk around. We now follow NASA on social media to keep track of ISS space walks and launches so we can watch them live on NASA TV.

 Ashton started preschool at a new school. It was a rough start for her but she's doing much better. It's three half days a week (that's the only option at the few schools I looked at) so that's more than we both anticipated. Tanner loves the one-on-one time since Gemma naps during this time. Ashton's school has Spanish class every week, which is fun to see what she learns. Most of the kids in her class have been together since 2 or 3 years old so she has felt like the new kid. But that's faded now.

Tanner wanted a first day of school picture too. He is really sad he can't go this year.

We hosted a neighborhood BBQ for our street to meet our new neighbors. Partly so they would like us rather than hate us (I always worry about people getting annoyed with three little (and sometimes loud) kids on a new street). We're definitely the youngest family on the street as the next oldest kids are 8 or older. That's different than our old house with younger families all around us. But it's nice because the older ones watch out for my kids. I'm happy to have older families around so I can ask questions about our school and teachers, etc. We had about 30 people come, which was a surprise to me. Gemma won everyone over and the kids behaved for the most part. One neighbor gave the kids silly string as a housewarming gift, which was perfect. They had a blast spraying each other.