Nora's 6 Month Photos

Authentic Joy Photography

Nora is now 7 months old and it kind of blows my mind. Honestly in most ways I still don't feel like I have a grasp on life with two kids.  A super trivial example being this blog.  I haven't even finished Nora's Birth Story post from... well 7 months ago now.  I love blogging to keep a journal of sorts about our family and it's something I always mean to and want to sit down to do, yet there just doesn't seem to be time. Or rather when there occasionally is "free" time, I choose to A) eat lunch B) shower or C) do something productive around the house.  It almost never makes it to a D) something I'd love to do but it doesn't actually have to get done.

So at least right now I can do a short post and add the pictures from Nora's 6 month shoot.  (6 months... almost 7... my brain is technical about that type stuff.)

Nora's photos are by Authentic Joy Photography, a couple that goes to our church.  We love our pictures and will definitely be using them again! (That is if they will want to work with us after the Owen fiasco during the shoot!) If you need a SA photographer you should totally check them out. 

Nora is such a sweetheart.  We love her to pieces.  The first two months with her were pretty rough.  If I ever manage to get around to writing more to fill in all the details I will do so, but to sum up briefly she ended up having a dairy and soy intolerance. I cut out dairy at one month and then also cut out soy at two months and since then she has been completely content and joyful and oh so smiley and sweet : )

She is however still a poor sleeper.  I knew we got lucky with Owen being a great sleeper and I guess we couldn't get that lucky twice.  I still feel like I'm usually running on too little sleep and low energy and bedtime has always been difficult with her.  I'm sure there are other kiddos and situations that are much more challenging, but at least for us especially compared to what we experienced with Owen, her sleep is so much more difficult.  We'll get there... right?

Right now Nora is quite a rolly-polly! She has always had excellent head and neck strength and now rolls all over and back and forth.  We've had several times now where I've put her down on the play mat and come back to find her several feet away rolling all around.  She is not sitting or crawling or scooting at all yet, and she also is not a fan yet of trying foods.  We haven't done too much because a big part of me thinks she just isn't ready.  We've tried sweet potato, banana, and rice cereal, and she mostly just isn't at all interested and pushes it away. We've had random moments of "success" with the rice cereal with water (we've had less success with the cereal with breastmilk actually) but that means literally just 4 or 5 half spoonfuls make it into her mouth.  We'll keep trying and we'll get there.

Nora does not take a bottle (Owen didn't either so that's 2 for 2) and loves to nurse. She is kind of a quiet baby and has an adorable little grin that perfectly fits her personality.  She is typically quiet but then has sort of moods of being extremely talkative or noisy by blowing raspberries. She LOVES her big brother : ) and it melts my heart seeing them interact.  She loves to watch him and smiles and laughs a lot at him.  Owen is a great big brother and helper and loves to hold her hand, do tummy time with her, get her toys, and "help" her.  Of course he also likes to pull her socks off, sometimes take away her toys, and we're really currently working on not yelling or making dinosaur noises right in baby Nora's face. Overall though he is so, so sweet with her, and we can already tell she really adores him.  I just love my babies so much : )

Angelica did manage to snap this precious photo of Owen although I don't know how with his mood!  My only thought is she possibly photoshopped the massive tears and red face haha. 

So enjoy some of the photos from her 6 month shoot!  We did not get a good whole family photo as Owen was in the world's worst toddler mood and 100% didn't cooperate.  Oh well though as this was focused on Nora.  We love you, Sweetie!