7 Months Old

 
At 7 months old Avery is definitely adding a new dynamic to our family. Here are a few things about her:

Personality: She loves to sing and laugh! Andrew and her are constantly singing made up songs together which makes for a noisy household.  She also loves to laugh when tickled, or snuck up on (Andrew loves to try and scare her and she just laughs at him). Yesterday I was doing old cheerleading chants and dances in the kitchen and she was rolling over laughing... I must have lost my touch.

Getting Around: Avery has no problem getting where she wants to go.  She crawls all over the house so we've invested in 2 gates, with a 3rd on the way (thanks to my client Baby's Journey!).  Last night she even crawled up 2 steps on the stairs! But her favorite place to get into is the pantry. With so many smells and bright colors I can see how it'd be hard to resist...  Next house project is to install a baby proof pantry door.

Sleep: Getting much better! She goes to bed around 9pm and still wakes up at 6am, with 2 wakings throughout the night around midnight and 3am. I've had worse so I'm not going to complain on this front.

Food: Avery will eat anything... once.  At this point we feed her almost everything (except for the big allergy scares...nuts, peanut butter, strawberries...).  I'm trying to make most of her meals at home so the fruits and veggies have been the easiest. Some of her favorite foods are:

Veggie: Carrots & Sweet Potato

Dairy: Mozzarella (string cheese style)

Random: Spiral Pasta & Hummus - She could eat it all day long! 

Avery's 6 Month Stats

So, I know I'm a little late on this, but better late than never, right?!

HEIGHT: 25.5 inches

WEIGHT: 12.8lbs

FOOD: Avery is such a great eater... better at daycare than at home. At this point she's willing to try anything at least once. The foods we have tried include:

Cereals: rice cereal, oatmeal, cream of wheat

Fruit: banana, plum, cherry

Vegetables: avocado, soy beans (edamame), peas, sweet potato & carrots

Snacks: sweet potato Puffs

SLEEPING: We haven't nailed down the sleep schedule just yet. As soon as we get down to waking up just once throughout the night, we go out of town, which starts the cycle all over again which means waking up every 2 hours between 9pm-6am

From Napa to Sonoma

In July we covered the entire wine country, starting the trip off with a 13.1 mile race.

When I was about 8 months pregnant, I was so antsy I just wanted to go for a good long run.  With this urge, Andrew quickly signed us up for the Napa to Sonoma Half Marathon. This was the best motivator for me to loose all my pregnancy weight, and be rewarded with a great vacation.  On Avery's 6 Month Birthday, we hopped on a plane (Avery's 5th flight) and headed West for our first family vacation. Here are a few great pictures from the trip.

Ram's Gate

On our first day, we drove straight towards Sonoma, and stopped at Ram's Gate Winery. This was by far our most favorite vineyard of the whole trip. Andrew loved the Pinot Noir and I the Chardonnay. Below is Andrew relaxing after our long flight and Avery sitting on grass for the first time. She was a little skeptical of the the spiky green stuff. 

 Day 2 was race day. The weather couldn't have been better. Cool in the morning and comfortably sunny around 9am when we finished the race. Avery took a long nap and enjoyed the run until the last 2 miles where she started to get cranky. I couldn't blame her after sitting in the running stroller for almost 2 1/2 hours!  Here we are waiting to jump on the bus to take us out to the start line in Napa.

 At the start line, Domaine Carneros Winery

We finally Finished!! Ready to meet our Boston friends Deven and Purvee for the wine festival in Somona Square.

 The rest of the afternoon we winery hopped all over visiting Gundlach Bundschu, Hess and Artesa.

Day 2: St. Supery. No other tasting or tour will ever live up to the experience we had. We learned so much, drank some of the best wines EVER and made BFF with our tour guide. Nice job Andrew on arraigning this!

 Here we got to create our own red blend.

Even Avery had a great time!

 Day 3 we visited some Texas wine makers at Siduri where we tasted 11 Pintos from various regions. They happen to be bottling wine that day so we were able to check that out as well.

We spent the afternoon in Healdsburg and visited a few favorites...

 

Lunch at Healdsburg Bar & Grill, practicing our balancing act at the table.

 Ending the day with a champagne toast!

 Day 4 started off at Kunde. We discovered this wine about 3 years ago. It was a great place to start off the day as the grounds were beautiful and the old man working the tasting room so charming. We even did a cave tour.

 BR Cohn was our next morning stop. We enjoyed a private tour of the grounds and tasting by Cohn's daughter-in-law, thanks to my boss for arraigning. 

 Picnic lunch at Chateau St. Jean

  And last but not least, our final day in San Francisco.

Irish coffee at Buena Vista

Summer Vacation: Florida

Our 2nd family vacation this summer was to visit Nana and Pops at their new home in Florida. It's such an easy flight and short flight from Boston I'm sure we'll be making this trip often. Visiting the Wilson's is like going to summer camp. Our days are filled with lots and lots of activities. Here was a typical day.

Morning Run or walk around the neighborhood
- This trip Andrew and I did a long run covering 12.4 miles around The Villages

Golf
- The guys played 4 times and I played 3. One thing I learned is it's important to wear the right attire. Nothing too short... this is a retirement community after all :)

Pickleball
- Jack and I are no longer undefended, but still on the up: 1:3. Andrew was very impressive on the court for a first time player.

Pool
- So many pools to choose from but the most convenient was the one in the backyard. 

Cocktails
- Jacko Martini's or Driveway Mojitos.... such a tough choice!

Dinner
- So many choices of restaurants...

Here are a few great pics from the trip.
 

Happy 4th of July!